by Matt James
While curious to see what an Unseen-moo moo looks like, I refrain from looking and climb aboard. Settling in behind the steering wheel, I wait for Jill and Hope to sit and then pull away. They choose the kitchen table and quietly speak to one another while I concentrate on the next phase of our journey.
Wanting nothing better than to roll into Wellington with guns-a-blazing, I immediately stamp out the thought as quickly as it processed. First off, we hardly have the guns in which to “blaze” with. Secondly, mine and Jill’s plan has now been seriously altered with the addition of Hope.
Deciding on a destination, I smile, happy that we’re on the interstate. We’ll get off it and be there soon too. Where we’re going will be chock-full of weapons and ammo. Hopefully, a few of my old coworkers are still around and can help me out…for old times’ sake.
I’d hate to have to steal from a bunch of cops.
9
“Are you sure this is a good idea?”
I thought it was a good idea at first, but now, I’m not so sure. Jill knows it too. I’ve never been good at hiding my feelings. The unsettling sensation is making me feel on edge, and I grip Winnie’s steering wheel harder in response.
“Why are we sitting here?” Hope asks. She’s sitting on Jill’s lap and seems as anxious as I must look.
“We’re scoping out the joint,” I reply.
“Scoping out the what?”
Jill rolls her eyes. “She’s seven, Frank.”
Right.
“Um, we’re waiting to see if it’s safe.”
“Ooooh.” Hope nods her understanding and leans forward.
Jill sighs. “Seriously, Frank, a jail?”
The Palm Beach County Main Detention Center hilariously sits on the south side of Gun Club Road. Yes, the street is actually called “Gun Club Road.” I’m not sure how funny it is, honestly, but I sure as hell think it is.
Separated into three sections, the South Tower is a twelve-story high-rise while its two sister buildings are only six stories tall. The entire complex has a bed capacity north of 2,000. My initial reservation about coming to this place stems from who they keep locked up here. This particular corrections facility houses Palm Beach County’s highest-risk inmates, along with those belonging to the federal government. But it also houses a few with peculiar mental health disorders too. Nasty ones.
I know this because a high school buddy of mine works here.
Worked here.
I’m not sure if Wes is still alive, but this would be the place to check. As far as I know, he’s unmarried and has no kids—just his job. Plus, not only are prisons tough to break out of, but they’re also insanely hard to break into. If the prison walls have remained intact, it would be a suitable place to hunker down and wait it out.
Slowly, I depress the pedal and roll Winnie forward. The front drive is a nondescript road, nothing fancy at all. The prison grounds are towards the back of the lot, and we’ll have to do some careful driving to get there. Like everywhere else, there are car wrecks and bodies galore. Luckily, it doesn’t look like the jail had many visitors the day everything happened.
“Dang,” I mutter, attempting to be careful with my language around Hope.
The front roundabout is entirely blocked by vehicles. We’re about a hundred feet from the building but will have to travel the rest of the way by foot. I was hoping we could pull right up to the front door and unload there.
Why am I surprised?
I throw Winnie into park, remove the key, stand, and get a nervous look from Hope when the rumble of the engine ceases. Jill squeezes her shoulder, which seems to calm her a little. Both women stand but stay quiet.
“Okay, here’s what’s going to happen.”
I look down at Hope. “You’re going to hold onto me as tight as you can.” She nods emphatically. My eyes meet Jill’s. She also nods, flexing her wrapped left hand. She can’t watch after the girl right now. “We’re going to stay together and make a run for it. If we can’t get inside quickly, we’ll turn around and come back here.” I look at Hope again. “Okay?”
Hope’s chin softly bobs up and down, looking scared.
I kneel. “Come here, kiddo.”
She does, and I scoop her up in my left arm. Lucky for me, she’s petite. She barely weighs anything and shouldn’t be too much of a burden while we move. I slip the key into my back pocket and open the side door. As it yawns open, I draw my gun and step out. With a soft click, Jill closes the door while drawing her pistol too.
I glance over at her and wink. Together, we take off at a sprint. With each step, I feel Hope grip my shirt tighter and tighter, all the while she squeezes her knees around my left hip harder.
The roundabout is actually an oval, and we’re at one of its ends. We go right and slow, but don’t stop. Shrieks can be heard somewhere in the distance, echoing off the tall concrete buildings. There’s no telling where they’re originating from.
“Frank.”
Jill is pointing to our right, and I see what has her concerned. There’s a large drainage pond running the entire length of the drive. But it’s not the water that has her spooked, it’s what’s sliding through it. Everyone knows what creature the long, dark body belongs to.
Gator.
This whole area is striped with canals and pockmarked with ponds, so I doubt this will be the last gator we see. At least the size of the shadow looks relatively normal. Local gators like this one don’t tend to get that big, and when they do, they get trapped and removed.
“Keep going,” I say, vaulting over a turned over police motorcycle.
When I land, I slide to a stop, causing Jill to bang into my back.
“What is it?”
She steps around Hope and me.
Hope sticks out a finger. “Them.”
