As the group of infected shuffled forward, Lane closed her eyes. So much for getting her mother taken care of, she couldn’t even take care of herself. How the hell was she going to take care of her cancer-stricken mother? Lane braced herself against the door and shut her eyes as hard as she could, as if smashing them closed would make the monsters go away.
Just make sure Mom doesn’t have to suffer…
Lane’s final thought was interrupted. She couldn’t quite piece together what was happening, but the next thing she knew, she was on her back, the world in slow motion. Putnam and Grant were shoving the door closed, beating at the undead with Monadnock batons. She watched as Grant beat one of the zombies to the point of crushing its skull, only to have the zombie clog up the doorway with its body. Putnam was standing over her, saying something. Maybe it was the shock of landing on her head, maybe it was the overwhelming panic of the situation, but she couldn’t hear him. After a few seconds, the world didn’t sound like she was in a barrel anymore. Putnam shook her for a second.
“Lane! Are you with me?” Putnam asked. She could see the panic in his face.
Lane waved him off. “Yeah, I’m fine. Go help Grant!”
Putnam gently laid her head back down on the cool floor and got to his feet. Grant was at the front door, kicking and flailing away at the half-dozen or so zombies still trying to muscle their way in.
“Grab a gun! Get something! Get these damn things out of here!” Grant yelled.
Putnam scrambled around, desperately looking for something to use against the undead. Several spent magazines were laying on the floor around him, not a round to be found. Suddenly, Putnam had a crazy idea.
“Grant, let go of the door!” Putnam said.
Grant raised an eyebrow that would have made Dwayne Johnson proud. “Do what?”
Putnam nodded vehemently. “Let go of the door. When those fuckers start pouring in here, we knock ‘em down and kick the shit outta ‘em!”
Grant shoved his shoulder into the door harder, smashing an infected arm that was swiping at him. “Putnam, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I don’t think that’s such a good idea. Maybe we should…”
Several pops followed by a sound that mimicked throwing Jell-O onto a concrete floor emanated from the other side of the door. Within a few seconds, the infected assault abated. Grant kept pressure on the door, unknowingly holding help at bay on the other side. The infected arm was still dangling through the door, now limp and useless.
On the other side of the door, Michael, Ryan, Travis, and Thomas Trent gripped their weapons tightly. As they had topped the hill at Black Mountain, the full extent of the infected problem became evident. Desiccated corpses lay all over the place. Whatever transpired before they arrived looked as if it was a hell of a shooting gallery. Over a hundred twice-dead bodies were scattered all over the front of the facility.
Michael moved forward slowly, keeping his knees bent and his rifle raised. While he expected his cohorts to be on the other side of the door, he didn’t rule out the possibility that someone else had taken the prison. If that was the case, they were about to meet a very untimely demise.
“Open the door! Open the door!” Michael yelled. Behind him, Travis, Ryan, and Trent fanned out, keeping their weapons trained on the metal double doors. The door loosened for a moment. The zombie that had his arm caught in the doorjamb let go, falling to the ground. The door closed with a soft metallic click.
Michael’s finger had never left the trigger. He was ready to squeeze when the door slowly opened; not all the way, but enough to where he could hear voices on the other side. Familiar voices.
“Caine? Is that you?”
Michael exhaled forcefully and lowered his rifle. He directed his cohorts to do the same.
“Yeah, it’s me. Open up!” Michael responded.
Grant tried to open the door, but the bodies in front of it wouldn’t let him. “Little help here?”
Michael slung his rifle and started removing bodies from the front of the door. A few moments later, the grimy, bloody door swung open. Grant stood there, smiling.
“How the hell are you, Caine?” Grant asked.
Michael frowned. “I’m fine, Grant. I thought you left?”
Grant’s tone softened some. “Had to get my wife and kids, Caine. I assume you did the same?”
Michael nodded. “Fair enough. How are things holding up here?”
Putnam was helping Lane off the floor. Freeman was huddled in a corner, staring blankly off into the distance. Grant brought his attention back to Michael.
