Resistance (Book 1): Juvenile

by Perrin Briar

  “What?” Dana said. “What is it?”

  Janice turned her left hand over, revealing a small semicircle on her index finger. It was red raw.

  “Coincidences run in twos,” Janice said. “My baby. He developed a fever, so I took him to the hospital. He got worse. He bit me. The nurses weren’t doing a thing to help him, to my eyes. That’s why I got into a fight with them.”

  “If we’re comparing war wounds, I might as well throw mine into the ring too,” Sharon said.

  She pulled back her hair to show the base of her neck. This wound didn’t have any dressing covering it and was red raw, clearly recent.

  “Twenty minutes ago,” Sharon said.

  “I thought the crazy bitch didn’t bite you?” Dana said.

  “She didn’t that time,” Sharon said. “But she did when she first ran at us. It’s not a big injury. Just a scratch, really.”

  It looked more serious than just a scratch to Dana, but she didn’t say anything. She liked having friends here.

  Screams. From down the corridor leading to the police station’s main building.

  The inmates turned their heads to listen. It turned silent. Screams were not uncommon in a police station. There were always those resisting arrest, drunks out to cause problems. A police station rarely attracted people from the upper echelons of society—at least not where they could be seen.

  Gunshots.

  Now, that wasn’t such a common sound in a police station. The prisoners shifted their weight and got to their feet. They crowded around the holding cell’s bars.

  “What’s going on?” Sharon said. “What’s with the shooting?”

  “I’ll go check it out,” the officer on duty said.

  “Shouldn’t you let us out before wandering off?” Janice said.

  “You wish,” the officer on duty said.

  Janice shrugged.

  “Worth a try,” she said to Dana.

  The officer on duty approached the door that led to the rest of the station and peered through the round window. Seeing nothing of interest, she pushed the door open and stepped into the corridor. The lawyer was left with the prisoners.

  More gunshots, punctuated with yells. These were hastily answered with enthusiastic explosions.

  “Something’s coming,” Janice said. “We need to get out of here.”

  “How?” Sharon said. “The guard took the only keys.”

  “You can let us out,” Janice said to the lawyer. “Please. If something comes at us like what happened today, we won’t stand a chance. Let us out.”

  The lawyer drew herself up.

  “I’m a United States lawyer,” she said. “I can’t just go about letting prisoners out.”

  Gunshots and screams echoed up the corridor, inhuman growls a bass line underneath it all. It was something Dana had heard twice now. Once in the throat of Darren, and then from the crazy woman. There were more of them this time.

  The blood drained from the lawyer’s face. She took a step back and clutched her briefcase close.

  “Let us out, please,” Janice said.

  “I can’t,” the lawyer said. “The police will handle it. How could I anyway? I don’t have the key.”

  “You don’t need a key,” Sharon said. “You can press that button behind you. The big red one. It’s an emergency override, in case there’s a fire or an emergency. Like the End of Days.”

  The lawyer shook her head.

  “If I press it, I’ll end up in here with you,” she said. “I’ll lose my license. Everything.”

  “Ma’am, I have a great deal of respect for you and your profession,” Sharon said, “and believe me, I wouldn’t be asking this if it wasn’t necessary, but we need to get out of this cage or we’re all going to die. You don’t want that on your conscience. Trust me.”

  The lawyer backed away farther, eyes shifting between the prisoners and the corridor.

  “Please,” her client said.

  “I… I…” the lawyer said.

  “No!” a voice screamed from the corridor. “No! No! No! No! Please!”

  A drawn-out scream direct from a nightmare followed on the heels of the pleading cries. It stirred the lawyer into slow action. She leaned over and lifted the plastic covering on the button.

  The inmates watched with bated breath.

  The lawyer raised a finger.

  And then she hesitated.

  “I can’t,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Just press it!” the lawyer’s client said. “Tell them I made you do it! Just press it, for Christ’s sake!”

  But the lawyer had an obstinate look to her jaw. Dana recognized it from when Max had made up her mind about something. There was no changing her mind once she had that look. She wasn’t going to press the button.

  The lawyer turned on her heel and put her hand to the door. She stopped, looked over her shoulder. Her mouth jittered with pregnant words.

  “I’m sorry,” she finally said.

  “You will be when I get out of here,” the lawyer’s client said.

  The lawyer pushed through the doors.

  “Bitch,” the lawyer’s client said. “She never did once get me out of prison.”

  “Now what do we do?” one of the other inmates said. “They’re going to get in here and they’re going to kill us!”

  “Calm down,” Janice said. “There’ll be a way out of here.”

  “How?” the lawyer’s client said. “We don’t have the keys, and this cell doesn’t have the kind of lock you can pick.”

  “Then we need to figure out a way to hit that button,” Dana said.

  “What button?” the lawyer’s client said.

  Some of the faster inmates were already looking at the big red button on the dashboard. It was exposed and begging to be pushed.

  “The lawyer did half the job,” Sharon said. “We’ll just have to finish it off ourselves.”

  “Take off your shoes,” Dana said. “Anything we can throw.”

