They had noticed the smell before they descended the stairs and Scratch called to the zombies as they clicked on their flashlights. They readied themselves, rifles shouldered, waiting.
None of the lifeless came keening for them but they could smell the decay of the dead. They were going to find prisoners trapped in their cells. Gunny lowered his rifle.
“Do we even want to go down there?” Stabby said. “We can leave it for the cleanup crew.”
They all looked to Gunny, the same look of sad dread on their faces. What a way to go, dying of thirst or starvation because you chose the wrong night to have one too many at the bar or get arrested for outstanding parking tickets or something. The biggest crime in a town like this was probably littering.
“Might be a survivor.” He said. “Or some crawler with its throat ripped out. We can’t chance someone getting bit because we got lazy.”
They pulled their shemaghs and bandannas over their noses then started down the steps, still being careful and watching out for a silent creeper waiting to take a bite out of them. Half way down, their light beams darting, they heard someone speaking angrily… or probably urgently, to the other prisoners.
“Hey!” a single voice croaked out in the dark but was quickly joined by a few more. “Help! Get us out!”
The Lakota County Detention Center was laid out in a single long hallway, concrete block walls fronted by steel bars down both sides. On the left was the temporary holding cells for people who were only going to be there for a few hours or maybe overnight. They were just cages with a drain in the floor for easy cleanup and a bunk bolted to the wall. The drunk tanks, as they’re called, and not a lot of taxpayer money went into them to make them comfortable. The cells on the right were for longer-term prisoners. People awaiting trial who couldn’t post bond or those sentenced to thirty days by the judge. The smell was coming from the first cell on the left. There were two men in it, lying on the bunks, their clothes stained with corrupting liquids that had seeped out of their bloating bodies. Clouds of flies buzzed around them.
Everyone else seemed to be alive, hanging weakly onto the bars and waving at them, pleading to be released.
Gunny was surprised there were so many people locked up but remembered this was the county jail, not just the local jug for some small town.
“Hold on, Fella’s.” He said. “We’ll have you out in a minute. Any idea where they keep the keys?”
The general consensus was “upstairs” so he sent the boys back up to search for them while he and Griz reassured them everything was fine, they’d get them out soon and all the zombies in the building were dead. The men were weak with hunger, it had been nearly two weeks since they had eaten anything but they had the sinks for water and that was how they’d managed to survive this long.
“Lord Lifting, I ain’t never been so glad to see another human face!” one of the men said and reached his hand through the bars to shake.
“I’m Dutch.” He said as he pumped Gunny’s hand with enthusiasm. “And I swear I’m never getting into another bar fight again!”
Gunny grinned at the big Indian, thin and frail but standing and excited. “Fire Water getcha?”
“How’d you guess, Paleface?” He asked, still pumping his hand, his smile huge in the dim light.
“Cause I know you jarheads can’t hold your liquor.” He said
Dutch paused for a second then realized Gunny had seen the Eagle, Globe and Anchor tattooed on his forearm.
He laughed, the relief of rescue and hunger making him giddy then said. “I hope you ain’t Chair Force. I’d never live that down.”
“Not all of us are Dogfaces.” Griz said over his shoulder, shaking hands with another man through the bars. “Semper Fi, Marine. Glad you made it.”
“How come those two are dead?” he asked, indicating the two bodies that were reeking near the entrance.
The inmates got quiet. The giddy happiness in the air evaporating instantly. There was something wrong, Gunny sensed. Something horrible? Something shameful? He glanced at Griz. He felt it, too. He played his light over the cells, really taking them in this time, not just looking for undead or survivors. The cells on the left, the drunk tanks, didn’t have any sinks or toilets. The ones on the right did. A man could live a few weeks, maybe a month, without food. But not without water. Three days. Four at most and the body would shut down. Swollen tongue, severe cramps as the intestines and stomach dried out, unable to even cry tears from the pain. Nose starts bleeding as the mucous membranes dry and crack. Blinding headaches as the brain shrinks from lack of fluids. It’s an agonizing and slow way to die.
