Degeneration

by Mark Campbell

  The smaller building outside the perimeter fence was the main entrance lobby and housed the administrative offices. It had ample windows, all of which were shattered.

  Behind him, infected started to emerge out from in-between the corn stalks and stagger after him, crossing the highway, moaning.

  He knew he had to be quick.

  He ran towards the entrance of the administration building, huffing.

  The infected that were snarled in the razorwire along the perimeter fence went into frenzy as Richard drew closer. They struggled intensely inside the ensnarled wire, snarling, desperately trying to go after their prey.

  Six empty military jeeps were haphazardly parked near the main lobby doors, causing him some apprehension. The glass doors were shattered. Dried blood speckled the cement steps leading up the lobby amongst numerous spent brass shells. Above the lobby entrance it read: ‘United States Department of Justice, Federal Penitentiary – Butner, NC’.

  “I’m coming, Andy,” he muttered tom himself, but his voice came out different, somehow.

  Richard ascended the steps and kicked open one of the shattered entrance doors.

  A mixed look of horror and aggravation washed across the officer’s face who was manning the main reception desk. The officer was wearing a dark blue blazer adorned with the Federal Bureau of Prison’s emblem, white shirt, grey slacks, and a maroon tie.

  Two large metal detectors and an x-ray machine stood next to the desk, similar to the security screening protocols at an airport. All staff members and visitors had to go through the rigorous screening ritual. It was all prison protocol to control contraband.

  “It’s him again,” the desk officer told the other officer manning the metal detector and x-ray machine.

  “I’ll call the operations lieutenant,” the other officer said, picking up the phone up off of the desk.

  The front lobby was full of visitors and screaming babies, a typical scene on visiting days.

  Richard rushed up to the desk, placed his hands on the counter, and smiled politely at the desk officer.

  “Hello,” Richard started, “I’m here to see my brother.”

  “Yes, yes… we know. We’ve done this song and dance before, remember? You’ve been trespassed from the property. You know you’re not allowed here. Why do you keep coming back? Are you off of your meds again?” the officer asked flatly. “If you don’t leave right now, we’ll have to forcibly remove you from the property, sir.”

  Richard’s smile flattened.

  “I’m here to see my brother,” Richard said. “You have to let me see my brother. Do your job and let me go see my brother!”

  “The lieutenant is on the way up,” the second officer said.

  “You need to leave,” the first officer told Richard. “Just do yourself a favor and leave. We’re not going through this every month. Your brother… pfftí,” the officer shook his head. “You know, most cons don’t want to go back to prison, but you just can’t stay away. I don’t get you.”

  The other visitors in the lobby stared in silence; even the children quieted to stare at the strange man.

  A smile slowly returned to Richard’s face.

  “How could I stay away when my brother is waiting for me?” Richard asked. “That’s okay. If you don’t want to let me though, I’ll just go let myself in. My brother is expecting me.”

  The desk officer rolled his eyes and let out an aggravated sigh.

  Richard turned and waltzed through the metal detectors that flanked the desk on both sides–

  BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP

  –and headed towards the secure sallyport that led to the inner secure confines of the institution. The sallyport was situated next to the institution’s main control room.

  Richard didn’t make it five steps before he was tackled to the ground by the two officers and handcuffed. He screamed in pain and fought with the officers, struggling to break free.

  Additional officers rushed to the scene.

  “Andy! ANDY!” Richard closed his eyes and yelled.

  Slowly, he stopped yelling and opened his eyes.

  The lobby was ransacked and peppered with bullet holes. The chairs in the waiting area were overturned and strewn everywhere. The overheard fluorescent lights were on, but most of them were flickering, creating an ominous ambiance. The reception desk was unmanned and had been reduced to splinters by heavy gunfire. Riot shields and batons lay on top of the desk, most of which were battle worn with blood-splatter.

  Seven handcuffed corpses in khaki inmate uniforms had been lined up against the wall and executed. Their rotting corpses reeked.

  Richard walked around the desk and passed through the metal detector–

  BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP

  He glanced down behind the desk and saw a bullet-riddled guard wearing riot gear.

  On the wall next to the desk, something was spray-painted on the wall in orange spray-paint:

  He walked towards the sallyport next to the control room. The sallyport doors had been pried open and the control room window had been shattered.

  Richard carefully peaked into the control room and saw two more guards wearing armor sprawled out on the floor, each shot in the forehead. Behind them, on the wall, another cryptic message was painted:

  All of the CCTV monitors in the control room were speckled with static and the electronic door controls were powerless.

  It reeked of death and decay.

  He stifled a cough and turned around as he heard the moaning infected approaching outside. They were shuffling up the steps towards the lobby.

  He knew he had to keep going.

  He ran through the breached sallyport doors and raced down the long narrow corridor into the institution. The corridor was dark and the air was thick with the same stench of decay that permutated the lobby. At the end, he found another sallyport. The sallyport’s iron doors had been cut off of their tracks.

  Richard stepped through the sallyport and found himself in a small atrium. On the left side of the atrium, a sliding door was labeled ‘Visiting Room’ and on the door on the right side was labeled ‘Main Corridor – To All Housing Units – No Visitors Beyond this Point’.