  They took their shoes and other items off. The police had confiscated most of their personal items. They bent down and picked up an item each and turned their backs to the bars.

  “One of us should throw,” Dana said.

  “We’ll have more chance if we all throw at once,” Janice said.

  “No, we won’t,” Dana said. “Either we all have one throw, or one of us will have a dozen throws, improving each time.”

  “She’s right,” Sharon said. “If we all throw at once, we could all miss. If one of us throws, she can improve her aim and get better.”

  “Then who gets to throw?” Janice said.

  “Me,” Dana said.

  “Why you?” the lawyer’s client said.

  “When I was eight I broke a vase in the front room,” Dana said. “My father beat me so bad he dislocated both my arms. Since then I’ve always been able to pop them in and out whenever I want.”

  “What’s the good of that?” the lawyer’s client said.

  “Use your noodle, will you?” Sharon said. “It means she can look where she’s throwing. Unlike the rest of us, who have to turn our backs. Go on, girl. Do it.”

  Dana moved to a space along the back wall, closed her eyes, and took deep breaths. It was important for her to relax her muscles. She began to raise her arms up behind her. She could only get so far. She took a deep breath.

  This was going to hurt.

  She loosened her shoulder muscles as much as she could and then ran backwards, slamming her arms against the wall.

  The sound was revolting, like pulling off a chicken’s leg. Dana grunted with the pain. The bite on her arm flared like it was on fire. Black circles danced in her vision.

  Her hands were over her head now. She lowered them in front of herself. Her arms instinctively popped back into place. She could feel her left arm was fine, but her right arm was still partially dislocated. She turned and slammed her shoulder against the wall. It popped back in.

  Thank
s, Pop, Dana thought. It was the first time she’d been grateful he’d been such a bastard.

  “That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen,” Janice said. “I’m going to be sick.”

  “I think I’m in love,” Sharon said.

  Shrieks echoed up the corridor. The inmates shared frozen masks of horror. They needed to hurry.

  Dana moved to the holding cell’s barred front wall. She picked up one of the shoes—a cheap Chinese knockoff. She held it through the bars and measured the distance between herself and the computer console. It must have been a good three yards. The button was not large. It was going to be difficult.

  Dana weighed the shoe in her hand, judged the distance again, swayed the shoe with some practice swings, and then let go.

  She knew it was too weak and wasn’t going to make it before she even let go. It sailed through the air, struck the terminal, and then fell to the floor.

  “Shit!” the lawyer’s client said.

  “It’s all right,” Sharon said. “Have another go.”

  Dana took the other shoe. It was the same brand and weighed the same. Dana performed her warm-up ritual again, and then tossed the shoe. It rose, hit its peak, and then arched down onto the terminal and…

  Struck a button. But not their button.

  The news on the TV switched off and was replaced by CCTV footage from somewhere in the police station. The image was grey scale but sharp.

  The inmates gasped.

  On it they could see a police officer crouched behind his desk. Lurching figures stood in the background, looking this way and that. The officer did not move. The figures shuffled between the cubicles in random directions. One stumbled onto the hiding figure and fell upon him.

  Half the inmates turned away. The other half slapped hands over their mouths and watched as the lumbering figures tore the man apart. The man’s dying death throes echoed down the corridor, a delay in the image they were watching on screen.

  Dana took hold of another shoe. This one a sandal. It was lighter than the previous pair. She took that into account as she judged the distance. She tossed it.

  It flipped end over end, bounced off the back wall, and fell on the big red button.

  The inmates held their breath. The doors didn’t move. The red light of the button was still on, buzzing.

  “What’s happening?” the lawyer’s client said. “Why haven’t the doors opened?”

  “The sandal isn’t heavy enough,” Janice said.

  “Let me have a go!” the lawyer’s client said, shouldering a couple of the other inmates aside. “I don’t know what we’re trusting a girl for! She doesn’t know what she’s doing!”

  Janice and Sharon blocked the lawyer’s client from Dana and the few remaining tossable objects.

  “She’s got the hang of it now,” Sharon said. “She’ll be doing the throwing. And if any of you have an issue with that, you can take it up with my associate here.”

  Janice rolled her neck, making it pop. She was a big woman with a broken nose and scarred knuckles. The inmates shuffled their feet.

  “Go on, love,” Sharon said to Dana.

  “Oh my God!” the lawyer’s client said. “They’re coming! They’re coming this way!”

  She was right.

  On the screen, a small gang of lumbering figures turned and headed down the corridor—toward their location. The image shifted. The cameras must have had a motion sensor, automatically shifting to wherever there was movement.

  Armed police stood around a corner, pistols in hand. They peered around the wall and saw the stumbling figures coming. The police stepped out into the corridor, took aim, and fired.

  “Yes,” Janice said. “Go on, you pigs. First time I ever supported a police shooting.”

  The limping figures took the bullets, chunks of their shoulders and arms jerking back like they were performing some kind of modern dance. They shifted their weight and continued to pressed forward.

  “They’re not stopping them,” the lawyer’s client said. “They’re pumping them full of lead and it’s not stopping them!”

