***************
Finding the location of the Professor turned out to be easier than they could have imagined. Although Logan had no idea what the Professor looked like, with satellite imaging he could quite easily track down anyone still alive just by their name. There were nineteen Clarence Brittle’s in the United States since 1942, but across a dwindling population now only four remained alive and only one had been a Professor. The CCTV cameras were up and running in the cities and the satellite could pinpoint him using facial recognition to his exact location, but therein lay the problem. Professor Clarence Brittle was in Mississippi State Penitentiary.
The notorious Parchman Prison was Mississippi’s State Penitentiary and was a maximum-security prison that was run by the prisoners. Having killed off the warden and most of the prison guards nobody got in and nobody got out. What was last known was it was one of the last standing buildings with its own self-sustaining community. Unfortunately, that community was now made up of the worse criminals known to man and was run by a man called Isaac Mendez who was serving concurrent life sentences for multiple murders. Also known as ‘The Mexican Godfather’, he had taken over the prison when it was decided that, with food in short supply, prisons would be the first institutions to receive rationing and then eventually left to die. Mendez had other ideas though and having overthrown the guards they had allegedly thrown a party for all the other prisoners with the guards as the main course. Isaac Mendez had moved to the top of the food chain, quite literally.
Of course, by then the government had been moved to the military base in Texas. The events in a closed off prison was of little significance to them. So, Mendez continued to run the prison and the prisoners soon fell in line, realizing that they were safer and better provided for within the prison walls. Anyone trying to break into the prison was instantly killed, whilst the only people permitted to leave the ground were Mendez’s own ‘death squad’ who would make frequent supply runs and the rest of the prison made no complaints and asked no questions as to what it was they were eating, as long as they were eating.
How the Professor had become an inmate was a little more concerning, bearing in mind that many of the crimes the men had committed to find themselves behind these bars was of a serious nature. But he was alive and whether he knew it or not he was the potential key to survival of the remaining population. The only question Logan had to answer was how he would extract the Professor from a high security prison being guarded by hundreds of felons.
In addition to getting the Professor out of the prison there was a lot of moving parts to the plan, which if any were to break down then they would be undone. This had to go down perfectly, which meant everyone played their part and that anyone else that they brought on board to help could be trusted and up to the job.
Even getting off the base wouldn’t be easy. There were three exits which were heavily guarded by most of the army presence left on the base. Only two of those exits were for transport, which narrowed the likelihood of getting away without anyone knowing. Then there was the transport itself, fuel, how long it would take to get to the prison and back again. As the planning continued, they realized that this mission was slipping out of their hands and that they weren’t capable of doing this alone. They needed to bring someone on board, and they needed to do it soon.
Chapter Six
Somewhere in Boston, Massachusetts circa 2028.
Frank McGregor sat at a card table in one of Boston’s few remaining taverns. The lights were dimmed, and people huddled in the corners of the room avoiding eye contact drinking whatever they could get their hands on. The barman stood behind the bar occasionally spitting tobacco onto the floor, supervising McGregor and three other men playing poker.
What made this different to any other game of poker was that the stakes they were playing for were more important than money. McGregor pulled a tin of sweetcorn from his bag, placed it down in the middle of the table and whispered ‘call’ to the other men playing cards.
McGregor had previously sold second-hand cars for a living but before The Cure he supplemented his income cheating at cards and conning people out of their hard-earned cash, which turned out to be a worthwhile skill to have when the world was crumbling down around you. As confidence went McGregor’s was in ample supply and he could take a beating, which also came in handy. Not thickset by any means he was wiry and muscular and had been in plenty of fights. This Irishman knew how to hit back.
Another man at the table looked McGregor up and down and without saying anything threw his cards down, stood up and left the table walking past the bar and out of the back door. McGregor smiled to himself, whilst slightly turning up the corners of his cards to take another look at his ‘winning hand’.