“Kinda looks like shit. Winston’s dead, Henderson is dead, and it’s not even lunchtime yet. So I’d say we are off to a fan-fucking-tastic start to the apocalypse,” Grant said.
Michael looked behind him, gazing out into the parking lot. “Travis, tell the girls to come on inside. We can get settled in and get something to eat.”
Travis spat out a stream of brown tobacco juice at the ground, and then went back to the trucks. Michael turned back to Grant.
“So who all do we have left?” Michael asked.
Putnam snorted. “You’re looking at it, rookie. Everybody ran off.” He looked around rhetorically. “This is all we got.”
“Well, I guess beggars can’t be choosers. We should…”
“Michael!” Travis yelled from outside. “We got incoming!”
Michael spun around and brought his rifle up. More zombies. For an area that wasn’t very populated forty-eight hours ago, there sure were a lot of those damn things roaming around. As Michael hit the door, he could see Travis already stalking forward, not to the undead, but to a wayward vehicle barreling through the parking lot.
“Trent! Get the girls inside, now!” Michael yelled. Trent did as he was told and quickly ushered Lindsey and Betty inside. As soon as they hit the door, Ryan, Putnam, and Lane came out.
“What the hell is goin’ on now?” Putnam complained.
The group turned in unison at the sound of screeching tires. Each one watched as a black pickup truck came tearing across the parking lot at a speed not conducive to stopping in time. Michael watched in horror as the black truck gained momentum, finally smashing into the chain-link fence surrounding the prison. Metal screeched against metal as the truck ground into the razor wire. It finally stopped in No Man’s Land, a rocky area between the fences filled with large, sharp rocks called “ankle breakers.”
“Son of a…” Michael said under his breath. Travis was already stalking forward again, his HK416 raised at the truck. Michael followed, as did Ryan. The three men were less than a hundred feet away from the smoking Chevy, and closed that distance quickly. As they approached the vehicle, Michael started yelling commands to the driver. He couldn’t see inside the cab due to a rather thick coating of window tint.
“Get out of the car! Get out of the car!” Michael yelled. He waited for a few seconds, with no response. Travis turned to Michael and nodded.
“I got you covered. Get that asshole out of there,” Travis said, motioning to the truck.
Michael slung his rifle behind him again and approached the vehicle. Smoke rolled out from the hood, a busted radiator apparently. As he got closer to the vehicle, he could see a figure slumped over the steering wheel. Michael swallowed hard and reached for the door. The truck had taken damage, but the driver’s door was intact. He grabbed the handle and unlatched the door quickly.
A body came falling out.
“Shit!” Michael exclaimed. He caught the man as he fell out of the truck. Although he was bloody and unconscious, Michael could still tell who it was immediately.
“Holy shit! Poston? Oh hell, buddy. What the fuck happened to you?”
Michael laid Harold Poston down on the ground beside the truck. There was what looked like a bullet wound on Poston’s right shoulder, still trickling blood. Poston looked pale, and was still losing blood. Michael instinctively pressed his hand to the wound, trying to stem the bleeding.
“You know this asshole?” Travis asked.
Ryan came around to aid Michael. “Holy shit, Poston.”
“Yeah, we know him. He graduated the academy with us. He’s from Buchanan Correctional Center, down near Grundy. We need to get him to medical if we want to…” Michael said. He was interrupted by Harold Poston grabbing on to his shirt. Michael grabbed Harold’s hand.
“Why didn’t you kill them? Why did you let them out?” Poston said, his eyes wide as dinner plates.
“What are you talking about, Poston? Let who out?”
“The inmates, Caine! You were supposed to kill them all! Do you realize what you’ve done?” Poston said, his voice gravelly and on the edge of choking. “They took over Buchanan Correctional and killed everyone.”
Michael felt a hot flash run through his body. He had an inkling as to what Poston was going to say, but prayed against it. “Captain Winston let them out, Poston. I didn’t have anything to do with that,” Michael said.
