by Matt James
Sighing, Wes grabs a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun from the table, shoving four mags into his pants’ cargo pockets. He doesn’t take anything else, looking very satisfied with his selection. The fact that Wes is coming at all tells me that I got through to him. For what it’s worth, if it was just me and Jill without Hope, I would’ve taken a lot less.
The room rumbles, knocking a few of the ceiling tiles loose. Wes and I move at the same time, rushing for the door.
Uh, oh, I think. The upper floors?
“That came from inside,” Wes says, confirming my own assumption. “We’re too deep into the facility to feel anything from the outside.”
“South Tower?” I ask.
Jogging down the hall, Wes simply looks my way and nods. We both stumble as the building around us shakes, making us skid to a halt as another section of ceiling comes down.
“Looks like we’ve overstayed our welcome,” Wes says, shouldering his MP5.
“I said it before it was cool.”
Wes shakes his head. “I blame you for this.”
Muffled cries erupt from down the hall somewhere.
“And I blame whatever’s wrecking the place.”
We make it back to the security room, and I shudder at what I see. There’s a brute, bigger than the trucker, tearing its way through jail cells and concrete walls. Blood and body parts are flung in every direction. Gratefully, we can’t hear the prisoners’ shouts. The cameras are video only.
“They’ll be slaughtered!” Wes says, stunned.
One by one, the cameras wink out, destroyed by the ravaging beast. Wes backs away, eyes wide. He doesn’t know what to do.
But I do.
“Release them,” I say. “Let them fend for themselves. It’ll buy us some time too.”
“Time for what?” he asks.
“I gotta find the girls.”
Wes bites his lip but punches the large red button on the center of the console. Sirens wail as I watch each and every barred cell door slide open. We’ve just released some of the most dangerous inmates in all of South Florida.
Murderers, rapists, you name it… They’ll have a chance to survive on their own. Personally, I hope the brute kills them all, but I’d be okay with them staying alive long enough to keep our giant friend busy.
“It’s on the sixth floor!” Wes yells, poking his head out of the door. From inside, I can see dozens of armored cops rushing back and forth.
“Wes…” I say, forcibly turning him around.
“What is it, Frank? Can’t you see—”
His voice catches when he sees what I do.
“It’s going for the elevator shaft.”
Wes takes his eyes off the screen and looks at me. “Oh, God.”
I shove him through the doorway. “Come on. Let’s get Jill and Hope and get the hell out of here.”
11
Just as we burst through the double doors of the cafeteria, the hallway behind us caves in. Wes and I dive forward and barely escape certain death. Three officers weren’t so lucky though, crushed by an assortment of concrete and steel. We both get to our hands and knees, collecting our fallen gear as we do.
First to my feet, I pull Wes up. “Please tell me there’s another way out of here.”
He coughs and shakes his head.
“Great…”
“Frank!”
I turn and see…nothing. I heard Jill’s voice, but can’t see where it originated. The cafeteria isn’t big, but it's large enough, and the newly added rubble dense enough, that getting to them will be challenging. I hadn’t noticed that this room had also fallen in on itself too.
I creep forward and look up through the hole in the ceiling. I can see three floors above me and am shocked that no one had gotten crushed. But a hand protruding from beneath a chunk of concrete tells me that someone did bite it.
But from which floor?
“Are you alone in here?” I ask, swatting at the wafting dust in the air.
“Yes! Everyone else left to check on things. But we stayed.”
I peek through the debris and then around it, seeing that I’m going to have to go over it to get to them.
“Are you hurt?”
“Just a couple cuts—nothing major!”
The room shakes again, sending another cloud of dust into the air. Wes and I are caked in it now, but I can’t worry about it. Carefully gripping onto the newly formed jungle gym, I pull myself up just high enough to see them. Two more inches and I start to feel pressure in my chest. Looking down, I cringe when I grasp the fact that I have a piece of steel trying to lodge itself into my vest.
Shaking off almost being impaled, I see that both Jill and Hope are huddled underneath a table, cuddled into one another.