‘You’re a piece of crap McGregor,’ said one of the men. ‘You’ve got nothing.’
‘So, put down or shut up Richards,’ said McGregor in his Irish drawl.
‘Fine. I see you,’ said Richards and he placed a can with the label missing down on the table.
‘What the Hell is this Richards? That could be cat food for all I know,’ said McGregor angrily.
‘So, what if it is? You’re still going to eat it right?’ Richards smiled a toothy grin from ear to ear.
McGregor smiled back ‘Aye. To be sure Richards, I’ll let it go.’
They both looked to the man next to Richards and opposite McGregor. An absolute monster of a man, quite literally known to them as The Beast. This man never went hungry and he took whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. He nursed a large tankard that looked like it belonged to some kind of Ogre and took a gulp which seemed to last forever.
‘I’ll see it.’ he grunted, and he pounded down a zip lock bag of meat on the table.
Richards gagged and looked away ‘What the…. What is that?’
‘Let’s just say it’ll accompany that tin of cat food nicely,’ smiled The Beast.
‘Hey, it’s all good guys. If you can cook it, it stays on the table,’ said McGregor.
The last man at the table was Doctor Montgomery Sherman. A small bespectacled man, who had lost everything once his job became superfluous and his wife later left him. By all accounts, in his previous life, he had built up quite a substantial nest egg which his now ex-wife lived off, with the few other people who had used their money early on to stockpile food and hide away from the rest of the world. Sherman on the other hand now slept in dank stairwells stealing food wherever he could find it.
Sherman looked at the two queens and three eights in his hands knowing that no-one at this table could beat his hand, especially as he had been counting the cards since the beginning of the game. However, what he couldn’t have known was that McGregor had four queens and an ace, having acquired two queens from somewhere within the right sleeve of his coat.
Sherman grinned, thinking that he would eat well tonight, unaware of McGregor’s hand and casually threw a can of peaches onto the table laughing out loud. ‘I see you’ he sung to McGregor who was smiling back at him. This unnerved him, a lot.
Richards and The Beast looked at Sherman scowling and waited for McGregor to place his cards down. Slowly McGregor put down two queens ’Two pairs’ he said. Sherman could hardly hold back his excitement, right up until McGregor put down his second pair of queens and he felt a single bead of sweat roll down his forehead. He knew McGregor had cheated, but he also knew that there was a possibility if he called him out and laid down his own cards, the other two men at the table might think it was him who cheated rather than McGregor. He didn’t want to end up on the table himself. But as he looked at the tin of peaches he had placed down not two minutes ago he felt something boiling up inside of him that he couldn’t repress. That food was his. He had won it fair and square. Without realizing, he raised himself to his feet and all three men were looking at him. Even stood up he was now only level with The Beast’s eye line. ‘He cheated!’ Sherman stammered.
‘What?’ McGregor said, looking for all t
he world like his feelings had been hurt.
Sherman’s cards dropped showing the full house and more importantly the third pair of queens on the table. ‘What?’ McGregor said again, looking at Sherman accusingly. In honesty though McGregor was just happy that no queens had turned up in the other men’s hands, because at least he could spin this against Sherman.
‘He cheated,’ Sherman stuttered.
‘What the Hell is going on here?’ Richards said standing to his feet.
‘That’s what I’d like to know,’ said McGregor.
All the time The Beast was composed looking at the cards in his hands.
‘How the Hell do we have six queens on the table,’ said Richards.
‘He cheated. He goddamn cheated,’ said Sherman.
‘How do we know it wasn’t you?’ said McGregor smiling a sly awkward glance towards Sherman, whilst trying not to look guilty.
‘I’ve been counting these cards since the game started,’ Sherman blurted out. ‘He CHEATED.’ Now this caught The Beast’s attention.
‘You’ve been counting cards?’ The Beast grunted. The barman reached down under the bar. ‘Explain this to me again little man,’ he stood up. ‘You’ve been counting the cards?’