Poston pulled Michael down closer to him. His voice lowered. “They’re coming, Michael. They’re coming back here and they’re going to kill us all.”
AND NOW, A SPECIAL SNEAK PEEK AT THE NEXT INSTALLMENT
REFUGE FROM THE DEAD – FORTRESS
CHAPTER 1
Shit.
Rarely are there words in the English language that convey a myriad of meanings as much as curse words. Sometimes using the accepted, civilized terms that society has deemed “suitable” were horribly insufficient when it came to communicating in how much trouble one was. For example, saying shit when used as an exclamatory remark as in “oh shit!” usually meant one was surprised by the current situation in which one might be found. Michael Caine used the term somewhat, but rarely to the surprise that he had now.
With Captain Winston dead, Michael also had no way of expressing the sheer surprise that he legitimately had. There was no way to convey that surprise to Harold Poston. Details were fuzzy on what went on before he made it back to Black Mountain. In truth, Michael didn’t know the exact details of how Winston managed to get the inmates to leave, but there had been one pod full of undead, and another pod that held an inmate missing a sizeable portion of his cranial anatomy. It was a hell of a greeting to come back to. Never mind the fact Poston was even here. Two days after the world had went to shit, he shows up at the front door, damn near dead.
Poston bled somewhat, but it was more or less under control. God knows how long it took him to get from Buchanan Correctional to Black Mountain. While he most likely had some form of transportation, he’d arrived at Black Mountain bleeding and no ammo. He looked like death warmed over, beaten, and hung out to dry. Shortly after getting him to Medical, he’d passed out, leaving the people caring for him to wonder what else he might know.
What they did know was the inmates that Captain Winston had let out didn’t just go away. Far from it. They had traversed the fifty-five-mile distance between Black Mountain and Buchanan Correctional Center in a little under forty-eight hours. Once they were at Buchanan Correctional, they took it over for themselves, killing nearly everyone. Poston made it clear that Buchanan Correctional had followed orders, executing their inmates as they had been ordered to do. While that fact didn’t sit well with Michael, he’d heard stories about the warden at Buchanan, a man named Stanley. While Stanley wasn’t the brightest bulb, he was ruthless when it came to punishing the inmates. Probably did the job all by himself for the sheer pleasure of it.
Michael worked on Poston’s right shoulder. The 5.56mm round had torn through Poston’s right shoulder, missing any vital organs, but causing considerable muscle damage. Any more towards the center, and he might be one of the undead, but such as it was, he would be all right. Sore, but alive. Michael didn’t have much experience with sutures, so after the wound was cleaned and irrigated, he let Lindsey take over. She was an RN and much more knowledgeable about stitching than he was. Michael stepped back while Lindsey rendered care.
Ryan motioned for Michael to come to the door, away from Poston. Neither was sure if he was truly unconscious, but he sure as hell looked it. Michael tapped Lindsey on the shoulder and motioned to the door.
“Be right back, babe.”
Lindsey brushed a few strands of hair from her face. “All right. I’m going to start an IV and get some fluids into him. I don’t think he’s waking up any time soon, so I’ll keep him here. I’ll let you know if anything changes.”
Michael kissed her on the forehead. “Okay. Thanks babe.”
Ryan had made his way out to the boulevard by the time Michael left Medical. Michael stepped outside and met with Ryan, who was thinking the same thing he was.
What now?
Ryan held his hand out to stop Michael before he started. “I know what you’re going to say, and it’s bullshit. Winston let those inmates out, not you.”
“Doesn’t change the fact that we have a friend in there with a bullet in his shoulder, though. Does it, Ryan?” Michael said.
“I’m not saying that it’s not a shitty situation. It obviously is. What we have to do now is try to find out whether we’re going to do something about it or not.”
Michael frowned. “Like what? Raid Buchanan Correctional? We ain’t got time for that, and even if we did, we don’t have the manpower.”
Ryan paused for a moment. “What if we did?”
“What if we did what?”
“What if we had enough manpower to go after it? Do you think we could pull it off?” Ryan said, pacing.
