She had to tell Jessie. If only because she wouldn’t stop asking until Mercedes broke. She started to say something, and then clamped her mouth shut.
“Damn it, Sadie, what’s going on?”
Mercedes held up her hands and said, “You won’t believe me anyway.”
“Try me.”
Mercedes sighed. “They’re zombies,” she mumbled. No way for Jessie to hear over the music.
“What?”
“Zombies,” she mumbled again.
“Jesus, I feel like I’m dealing with a five year old. What the fuck are you saying?”
“Zombies! There are fucking zombies outside, killing everyone. The guards call them creepers. Chris must have let some in and now…”
Jessie stared at her. A single tear rolled down one cheek.
“Now he’s feeding prisoners to them,” Mercedes finished.
Twenty-Five
Alexander Pope couldn’t take it anymore. Chris had just opened two cells on the ground floor, one on the second and two on the third. One of the cells had held two creepers. How the hell had he gotten them into cells? When? He had only been back a few hours. And Pope was sure he had been locked up in his office for most of that time. It didn’t make any sense.
He decided it didn’t matter. There weren’t any on the top level – fourth floor. And if he could get there, he could pass through the final gate and be at the steps to the control room. Then what would he do?
He didn’t know. He figured it would come to him.
He opened the gate and mounted the stairs to the gate that lead to the platform on the second floor. Opened it and crossed the platform. Not bothering to close or lock either of the gates he had passed through. Opened the next and went up to the third floor. Repeated the motion and started up the steps to the fourth floor. So close now. His heart racing.
He got to the last two gates. Fumbled with the keys and dropped them. Bent down and picked them up. Put the key in the lock and heard a crash above him.
He looked up and saw Phil latched on to the chain link roof of the stairs.
“Hey Pope,” Phil said, and then started climbing.
Twenty-Six
Phil stepped over the railing and held on tight with his hands behind him. Looked down at the stairs and sighed. He could see someone running up them. Not a creeper. He was using keys to open each gate.
Took a deep breath and pushed himself off.
Rotated in the air so he was now facing the stairs. Hit them and bounced a bit. Got his right hand to catch and followed it with his left. Looked down and saw Pope staring up at him.
“Hey Pope,” he said and went up. Climbing at a forty-five degree angle. He got to the top, curled his fingers around the edge and flipped down onto the stars, three steps from the gate.
“That was fun,” he said. Behind him, the gate opened in and Pope walked up next to him.
“What the fuck were you doing?” Pope asked him.
Phil looked at him, and then scoffed. “We can’t all take the easy way,” he said. “Come on.”
Twenty-Seven
Brooks got to the lock at D-Block and peered through.
“Holy shit,” he said.
“You can say that again,” Marshall told him.
“Holy shit,” Brooks said again.
D-Block was crawling with creepers. There had to be twenty or more. And they weren’t just milling around, stumbling into each other. They were attacking anything they could find: prisoners behind bars, guards behind glass or bars, each other, anything that moved.
“We’re not getting through that,” Brooks said.
“What if we’re armed?” Maurice asked him. “We can get some rifles and sweep it out now, before it gets worse.”
Brooks thought about it. It made sense to do it now. If Chris let too many more go they’d never be able to contain it. But that meant dealing with Chris, and Bowers said he wanted him alive and well. Anyone else that needed to suffer, they suffered, but Chris survived.
The music stopped and Chris came back on:
“It saddens me to say this, but we’re coming to the end of our program. It’s been fun, and will continue to be, but we’re running out of time. And so, with great fan fair, I announce the lightning round. Everyone on ground floor, your time has run out…”
Brooks, Marshall, and Maurice watched as every cell on the ground floor began to open. They could see – through the darkness – hands wrapped around bars, trying to stop the doors from moving.
It wasn’t working.
It seemed some of the cells were already filled with creepers. Brooks guessed some of them had been bitten through the bars. All it would take was a fatal wound and there you had it: not one, but two creepers. The infected person would turn, and then attack his cell mate, who would turn.
In a rush, Brooks understood everything. How it had happened. Where it was going. How it would end – best case scenario, and worst. Most of all, he understood that there was only one way Chris could have gotten the creepers in in the first place: he had made them.
“Shit,” Brooks said.
“What?”
“It just got worse. A lot worse.”
Twenty-Eight
Chris tried to think, but it was getting harder. The voice had all but taken over now. Chris hadn’t spoken a word for… he didn’t how long. He was being pressed down. Into darkness. He could only hear faint sounds, like he had been submerged in water and someone was speaking on shore. It sounded like his voice. But he couldn’t be sure.
He tried to decide if he had done everything the voice had instructed, the way he had instructed. He thought he had.
He now had two turned on the fourth floor. Four on the third. Ten on the second, and about eighty on the ground floor. Assuming everyone would turn, and they would. There was no way even sixty prisoners could overpower twenty creepers without anyone getting infected. It was a numbers game, the voice had assured him.
And, if the voice had been right about what would happen next, the other prisoners would be trapped. The creepers inside would have food.
For a while.