He shone his light to the cells with the toilets and sinks. The bunks were bare. He could see pieces of blankets torn into strips stacked near the sink. In the corridor were other strips, some still damp, trampled by the undead that had been down here. It didn’t take much to put it together. The inmates with the water were soaking down pieces of blankets and tossing them across the corridor, over the heads of the constantly reaching zombies and into the other cells. Some of them hadn’t made it all the way across but enough did so they could suck the moisture out of them, enough to keep the men alive.
“Damn.” Griz said under his breath when he put it together, unable to imagine being in a situation so desperate or hopeless.
Gunny said nothing, played his light over the silent men with haunted eyes gripping the bars, slowly making his way back up to the beginning of the hallway. He scanned the cell where the two dead men lay. There were no pieces of blankets inside, just a few trampled in the corridor that had probably been tossed from one of the cells far down the hall. It would have been futile. The angle was wrong and you couldn’t even reach out to grab a near miss with all the undead clawing through the bars at you. He shone the light across the hallway to where a small guy wearing glasses and a man bun stood, shielding his eyes from the beam. The cell was oversized, easily as long as two of the others. There were four bunks but he was the only prisoner. His bed was complete. Unmade, but a sheet, a pillow and a blanket lay on it. There were a toilet and a sink in the corner. There were books scattered around and pictures from magazines hanging on the wall. He saw toothpaste and shaving crème on the shelf. He could see empty cookie boxes, potato chip bags and candy wrappers. There were Tuna pouches and protein bars. Things a long term resident would be allowed to have. This man had been in here for a while.
Gunny thought back to when they were coming down the stairs. The urgently whispered words he’d half heard. Now it made sense that the first sounds from the men weren’t shouts of joy at the rescue but angry words of warning from someone. Someone who was awake and heard them approach. Someone not sleeping, not weak from hunger or thirst. This someone standing before him. This mild looking man who had casually watched two men die in one of the worst ways possible and did nothing. Had he just threatened the survivors if they said anything? Death threats to their family, if they were still alive? Probably.
“I think we found them.” Scratch said, hurrying down the stairs with a key ring in his hand.
He headed for the door where Gunny was standing, getting ready to open it.
“Not this one.” He said, all the pieces to the puzzle clicking into place in his head.
“Why not?” Scratch started to say but stopped short when he saw Gunny just standing there with his rifle aimed at the floor but his finger was tapping on the guard, ready to put it to the trigger. He was staring at the little man. There was a twitch under his left eye and Scratch could see that he was pissed.
Royally pissed.
“I’m going to put a bullet in your stupid man-bun face” pissed.
He backed up, went behind him and started for the other doors, throwing a questioning look at Griz. He just shook his head once. He looked mad enough to kill also. Lars and Stabby could feel the tension as they came down the stairs so they kept their mouths shut and helped the weakened men up the stairs and out into the sunshine.
Griz and Gunny just waited for them to clear out, said nothing but nodded to the men, at their heartfelt thank yous’, as they made their way past them.
When Dutch walked by, leaning on Stabby for support, he spat out “uk-a-sha-na” at the little man. Asshole.
“Ask him why he’s in here.” he said. “Ask him about that little girl. She was only 14.”
When the last of them had made their way up the stairs, just he and Griz remaining, the man finally spoke.
“I’m sorry about what happened but it’s not what you think.” he said, trying to make them understand, his East Coast accent coming through clearly. “I didn’t hurt her. I was her teacher, it was consensual. She wanted me to.”
The two men said nothing. Just stared.
“Look.” he tried being reasonable again, glancing to the keys in Gunny’s hand. “The people here are so backward. We didn’t really do anything wrong. Even if the law says I did do something that was technically illegal, I deserve my day in court.”
“And I just bet you wanted the venue changed to the ninth circus, didn’t you?” Griz asked.
