“Stay down!”
“Get off me!” I roar and dive up, hands still behind my head to show I’m not a threat. “Those things will rip me apart if I’m in cuffs,” I shout into a guard’s angry face.
Several guns in varying sizes are pointed at me now, ranging from Remington shotguns to Glock semi-automatic 9mms. No one is listening to me, every set of eyes is on the same man that’s screaming at me to ‘get down,’ and I’m half-inclined to get back down until I realize that I’d rather be blown apart than get eaten by one of those things.
“No!” I shout, hands still behind my head.
The closest guard reaches for me, getting close enough for me to reach out and get a grip on his gun. We wrestle, and the sounds inside the small room rise even more as we fight over the weapon. Someone’s gun discharges, and I feel the round bounce off the metal door behind me, heat shooting past my leg, but still I refuse to let go of the gun. We grunt and claw at the weapon, stumbling around until I’m backed into a corner.
“Get off the gun, now!” The Remington is shoved harshly against my forehead, pressing against my skin hard enough that I know there’ll be a small mark left when he removes it. “Or I will blow your fucking brains out!”
I release the weapon, and the shotgun owner smashes his weapon across my head, sending me to the floor. For the second time today, I see black before passing out.
*
“I’m telling you, he could be useful to have around.”
A voice across the room rouses me.
“He’s a prisoner, Philips.”
“He seems like a stand-up guy. He could have left me under a pile of rotting bodies. Hell, he could have killed me himself, but he didn’t. So I’m not saying we can trust him, or to give him a gun . . .” Philips sighs. “Look, I know I’m new here, but from what I read, it was a case of his attorney doing a shitty job in the first place. This guy was just trying to protect his girlfriend.”
I flinch at the thought of Amy and groan, rolling onto my side and opening my eyes. The three men plus Philips are sitting at a small shabby-looking desk, weapons on the table in front of them. They turn to look at me as I struggle to focus—or I pretend to focus; in my head I’m counting weapons, checking their uniforms over, and assessing the situation. The conclusion I come to isn’t a good one, but I’ve had a crappy day so far and I’m not about to go down without a fight.
I see the Remington shotgun that I got to meet up close and personal, and at least two more of them, a couple of what look like Glock 9mms, an M-16—or it could be an AR-16, from what I can see, but I can’t tell without getting a closer look. No matter how hard I squint, I can’t tell what the third guy has at the other side of the table. There’s a pile of various ammunition in the center of the table too. It seems I’m both lucky and cursed to have stumbled upon these guys.
“That true?” asks the guy who seems to be calling the shots.
I nod and push myself up the wall so I’m sitting rather than lying down. The room spins and I take a deep breath.
“Nothing else to add to what Philips is saying about you then?” He nods across the table to Philips, who I see has a bandage wrapped tightly around his middle. He looks pale and shaky, but he’s alive.
“What do you want to hear?” I ask bitterly, not really wanting to relive the past year for anyone, but feeling like I have no choice. “I was off serving my country; I came home on leave to surprise my girlfriend and baby boy. She was out at work and I went to meet her when her shift was over. She was late, I waited—” I swallow, nausea rising at the thought of that night. “I waited too long.” I shake my head and look at the floor, feeling the cuffs digging into my swollen wrist again. “She worked for a small manufacturing firm. Visitors weren’t allowed inside, but after waiting for twenty minutes after her shift should have finished, I decided to go look for her.” I look back up at them. “Her manager was inside raping her. When he heard me, he rolled off her, pulled up his pants and said ‘What? The bitch has been cock-teasing me for weeks. She wanted it.’ And then he laughed. He obviously didn’t know who I was. My Amy was in floods of tears, blood across her mouth where he’d hit her, and I saw red,” I say between clenched teeth. “I chased him out of the building, caught him, and beat him into the ground. I only stopped when the police showed up. I don’t remember grabbing the tire iron, but to be honest, I wouldn’t change a thing about what I did that night.” My thoughts stray to my boy and what he has become in the visitors’ room, to Amy lying in a puddle of her own blood, her lifeless eyes staring up at me, and I choke on a sob. “Or maybe I would if I’d known this was going to happen.”