‘Well, yes, that’s not against the rules. Is it?’ Sherman bravely replied.
Someone from the depths of one of the corners of the room oblivious to what was going on at the card table made their way to jukebox and gave it a kick. It stuttered, scratched and then started playing some Cypress Hill song.
Sherman didn’t feel a thing as The Beast brought an elbow down on his jaw almost ripping it clean off. He just lay there shaking on the floor unable to speak. Richards vomited at the sight of Sherman’s jaw mangled and hanging from his face and was retching uncontrollably. The Beast lifted Sherman off the floor by his shirt and threw him against the side of the bar with a sickening crunch. Sherman was still conscious and looked like a rag doll, looking up at The Beast waiting for death.
The Beast turned around to look at McGregor who was reaching for the food on the table, whilst Richards had slipped out the back door and was lent up against a wall behind the bar heaving. ‘Going somewhere Irishman?’ He said to McGregor.
‘Just collecting my winnings Beasty.’ I did win after all, regardless of that cheat over there.
‘He may be a cheat Irishman, but he’s a clever cheat. If he said he was counting cards, then that means you found two queens out of thin air.’
‘How can you believe a man like that? He’d do anything for a square meal Beast. Look at the weasel.’ Sherman was now fitting with blood and foam coming from his mouth. Without so much as a second thought The Beast brought down a size twelve boot down on Sherman killing him. ‘He isn’t cheating anymore.’
McGregor kept the table between himself and The Beast all the time eyeing the exits and wondering how he was going to get out of this predicament. ‘OK mate, you got me,’ he conceded, dropping a half dozen cards from his sleeve and laughing. The Beast grabbed the edges of the table and threw it forwards towards McGregor who easily side stepped it.
‘Looks like you’ll be the main course McGregor,’ snarled the monster in front of him.
‘You’d feed a whole town you big idiot,’ McGregor shot back. At not one point did McGregor show any kind of stress or worry. In fact, he was completely in control.
McGregor moved towards The Beast, ducked under his arm and punch him in the throat. The Beast staggered backwards gasping for air, but still snarling. He composed himself and lumbered towards McGregor, who swung The Beast’s massive glass straight towards his head, leaving a cut and The Beast’s skull exposed. ‘Ouch’, McGregor mocked. ‘That’s going to hurt in the morning.’ The Beast shook his head and seeing double swung a fist towards McGregor. Yet again, McGregor avoided any impact and with The Beast unsteady on his feet he uppercut him so violently that his teeth ripped through his bottom lip. The next flurry of punches smashed into The Beast’s temple and his eyes rolled back into his head. He dropped like a tree being felled. ‘The bigger they are,’ McGregor mused to the patrons who were running around the bar looking to escape the skirmish. He looked towards the bar as a bullet exploded over his right ear ‘What the?’ The barman stood with his Winchester poised and McGregor threw himself to the floor avoiding the second shotgun blast. ‘For goodness sake man. It was just a game of cards.’
McGregor made for the door between gunshot blasts and lightbulbs exploding above his head. Through the doors he looked down at the bag and smiled. He would eat well tonight.
***************
A few months passed, and McGregor had decided that the cities were becoming too dangerous, even for him. He made his way through state lines and holed himself up in a ghost town in Texas. A proper cowboy town that had been vacated a long time ago. There were no people, no running water and no food. But he had enough supplies and he would have a decent roof over his head until he decided his next move.
Sat on the balcony of the town saloon he opened the tin of food with no label, from the bar brawl, and smiled to himself. ‘Evaporated milk’. He licked his lips and drank down the sugary treat. As he sat there, he heard a noise like thunder coming towards the town. He put down the tin and lifted a telescope up to his eye. A convoy of trucks were moving speedily towards the town. He quickly jumped up and ran down the stairs as the trucks and jeeps stopped in the high street. Moving downstairs, he made his way to a window and listened to what was going on outside.