Okay, I tell myself. They’re okay.
Me on the other hand…
“We need to get to them fast.”
As soon as I say, “fast,” the room rumbles and more ceiling tiles come crashing down. They must’ve landed somewhere near Jill and Hope because of both of them yelp in surprise. Hope cries in fright.
“Eh, fuck it.”
I shamble up the mass of shifting debris, cutting my left hand as I do. It’s not bad, but the dust and grime make it sting something fierce. Gritting my teeth, I launch myself up and over the precipice, careful not to land on anything jagged.
What I do land on is someone’s bloodied jail cell door. I bang off of the metal bars and roll. When I do stop, I’m face up, staring at Jill and Hope. Both look scared, but they also have looks of confusion and surprise on their faces.
“Um,” Jill says, “hi.” I groan, holding my ribs. Thankfully, the Kevlar vest took the brunt of it. “Nice dismount, by the way.”
The only thing I get out of Hope is a snort as she wipes the snot from her nose. Her eyes are filled with tears, and her face is caked in dust. Between the tears, boogers, and accumulated dust, the little girl is a disaster.
“Shall we?” I say, sitting up.
“You good, Frank?” Wes calls out from the other side.
“Sure, let’s go with that.”
I stand and help Jill and Hope out from beneath their hiding spot. I give my wife a filthy kiss and rustle Hope’s hair. She jumps at me and latches onto my leg, squeezing it hard. I wrap a quick hand around her head before Jill picks her up.
“Where do we go?” she asks.
Jill’s question is apt. There is no way we can go back the way I came. The pile is ever-shifting and filled with protruding, dagger-like pieces of metal.
Digging into my bag, I hold out the vest and trade it for Hope. Jill slips into it and tightens it as much as she can. It’s a little big, but it’ll do the job. I hand her another mag and then give Hope back to her.
An idea hits me.
“Wes, what’s on the other side of this wall?”
“Um, which one?”
“I’m facing you, so, the one to my left.”
Seconds go by, and I get nothing in return.
“Wes?”
“Yeah, I’m thinkin’, I’m thinkin’!”
The floor shakes.
“Well, Wes,” Jill shouts, “think faster!”
More debris falls from above, and it forces the three of us back. We squeeze into the back corner and wait for Wes to give us his answer.
“Dammit, Wes!”
“Nothin’!” he yells back. “It’s just a hallway!”
I glance at Jill and nod, shifting my eyes to my shotgun. She replies with a nod of her own and covers Hope the best she can with her own body. I raise my shotgun and step out.
Only feet from the wall, I pump every shell into, and through, the off-white painted partition. I start the path at the bottom left and make an oblong semicircle all the way around until I reach the floor again. Then, I sling the shotgun back around my shoulder, take a few steps back and run. Lowering my shoulder, I slam into the weakened barrier and blow straight through it.
“Oof!” I land hard on the
other side.
Hope screams as the cafeteria comes apart. Jill comes leaping through my handmade exit with Hope clinging to her like a baby koala. I climb to my feet, dusting myself off as I do. It takes me a moment to realize that we’re a man short.
“Wes?”
“Up here.”
I spin and find him eight feet off the ground, on the level above us. The roof has caved in here as well and has cut off any forward progress down this particular hallway. Apparently, Wes backtracked up onto the collapsed floor, back through the cafeteria’s entrance, using it as his personal escape route.
I smile. “Thought we lost you for a second.”
He shrugs. “Gonna take a hell of a lot more than a buildin’ falling’ on my head to put me down for good.”
My eyes find Jill’s. We almost had the same thing happen to us back in New York. I turn and see that the coast is clear further down the hall, but Wes stops me there.
“You don’t want to go that way.”
“Why not?” I ask, looking back up at him. “That leads to the nearest cellblock. We just released the inmates, remember?”
“You did what?” Jill asks looking mortified. “Why?”
“To buy us some time,” I reply, heading toward Wes.
