I looked over, and Copperhead was still throwing himself backward against the bars of the cell, smashing Tanya into them. It didn’t look fun for either of them, but she clearly seemed to be holding her own, and he seemed to be weakening.
The guy with the baseball bat finally decided to make a move toward me and Popcorn. I think at this point it was mostly an attempt to fight past us and just climb out of the Pit altogether. Good. We were no longer on the defensive, and we even had the crowd’s support, if not their sympathy, for I doubt they had any. Maybe we wouldn’t die that night.
The guy swung the bat at Popcorn, who nimbly jumped out of the way. He swung the bat at me, and I swung the rebar to counter it. The rebar stuck between some of the nails, so that we were then wrestling over the weapon. Popcorn dove for the guy’s throat, but this time the guy let go of the bat to defend himself. They wrestled, and Popcorn continually slashed at his arms and throat. I disentangled the rebar from the bat and smashed the guy across the head with it once, then again, then one last time after he’d fallen. The crowd cheered wildly.
I handed the bloody rebar to Popcorn and took up the bat myself. With no more Pit crew near us, we finally ran over to help Tanya. She was wheezing and sweating from being slammed into the metal bars, but it was obvious now that she could feel the life ebbing from her tormentor. She looked at me, her teeth gritted, lips pulled back in a snarl, her eyes filled with rage, her mouth right next to his ear as his swollen, grotesque face turned blue.
He too was looking at me with his bugged-out eyes, and I imagined they were pleading, but I couldn’t be sure. Perhaps worse, I’m not sure I would’ve cared whether or not they were. Worse still, the thought flashed through my adrenalin-soaked brain that if they were definitely pleading for mercy—something from which Frank and Popcorn had so bravely refrained—it might make what we all knew was coming next even more delectable. And I cringed, for the prospect of wreaking vengeance and punishment on this piece of filth was already terrifyingly sweet.
“You know, Jonah,” Tanya hissed, “you probably don’t know this, since you’re not some inbred, redneck asshole who crawled out of some swamp—but you got to hit a snake in the head really hard if you want to kill its stupid, sorry ass.”
I swung the bat back to deliver the blow. It was the cruel, up close and personal type of execution that a sadist like Copperhead would’ve found especially enjoyable, so I tried not to revel in it too much. But after the suffering of Frank and Popcorn, it was just plain impossible not to. You had to allow human nature some visceral, fleshly enjoyment from curing such a disease as Copperhead, like lancing a ripe boil, or even picking at a scab. I would’ve been much more inclined to show mercy to one of the undead.
Above us, the chant of, “Kill! Kill! Kill!” rose to an orgiastic crescendo.
“Die, you stupid son of a bitch.” I slammed the bat into his forehead. The glitch and crunch was much louder this time than it had been with Frank, close as I was. I pulled the bat back, wrenching the nail loose from his skull, then Tanya shoved him off with a shriek of disgust as the crowd above us went wild. He fell onto his face with a thud that was barely audible above the cheers.
Tanya and I were panting, and our satisfaction was so intoxicating that we paused along with Popcorn to watch the puddle of thick, dark blood spread out from under his face. I looked at Tanya, and the bliss was almost of post-coital quality.
At that point, I really didn’t care if the other inmates put my head on a stick. I’d sent the ruler of this pathetic little hell to the real thing. If anything else good ever happened to me now, or even if I just kept breathing for a few more minutes to enjoy this victory, then that was just gravy, and I’d put it on my list of things that hinted at a God interested in the guilty being punished. He had, at least, answered the prayer I had made when I buried Frank the night before.
The three of us stood there a moment, panting and covered with the warm and sticky blood, before two more screams tore through the prison, accompanied by lightning flashes and nearly immediate thunderclaps. The cheering above us stopped suddenly.
The screams were long, piercing, as though from people who were being torn apart, and at the exact same moment that I heard them, I inhaled the strongest odor—even over the nearly overpowering metallic smell from all the blood—of rotting flesh. And then I could hear the other sound—a low and persistent moaning.