The man flinched then ignored the question. “You can’t just leave me here.” he said, stating a fact.
Griz turned and walked off, heading up the stairs.
Obviously, he could.
Gunny pointedly turned and looked at the two dead men in the drunk tank, the flies buzzing lazily, feasting and laying their eggs.
He tried smiling at Gunny. Surely this man would see it wasn’t his fault. Surely he must understand desperate times demanded desperate actions.
The bearded man just stared at him. Judging him. There was no more anger in his eyes, no sympathy either. His face might as well have been carved in granite. He looked at him like he was less than nothing. Like he wasn’t worth the effort to waste words on or have an opinion about.
The little man gripped the bars harder, his smile fading, his face tightening with alarm.
“I didn’t know how long we’d be down here!” he said, his voice going up an octave and cracking with fear. This hard man with the hard eyes had judged him and found him wanting. “I couldn’t give my food to them. It’s better for one to maybe survive than none, right?”
Gunny pulled the key off of the ring for the little man’s cell, walked across the hall and tossed it in. It landed on one of the bodies, causing a cloud of angry flies to buzz up before they settled back down to their feast. He didn’t even look in his direction as he headed out of the basement and away from the stench. The man’s pleading and denials of doing anything wrong were cut off abruptly when Gunny closed the soundproof doors at the top of the stairs.
Chapter 21
No one said a thing as Gunny came up alone and closed the door behind him.
“Find anything good?” he asked when he saw them gathered around the forced open weapons locker.
“Nothing special.” Griz said. “Some ammo and a few shotguns. Mossberg’s and revolvers. But they’re Smith and Wesson and we’ve got a lot of new people joining us.”
“I think I saw a gun shop down the block, let’s keep clearing. We’ve still got a lot to do.” he said and they went back out to the street where Bastille was videotaping and interviewing the former prisoners.
“Hey!” Griz yelled at him. “Get them some food out of my truck then radio back for the SS sisters to come take a look at them.”
“Eat slow, boys.” Gunny told them as they walked up. “Dutch, you know the drill, right? Keep these guys alive. I’m sure you Leathernecks had some survival training. It wasn’t all coloring books and crayons was it?”
Dutch grinned at him, nodded and gave a mock salute from where he was sitting on the trailer, still weak and shaky.
“Yeah. Don’t want to die now of a busted stomach or biochemical imbalance.” he said, enjoying the sun and being out of his cage. “I paid attention in class when I wasn’t eating the glue.”
“Headshots are the only thing that will put them down,” Lars said as they laid the small cache of guns and ammo on the lowboy. “But the cab of the truck is safe if you happen to see a bunch of them.”
The men were still in awe of the bloody carnage on the steps of the courthouse. A few of them looked like they could have thrown up, that’s if there had been anything in their shrunken bellies to be able to do so.
“We’re going to keep clearing,” Gunny said. “Stay here on the street. Our medics will be here in few minutes. Don’t go in any of the houses, we’ve got teams all over taking out the trash. You might get yourselves shot.”
With that, they headed over to the next building in line, a three-story brick that held law offices.
There were few surprises the rest of the day, mostly just drudge work of going room to room, checking closets and basements. They came across a few zombies and drug them out to the street once they’d been dispatched so the cleanup crew could load them onto Griz’s lowboy in the morning. It was strange going through peoples’ private places, seeing how others lived, and in some cases, how they died. They’d all been to others houses in the past, of course. Friends and family. But other than maybe your closest buddies, whose house did you really know? Whose house had you been in every room, knew what was behind every door? Seen the private areas that weren't necessarily secret but were off limits simply out of respect?
They came across an older couple in the apartment above the café that had killed themselves. They were in bed, holding hands, both with gunshots to the head.
“We’ll mark the door,” Gunny said. “They don’t deserve to be tossed in the pit with the zombies. Preacher can give them a decent burial.”