Seven men, all dressed in various forms of SWAT and riot gear have slipped out of the facility undetected. From fifty feet away, I can’t see their faces, which makes sense since they’re all wearing helmets with tinted visors. Each of them is armed with an assortment of weaponry. Pistols, rifles, and shotguns mostly.
The center-most man holsters his pistol, steps forward, and removes his helmet.
“Frank?”
I sigh in relief. “Wes…you’re alive.”
Wes Albers is my height but seems to have put on a few pounds since the last time I saw him. His hair has greyed too but is still thick and wavy. Like the other men accompanying him, he’s dressed in all black from head to toe.
He looks confused. “What the hell are you doin’ here?”
I shrug nonchalantly. “Visiting the folks. Catching some rays. Trying not to die.”
He takes in my company. “Holy shit! Is that Jill?”
Hope leans into me and whispers, “He said a bad word.”
I grin. Cute.
“And who’d you expect it to be?” Jill replies, sounding defensive.
Wes smiles. “Last I heard, you two were havin’ some issues. Wasn’t sure y’all were still together or not.”
Jill’s sharp eyes turn on me.
“What?” I ask. “He’s an old friend.”
“Watch it with that old shit, Frank.”
In response to Wes’ mouth, Hope tightens her grip on my shirt. I’m really going to have to watch my verbiage around her.
We meet Wes halfway to the front door. “We need your help.”
He looks at me, Jill, and then Hope. “Who’s this?”
Hope hugs me and turns away from Wes’ hard stare.
“We found her near Benny’s,” I explain. “Alone…”
Wes isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but even he understands what I'm saying. Hope has no one else to take care of her except us.
“Saved our lives too,” Jill adds.
Hope peeks out from under her arm.
“What’s your name, little one?”
“H…Hope.”
“Well, Hope… I’d like to personally thank you for saving these two.�
� He glances at us. “They’re good people…once you get to know them.”
“Har, har, Wes,” Jill says, flinching as something screeches into the sky. This one is much closer than the last. I turn and level my gun at a goblin. It’s standing on the hood of a car and is slowly joined by a dozen more.
Wes lays a thick hand on my shoulder. “How ’bout we finish this reunion inside?”
“Is it safe in there?” Jill asks.
Wes laughs. “Safer than out here? Yes, yes, it is.”
The horde launches their attack. The three of us turn and bolt for the front door. Hope latches onto me, burying her face into my neck. It’s awkward, but I make do. Plus, we have a small army giving us cover fire from up ahead.
Each of the officers opens up and sends wave after wave of projectiles into the mass of Unseen. Just for a moment, it looks like they’re going to press their assault even after we successfully enter the dark, dank building. Then, one after the other, they file in, slamming the thick glass door as they do. It’s locked, and everyone else removes their helmets just as the five remaining goblins leap at the reflective barrier.
I don’t even hear them hit it.
“Tough glass,” I comment, impressed.
Wes grins and introduces his team. I’ve never met any of them, which is a little disappointing. What’s more disappointing is that Wes and I are easily the oldest of the men here. Jill even has a couple of years on them.
The cops disperse, returning to whatever duties they’d been pulled away from to help us. Only one of them stays behind and mans the front doors. Besides him, it's just the three of us and Wes.
“You have a lot of problems with goblins?” I ask, getting a funny look from Wes.
Oh, right…
“It’s what we’re calling them.” I jab a finger at the handful of Unseen still clawing at the door. Thanks to the mirrored, ballistic glass, the creatures can’t see us.
“Goblins, huh?”
“Yep,” I smile, knowing he’s going to like what I have to say next. “I’ve already briefed the government on them. The general in charge gave me the same look.”
“General?” Wes asks.
I quickly give him the playback of what Jill and I went through in New York, and then here in Palm Beach. Every detail is worse than the one before.
“Usually, if someone came in here spouting that kind of nonsense, I’d lock him up with the rest of the crazies here, but…”
“It’s all true, Wes.”
He smirks. “Escape from New York?”
I laugh at the mention of the Kurt Russell movie.
Wes gets serious. “So, Snake, what do you need from me?”
10
The jail looks exactly like you’d expect one to look. Given the fact that they haven’t had power in a few days, the place still seems cold and sterile. The first thing I ask Wes during our “tour” is how long they’ve been out.
“Only a couple of days now,” he replies, surprising me. “Our generators can handle quite a bit—but not that much!”
Jill’s one, and only, question is something I didn’t want to ask. “What about the inmates?”
Wes’ face tightens up. “You mean besides those that turned into…”
“The Unseen,” I finish.
“Yes,” Jill replies, “besides them.”
“We saved as many as we could and moved them to the lower floors. The top three levels of the South Tower are a no go.”
“What happened?” I ask.
“Hell if I know,” he says, scratching his chin stubble. “I arrived just after shit went south. The men that were here said that something came in from the roof and started slaughterin’ everyone.”
“How’d it get inside their cells?” I ask.
Wes looks at me hard. “It knew how to open them.” His eyes drop. “I think it used to be one of the guards.” Looking remorseful, he continues. “We cut power to the top floors and barricaded the stairwell doors. There’s no power to the elevator so it won’t get to us that way.”
