“Time to go Phoenix,” Cobb said as he looked away, his eyes and manner cold and distant. “You and me, together.”
Cobb never looked this way before – not even back in East Nashville when the two had first met. The man, as big and burly as he was, was the essence of compassion and friendliness to those close to him. Always with a joke or a laugh, or with a sincere, warm smile that said, “I’m no ex-Titan.” But DeAndre’ knew his business, especially when it came to handling suspects and convicts; and he wasn’t afraid to use brute force, verbal or physical, when he thought his demands weren’t being met. Phoenix sensed it coming.
“Looks like your little stint in the pokey has just come to an end. You ready?”
“Do I have choice? Because, if I do, I’d like to confess and stay here a day or two more,” Phoenix said. “That is, if it’s all the same to you.”
Cobb looked up. “We don’t have time to play around. Don’t make me drag you out of here.”
“Drag me?” Phoenix asked.
“You heard me.”
“Like you’re going to drag me into the end zone or what? Why are you talking to me like this, DeAndre’? What are you saying?”
Chief Cobb reached into the hip pocket of his light tan slacks.
Phoenix flinched. But Cobb, who was looking down at the floor, hadn’t seen him jump. He slid the pistol forward a little and got his hand around the pistol grip.
“What’s going on, DeAndre’?” Phoenix said. “You’d better talk to me. What are you doing?”
Chief Cobb pulled a syringe out of his pocket, something horse-sized, with a needle the size of a straw.
Phoenix slid his finger through the trigger guard and, with his hand firmly on the grip, pulled the gun out from under his leg, but still kept it hidden.
“I’m just doing what I have to do, Phoenix,” Cobb said. “It’s either you or – well, just you. But you have to trust me on this. I’m doing this for your own good. I promise. It’s now or never.”
“Before you do this, can you at least tell me why?” Phoenix said, playing for time, trying to draw Cobb out. He squeezed the grip of the weapon firmly, and he slowly pulled the gun out from under his leg.
“You’re just going to become a missing person, that’s all – just like the rest of them. You’re making people worry.” Cobb said. “And stop asking me questions. I can’t talk to you.”
“How much did they pay you, DeAnte’?”
Cobb raised the syringe in his right hand and came towards Phoenix with his left hand in a claw, ready for a fight. Two hundred thirty pounds of trained muscle, attached to a Titan’s hall of fame linebacker who knew how to throw quarterbacks down hard enough to end their careers, against a one hundred seventy-five-pound lightweight.
Cobb lunged at Phoenix.
Phoenix raised the gun and fired.
Chapter 17
Thirty seconds later, Phoenix was still wiggling himself free from beneath the hulking carcass of DeAnte’ Cobb, pushing up with his hands, struggling to free his legs. He hadn’t expected to shoot, but a friend with a syringe the size of the Life and Casualty tower, filled with some kind of Psyke cocktail, ready to stick you with it, was a justified target.
Phoenix freed himself and stood up, keeping his pistol trained on his old boss. He gasped for air as quickly as he could, but reminded himself he needed to slow down. He had exertional asthma years ago, when he was younger, but it had disappeared up until now. No doubt the fright and the fear of the moment, either his seeing an old friend attack him or either sensing his own imminent death, had fueled the tightness in his chest.
Phoenix shot DeAnte’ three times, all of his shots landing where he couldn’t miss – just above the sternum and a little to the left. He sat down on the bed and put the gun down. He knew he had to move – but to where, he didn’t know. He remembered the phone lying against the wall, got up, and turned off the video and sound recorder. Without thinking, he looked at the recent calls – there was one, and it was a call he’d made to Alaia – and he touched her number.
“Phoenix, is that you?”
“It’s me,” he said. “Cobb just tried to---”
“You’re not watching the news, are you?”
“Cobb just---”
“Everything around St. David’s and Green Hills has become a battle zone,” Alaia said. “We’ve got National Guardsmen down on the ground and police units not responding,” she said. “One of the news reporters is calling it the Dead Virus – or something. And it’s getting worse – the virus is in the water supply. Even Nashville is seeing riots. Has Cobb gotten you out yet?”
