Lights Out

by Nate Southard

  ***

  Maggot screamed, trying to wrench his ankle free of the killing thing’s grip, but the creature refused to give up so easily. The claw slashed into the skin of his leg, and he felt the blood there begin to flow over his foot. He lost his balance and fell backward, landing with a thud.

  The killing thing tried to overtake him, to claw its way to his throat and tear it open like it had the nurse’s. Maggot pounded his small fists against the thing’s head, knowing it wouldn’t do any good. The monstrous cranium lolled to one side now, as if the creature couldn’t lift it. He was thankful for that. It meant he couldn’t see those eyes.

  The thing’s claws gripped his shoulders, and Maggot slammed his eyes shut. He didn’t want to watch the thing bite him. Confusion swirled with his fear and sent shivers through his body. Tree had killed it. Why was it still attacking him? Would it not stop until it had finally destroyed him?

  His scream faltered and became a whimper. He held his breath, waiting for the teeth to pierce his skin, waiting for the sucking sounds to begin, but then the killing thing was suddenly gone.

  Something screeched, and he opened his eyes in time to see the killing thing land in a heap ten feet away. Tree was stalking toward it, hands curling into angry fists at his sides. “You a tricky fuck,” the big man said.

  The thing moved, shifting onto all fours. Its head still hung crooked and limp from its shoulders, but that did not appear to matter. Nothing was going to stop the killing thing. Not until it had completed its purpose.

  Maggot scrambled backward on his elbows and buttocks, his eyes locked on Tree and the killing thing. Tree stalked the monster, looking for an opening. He grabbed up a metal stand, one that still had an I.V. bag hanging from it, and switched his grip to hold it like a baseball bat. Suddenly, the killing thing leapt at Tree, and the big man swung the stand with more strength than Maggot had ever seen. The metal cracked against the creature’s skull, sending its entire body crashing to the ground, knocking over a cot in the process.

  It landed on its back, and Tree was there, waiting. He slammed the stand into the creature’s face once, twice. A third time. The monster shrieked in pain, and then Tree tossed the stand aside. Maggot watched, holding his breath, as the huge man raised a foot high and stomped down on the thing’s blood-coated throat. A pained gurgle escaped the killing thing, and then Tree was stomping down again. Tree’s bare foot rose up and crunched down over and over, growing bloodier with each impact. The killing thing thrashed on its back, but it did not grab its attacker, did not fight back. Slowly, its movements ended. With the next few impacts, Maggot heard a wet sound. A moment later, Tree stopped and bent at the waist, reaching for something. When he stood up again, he held the killing thing’s head in his hands.

  “That’s gonna do it,” the big man said. “Let’s go.”

  Tree tossed the head to the side and led the way. Maggot followed close behind. He wasn’t about to let the giant lose him. The big man could keep him alive, could destroy the killing thing not once, but again and again. Together, they raced to the end of the long infirmary and bolted through the swinging doors.

  The screams reached his ears at once. Looking to his left, he saw the other patients, all three of them. Four more of the killing things were on them, drinking them and ripping them to pieces with their talons. As he watched, two of the things grabbed one of the patients and dug their claws into his fleshy abdomen. A horrible, tearing noise split the air, and then the body ripped in two along the waist, each creature drinking deep of their half.

  Maggot pointed at the monsters. He looked up at Tree. “Kill them.”

  The big man looked down at him like he was insane. Maggot knew the look well. He saw it all the time.

  “You can fuck that noise,” Tree said. His large hands closed around Maggot’s arms, and then Maggot was being yanked backward down the hall, away from the killing things that were now looking up, piercing him with their horrible eyes. He saw hunger in those eyes, in the expressions on their bloody faces.

  Their faces.

  “Dr. Wilson?” he whispered. The doctor was running for him in that loping animal stride, just as the others did. His jaws opened and clacked together, and Maggot shook his head back and forth. No. Dr. Wilson wasn’t a killing thing. Dr. Wilson was nice to him, had always used his real name. The doctor would never hurt him.

  But Dr. Wilson was covered in blood now, and his eyes had grown deep and red, and his hair was a wild tangle full of dirt and blood.

  Maggot began to cry. It was all too much. His legs stopped working, and then Tree was not pulling him so much as dragging him, stunned and limp, away from the killing thing that looked like Dr. Wilson.

