by Phil Maxey
He sat up from the bed, and slid his hand through his hair.
Need a haircut.
His mind drifted to Kizzy. He liked her, but she wasn’t exactly stable, and his stepfather always told him, ‘never date crazy.’
But maybe ‘crazy’ was exactly what was right for the new world…
Why you thinking about sex? Copeland’s going to kill all of us! Need to prepare.
His inner voice had a point.
He got to his feet, put his clothes on, and walked out into the hallway. He didn’t need his extra abilities to pickup who was still awake for muffled noises came from the floors below.
He was soon in the lobby. He expected to see the Alkrons still awake, but instead it was the three scientists, and an older man called ‘Bill’ locked in a debate over something called the ‘tablet.’
“We have to expose him to the device again. Maybe it knows about Copeland and has a plan for us to follow!” said Max.
“We don’t know what the tablet is. We just know a few things it can do, and what it has shown Joel. Maybe it’s working against us? How would we know?” said Bill.
They sat in silence thinking words but not speaking them.
“He wanted to use the tablet to activate the chambers,” said Amos at the back of the room.
They all turned to look at him.
“What was that?” said Max.
“Come closer, young man,” said Bill.
Amos walked across the room and sat on one of the nearby chairs. “Copeland, I saw into his mind when I was with him. He was always thinking about these five coffin-looking things. He thought of them as chambers but—”
Josh looked at Max. “The sarcophagi? Could Copeland have discovered them?”
Amos answered. “Err… yeah, I guess you could call them that. Copeland wanted to open them, but he couldn’t. He thought the tablet would show him how, but he could never get the thing to do anything. That kind of annoyed him…”
Those in front of him looked shocked.
“Did I say something wrong?”
Bill looked at him. “Was there anything else you saw inside the creature’s head. About the tablet, or the umm… chambers?”
Amos shook his head. “When I was with him, his thoughts were mostly about those sarcophagi. Sometimes he would think about—” Amos smiled to himself. “Being some kind of king or something… He’s insane.”
Rachel looked at the others. “If Copeland has the sarcophagi—”
“I think we know they must be more than mere coffins by now, Rachel,” said Max.
“Yes, of course. But if he has them then why was the tablet showing Joel them?”
“Maybe Joel is needed to open them?” said Josh.
Bill shook his head. “The device showed Joel the battle and the aftermath. I think it’s the opposite, I think the tablet is trying to tell us we need to keep the sarcophagi closed.”
“How the hell are we going to do that?” said Max. “He already has them.”
Rachel looked at those around her. “He doesn’t have the tablet.”
“Or Joel…” said Bill.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Carla opened the door to the hut she and her soldiers had been placed in the day before. Five of the seven were still asleep, but Bishop was reading and Keller walked out of the small bathroom area at the end, his face covered in shaving cream.
“Where you been?” he said.
Carla walked inside, closing the door loudly enough to start to wake the others.
“Is the LT back,” said a younger man, trying to disappear under his single sheet.
“She’s back,” said Bishop, folding the corner of her book then placing it on the bed.
“Everyone wake your asses up, we need to talk,” said Carla.
Keller reappeared, his face now smooth and foam free. “We going into the main camp?”
A dark-haired woman who was looking out of the side window noticed movement in the distance. “Hey, there’s a number of armed men out there. They’re looking over here.” She looked back at Carla. “What’s going on?”
The rest of the soldiers sat up in their beds.
“We are being allowed into the main camp—”
The younger man smiled pulling his sheet to one side then stood up, only in his underwear. “Finally.”
Others smiled and started to get out of their beds as well. Keller remained fixed to the spot though, still looking at Carla.
“But there’s something important you all need to know…”
They all stopped and looked at her.
“We don’t work for the Copeland Corporation anymore.”
A number of confused expressions washed across the faces inside the hut.
Keller’s though did not change. “I didn’t think we had any choice in whether we worked for them or not. Why the change of heart?”
During the remaining hours of night, since they came back into the camp, Carla had been planning on what she would say to her people, the men and women she had worked with over the past few months. By the time she opened the hut door, she still didn’t have any idea of what combination of words were going to work.
“Copeland’s a monster,” she blurted out.
Most inside the hut looked at each other as if she had just spoken a foreign language.
“We know what he is, Antos, but that didn’t stop us from helping him before. He pays the bills, and we don’t get eaten by all the other monsters out there,” said Keller.
“Each of you have a choice. You can either come with me, and we help the people in this town stay alive, or you can leave…”
Looks of unease were exchanged between a few.
Keller walked forward along the central aisle in front of the beds. “Leaving aside the fact that this whole place is due to be either taken over or removed from the map by the corporation, what’s so great about it? It’s a forgotten truck stop in the middle of a marsh. Why these people? How they any different from those in Jackson? Or any other holes that humans have hid inside of?”