Phoenix’s phone beeped an incoming call. Mr. Krystal, no doubt, tossing him another life preserver. “Alaia, I’m sending you a video – be sure to copy it and keep it somewhere safe – I’ve got a call coming in. I’ll call you back.” Phoenix took the call. “Phoenix,” he said.
“Is he dead?” the voice said.
“What now?”
“Have you changed your clothes yet?”
“I’m about to,” Phoenix replied. “What after that?”
The call ended. Phoenix didn’t waste any time. He flipped the mattress off the bed, took off his Ked’s, and quickly slipped out of his orange jumpsuit. He put on the green camouflage, better than what the rednecks bought at Walmart and wore to their weddings, and laid down on the floor and reached for the boots. When he finished dressing, he grabbed the empty pack, quickly scooped up the protein bars and extra clips, and stuffed them into the pack. He put the combat knife on his belt, and then he checked the rifle for a chambered round and found one. The rifle he slung over his shoulder, and he picked up the pistol with his right hand.
The phone rang again. Before he answered it, he checked the battery charge. 71 percent. No wonder they’d given up trying to build battery-operated cars: they still hadn’t figured out how to make phone batteries last.
“What now?” Phoenix asked. “Am I supposed to mow down every guard in the place?”
“Yep,” the voice said. “But not Fred – you won’t need to kill him. Let’s just say that, between last night and this morning, the entire prison population got virus-Psyked. Lucky for you, most of them turned while they were eating breakfast, so they’re still in the dining hall. Before you storm out of your cell, you should know there are about twenty Psyked convicts wandering around in your cell block. And they are contagious. Just, you know, FYI. And so the world nears the end, and the beginning – something I’ve dreamed of for over forty years---”
Phoenix walked quickly and quietly towards the cell door. He heard the sound of someone coming, someone dragging their feet erratically, like somebody carrying a large, heavy box, and he readied himself.
“Lure the guy into the cell,” the voice said. “Save your bullets. You can stab him in the chest and hope he bleeds to death before he rips you apart, or you can go through his skull with the knife and kill him instantly. Your choice.”
Phoenix backed up, stepping over Cobb’s body, and he put his back against the wall under the slit window. The dead man, if that’s what he was, came into view. He looked like he’d been beaten with a nightstick embedded with Coke can pull tabs. His lower lip was torn, hanging like a thin piece of fileted something-or-the-other draped over a some kind of sushi roll. His left eye, hanging from red strings, dangled, dripped, and danced on his cheek.
Phoenix raised the pistol, his hand shaking, and he aimed. Just as he pulled the trigger, the man stumbled over Cobb’s crumpled up body and fell forward, hitting Phoenix’s feet, tumbling onto the floor. The bullet slammed into something on the opposite side of the cell block.
Phoenix stepped forward and put the tip of the silencer against the man’s head. He pulled the trigger and dispatched him with a single bullet. The body slumped forward. A pool of blood, thick and red, poured from his head. Phoenix looked up when he heard two shots coming from his right, down towards the other end of the cell block. He hurried forward. When he st
epped out of the cell, he saw Fred coming towards him, putting his gun into a holster.
Phoenix raised the phone to his ear. “From now on, you’ll be learning some new habits, Phoenix Malone,” the voice said. “You know, don’t get bit, by animals or people, not after today. And no tap water. Do everything quietly, and when you see those June Buckner types, go for the head, just like you see in the Zombie flicks. Or, you can go for the spine or the knees – put them on the ground.”
“Who are you?”
“You still don’t know?” the voice said. “You will soon enough. I’ll call you.”
Phoenix slipped the phone into his pocket just as Fred approached. He noticed the boy had changed out of his uniform into something from Fat and/or Tall of Nashville. Where else could you get size umpteen-hundred in camouflage? He had a holster on his belt and a riot pump slung over his shoulder.