  “Goddammit, Maggot! Help me!”

  “No!”

  “I’ll fuckin’ leave yo ass!”

  And that sounded fine. He did not care if the giant left. Did not care if Dr. Wilson and the other killing things took him, if they ripped him apart or drank him dry. He had experienced enough, too much, and he just wanted it to be finished. Watching Dr. Wilson draw closer, he held out his arms, eager for the man who used to be so kind to take away the entire world. The doctor was almost on top of them, the others hot on his heels, and Maggot strained to reach out and grab his clawed hands.

  But then he heard a door open, and suddenly Tree was tossing him through it. The world went dark for an instant, but then he found the open door again and scrambled toward it. Tree shouldered him away, sending him crashing into a metal shelf, and he looked up in time to see Dr. Wilson’s face in the doorway, and then the door slammed shut and plunged them into total darkness.

  Maggot heard claws squeal against the other side of the steel door, and he heard Dr. Wilson and the other monsters snarl with rage, heard Tree’s labored breath. The sounds filled the room like burning steam.

  “Hope this muthafucka holds, man.”

  Maggot did not respond. Instead, he just sat down on the cramped floor of what he realized must be a closet. Metal shelves full of various items surrounded him on all sides. He examined them with his hands for a moment and then gave up, uninterested, and decided he would rather listen to the scratching at the door, the rattling of the doorknob as the killing things struggled to break through. Slowly, the sounds diminished until eventually they were gone. Maggot and the giant’s breathing became the only sound in the tiny room.

  “Think they left,” Tree whispered. “We gonna hang tight, though. They might’ve got bored, went to look for more meat. Fuckin’ hope they don’t come back for us.”

  Maggot nodded, not caring that the huge man couldn’t see him. He concentrated on a single thought, one that repeated in his mind again and again.

  Goodbye, Dr. Wilson.

  ***

  Marquez watched Dunlap kill the second guard.

  Rocha stood at his side, cheering. A lot of the inmates were cheering, but not Marquez. He wasn’t that stupid. He knew what he was seeing, and judging by the way the cheers began to lose volume, the others were catching on pretty quick.

  Vampire.

  It sounded stupid. Hell, it sounded insane. Vampires didn’t exist. They were things from movies and books and comics. They sure as hell didn’t show up in Burnham State Maximum Security Penitentiary. But Marquez believed the word the banger had yelled--was the guy’s name Hall? --was the right one. That one word put everything in its place. So much made sense now. All the deaths, the disappearances. The feeling that something bad was out there, something unnatural. Why they’d never found the bodies or found who was responsible for them. He understood all of it now.

  Vampire.

  Seeing is believing, and Omar saw plenty. He watched as Dunlap dragged the guard to the ground. The monster reared back its head, opening its mouth to expose the teeth he knew were fangs, and then bit into the officer’s neck. The man’s body seized in the creature’s grasp as if hit with an electrical current. Dunlap’s body went rigid as well, all but the head, which rotated back and for
th on the neck. Marquez could hear the guard’s skin rip, and then Dunlap leaned back to spit the bloody hunk of flesh away before diving into the wound. He heard the piece of meat hit the floor with a wet smack.

  Unit B was almost silent now. Everyone listened to the drinking sounds of the vampire on its victim.

  “Motherfucker,” Rocha whispered

  “You can say that again,” Marquez whispered.

  Rocha crossed himself and started shaking.

  “Oh, Jesus Christ. Oh fuck, Omar!”

  He looked to the vampire. More than anything, wanted to scream like all the rest. Only he couldn’t do that. He had to keep his cool, had to watch this thing through to the end. This was important.

  Dunlap looked up from his kill, from his meal, and hissed at the screaming inmates. The din of sound didn’t appear to disorient or frighten him. If anything, it seemed to irritate the monster. An instant later, Dunlap shook his head--blood flying from his lips--and returned to the guard’s ravaged neck.

  Marquez took a deep breath and let it out in a low whistle. He felt his heart pound hard and fast against his chest, his knuckles burn as his fingers flexed around the bars of his cell. The thick scent of Dunlap’s rot and filth set his stomach churning again. Or maybe that was only his own sense of terror doing the job. He wanted one of his antacids, but he refused to leave the bars.

  The screaming surged, and Marquez looked around for a reason why. As if in answer, two more figures came dashing out of the darkness, moving like rabid animals.