“From what?”
I reach for Hope.
“A brute the size of the Incredible Hulk.”
Her eyes open wide and she shoves Hope into my arms, scaling the collapsed ceiling of the hallway above on her own. Wes is on one knee with his arms out, waiting for me to hand off the girl.
Hope squirms in my grasp, not wanting me to let go.
“It’s okay, kiddo. He’s a friend—a policeman like me.”
She looks up at me. “He—he is?”
“Yep.” I wink. “You can trust him.” I lean in close. “Just don’t smell him…”
She gives me a small smile, breathes in deep, and nods. “Okay, Frank. I do.”
Lifting her up, I plan on following as soon as Wes gets a good grip on her. Jill is there to help if she has to, but Wes does it himself with ease. Next, is my duffel bag. I smile when Hope leaps into Jill’s awaiting arms, but they don’t get to celebrate for long.
And I don’t get to join them.
A bellowing roar forces the three of them to dash off to their right, shambling up the broken incline as they do. The only thing that could’ve made that noise is a…
“Damn.”
He saunters into view.
“Uh…”
The brute is enormous, at least a couple of feet taller than his trucker cousin. He stomps forward, mouth hung open. Similar to his brother from another mother, this one also has a long, giraffe-ish tongue. It dangles from his mouth as if he was a thirsty pooch. Unfortunately, there isn’t drool dripping down the tongue…there’s blood.
He steps forward again, and I make a decision without thought.
“Wow,” I say, taunting him, “you’re just as ugly as your cousin.”
Brute 2.0 pauses his hunt and turns my way, involuntarily flexing its pecs as it does. If you’ve watched professional wrestling in the last twenty-five years, you know one of the things Lex Luger was most known for. He was in ridiculous shape, looking like a statue of a Greek god.
That man could flex his man-boobs with the best of them!
But Lex ain’t got nothin’ on you.
One of Lex’s nicknames is the “Total Package,” and the creature would definitely qualify as one—minus its looks. Ugh. At least Luger was a good-looking dude.
Stepping back, I expel my empty cartridge, quickly slamming another one home. The movement sends Lex into a frenzy, and he nearly charges. He doesn’t, though. Instead, he reacts to Jill’s screaming voice.
“Frank!”
Lex starts to turn, but I don’t let him. I pump a round into its gut, stunned that it barely broke the skin. He bleeds, yes, but the wound is nothing to write home about.
“Jill… Run!”
I listen to my own words and bolt down the hall. Luckily for me—if you want to call it that—Lex is right on my heels. Not knowing where I’m going, I continue straight until a large set of security doors meet my already sore shoulder. I bowl through it and dive to the left just as Lex obliterates them from their hinges.
I’m forced to awkwardly backward crab walk away, but my dust-covered hands can’t find consistent traction. I stop when I bang the back of my head on something hard. The knock is met with a resounding gong of metal stairs.
Miraculously, the noise doesn’t draw the attention of Lex. He isn’t interested in me anymore. I groan when the entrance to the cellblock collapses in on itself. Great... I’ll have to find another way back to the others.
Wait a second, cellblock? That’s when I notice that the beast and I aren’t alone.
“What the fuck is that?”
Dozens of white-clothed inmates are gathered on the cellblock’s lower level. Most of their clothes aren’t white anymore, though. They’re red—slathered in blood.
I lie still and wait, noticing I’m atop the stairs leading to the second story of a long, open-air rectangular room. Peering through the gathering horde of monsters, I spy another set of doors at the other end of the block. Lex’s roar gets me moving, as do the rest of the humans here. Everyone scatters, wanting nothing to do with the brute.
I take the high road. I just hope the juicy morsels below will hold Lex’s attention while I make my escape. I mistakenly check on the creature’s progress and watch as I witness Lex grab a man by his arms. His long tongue forces itself into the inmate’s mouth, slithering down his throat. Before the guy suffocates to death, Lex rips his arms off like he was plucking blades of grass from the lawn.