The point raised by Carla’s second-in-command was what she had spent most of the previous few hours wrestling with. She looked directly at Keller. “You’re right, this place is not that much different than the other places. If anything, this place is harder to defend. When I first worked for Copeland, I thought maybe his way was what was needed. People had to be made to work together, and he could control the things out there—” she pointed into the distance. “—I didn’t see any other options. If we… if all of us were going to survive. But then we discovered that not all the infected were crazy killing machines, that some of them were not that different to us—” she looked around the others. “And that those other Alkrons, they are more human then monster.”
“You found some Alkrons here?” said Keller.
She hesitated in responding then nodded.
“And they know you are working for the corporation?”
She nodded again. “Copeland is coming. And he will do his best to destroy this town, and the people left in it.”
Bishop got to her feet. “You think us and a bunch of hillbillies with hunting rifles are going to be able to stop thousands of vamps? Other tac-teams and god knows what else he’s got?”
“There’s a high-security prison about seven miles north of here. That’s where I was last night with some of the Alkrons. We were taking weapons there that belonged to Holland and his people… but we ran into a lot of vamps. Today we’re going to clear them out, and start moving people and supplies there. It would take a modern-day army to take that place. Vamps will be pretty useless against it. If we can get the townspeople inside it, and with the right defenses, we can fight Copeland’s creatures off.”
Sighs came from more than one in the long room as everyone thought through their next moves.
Keller looked back at Carla. “These Alkrons really on our side? They’re going to fight for this place too?”
“Yeah.”
*****
Joel slowed the truck on the road a mile from the prison.
"I can't see anything moving," he said, scouring the landscape. Dark remains of vamps broke up the beige and green fields as well as within the high metal fencing.
He clicked on his radio. “Not seeing anything alive so far. Over.”
Carla responded that she and her people were ready.
Joel slowly pushed down on the gas, and the large truck which they had crammed the remaining smaller weapons and ammo into moved cautiously along the narrow country lane, then turned onto the track to the main prison gate.
He drove over ragged vamp bodies and past the first open gate. He noticed looking in his rear mirror that two soldiers jumped out the back of Carla’s truck, and jogged off in opposite directions around the inside of the first fence.
Joel passed the second then third and stopped outside the small entrance in the vast concrete wall they ran from just six hours earlier.
As he sat with the engine idling, Carla’s truck, and two more pickups pulled in alongside him.
“What do you think?” he said to Anna sitting next to him.
She looked up at seventy-feet-high, gray walls, with spikes and razor wire running along the top of them then to the even higher towers at each corner, half a mile away to her left and right, and felt an emotion she hadn’t felt since before the Scourge. Hope.
“Pretty impressive, right?” said Joel.
She nodded.
“It’s a mess inside though. The place is full of vamps, looks as if the wardens and guards just upped and left. Most of the prisoners got infected then turned, some of them being strong enough to break out, but most are stuck in there still, starving for blood.”
“There was probably more than what you saw last night. Those were the strongest, they must have survived by feeding off those that took longer to turn and weaker vamps.”
“We’re going to try and funnel them into one area then take them out…” He paused for a moment.
Carla, some of her soldiers, and some of Holland’s people, all well-armed ran through the entrance.
“How’s Dalton?”
“He seems to be healing, but I have no idea how or why. Alkron physiology is… umm our physiology is quite different to human, at least on the micro-biological level. It’s a whole new world of medicine.”
Joel smiled and squeezed her hand briefly. “The world will need someone to teach it.”
She gave an anxious smile back. “I guess, but it’s more Rachel’s field.”
Joel pushed open the door. “Then work together. The more we learn, the less of an advantage the corporation has over us.”
She nodded and they both got out.
Soon, he was standing at the end of the long wide corridor which he and Dalton escaped from. Carla was standing with Keller.
She looked towards the door. “That’s the cellblock you and Dalton were inside of?”
Joel nodded.
Keller peered through the small thick glass that was covered in smears of pink on the inside. Just visible beyond were mounds of vamps. Twitching limbs suggested they were alive, but sleeping.
“What you think?” said Carla.
“Four of us with semiautomatics—” He turned to Joel. “—With one of your kind to back us up, in case any break through, should be enough.”
Joel nodded. “Sounds a good plan.”
Carla walked away while talking into her radio.
“You military?” said Keller to Joel.
“FBI operator. HRT.”
“I knew there was something about you… and now you’re what? Some kind of vamp?”
“A guy trying to stop vamps.... How long you been with Carla?”
Keller smiled. “You got on first names basis with her pretty quick. Only a few months. I was assigned to her unit by someone you knew. Colvin… He was a good man.”
Joel could hear the blood flow increase around Keller’s body as well as hear his muscles tensing.