There’s silence in the room, no one saying anything, just the deathly silence of five men faced with an uncertain immediate future and thinking on a grim past.
The guy in charge stands up and comes toward me. He crouches down in front of me, looking into my face. He’s in his mid-forties, hard-looking, with cold gray eyes. He pulls keys from his pocket and I lean forward so he can un-cuff me. I rub at my wrists and nod a thank you.
“I think any one of us would have done the same, but know this: I’m not giving you a weapon. I may hold sympathy for you, but I’m not an asshole, and I’m certainly not a stupid asshole that would give a prisoner a loaded gun. If you try anything, anything at all, I will kill you. You got that?”
I nod an okay, just happy to be out of the cuffs for now. Now I just need to figure out what the hell has happened.
Six.
I pull up a chair and sit with them around the table, my eyes bulging at the ammunition they have.
“I’m Lance,” says the one in charge, before pointing across the table to a shorter-looking guy with a shaved head. “That’s Marcus.” He points to the third man in their team, a Latino thirty-something. “That’s Isaac. You know Philips, his first name is—”
Philips leans across to me, arm outstretched. “I’m Aaron, and I want to thank you for helping me back there.” He shakes my hand vigorously, a thin smile spreading across his face. “You more than likely saved my life.”
I frown, but then smile. “It’s not a problem. Well, I’m JD. And now does someone want to tell me what the hell happened here?”
Isaac laughs but it’s not humorous, it’s dark. “This isn’t just here. This is everywhere.”
I frown. “So, what is this?”
Isaac glances across at Lance, and they exchange a look.
“What?” I ask, getting frustrated.
“Isaac here has a theory. Personally I think it’s fucking ridiculous, but,” he pauses before continuing, “I’ve seen a lot of things in my time. But this, what I saw here today, I’ve never seen anything like this. So I’m having a hard time refuting what he’s saying, to be honest.”
I look back at Isaac. “So?”
“It’s the end of days.” Isaac says even more darkly than before. His brown eyes stare at me, daring me to question him on it.
“The end of days?” I repeat. I look at everyone else around the table in confusion. “Are you fucking serious?” My thoughts stray back to my son, and a wave of grief hits me like a bullet to the heart. Hell, I’d happily take a bullet right now to bring him back to me.
“Yes, I’m serious. Those things out there are eating people. They came from nowhere, walking into the prison like it was a church meeting.” He makes the sign of the cross on his chest and continues. “First they start coughing up blood, then they seize, then they die. Give it a minute or two and those motherfuckers wake back up ready to eat your sorry ass.” His words are animated, and he stands and paces the room. “We had no chance to stop then. They were inside—we locked them in with us!” He waves his Glock around like it’s nothing. “They were in visiting rooms, meeting rooms—some of our own guards were sick and coming down with it.” Isaac puts his gun down and cracks his knuckles one after another.
Lance notices. “Settle down, we need to keep calm heads right now, and you freaking out ain’t helping.�
�� He looks at me, and I tense in my chair. “It started in the visiting room—we think. Protocol wasn’t followed, a stupid error, help was called for, and the prison went on lockdown. The guards who had been injured went to get first aid; other guards went in to calm down the situation.” He breathes out a heavy sigh. “One after one, they were dying . . . and coming back, and then attacking again. Someone in all their brilliance left that damn door open and more got into the prison.” It’s Lance’s turn to stand and pace now, and I shift in my chair, still confused as to how it all got so fucked up so quickly.
Aaron takes over from Lance. “It wasn’t just in the noncontact rooms, it was in the general population visits too. Hell, it was everywhere. You would have thought they’d have been able to control it, but it happens so fast. One minute everyone is normal, the next they’re dead.”