“Long enough,” he said, but no sound came out.
Strange.
But there was something he was supposed to do. Something very, very important. He couldn’t remember what it was. But he should be doing it right now.
What was it?
Oh, he remembered. The syringe. Now, how did that thing work? He was supposed to push this button. The needle popped out. Clever, he thought.
It was supposed to go into his heart. A direct adrenaline shot to the heart. That was supposed to make his heart beat faster, which would pump a last shot of oxygen to his brain. Stop the deprivation.
Perfect.
He smiled. Curled his fingers around the syringe, his thumb on the plunger and held it out. He was so tired. Everything was so black and cold. He brought the syringe back in a stab, pressing the plunger down as it struck.
Twenty-Nine
Warden Bowers knocked back another shot of scotch and burped. Wiped his chin with the back of his hand.
Pressed a key on his computer and brought up the surveillance feed from outside:
Creepers pressing against the fence. Flashes of machine gun fire as they were cut down. Dozens of them. More tonight than the night before. More every single night, he thought.
He typed a few keys and the picture changed, now a feed from D-Block:
Creepers, dozens of them. A frenzied mass. Pulling prisoners from cells and tearing into them. The ground floor was a total loss. There was no way anyone was making it out of there alive.
And what about Chris?
He let the thought linger as he poured another finger of scotch into his glass and tossed it down his throat.
“Hell,” Bowers said, “he’s never been much of a son anyway.”
Mama’s boy, he thought, even took the bitch’s name. Didn’t want to be Chris Bowers anymore. Not good enough. Sure, it was okay for his old man to
get him a job. Of course, he ran around the prison like it was his own personal playground. But continue on his father’s name – never.
“Fuck him,” Bowers swore. Poured another shot and took it.
But he couldn’t just write him off. Blood was blood. And just because everyone else was having their loved ones turned into the undead, didn’t mean Bowers had to go through it.
But… Jesus, he’d let creepers in! He let fucking zombies walk right in the door. Or something similar. How had he even gotten them inside in the first place? Bowers wondered. He looked back at the screen, studying it. Everyone was dead now. Bodies littering the concrete floor in every stage of gore. Creepers kneeled or sitting or standing, all eating.
Then there was movement from one of the corpses. A hand. It moved out, and pressed against the floor. The arm pushed and the body rose. Then there was more. More getting up. More and more. Like sprouts shooting from fresh soil, they all rose.
And turned.
And made for the lock.
Thirty
“Get tear gas in that fucking block,” Brooks ordered over the music. Chris hadn’t been on the PA for ten minutes. Just the music now, blaring down. Causing everyone’s nerves to fray. It was worse now, with a wall of creepers pressing against the bars.
“You really think that’ll do any good?” Marshall asked him.
“It couldn’t fucking hurt anything.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Maurice told him. “We need a plan. This isn’t crowd control anymore. We have to kill them, not make them cry.”
“And you’d know what?”
“He made the bite-suit-flame-thrower deal,” Marshall said. “Let him talk.”
“I highly doubt the Warden’s going to let us use dynamite, flame throwers or any other damn thing that could harm the rest of the prisoners or the guards. You think he wants to take the whole prison down?”
“What about flash bangs?” Maurice asked. “We throw one in, it goes up, they’ll all go to the sound. Then we mow them down. The survivors will go for the gunfire – we throw another flash bang.”
Brooks thought about that.
“See,” Marshall said. “The guy’s fucking smart.”
“Or,” Maurice continued, “could we at least start by getting the lights back on? If we had the lights on, they’d be blind, right? That’s what you guys said.”
“Lights would be run out of the control room. Which we assume Chris now owns…”
“Who we’re trying to protect,” Marshall sneered.
Brooks ignored him.
“Wouldn’t the Warden be able to control them from his office, too?” Maurice asked.
Brooks nodded. “What did you do,” he asked Maurice, “before this?”
“I was an engineer.”
Brooks nodded again. “I bet you were a good one.”
“Thanks.” Maurice looked between the two men. “So,” he said after a moment, “the lights?”
Thirty-One
Erin sat up as the lights came back on. “That’s new,” he said.
“Guess they figured we weren’t sleeping, anyway.”
Erin nodded. “Or, the creepers are nocturnal,” he said.
Tall Bill nodded back, sitting with his back to the bars. “Funny how long it took them to remember that.”
“Funny wasn’t the word I was thinking.” Erin hopped off the bed and went to the bars, standing next to where Bill was sitting. Looked out, trying to see down the long hall. “I expect they’ll be fighting back now,” he said.
Bill nodded again. “That’s good, before he made it all the way to us.”
“Takes time to organize. When something like this happens, no one knows what the hell to do.”
“When’s the last time something like this happened?”
Erin shrugged. “Think about Nine-Eleven. How long was it before anyone knew what the fuck was going on? Long enough for them to crash three planes. Or even the outbreak. Okay, so you saw how many people were at those fences, right?”
Bill shrugged.