I really didn’t want to, but I slowly turned around, away from Copperhead’s body, and I saw that about forty feet away from where we stood, extending all the way back to the entrance to the prison, the ground floor was packed with swaying, shuffling human shapes. It must’ve finally started raining, as steam was rising off of them, as if they were soaking wet.
At the next lightning flash, I could see their rotten, undead visages—their blackened teeth, bloody mouths, foggy eyes, mottled flesh, and matted manes of straw-like hair. And though some were at present occupied with devouring two of the Pit crew, those in the vanguard were staggering toward us with their usual lack of coordination, and complete superabundance of determination and focus.
Defeating sadists and rapists only to be confronted by an army of the drooling undead—this place was about as close to hell as I hoped I would ever get. Now it seemed that we were most definitely going to die that night. It seemed it would be a lot quicker than I had previously imagined, but every bit as horrible, too.
I made sure to tack on a little extra prayer right then—that my guts were torn out and eaten before Popcorn’s and Tanya’s, so I wouldn’t have to see that happen to them. No, wait, that would be selfish and unfair. But it didn’t seem right to pray for them to die first. What the hell, I guess we could leave that part up to the Lord, as He always seemed to have the part down where innocent people died horribly, so I stopped praying and started to back up slowly.
Chapter Nineteen
In the flashes of lightning, we watched with a mixture of satisfaction and revulsion as the army of the undead took care of the two Pit crew members they had caught off guard. With a rending and a popping sound, one arm was torn from its torso, and a geyser of blood shot up after it. The two pieces were born in opposite directions in the writhing tangle of groping, eager hands. The other guy had already fallen into the crowd, and similar rending sounds could be heard as he was dispatched. Once their screams subsided, there was only a grotesque chorus of tearing and slurping.
To stem the tide of the undead, the men on the second tier pulled up the one rope ladder. Another guy had nearly reached the top of the other ladder; they pushed him off into the hungry horde, where the horrible screams and rending sounds started up again, as the inmates cut that ladder and threw it down.
As we slowly backed up, the undead reached the cell where Popcorn had been. The guy he had originally slashed lay outside on the floor. He must’ve still been alive, as they grabbed at him, their fingernails digging into the huge wound on his neck and tearing it wider.
He was too weak to scream, but a lightning flash made the overwhelming fear in his eyes quite apparent. Good. To be torn apart and eaten alive was indeed frightening, as I was starting to realize myself, for it seemed all too likely that it would be my fate as well. But I could still smirk at him because he had the added fear of being dragged before an angry God—for what other kind of God could possibly have created something as obscene and violent as the hungry undead?—right after raping and beating a child nearly to death.
As more hands joined in the bloody rending, his eyes were covered, and they tore his head and his torso in two different directions, a river of blood spilling onto the floor when they finally tore the head loose, leaving behind a stump of ragged flesh.
The other Pit crew member Popcorn had slashed had staggered out, clutching at the mortal wound on his neck, blood still pouring out between his fingers and further inciting the undead’s unholy hunger. Those zombies not already feeding on the headless corpse grabbed both his arms and pulled in opposite direction
s.
At first, it was a comical tug of war: the dead rocked him back and forth as he whimpered, too weak to muster a real scream. But when both sides finally pulled at the same time, the effect was less comical, at least for their victim, though I could still manage a cruel smirk. No longer capable of fear, but just registering unspeakable pain, his eyes bugged out before both his arms tore off.
He hung there a moment, swaying slightly, mouth open, eyes rolled back in his head, blood spurting out both stumps at his shoulders with a flow that steadily weakened. Good—it seemed a more horrible version of Frank’s suffering the night before.
Finally, he slumped forward and more zombies fed on his body.