When they finally got to clear the Gun Shop, Griz was ecstatic. It was small and mostly stocked with hunting rifles, but since this was the county seat, it was probably the biggest one for miles. It was well equipped for gunsmithing with a benchtop 3-in-1 lathe and mill and drawer after drawer of fine instruments, specialty tools, reloading equipment and dies. The shotgun style building had a single lane shooting range in the back. Griz kept saying “Thank you Chesty” every time he opened a cabinet and found more tools or boxes of parts. They finally had to drag him away but he laid claim to the shop and the apartment above it. He hastily scrawled “Griz’s Gun Works” on a piece of cardboard and taped it to the door.
“I wish I hadn’t gotten it like this, but it’s always been a dream of mine to have a little shop.” he said, his eyes nearly spilling over, his big grin splitting his bearded face.
“Feds woulda had you shut down in a week,” Gunny deadpanned. “Illegal modifications. I can just see you building a grenade launching Gatlin’ gun or something.”
They continued clearing until near dark, finally finishing the entire downtown area and declaring it zombie free. As they trudged back towards the truck, tired, but relieved the job was over, other teams were already waiting. Their sectors were cleared, bodies stacked on the streets and awaiting tomorrow's crew to do the cleanup work. The sun was an orange ball sinking below the horizon, casting long shadows in the town. As they gathered around the trailer, waiting for the last few teams to finish up their areas and studiously avoiding looking at the carnage on the courthouse steps, a ragged group appeared at the top of the stairs.
It was the people from the fallout shelter and they shielded their eyes as they came out into the fading light.
Gunny waved. “Come on down.” he yelled up to them. “The town is almost cleared. It’s safe.”
Deputy Collins was reloading one of her magazines from the boxes of ammo laying out on the trailer. She called up to them to take the side door. It wasn’t quite so messy.
They decided that would be a prudent choice and after a few moments, joined up with the dozens already gathered around the truck. They were hesitant at first and Gunny guessed a few of them had stayed hidden, possibly even had guns pointed at them. That’s what he would have done if confronted with a group of heavily armed strangers if you weren’t entirely sure the
y were as friendly as they appeared.
He walked up to the man who appeared to be their leader and introduced himself.
“Hi.” he said, slinging his rifle over his shoulder and sticking out his hand. “I’m John Meadows.”
They shook and the man introduced himself as Mayor Winthrop.
The small group that was with him were mostly women, a few men. No children. It must have happened fast here. Too fast to do anything but run for your lives and hope you made it to the shelter before you were ripped apart. They were all either staring at the ground or away from the killing field on the courthouse steps. The men and women in Gunny’s group were nearly immune to it now, they no longer viewed the undead as any type of human. Killing them was less of a moral dilemma than stepping on a poisonous spider. If you didn’t kill them, they would certainly kill you. Even though they had a human form, Preacher had assured them all that they were soulless creatures, best to be quickly put out of their misery. Griz had trained them all to react and dispatch instantly, these creatures were not to be pitied or grieved for, but put down like the mad dogs they were.
The Mayor and his entourage were still trying to come to grips with people they had known being splayed out in gruesome fashion all over the courthouse steps.
Gunny could see their discomfort. Their hesitation. Their fear.
“Look, I’m sorry for your losses but there really is no other way of dealing with these… um… things. We’ll have a cleanup crew out here in the morning.” he said. “We’ve dug a mass grave and they’ll be buried a few miles north of town. Why don’t y’all camp out with us tonight, we can help you get settled back in your houses tomorrow.”
The Mayor nodded, unsure what else they could do. After lengthy discussions in the shelter and spying on this group of people, seeing there were a number of women with them, they had decided to take a chance. In the end, they only had two options. Introduce themselves and hope this group of hard looking people weren't going to do them harm or turn tail and run away. They really had no place to run though. The Mayor signaled to some people still hiding in the building and another half dozen joined them after a few minutes.
Zombie Road (Book 2): Bloodbath on the Blacktop Page 18