I snort. “He won’t need to use an elevator, Wes. Some of these things are smart. Unless he’s as dense as a goblin, the beast will find a way down here eventually.”
His face goes white.
“Or not,” Jill says, pulling me aside.
Jill’s been ushering Hope along for the last few minutes. Both of them look tired.
“Hey, Wes?”
“Yeah?”
“Is there anywhere that the girls can rest while we catch up?”
He looks down at Hope and gives Jill a genuine smile. “Of course, follow me. We have cots set up in the cafeteria. You two can get a snack and take a breather.”
Jill gives him an exhausted nod and pulls the equally sleepy Hope along next to her. Once we were successfully inside the jail, I had put her down. While she isn’t heavy in any way, my ribs and back aren’t exactly in the greatest of shape right now.
Wes and I leave Jill and Hope at the “Employee Lounge” and head for his makeshift command center. The detention center has a state-of-the-art security system, and shockingly enough, it’s still active…sort of.
I get filled in without needing to ask.
“Our IT guy rerouted the rest of our power to our security systems. Can’t have the psychos of Palm Beach County on the loose, can we?”
I shrug. “It would be a thinning of the herd if you let them leave.”
Wes’ mouth hangs open.
“What?” I ask. “We’re at war for our survival, Wes. I get that you’re trying to do your job, but things have changed forever. You aren’t a jail cop anymore. You’re just a guy babysitting the wretched refuse.”
“Jeez,” Wes says, sneering. “What crawled up your butt and died?”
“The world.” His eyes open. I’m not sure if it’s the entire world or just the United States, but I go with it. “This isn’t just happening here. This is a global disaster, Wes. Millions are dead in New York alone. I watched our government drop bombs on Manhattan and the other boroughs. Jill and I traveled the coast and saw nothing but death and destruction.” I grab his arm. “If I were you, I’d get people that don’t deserve to be behind bars out of here.”
We enter the security room, which is really just a space full of screens. Wes plops in a chair and rubs his face.
“And where would you like me to send these people, Frank?”
“Anywhere but here. You can’t keep everyone here alive forever.” My shoulders dip. “No one is coming for you.”
He smiles, looking through the wall to a distant memory. “You’ve changed, my friend.”
I cross my arms. “I know. It wasn’t intentional either.” I sit across from him. “Before all this happened, I was just a normal cop doing his job. Jill and I were about to split. Nothing felt normal anymore.” I lean forward, elbows on my knees. “But then I remembered what really mattered, and here I am.”
“And that is?” he asks, slouching in his chair.
I sigh. “Don’t laugh… But it’s love.”
Wes explodes with a series of loud guffaws. Honestly, I don’t blame him either. It’s as “Hallmarkian” as it gets. It’s true, though. Love kept me going—kept the fire burning within me. It still does now.
“You about done?”
He wipes tears from his eyes and leans forward to slap me on the shoulder. I sit back, and his swing misses me entirely, almost sending him to the floor. His surprised look gets a chuckle out of me, and the two of us sit in silence for a few minutes and watch the screens.
Most aren’t on. The ones that are belong to feeds within the various cellblocks. Though slightly grainy, I can still make out the men sitting behind bars. The only other people I see are the officers pacing back and forth nearby.
What a waste of time.
“I’m not crazy, Frank.”
I look up at him. “I never said you were.”
“You were thinkin’ it.”
“Crazy for staying here?” I th
row my hands up. “Sue me.”
“I’m just doin’ my—”
“It’s not your job anymore, Wes! Can’t you get that through your thick skull?”
He smiles softly. “You know me, Frank. I ain’t got nothin’ else.”
I do know. And yes, this is all he has. He never married, nor did he ever have a long-term relationship. He’s a good guy with some really shitty luck. He dated a nice enough girl once—a cop like us. She was out on patrol one afternoon and didn’t come back. Some asshat shot her during a routine traffic stop.
He seemed to give up after that and focus solely on his job. Her murder had rattled him to the bone—shook something loose inside of him.
Wes is from Texas and has no family that I can remember outside of that state. He’s utterly alone here.
“Come with us,” I say, sitting up.
He looks at me. “You’re kiddin’ me?”
I shake my head. “No, we have room for one more in our Winnebago. Jill’s hurt, and we can use all the help we can get with Hope.”
“Speaking of Hope… You know you can’t keep her, right?”
I laugh. “And who’s going to take her away from us, you?” I lean forward again. “You still don’t get it, do you? There is no law anymore! It’s every man, woman, and child for themselves,” I sit back, “and I’m trying to save one of each right now. Hope belongs to Jill and me until I say otherwise. She has no one else.”
“Frank, I—”
“And as your friend, I’m asking if you’ll help me keep them safe.” His mouth snaps shut. “Will you help me?”
He leans his head back and closes his eyes. I can tell everything is hitting him all at once. It’s a lot to take in, but Wes is a tough guy. If anyone can handle this sort of thing, it's him.
“Dammit, Frank,” he lets out a tired laugh, “why couldn’t you have stayed in New York?”
“I’d be dead if I did.”
“And I’d have one less headache to deal with.” He looks at me. “If we’re doin’ this, when are you gonna want to leave?”