“I don’t think we should waste what little resources we have on shit like that right now. Fact of the matter is – we are going to have to go out and get these people. They aren’t going to come to us. We’re going to have to go after them.”
“I’m just saying; let’s look at doing something on the offensive.”
“Why would we want to risk our ass for that? What would be the point?” Michael asked.
“Saving people worth saving. Not letting the bad guys win. Take your fuckin’ pick, dude. Those assholes from here didn’t deserve to live, but we didn’t have a say in that. Winston let them go. Granted, that meant your family could be here with you and we have a secure and safe area, but there’s families out there that don’t have that luxury right now.”
Michael held his hand out, trying to placate Ryan. “I know it’s shitty, but we don’t have the resources to waste. Maybe later, maybe not at all. I agree that we should start making runs to some of the outlying areas and get more people in here. It’s been two days and we’ve seen a grand total of zero people come here. I think rescuing people is the bigger priority right now.”
“All right, all right, all right. I get it. Play it safe until we know what we’re dealing with,” Ryan said waving Michael off.
Michael got close and lowered his voice. “No, not playing it safe, playing it smart. We don’t go looking for trouble right now. God knows there is plenty out there looking for us; we just don’t know it yet, Ryan.”
Ryan crossed his arms. “So how long do we go before we start finding out?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, when do we start going on the offensive? We can’t just play defense from now til whenever. We need to start thinking about what’s going to happen when someone out there,” Ryan pointed indiscriminately, “decides they want this place for their own. The few people we have here don’t know shit about tactics, room clearing, or anything like that. Hell, some of them barely know how to shoot. It’s a wonder how they lasted this long.”
Now Michael folded his arms. “Good. Thanks for volunteering.”
Ryan was bumfuzzled. “Volunteering for what?”
“Take some of our new people out to the range and show them how to shoot. I’m not saying to burn through thousands of rounds, but give them a basic education. We have plenty of Glocks to go around, especially if they don’t have a weapon of their own. We owe it to these people to not only to protect them, but also to help them protect th
emselves. We both have plenty of knowledge that we could share with these people. I think we owe it to them to help as much as we can.”
Ryan grinned, ever so slightly. “You running for President now?”
Michael couldn’t help but smile. “Smartass.”
“All right. I will do what I can. What are we going to tell Poston when he wakes up? I’m sure he’s just gonna love to find out that we aren’t taking his house back.”
“Tough shit for now. Poston’s going to have to understand. I’ll talk to him when he wakes up.”
Ryan nodded. “Fair enough. So what is the plan for now?”
“Just keep everything normal for now, and don’t let anyone talk to Poston just yet. I don’t want what few people we have worrying about being here. They need to feel safe here. They don’t need to needlessly worry about someone raiding in the middle of the night. We will keep the tower posts and put someone on roving at night. Disconnect the headlights and taillights from the Explorer so it’ll give us a little more tactical advantage. We’ll extend the roving area down to the main road, too. As much as I would like to do a sweep of the entire area, I don’t think we’ll be here long enough.”
Ryan patted Michael on the shoulder. “It’s a shame that the world went to shit so early in your career, brother.”
Michael smirked. “Why’s that?”
“I think you would have made a hell of a CO, maybe even a good warden one day. Course, you pretty much are, Michael. You’re a natural leader and the people can see that. The only down side to that is they will look to you when the shit hits the fan. We need to look at the emergency plans and draw up our own. If the shit does hit the fan, we’ll be prepared. I’ll get a county map and we can start marking places to investigate. Gun stores, hardware stores, places where people might have holed up. We can start making runs in the next few days.”
Ryan nodded and walked off towards the front of the prison. Michael stood for a moment, contemplating what Ryan had just said. Since returning from getting Lindsey and Anna, he’d become the de facto leader at Black Mountain. Of course, that garnered him a boatload of responsibility that he neither wanted nor had any idea what to do with.
Refuge From The Dead (Book 1): Lockdown Page 19