I think it over, remembering what had happened with Amy and Ben. Seeing their frightened expressions, not being able to escape, the tears pouring down their faces as Amy begged me to help her. I grit my teeth, anger and pain coursing through me.
“Prisoners were on their way back to their cells, medical was full so the doctors said they would make cell calls to check on them. We thought it was just a bite, that they would be okay, but on the way a couple of them started being sick and passing out. When they came to . . . they weren’t themselves, and started attacking everyone.”
“So it’s a bite that transmits whatever this is?” I ask, cutting in on the story.
Marcus shakes his head. He’s been quiet up until now, and doesn’t look at me when he talks. I have a feeling he’s still unsure of me. “No. It’s death, from what we can tell, that brings it on. The bite is just nasty, it can get infected quickly, but ultimately it’s death itself that ironically brings them back to life.”
“But?” I crack my knuckles, confused. “You said some of the prisoners had been bitten but were okay. How could they just die?”
The men exchange glances before Lance speaks up. “A couple of prisoners thought they could cause a riot, thought it would be a good idea to start causing trouble. From what we can tell on the cameras, some of the guards took it upon themselves to take the prisoners down.” He looks at the table, refusing to look at me, as I take in what he’s saying.
“They killed them? The guards?” I ask, exasperated.
“They were scared. This wasn’t part of their training, they had no guns to defend themselves with, just their batons, and they had just seen some of their co-workers torn apart by these monsters. When the prisoners started freaking out and trying to rile everyone up, they panicked, I guess.” He shrugs and takes another heavy breath. “Look, I’m not saying what they did was right, I’m just saying I can understand why they panicked.”
I stand and walk around the room, taking my turn on the pacing circuit. “They killed them?” I ask angrily. “They were supposed to protect them.”
Marcus comes forward, his chin stuck out. He’s my height and built like a bulldog; however, he’s still smaller than me, and Remington in his hands or not, I stand tall and proud on my convictions.
“You got a problem with that? Prisoner? We can always put you back in cuffs. Or maybe you want to go back to your cell,” he bellows into my face. “We shouldn’t even have to protect scum like you.”
I grab his shirt in both hands and as he tries to pull back from my grip, I hook my leg around the back of his and slam his back against the ground. I climb on top of him, holding his weapon still along the length of his body as my forehead presses against his.
“I do have a fucking problem with that, actually!” I shout into his face as he tries to flip me off of him.
A pair of hands drag me off Marcus’s body. He jumps to his feet, raising his weapon at me.
“I will end you!” he bellows at me again, his eyes flashing with hatred.
Isaac stands between us, separating us even more. “Calm down, both of you.”
I look at Isaac. “And what about you? You’re a tower guard, you have a weapon—where were you when the shit was going down?” I shrug out of Aaron’s hold and turn to look at them all, my gaze focusing in on Lance. “What about you?”
“It was too late by the time we got in. It had spread too far, too many were infected. We only just managed to get in here in time.”
I look at the pile of ammunition and guns on the table. “That doesn’t make any sense; look at the gear you have. You could take down a small army with that.”
Lance looks at the table. “This is what we’ve taken off the dead bodies, after we had to kill them—for real this time. No coming back from what we had to do.”
“Oh,” I say, stumped. “So what now?”
Lance looks at his colleagues and then back to me. “I honestly don’t know. From what we’ve heard on the radio, this thing is going on everywhere in the country. We want to get out of here and help out where we can, but there are prisoners in here that are still alive. We can’t just leave them all to die.”
“Shit. How many are left?” I ask. It’s only a small prison, but it still houses some serious prisoners.
“About forty, from what we can tell on the cameras,” Aaron says. “It’s what we do with them afterwards that has me more worried.”
“I don’t like saying this, but I think we need to take back this prison and stay here to keep them safe. Some of the prisoners have been well behaved considering everything that’s gone on. Maybe they’re just grateful to be alive. Or maybe they’ve seen some of the other inmates that were sick get blown away by the guards. I guess I can’t say that I trust any of them, but at least they aren’t stirring shit up and making this job even harder. Even if they were, we can’t just leave them to die,” I say.