“I didn’t know him…”
Carla walked back to them. “We’re dividing into four teams. We’ll go block to block, the others are searching the other parts of the prison.”
Outside, Evan and Donnie looked at the damp sodden ground that sat within the large wall, and the covered metal cages which were the prisoners only taste of the outside world. A vamp slammed up against one of them, not understanding why it couldn’t get to the two figures a hundred yards away.
The two young men had hardly shared two words since Carla told them to go and check out the towers. Donnie had made some comment under his breath about who put her in charge, but only Evan heard it.
They walked along the fence, being aware of where the single vamp was. It sliced and clawed at the fence which rattled then scrambled upwards like a bug, until dropping back to the ground. The metal links held firm.
“Kinda feel sorry for it,” said Donnie.
“The only ones we should feel sorry for are ourselves,” said Evan as they approached the door at the base of one of the towers. “That thing isn’t human anymore, it doesn’t feel disappointment, or hope, it just knows it’s hungry.”
Donnie went to walk towards it with his own M4 rifle raised.
“No, leave it. The others will find it. We need to see what’s in these towers.”
Evan walked closer to the black door, and extended his hearing to beyond it. Donnie went to talk, but Evan held up his hand. Donnie frowned and turned away. The infected thing wanting to eat them was more interesting.
“Can’t hear anything moving around in there,” said Evan. He looked at the keypad entry system, took a few steps back then slammed into the otherwise secure-looking door which immediately broke from its frame and fell backwards.
Evan recovered his balance and walked into a room with banks of desks running along the wall and computers sitting atop them. There was a narrow single metal staircase as well as a cage on the wall with batons clamped inside it.
Donnie ran past Evan, pulled the cage open, and pulled one of the two-foot-long thick metal and rubber sticks from its clasp. He gripped tighter, and a charge of blue sparks leapt from the end. “Cool,” he said.
“Not sure they’re going to be any good against vamps. That’s probably why they’re still there. If a guard got close enough to use one, the vamp would have killed him anyway.”
Crackling filled the air once more. “Don’t care, it’s cool. I’m keeping it.”
Evan shook his head and started the trek up the reflective steps. Each impact causing a clanging to reverberate through the rest of the stairwell. He looked upwards, trying to see anything or anyone above him, but there were only more layers of mesh until it reached the top. He moved quicker and quicker and came out into the small room with three hundred and sixty degree glass windows within a few seconds.
Even with knowing how high the towers were the view still surprised him. He looked at the town to the southeast. From his vantage point he could see the entire camp and most of the fence which ran around it. He could see why Carla was so insistent on the inhabitants relocating to the prison. He also saw for the first time people moving amongst its streets. In the built up central area, small dots stopped and moved past each other as well as larger objects which he presumed were vehicles.
“Woah, you can see for miles,” said Donnie behind him. He banged the charge baton on the single desk then the back of a chair, playing in an imaginary band.
“So, you going back to your farm anytime soon?” said Evan, still looking out, but now towards the south which was a mixture of marshland and small groups of trees.
Donnie stopped and looked at the back of Evan’s head. “Not anytime soon, no. What’s it to you?”
Evan shrugged. “Just thought your parents would wonder where you are. I thought you were just getting supplies and heading back.”
“I’m
not going to ditch Joel and everyone else. This is where I need to be.” He started back down. “Let’s check out the other towers.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Holland stood at the base of a stone plinth. Above and behind him a piece of turn-of-the-century farming equipment, painted and clean, sat waiting for its master to return.
Ahead of him, in the town’s square were a few thousand people, most using those standing next to them as buffers against the strong wind.
Holland leaned over slightly to Amos while keeping his eyes on the crowd. “Read them for me, what do they know?” he whispered.
Amos didn’t need to focus his thoughts, he didn’t even really need to use his abilities at all, the doubt and fear were apparent on the faces ten yards in front of him. Still, he plucked some words and phrases from a few skulls regardless. “Some are concerned about being kicked out, others that there are vamps inside the fence already. None of them know about going to the prison.”
Holland nodded then stood upright. He raised his hands and a hush descended across the masses.
“Why we out here freezing our asses off!” shouted an elderly woman.
“I won’t keep you out here long,” shouted Holland. “I got some good news and I got some bad news…”
Conversations kicked off amongst the crowd, Holland waved his hands up and down once more.
“The bad news is that there’s something coming. Something which we won’t be able to keep out of town…”
A barrage of questions came at him.
“What’s coming?”
“Why won’t the fence stop it?”
“What are you going to do about it, eh?”
Amos sensed a number of people starting to make plans to leave.
Holland waved again. “The good news is that when it arrives here, we will be somewhere else. We are getting the prison—”
This time the shouts combined to a chorus. Holland slid a large revolver from the back of his pants and fired it off into the air. Everyone froze and the only noise was the northerly gusts.