The sodium lights overhead flickered once and went out, but not before Phoenix picked up the small box Cobb had set down on the floor. He removed his pack and quickly stowed it, fumbling in the dark like a blind man.
The prison was descending into chaos and darkness; Phoenix could hear it filling the cell block: Virus-Psyked crazies everywhere; and Mr. Krystal hadn’t bothered to leave any flashlights. Fred told Phoenix to hurry.
Fred, with Phoenix close, headed back up the cell block. Phoenix could hear his boots on the concrete. He must have turned, because he grabbed Phoenix’s top left pocket, pulled him to the side, and whispered, “Over towards the cells doors. We can feel our way towards the upper end of the block. There’s a supervisor’s office up ahead, and there’s a couple of flashlights in a closet.”
“Can those things see us?”
“How would I know?”
“You seem to know everything else around here and you’re like what, eighteen?”
“Good eye.”
As fortune would have it, Fred said, the Psykes – fifteen, maybe more – were loitering around like a bunch of congressmen at the upper end of the block, and they seemed pretty listless. They looked like bored convicts, he said.
“And the whole prison – everyone’s gone?” Phoenix asked.
“Gone?” Fred asked.
“I mean, gone-ish. Like what I just killed back there.”
“As far as I know they are, but that remains to be seen – or not seen, in our case.”
Phoenix and Fred, after running into two cell doors, stepped a little to their left so that their fingertips would brush the doors as they passed. They heard shuffling and maybe a moan or two up ahead and to their left. Phoenix felt his skin crawl.
“That never happens in the movies,” Fred said. “You never hear groans and stuff like that. When it’s dark like this, the monster always jumps out at you unexpectedly.”
“And I’m supposed to answer that how?” Phoenix said.
“Oh, I dunno. I’m just thinking out loud.”
Phoenix stopped counting the cell doors, whose rough sharp edges seemed to flick away from his hands as he quietly walked forward. Sometimes, Fred would start veering right, or so it seemed, and then there’d be a hingey, squeaky noise, or a click, like the sound of metal hitting metal.
“So, you must be pretty badass for an eighteen-year-old,” Phoenix said, as they passed yet another open cell door.
“No, just somebody with a wife and a kid – if you can believe that,” Fred said. “I got this job last week, got a phone call, took the money some guy on the phone offered me, and now all I want to do is get you out of here, get home, and get out of Dodge.”
To the left and rear of Phoenix came a harsh guttural sound, like somebody trying to cough and talk at the same time. A wet sound. A sound somebody healing from a bad, light green case of bronchitis might make as they tried to clear their chest. Then the sound of shoes, squeaky like Ked’s on shiny concrete or tile, a thumpy, squeaky, high-pitched rackety kind of thing – and it was headed their way.
“Time to get this little walk over with,” Fred said. “Let’s hurry.”
Phoenix could hear the sound of Fred’s feet pick up speed, varying from a fast walk to a slow jog. Keeping up was easy, but more than once he ran into Fred; and every cell door seemed to hit him on the wrist or on the forearm with enough force to hurt.
Behind them came Mr. Ked’s, squeaking along, getting nearer at times, falling back at others. Phoenix could hear him panting and coughing. He seemed to drop back, maybe because he couldn’t coordinate his feet, or perhaps he’d lost interest.
Fred had gotten ahead of Phoenix. How far, Phoenix couldn’t tell. “Fred, wait up, will you?”
“I’m not waiting, money or no money,” Fred said as he seemed to pick up speed.
Phoenix heard other sounds ahead and to the left. The clanking of metal on metal, cell doors maybe, squeaking on hinges, trying to be forced against their automatic openers, Ked’s twisting on the concrete, somebody sighing and moaning tiredly.
He slowed down and unslung his AK-47. He’d fired one before, when he was kid, and later in the academy. He reached for the attached bayonet, pulled it up and out, and heard and felt it snap into place. He held the rifle to his left, pointing it into the void, hoping he wouldn’t shiskabob Fred.
Fred called to him. “We’re here,” he said.