“That makes sense, even if I hate the idea of protecting these scum.” Aaron offers a weak smile. “Present company excepted of course.”
I smile—not a big, shit-eating smile, but a grin that flits across my face. In another life, maybe I would have been friends with this guy. However, in this lifetime I’m a prisoner and he’s a guard, and when this is all over I’ll still be a prisoner and he’ll still be a guard. No matter what we go through together and what happens, these are the cold, hard facts. Along with the fact that my son and girlfriend will still be dead.
I think of little Ben, still writhing in the blood of that man, and shudder.
“What’s up?” Isaac asks.
“My son,” I say quietly. “He’s one of them now.” I look up at Isaac as he makes the sign of a cross on his chest and says something I don’t understand. “He’s a zombie.” I grimace at the word coming out of my mouth. Someone had to say it first; might as well be me, I guess. “I need to . . .” A tear trails out of my eye and I rub it away haphazardly. “I need to put him at peace.” It’s the best way I can think of describing what I need to do.
“I’ll do it,” Lance says.
“No. I need to do this. He’s my son.” I swallow loudly. “But thanks.”
“So where is he?” Aaron asks.
“He’s in the noncontact visiting room.”
“Are you sure that you want to do . . .” Isaac starts to say, before I cut him off.
“Yes, I’m sure. That is not my son in there, not anymore. I need to end this so he can be with his mother.” I shake my head sadly.
Isaac puts a hand on my shoulder to offer some sort of comfort, and I nod a thanks, but I know that nothing will ever be able to comfort me again. Whatever happens after today, the man I am will change forever. I can’t remain the same—not after what I’ve seen, and not after what I have to do.
Seven.
I smash the baton into the zombie’s head, using all of my strength to try and kill it in one hit, but the skull is a tough son-of-a-bitch, and it takes three blows for me to get through to the brain, destroy it, and put this thing out of both its and my misery. Twelve down, many more to go.
I stand and look around, seeing Lance and Aaron finishing off their guys wit
h their Glocks. Assholes have it easy. They still don’t trust me with a gun. I guess I can’t really blame them, but my arms are getting tired. I flex my fingers on the baton, rolling my shoulders as another one of the dead lurches forward, saliva and blood trailing out of its mouth and down its chin before dripping onto the floor. Its foggy white eyes follow me as I step to the side and away from the zombie I just killed.
“Out of the way, JD,” Lance calls.
I do as he says and he puts a bullet into its skull. It falls where it stands, and I lean against the wall to catch my breath. Lance comes and pats me on the shoulder , and I nod a thanks. He looks at the Glock in his hand before reluctantly offering it me.
I lift an eyebrow at him in question.
“After what we heard earlier, I don’t think anything but survival matters much to anyone anymore.” He pulls out a couple of spare magazines and I take the Glock from him and pocket the extra ammo.
“Thank you,” I say. There’s no need to say anymore. We’re both men of very little words anyway.
He looks me in the eye. “Know this, though: if I think for a second that I can’t trust you or that you might put any of my men in harm’s way, I’ll kill you myself.”
I grind my jaw. “I won’t.”
He nods and pulls out another gun for himself—a Springfield XD, from what I can see—before he walks away. He waves to the security camera overhead and the metal door buzzes and unlocks. Aaron stands to one side of it and both Lance and I raise our weapons, ready to shoot anything that comes through the door when Aaron opens it.
On the count of three, Aaron swings the door all the way open and we charge in, but there’s nothing in the immediate vicinity. No zombies and no living. My heart thumps in my chest, my muscles twitching to pull the trigger and finally shoot one of these fuckers between the eyes. It’s been too long since I fired a gun, but my muscle memory is there ready and waiting for me. We pass each cell, checking carefully inside for any living and any dead. Mostly it’s just blood and gore, and some bones picked clean. The strangest thing is that it doesn’t seem to faze me right now.
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