“So, think about all the people in the world. All of them trying to figure out what to do, and suddenly there’s zombies everywhere. Cops, soldiers, fire fighters, boxers, WWF – all those guys. Anyone could have maybe saved themselves and their families, yet almost no one did. Warden said they were bringing two buses of people back from town. Two buses. Out of all the people in town.”
“Sure.”
“That’s all that were clear thinking enough to survive.”
“This good ol’ boy shit, where you defend the guards and the Warden is really starting to get old,” Bill told him, and yawned for effect.
“I’m just saying: now we’ll see the fireworks.”
“Which reminds me,” Bill said, “what ever happened to Chris’ grand finale?”
Thirty-Two
Phil paused when the lights came back on. Looked at Pope. Pope shrugged. Phil took a step further. He didn’t know what he was going to find when he walked into the control room. And the fact that he was completely unarmed had occurred to him – too late, of course – and it was making him uncharacteristically nervous.
Was Chris going to be sitting in the corner with a machine gun pointed at the door? Phil wouldn’t put it past the little prick.
He looked at Pope again. The two of them could handle Chris no problem, he decided. Besides, Phil was going to enjoy kicking the shit out Chris.
Again.
He took another step and made it one down from the platform. Stopped, took a deep breath, and went up. Hit the platform and ran across it, slamming against the wall next to the door. His back to the wall. Waiting for Pope to do the same. He did. They looked at each other, and then stepped into the control room together.
The music was just as loud in the control room as outside. But, now that the lights were on in the block, the room seemed cold with the darkness. Against the far wall, hunched over the desk, a TV screen in front of him flickering with snow, sat Chris.
Phil and Pope approached cautiously. Pope went to the right. Phil the left. Walking slowly. As quietly as possible despite the throbbing music.
“Chris,” Pope said, his voice just a whisper, lost in the noise.
“Chris,” he tried again. “You alright?”
Phil got closer. Pope did as well. Chris didn’t move. Didn’t respond.
“Chris,” Pope said, louder now, shouting. “You alright?”
They each took a step closer.
“Hey, asshole,” Phil yelled. “You’re pissing everyone off, man.”
Chris didn’t respond.
Phil came up next to him. Chris motionless over the PA’s microphone. Phil reached for it, Pope made a sound like a gasp, and Phil stopped. Looked at him to make sure nothing was wrong. Pope’s eyes wide. Unsure.
Phil continued to reach out. Touched the iPod and unplugged it. The music stopped immediately. Phil jumped back. Ready. Waiting for Chris to react.
Chris didn’t move.
Pope leaned forward and looked at him, squinting. “I think he’s dead,” he said.
Phil shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he told Pope. “Who killed him? I beat his ass, man, but he ran away after that.”
“Could’ve been internal bleeding or something. Maybe it set him off and then he hemorrhaged to death.”
Phil didn’t buy it. He stayed alert. Watching Chris. Pope leaned further forward, studying him. Then he sighed and said, “Well, shit, that was anti-climactic.”
Phil relaxed a fraction of a hair. Then, in a burst of rapid movement, Chris was up, out of his chair, and on Pope, ripping his face off.
Thirty-Three
Brooks took another handful of flash bangs from Marshall and set them next to the gate. They would need them close, but couldn’t carry all of them. Maurice, Marshall, and Brooks would carry four each – two in each pocket – and Harper would lob one every few seconds from just beyond the gate. Tossing it over the crowd a
nd praying he didn’t hit one of the guards.
“Where the hell is Marshall?” Brooks shouted over the music.
Two seconds later Marshall walked up with another box of full magazines. “It’s a long walk from the armory,” he explained.
Brooks nodded and slapped a clip in his AK. Jacked a shell in and then set it down. Pulling out magazines and stuffing them in his side pockets. Maurice did the same. Though he had told Brooks he had never fired a gun, he expressed immediate admiration for the design of the Aptomov Kalashnikov 1947.
“Simple. Deadly. Rugged,” he had said. “Perfect for the job.”
Harper took up his post next to Marshall and Brooks, Maurice behind the two armed guards. They would go in the same way. Marshall and Brooks side by side. Maurice behind. Harper staying right where he was standing. Another guard, Brad Quinn, would operate the lock.
Brad was the only one Brooks was worried about.
Scratch that. He was worried about Brad running the lock because Brad was a rookie, and under pressure he might just close the fucker and strand them. But Brooks was also deathly worried about Harper. If shit went wrong, he realized, Harper would probably order the young bastard to close the lock.
“We ready?” Marshall asked him.
Brooks nodded. Sighed. Motioned to Harper, who waved to Brad to open the gate.
Brad reached forward.
The music stopped.
Brad’s hand stayed there, frozen in time.
Everyone looked around. Brooks cocked his head. “Now what?” he asked.
They waited. Waited for Chris to come back on and announce the latest victim. Waited for a minute. Then two. Brooks was trying to figure out the game. There had to be an angle. What was Chris up to?
Brooks looked at Marshall, who shrugged. Then Harper. Then back at the lock. Beyond it, creepers were pressing harder against the gate. The mass getting denser as they tried for the only living flesh left within reach.
Outpost Season One Page 29