Phoenix heard a clicking sound, like someone trying to open a door lever. He slowed down, put his right hand out, and bumped into Fred.
“The door’s locked,” Fred whispered.
The sound of Ked’s, lots of Ked’s, was moving closer towards them.
“And this is the end of the line for me,” Fred said. “I’m not sure of the way forward, and I don’t think we can make it out of the block without light.”
“Grab your rifle and protect our rear,” Phoenix said, as he retracted his bayonet. “And stand back.” He could feel Fred sliding past him. He reached out and felt for the door lever, pointed his rifle at the lock, and fired off a short burst in full auto. The fire from the muzzle lit up the void around him, and the sound jabbed into his head like peals of thunder.
Fred fired off a few rounds, three, one right after the other. “Any day now, Phoenix, any day now!”
“Thank you,” Phoenix said, and he kicked in the door. He rushed inside with Fred still firing short, controlled bursts as he moved inside. Once Fred had cleared the threshold, backing up one step after another, Phoenix slammed the door. Something soft kept him from closing it all the way, probably a hand of a convict. He put the side of his foot against the door, and easily held it in place.
A few seconds later, Fred shouted out and said, “Got a light.” He flipped on the flashlight, a marvelous LED flashlight with Taser electrodes around the bulbs, and Phoenix looked out through the glass window on his left. A mass of walking bodies, how many he couldn’t tell, were pawing and scratching, trying to get into the small office.
“How many are out there?” Fred asked.
Phoenix, with his foot and right shoulder against the door, his AK-47 is his left hand, shook his head and said, “All of them, I think.”
Chapter 18
The door secured, but with a large metal desk pushed up against it, Phoenix and Fred sat in the office, each of them eating a Kellogg’s protein bar. A small refrigerator sitting against the wall contained a few bottled waters and Cokes, and each grabbed a Coke.
“Looks like somebody hit the prison,” Phoenix said. “And you heard about what happened over at St. David’s, right?”
“All I know is what happened here last night and today,” Fred said. “Everybody got shots before dinner last night – and everybody needs to be shot again, if you don’t mind the pun.”
Phoenix nodded. “Who hired you?”
“Guy on the phone – I don’t know him,” Fred said. “All I know is that I got a nice deposit that says I’ll never have to work again, and my kid will get all the medical attention she needs to get better.”
Phoenix drank down his last swallow of Coke and tossed the ca
n into the wastepaper can. He pulled out his phone and called Alaia.
When she answered, Phoenix said, “You saw the video?”
“Dangedest thing I ever seen,” she said. “Got the whole thing transcribed and copied it onto two discs, but that’s not what I’m worried about right---”
“I’m trapped in the prison with a bunch of rabid inmates tripped out on a Psyke cocktail,” Phoenix said. “I could use a rescue right about now.”
“We got the heads up on that one early this morning, and I’ve heard the prison’s secure – at least at the perimeter. The Green Hills area is also secure and holding, but they’ve firebombed the---”
“Firebombed?”
“If you’d let me finish,” Alaia said. “The Feds firebombed the university and they’re getting ready to do the same with the prison. And they have orders to kill everyone – dead and … deadish.”
“How do you firebomb a prison?”
“I have no idea – but I’m sure they have a way,” Alaia said. “And they made me the new chief of police, by the way. The mayor seems to know that Cobb is---”
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks. But there’s nothing much left to be chief over. Most of the officers are now with the Guard units. Right now, I have five guys and a secretary. That’s about it. It’s … it’s in the water, Phoenix, it’s everywhere. There isn’t a safe place to---”
“I’ll be in your office by tonight,” Phoenix said. “I’ll need to stay at your place, if that’s okay.”
“That ain’t gonna happen,” Alaia said. “I’ve moved out of there. Me and Darkeem are living in my new office. Look, Phoenix, we need to solve this thing or goodbye world, so get out of there as fast as you can. I need a big picture guy.”
“Can you stop the Feds from bombing the prison?”
Fred stopped drinking his Coke and stood up. “They’re bombing the prison?”
Time Clock Hero Page 12