  But some of the shambling figures were falling, hitting the floor, pools of thick blood evacuating their hosts. The police reloaded and fired again, gunshots like party poppers from their distant holding cell.

  Dana picked up a thick black boot. It was heavy and would depress the button with ease. With the others distracted, she felt the weight of expectation lift from her shoulders. She judged the distance again, ran through her process, and tossed the boot.

  It arced, reached its apex, and fell. Dana felt good about this one. It smacked the terminal, making a loud thud before rolling over the side and onto the floor.

  The button was depressed, its red light off.

  There was a loud grunt from a computer system somewhere, sounding like it didn’t want to do the action it’d been told to carry out. An orange light flashed above the door, spinning around its axis. Dana stood back.

  The doors jolted an inch, and then smoothly slid back from its restraints. Dana squeezed through the gap and out of the holding pen before the doors were even fully open. The rest of the inmates did likewise.

  Screams down the corridor. The gunfire was sporadic and random. The screeches were getting louder, like they were right outside the door.

  “There’s no other way out of here,” Janice said. “We have to go through the doors.”

  “Wait,” Dana said, turning to the monitors. “We should wait till the police need to reload, otherwise they might shoot us by accident.”

  “Babe, we’re escaped prisoners,” Janice said. “There’s going to be no accident about it. They will try to shoot us every bit as much as they will those things out there.”

  “But why?” Dana said.

  “It is the way it is,” Janice said.

  They knew the police would be there waiting for them, knew the lurching figures would be just beyond them. The inmates pushed through the doors and into the corridor.

  The police heard the doors bang open, their eyes and mouths widening with surprise. Ingrained protocol took over. They turned to aim their pistols at the escaping prisoners.

  “Freeze!” one of the armed officers said.

  Like earlier, with the fox in the henhouse mentality, Dana knew there was no way they were all going to freeze, and if they didn’t all freeze, then none of them should. But that’s not how panic worked.

  The smart thing would have been for them to freeze and let the officers have to turn and deal with the encroaching creatures, picking the opportune moment to make a break for it. But people in a panic do not think, and so they surged forward. Except Dana.

  She held out her arms, stopping Sharon and Janice from proceeding forward and joining the rush.

  “I said freeze!” the officer bellowed.

  He opened fire, aiming low, at the escaping prisoners’ legs. He would aim for those in front, Dana knew. It was common sense. You didn’t want to risk losing those in front, especially when they could fall and stop the others from escaping too. And they were much easier targets than the creatures because they reacted the way humans were supposed to.

  A pair of inmates screamed and fell, clutching their legs.

  “We’ve got to get out of here!” Janice said.

  “No,” Dana said. “Wait.”

  Why Janice listened to a girl less than half her age, Dana didn’t know. But she did.

  The officer had managed to incapacitate two of the prisoners. A further two had slipped past. Pure luck. The officer reloaded and took aim.

  “Come out!” the officer said.

  They daren’t wait too long, Dana thought, for fear the crazy creatures would pen them in.

  “Promise not to fire?” Dana said.

  Her voice was calm, rock steady.

  “We’re unarmed,” she said.

  “Just come out,” the officer said.

  Dana held up her hands slowly in a sign of surrender.

  �
��Into the firing line?” Janice said. “Are you crazy?”

  “Ask the ones who got shot already,” Dana said.

  She stepped into the corridor. Sharon and Janice shared a look and did likewise.

  Something registered on the officer’s face. He was distraught, stressed, but he recognized the gesture of body language. The police station had suffered an assault at the hands of some of the strangest creatures he’d ever seen.

  Creatures who, no matter how many bullets he put into them, would not stay down. He would follow protocol, Dana thought. He would cling to what he knew, what he’d been taught. It was his safety line.

  But in his blindness he did not notice the popping of gunfire behind him had ceased. He was in a time and space he was in control of. His consciousness wasn’t keen to let that go.

  Not until one of the creatures buried his teeth into his neck.

  The police officer screamed and half-turned to face his aggressor. His trigger finger tensed and let off a round. Dana ducked. Janice and Sharon grabbed her and pulled her forward, down the corridor.

  “Wait!” an injured inmate on the floor said. It was the lawyer’s client. “Take me with you! We’ve all got to stick together!”

  But there was no time.

  Another pair of creatures bit into the police officer’s body. Red patches spread across his clothes like ink on filter paper. He sank beneath the frenzy, his trigger finger firing off in his panic.

  Sharon and Janice formed up on either side of Dana.

  “Stick with us,” Sharon said. “We’ll look after you.”

  “Don’t you mean the other way round?” Janice said.

  Sharon shorted.

  “Ain’t that the truth,” she said.

  Chapter Ten

  DANA, JANICE and Sharon hustled down the rabbit warren-like corridors. The floors had scuff marks from where felons had resisted arrest. Portraits of cops in full dress uniforms killed in the line of duty hung from the walls. They were about to get a lot more company.

  The offices would normally have been buzzing and alive with activity, but now they were silent and dead as the grave. Paperwork stood piled on desks, probably never to be completed.

  Sharon and Janice had been in the station many times but had never explored the everyday working offices before. They made turn after turn but couldn’t seem to locate the exit.