  The main corridor’ steel door was pried open and its electronic lock had been welded off.

  Richard cautiously slid the door aside and walked into the main corridor.

  The main corridor had been barricaded by numerous overturned tables, desks, and steel filing cabinets; evidence of somebody’s last stand against the besieging military. Normally, a barricade like that would make accessing the housing units difficult, but there was a secondary corridor to the right that ran the expanse of the entire penitentiary.

  The secondary corridor was normally used during emergency situations since it bypassed the main compound and had back-door access to all of the housing units. It was protected by a series of iron grilles that were controlled from the control room. Fortunately, as far as Richard could see, the iron grilles had all been cut through by a cutting torch and were forced open, providing a straight shot down the corridor.

  He knew that he could access each housing unit’s emergency exit by following the path.

  Unfortunately, he also knew that meant taking the long way. He would have to walk past the rear emergency exits of blocks ‘A’, ‘B’, and ‘C’. Then, he would have to follow the corridor through the education and recreation departments before looping around to the opposite side of the institution in order to reach blocks ‘D’, ‘E’, and finally ‘F’.

  His brother would be waiting in ‘F Block’, cell 22.

  “I’m coming,” Richard muttered.

  Richard made his way down the desolate concrete corridor, walking slowly, limping. The corridor lights overhead flickered and a few were out completely. The scene was so very surreal, the backdrop of nightmares.

  He passed the ‘A Block’ housing unit emergency exit sallyport. The door had been cut open and spray painted with the same
type of cryptic message he saw earlier:

  He had no reason to go inside. His brother was in ‘F Block’, so he continued onward past the ‘B Block’ housing unit emergency exit. Like the other unit, the doors had been cut open.

  The spray-painted message on the door read:

  Terror gripped him as he started to understand what the cryptic messages meant, what they were tallying. The realization of what they could possibly mean for his brother consumed him.

  Ignoring his burns and his aching body, he ran to the next housing unit, ‘C Block’, to confirm his suspicions. Like the others, the door locks had been burnt off and the door was slid halfway open. On the door it read:

  Richard slid the sallyport doors open and walked into the housing unit and immediately gagged on the stench of decay. The buzz of flies was almost deafening.

  The housing unit consisted of two tiers that wrapped around the expanse of the unit, each lined with cell doors. There was a staircase leading up to the upper tier on each side of the unit. An officer’s control station sat in the center of the unit, situated on a raised cement platform. The housing unit was running on emergency generator power and only a few of the overhead gymnasium-style halide bulbs were still on.

  The bullet-riddled corpses of a soldier wearing a white-suit and a prison guard wearing an ineffective N-95 paper mask lay in the middle of the housing unit.

  The pistol used to kill the soldier lay next to the guard.

  All of the cells were locked and the cell door’s narrow windows were peppered with bullet holes. An orange ‘X’ was spray-painted on each cell door.

  The prisoners, locked in their cells, had been systematically executed.

  Terror seized Richard as he realized that he may already be too late to save Andy.

  He ran towards the 9mm pistol and snatched it off of the ground.

  With fumbling hands, he checked the gun’s clip.

  It had ten rounds left.

  Working quickly, he patted the guard’s corpse down for additional clips but found nothing. Under normal circumstances, he knew the guards would never be issued guns inside the secure confines of an institution since, obviously, it caught the soldier by surprise. However, Richard knew that things stopped being ‘normal’ right about the time the dead started to walk and the military executed people with impunity.

  If Andy was still alive, he would have to hurry.

  Richard ran back into the corridor and froze, listening.

  He heard his shambling entourage as they made their way towards him from the far end of the corridor, following him, nearing ‘B Block’. They were persistent hunters; he had to give them that.

  Richard ran onward, darted through another breached security grille, turned the corner, and entered the education department annex.

  Doors leading to classrooms and workshops lined the right side of the annex. Each of the doors had an orange ‘X’ spray-painted on them. Bullet holes peppered the concrete walls and some of the overhead lights had been blown-out by gunfire. Brass shell casings littered the floor.

  The bullet-riddled corpses of two guards wearing heavy black tactical armor lay face down in the middle of the floor. The back of the armor read ‘S.O.R.T.’ in bold white lettering.

  Richard ran to the two corpses, sliding his pistol underneath his belt. He bent down and searched the corpses for extra ammo.

  Behind him, one of the classroom doors opened.

  Richard quickly spun around and drew his pistol, pointing it towards the opened door.

  A German shepherd limped out of the classroom. The dog’s coat was matted with dried blood and he held his left hind leg up close against his body; its injured leg was covered with bite marks. The dog wore a harness that read ‘S.O.R.T.’ and had a tattered leather leash attached to it. The dog stared at Richard, ears perked up.

  Richard sighted-in on the dog, finger on the trigger…

  The dog’s ears lowered as it whimpered and limped away in the direction that Richard had just came from, barely able to walk.

  Richard slowly lowered his pistol and relaxed.