I thought the undead were finished with Popcorn’s tormentors at that point, but I had forgotten there was a third inmate in his cell, probably the evening’s potential customer. As the undead’s horrible feeding frenzy proceeded outside the cell, a weak voice came from inside, “Help! Damn kid stabbed my eyes! I can’t see! Who’s there? What? What? No!”
Again, the voice trailed off into screams as the undead found their blind and helpless prey. For some reason, his screams seemed to last especially long. Blinded, with claws and teeth tearing into his flesh from all sides, reducing him in seconds from a human being to a pile of meat—I hoped he spent eternity in hell like that, for what he’d done, or even just intended. I looked down at Popcorn, and he was smiling and grunting.
I guessed it was going to be the high point of our evening, for with the Pit crew devoured or retreated, and the means of getting to the second tier cut off, we were the only thing left on the menu. I clutched the bat tighter, and we kept backing up.
Chapter Twenty
I Looked over my shoulder and saw that we’d been joined by the two former prison guards, who cowered behind us. “Back into the one cell,” I hissed at them. We were already almost there.
“And then what?” they blubbered.
We were backing into the cell. “And then we’ll take turns at the door to the cell, killing them,” I said. “They can only come at us one at a time there.”
They both scuttled to the back corner of the cell. “So what? There must be hundreds of them! And you know that none of those assholes are going to come down from upstairs to help!”
I handed the bat to Tanya, and I leaned down over the two guards, my fists and face still covered in blood. “Then we’ll pile up their rotted bodies ten deep till they can’t get at us! And then Tanya will take the rebar and smash our heads in, so we don’t become one of them! If you can’t help, then just stay the hell out of our damn way! How’s that for a damn plan?”
I went back to Tanya. “Actually, I think it’ll take two to cover the door,” she whispered. “These nails will get stuck—somebody else better be bashing them with the rebar at the same time.”
The dead were closing slowly. “Okay,” I said. “That’s what we’ll do.” I put my hands on Tanya and Popcorn’s shoulders. “I’m sorry guys. I wish it would’ve turned out different.”
They nodded.
Suddenly, the dead stopped, swaying and letting out a rumble of discontent or alarm. The lightning flashed again, and a ripple went through the crowd; a path opened up in it. The crowd parted, and a tall, lean figure emerged, carrying a staff.
As the thunder crashed in the darkness, we could just barely see the figure stride across the remaining yards between us and the army of the undead, and at the next lightning flash, it was right in front of us. It was Milton.
He embraced Tanya and Popcorn at the door, then pushed them farther into the cell, so he could take up a position guarding it. Now there was no way for the dead to get at us, past the leader whom they feared so much, for whatever reason.
“What’s the old guy going to do?” the cowering guards bleated.
I glared at them. “Will you two just shut the hell up? Just trust us, okay?”
I patted Milton on the back, shaking my head; I couldn’t believe he had the audacity to attack the prison with an army of the undead. “Thanks, Milton.”
He looked over his shoulder and smiled. “You’re most welcome. Where’s Frank?”
I shook my head. “He didn’t make it. They killed him.”
Milton looked shocked and suddenly began shaking. “What—the dead I brought in here? They killed him? Oh my God!”
“No, no, not them,” I said quickly, trying to calm him down. “The guys who run this place. They killed Frank last night.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. But I couldn’t have lived with myself if it was because of me.” He calmed down just a little bit in the pause. “But why would they do such a thing?”
With walking corpses shuffling around in front of him, sniffing at him and eager to tear the flesh from our bones, it was really quite extraordinary to see that the regular, human evil we had all lived with our whole lives could still so shock and astonish Milton. “Frank was trying to protect Popcorn,” I said. “They wanted to… you know… they wanted to hurt him… like that.”
Milton’s eyes went wide, and I could see he was fighting back tears, trying not to look weak in front of Popcorn, let alone show him pity to his face. “Good God… But he’s only a child. I’m sorry, I had no idea there was still such evil in the world. I thought we’d been through enough.”