‘Take trucks one through ten to entrance A and the jeeps through B,’ said a man in military kit to another. ‘There’s twelve more trucks and five armored cars to come,’ said the man.
‘Is that everyone?’ said the other man loudly.
‘Yes, Trailblazer is safe and the remainder of Operation Cure complete,’ he replied, saluted and walked away.
’De Mario,’ the man summoned over another soldier. ‘Look, I know you don’t know all these other men, but I need you to pick ten guys and give the town the once over. We cannot afford for anyone to know what’s going on here, or the whole operation is blown. Just a precaution.’
McGregor stepped back from the window and looked around for somewhere to hide. The town wasn’t big, and he knew he could be easily found if someone was looking hard enough. He heard the soldier De Mario shouting orders outside the window and men scrambling towards the empty shops and the saloon.
The door opened and a pasty-faced youngster, no older than 21 walked through to the bar area, rifle out in front of him. McGregor took a step back in the cupboard he had hidden in, watching the soldier through a crack in the door. After a few minutes the soldier who had been looking upstairs throughout the bedrooms came downstairs and McGregor realized that he would at some point come looking in the cupboard. Having left himself no escape route he pulled a large knife from his jeans in readiness for what might come next.
The soldier’s boots clumped down the stairs and he was looking around the bar area. Only the cupboard remained unopened and the soldier’s footsteps slowly moved towards McGregor. He lifted the knife.
The soldier turned the door handle and the door started to open. McGregor considered pushing the door open quickly and surprising the soldier, but then he heard a muffled shout from outside and the soldier started to walk away from the cupboard. McGregor breathed a sigh of relief and took a step towards the door to watch the soldier.
The soldier had almost reached the door of the saloon when he suddenly stopped. He felt a warmth come over his face. His hand reached for his neck gasping for breath and unsuccessfully trying to scream for help. Blood trickled down his inside of his throat choking him.
McGregor was stood behind him with his knife drawn and dripping blood onto the floor. He cushioned the soldier to the ground and placed his fingers either side of the man’s nose and covered his mouth until the labored breathing had stopped completely.
McGregor then started to remove the soldier’s fatigues. McGreg
or had had an idea that might just save his life.
Chapter Seven
Choosing a team to take to the prison to find the Professor was by no means an easy task. Most of the teenagers on the base had no experience of the outside world let alone any kind of military training, so picking kids that could hold their own in an apocalyptic world of potential monsters and cannibals was proving tough for Logan and Danny. They already had four boys on board who Danny had vouched for. Essentially, they just wanted to get outside the base and cause mayhem without their parent’s watchful eyes. The Mean twins, Scott and Seth, had grown up on a farm around guns and their father was an agricultural aide to the Presidential team. With very little to keep them occupied in the past ten or so years they had been itching for something like this to happen. They were joined by Xander Carlgren and Jay Green, both of whom had influential and very rich fathers with political ties and spent most days on the base with Danny and the other boys causing mischief.
This was a start at least. Logan had chosen two other boys from the dormitory who he trusted implicitly, which were Chuck Nelson and Brad Holton whose father ran the stores. Brad Junior was a good guy, but certainly packing in the weight department. This concerned Logan as he knew he would look out of place in the city, but he felt Brad was an asset to the team. Chuck was the joker of the pack, an absolute goon, but he was a motivator and motivation was something which he was in short supply of.
Logan and Danny had brought the six boys into his room with the intention of breaking the news to them about what the President and his team were planning to do. Neither of them knew exactly how they would do this or how their newly assembled team would take it. Let alone whether they would be onboard and help to stop it.
’So,’ Logan started ‘you’re probably wondering why we’ve brought you here?’
‘Well it isn’t a romantic dinner for two,’ Chuck said pretending to be disappointed. The Mean brothers chuckled in unison, shoulders bobbing up and down while Xander looked away, more interested in the cigarette hanging out his mouth than what was happening in the room.
The Cure Page 4