  The dog let out a series of excoriating yelps and cries of pain as soon as it retreated around the corner. The dog’s cries were quickly drowned out by the loud moans of the infected.

  Richard hastily raised the pistol and backed away…

  One of the S.O.R.T. officers on the ground became aware of Richard’s presence and slowly stood up. He turned towards Richard and stared at him with dead eyes.

  The S.O.R.T. officer lunged at Richard, groaning, arms extended.

  Rather than wasting ammunition, he jumped back a few feet.

  The S.O.R.T. officer fell down on his face and his helmet rolled off of his head. He slowly started to rise again, moaning…

  Infected started to emerge from around the corner and shamble towards Richard. They had fresh blood and dog hair smeared across their faces.

  Richard turned and ran.

  He bolted past the vacant classrooms and entered the recreation annex.

  The windows on the right side of the wall looked into the weight rooms, craft rooms, and the indoor basketball court; every window was shattered and the gym doors were chained shut.

  Corpses bound in clear plastic and wrapped in masking tape were stacked high in the middle of the gymnasium. Some of the wrapped bodies were moving, trying to wriggle free from the plastic. The amateurish scene was evidence that the prison staff was trying to contain things their own way before the military intervened.

  He turned the corner and ran through yet another set of security doors that had been defeated by a cutting torch and forced open.

  He was now on the opposite side of the prison.

  “I’m almost there, Andy,” Richard said.

  He ran past ‘D Block’ and threw a passing glance; the sallyport doors were forced open and another tally was spray-painted on the doors:

  As he approached ‘E Block’, he noticed that the polished concrete floors of the corridor were splotched with large pools of blood. The gory scene was not at all reminiscent of the almost surgical precision strike he saw on the opposite side of the institution.

  Something went wrong for the marauders.

  He reached ‘E Block’ and was forced to stop.

  The security grille was still intact and the lock hadn’t been torched off.

  He looked at ‘E Block’s sallyport and saw, like the other units, it had been cut open, but the spray-painted message was different:

  Orange spray-paint had dribbled down the wall and pooled on the floor, mingling with the blood and spent brass. It left him with an uneasy feeling, but he had more pressing concerns at the moment.

  In order to get to ‘F Block’, and his brother, he first had to get past the locked security grille.

  Behind him, he heard the moans of the infected as they approached, slowly gaining ground, lurching forward.

  Richard slid the pistol underneath his belt and grabbed the grille with both hands. He groaned and strained as he tried to slide it open, even while in his weak state.

  It was no use.

  It was locked tight and wouldn’t give an inch.

  He knew that he needed the torch that the military’s execution team was using.

  He had an idea on where to find it.

  Outside, he heard a helicopter approach overhead.

  40

  Richard slid the ‘E Block’ sliding door open. With its lock torched off, it slid effortlessly along the track.

  The corpse of a white-suit that was slumped against the door collapsed backwards out into the corridor at Richard’s feet.

  The white-suit’s abdomen had been eviscerated and his lower extremities had been practically gnawed down to the bone. A burst of automatic gunfire through his shattered mirrored facemask had been his only salvation. In his left hand he held an orange spray-paint can and in his right hand he held a Heckler & Koch MP5 SMG.

  The paint can rolled from out from his dead grasp out
into the middle of the corridor.

  Richard slid the pistol under his belt and pulled the MP5 out of the corpse’s hand. Stepping over the sprawled corpse, he entered the housing unit, nearly choking on the coppery stench of blood mingled with the overpowering stench of decay.

  Half of the cells were wide-open; the housing unit guard never managed to lock down the entire unit in time during the initial outbreak and the besieging military got more than they expected when they cut their way into the tomb.

  Countless mutilated body parts were strewn throughout the unit amongst tattered bloodied piles of clothes. Inmates wearing khaki uniforms shuffled aimlessly throughout the unit, mouths caked with gore. The inmates swiped at each other and bit chunks of flesh off one another. Their stomachs were grotesquely bloated and many of them were missing entire appendages. A few of the inmates crawled across the floor with their hands, devouring their fallen comrades that no longer had any appendages to drag themselves away with.

  Four guards, each badly mutilated by bites, shuffled amongst the inmates. A few scattered white-suits, the few that were still able to walk, shuffled amongst the walking dead, moaning behind their mirrored facemasks; their MP5s slung at their side.

  It was a horrific scene; the entire housing unit’s population gorged on itself as it paced back-and-forth.

  All of the walking corpses stopped and stared at Richard as he entered the unit. Moaning, they slowly advanced towards him, staring at him with their soulless eyes and blank expressions.

  In the center of the unit, near the bloodied, tattered remains of a white-suit, Richard spotted the small cutting torch.

  The inmates continued to shamble towards him from all sides, their bellies bloated and their arms extended.

  Richard aimed the MP5 into the crowd and opened fire, sweeping the weapon side-to-side, screaming.

  The automatic gunfire tore through the encroaching horde, rupturing their bloated stomachs and sending pools of acidic bile and half-digested human remains onto the floor. A few collapsed as an errant round struck through their head, but the rest simply continued to push forward towards Richard, unmindful of their wounds.