His eyes turned to rage, for the only time I’d ever seen, and he leaned farther out the door. “I brought these maggot-ridden corpses in here, you bastards! Hundreds of them! And they haven’t eaten in months! And now they’re going to tear you all apart and send you to hell, you sons of bitches!”
I patted his back. “Easy, Milton. We’d all like to see that, but what exactly are we going to do now?”
“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “I think Jack has a plan.”
Just then we could see that the inmates were finally mounting some kind of counterattack. Arrows started raining down from the second tier onto the undead. But arrows, as effective as they were against living deer and humans, were one of the least effective weapons against zombies. There were various roars of protest as the arrows lodged into torsos, limbs, and necks, but you could see that almost none of those they hit were falling down. I worried, however, that one of the arrows—either stray or intended—would hit Milton.
I grabbed the mattress off the floor and shoved it in front of him. “Here, hold this in front of you in case one of those arrows comes your way!”
He turned his face away from it. “Good Lord,” he choked. Then he chuckled. “It smells worse than me!”
I smiled. “That’s why you’re here to rescue us.”
He looked over his shoulder at me, one arm stretched across the doorway, the other hugging the stinking mattress to his chest. “On my belt,” he said, “there’s a radio. Get it. Call Jack.”
I got the walkie-talkie. “Jack?” I said into it.
“Great to hear you!” came the reply. “Sorry I got you into this. Everybody okay?”
“The prisoners killed Frank last night,” I replied.
There was a pause. “That’s too bad. He’d been through so much.” There was another pause, and then he was all business again. “Where are you all in the building? We need to get you out.”
“We’re on the bottom floor, at the end farthest from the entrance. Milton is the only thing keeping us from getting eaten right now.”
“Milton’s got them held back for the time being?”
“Yes. But we’re taking fire from the upper floors.”
“That I can help with. Franny?”
“Almost there, Jack,” I heard her reply.
“Our guys are on the first floor, so aim for the second.” Jack told her.
“Roger that. Second floor’s the target.”
Over the sound of thunder, I could hear the thumping of the helicopter. It got louder and louder, then held steady. The skylights exploded with a flash, and glass and metal cascaded onto the dead outside the cell. A minute later, I could see another flash at the smashe
d skylight, and with a whoosh, one of the cells on the second floor exploded amidst screams.
It must’ve been more of Jack’s AT4s, being fired by someone now on the roof. As he had predicted, their real value would be proved should we ever have to fight the evil living, rather than the mindless dead.
With a flash and a whoosh, another cell exploded in flames and flying debris. Most of the upper cell block was now shrouded in a pall of dust and smoke, and the injured men were groaning.
No more arrows were raining down, so Milton lowered the mattress. “Glad I don’t have to hold that anymore.” He raised his hands up and shooed away some of the closer undead.
“Jack, we’re not under fire anymore,” I said into the radio, “but we’re still trapped in here with no way out.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’m outside. You’ve got to describe the interior layout of the building to me, as best you can.”
I tried to give him enough information for him to visualize the inside of the building, and where we were in it. Finally, he seemed satisfied. “Okay, there’s a big wall in front of you, to your left?”
“That’s right,” I said.
“Then shield yourself from it, if you can, ’cause there’s going to be a big hole in it in a few seconds.”
“Okay, Jack.” I lowered the radio. “Milton, cover yourself with the mattress again, as much as possible. Jack’s going to blow some more things up.”
“Well, all right,” he winced as he raised the mattress again and turned his face away from it. “He does so like to do that, doesn’t he?”
A second later, the wall just beyond Milton exploded with a roar that seemed ten times louder than when the rockets had hit on the second level. My ears were ringing like crazy this time. The zombies closest to the hole were thoroughly shredded by the blast, while those behind them were thrown back into the crowd, mangled and torn from the flying debris. There was now a path from the door of the cell to the hole in the wall, and we needed to go through it—fast.
[Dying to Live 01] - Dying to Live Page 19