The prisoner is dead before his body hits the floor.
12
Bodies litter the upper catwalk and it’s as grotesque a scene as I’ve ever seen. These men weren’t killed by any of the Unseen. After they were released, the people imprisoned here went after one another instead of trying to escape.
Probably didn’t know what was happening.
It’s insane to think that Lex bashed his way through the floors, hacking and slashing at anything that moved. There must be hundreds of people dead by now. Drawing my pistol, the less cumbersome of my weapons, I aim it at an approaching trio of prisoners. One by one, they back down.
“Into the cell!” I shout, flicking the barrel toward the closest opening. Thankfully, they listen and back into the small room. I don’t shut the door as I pass, though. Even if they’re criminals of the worst kind, they deserve a chance to survive.
But I’m not helping them.
What I said to Wes earlier was a bit harsh. Not everyone here is someone that’s better off dead. I know that, but most are here for very specific reasons. It is a “high-security prison” after all.
“If you’re smart,” I say, sidestepping by the three men, gun up, “you’ll stay here, keep your mouths shut, and hope the big guy doesn’t notice you.”
Giving them one last look, I turn and run. There are two ways to proceed. I can either go straight ahead—a body is launched by me from below—or turn right and head over to the other side of the room across a short, connecting bridge. Lex makes my decision easier when he leaps into the left-hand path of the second floor. He comes down, fists clenched and pulverizes two men when he lands.
He also destroys the catwalk.
The metal screeches in protest then snaps, and collapses beneath the brute. While Lex tries to recover, I head right, over the center of the cellblock. I have yet to fire a shot—and hope I don’t have to. I'd really like to keep Lex's attention away from me at the moment. While having the higher ground is usually a good thing, there isn’t an exit up here. It’s on the first level.
Plus, it’s not like he can’t reach me.
I look over the rail and shake my head. If I were forced to jump, the landing would either break my legs, or my back—probably both. I’m more than fifteen feet above the
stained concrete floor. The inmates had already done a number on the place. Lex, however, has already beat them tenfold with the mess he’s making.
Death fills the cellblock, most of it at the hands of the brute. Lex has killed at least half of the men here already and doesn’t seem to be slowing down.
I’m tossed forward when the catwalk beneath me explodes. I land on my back and witness the brute burst through and rake a set of clawed digits between my spread legs. If I had landed with my legs closed, they would’ve been cleaved off.
Crab-walking, again, I pull the trigger to my pistol four times, putting each of the rounds into Lex’s face. He flinches and roars, but the bullets do little else besides annoy him.
Son-uv-a-bitch! I can’t believe the bullets didn’t do more than that.
I wait for the end. It’s so close. All Lex has to do is wiggle through the opening in the metal catwalk and lash out. But oddly enough, he doesn’t... He tries but fails to do so, and I see why.
He’s stuck!
I quickly climb to my feet and haul ass to the other end of the cellblock, limping hard as I do. I’m not sure what actually hurts, but something does.
Back? Check. It’s okay—and I use that word lightly. It’s really not that okay at all.
Knees? Check. Reread what I said about my back…
Ankles? Nope, we’re good.
It’s not until I get to the stairs leading back down to the first level that I see what my newest injury is.
There’s a sizeable splinter of steel protruding from the outside of my left thigh. Alliteration aside, it hurts like hell now that I've noticed it!
Mind over matter? Nope.
Mind on the matter? You betcha!
Descending the metal steps takes everything I have left and I all but fall to the floor when I reach it. Just as I’m about to land, I snag the stair’s railing to my left and stay upright.
Lex is still wedged in tight, and we’re the only ones left in the room. He bellows his annoyance at being stuck and starts pounding his fists into the mangled catwalk. With each boom, the metal snare bends and his bonds loosen.
The brute won’t be immobile for much longer. I push through the doors and yelp in fright when someone grabs my vest and yanks me into the shadows beyond. Being forcibly moved is too much for my leg, and I cry out in agony and fall to the floor, training my pistol on—