  Omar’s breath caught in his chest. He felt suddenly dizzy, and only his clenched fists kept him from falling away from the bars.

  “Chale?”

  The word came out a whisper, so soft he wasn’t ever sure he had spoken it, but the monster turned to look at him just the same. The features were pale and monstrous, and a red smear already decorated his mouth, but it was Chale.

  Marquez leaned toward the bars, trying to catch his breath. Chale’s eyes held him, and even Rocha’s hand on his arm couldn’t drag him from the boy’s hungry stare.

  “Chale?” he repeated.

  As if in answer, the vampire let out a shriek, a long note like keys scraping over metal. The other monster that had appeared was hunched over Hall’s body, mouth pressed to the wound in the banger’s side. When Chale finally turned away, it was to join this monster, to tear into Hall’s flesh and drain what was left inside.

  “That’s not Chale,” Rocha said. “Chale’s dead, boss.”

  “That’s him. You know just like I do.”

  “Chale was killed. Saying anything else is fuckin’ loco.”

  He whirled on Rocha, gripping the back of the man’s neck in one hand and thrusting his face toward the bars.

  “Look at that! Look at what’s going on down there, and you tell me that isn’t loco!”

  “I don’t want to look at it!”

  The world disappeared as Marquez felt his temper grab hold with a white hot grip. He pulled Rocha away from the bars and slammed him forward, smashing his face against the iron. Rocha cried out as his face bounced off the metal, the skin splitting open. When Marquez let go, Rocha staggered backward, holding both hands to his bleeding face.

  Marquez growled as he stalked his lieutenant. Rocha held out a hand, the skin slick with blood, but he punched past it, his knuckles slamming into the man’s face. Something in the back of his mind told him he was being irrational, that instead of beating Rocha, he needed to watch what was happening in the unit. He ignored the voice, kicked it aside like an unwanted child, and instead hit the man with a trio of punches. Rocha screamed and fell to the floor.

  Marquez started kicking.

  “I’m ordering you, motherfucker!” His bare feet dug into Rocha’s ribs, wrecking balls of flesh and bone. “I don’t take shit from my crew, you puta asshole!”

  He kept attacking as Rocha curled up into a ball. No longer able to scream, his lieutenant wept. Sobs filled the cell, blending with the screams from the floor.

  The screams.

  Marquez returned to the world, dragged slowly and painfully by the sounds of terror and death. His limbs felt heavy, useless. Sweat rolled off of him, mixing with hot tears he didn’t remember shedding. Something was happening, something other than Rocha’s bleeding and crying. He had to see it, had to watch. It was important. Somehow he knew that.

  “You’ll be okay,” he muttered. Rocha screeched a reply, but he ignored it. Turning away from the bleeding man, flexing his sore knuckles, he returned to the bars of his cell, making himself watch.

  ***

  Ribisi stood in silence, watching as a thing that looked a lot like his boy Aldo reeled away from the gangbanger’s body and bellowed with what could only be rage. The thing looked around greedily, and when he saw the splattered drops of blood Hall had trailed behind him, he dove on them, licking them from the concrete floor in long strokes. Dunlap did the same. The third--one he knew had served under Marquez--joined them a moment later.

  And then they seemed to decide the drops weren’t enough. They were still hungry, and the spilled blood wasn’t going to satisfy them. They eyed each other, crouching in the middle of the floor. The unit quieted around them, as if the inmates thought they might be able to hear the beasts’ thoughts if they listened closely enough.

  Anton watched them, waiting. He felt cold sweat drip into his eyes, and he wiped it away. Sensing what these fucking bastards were about to do, he decided it was important that he watch. In the back of his mind, he knew the other leaders would be doing the same, each looking out for the interests of their tribe. Observing. Learning. That’s what made them leaders.

  Dunlap looked up first and pointed to the closest cell. It held two gangbangers, men Anton had seen slinging dope when Diggs decided to try out the drug trade every now and then. They backed away from the bars, screaming, as the trio of vampires charged them.

  The creatures threw themselves at the bars, colliding with a sound like broken church bells. They hissed and snarled and spat, the sounds mixing with the homeboys’ terrified cries, and Ribisi wasn’t at all surprised when they grabbed the cell’s bars in their long, taloned hands and began to pull.

  He leaned closer, trying to get a better view, watching in rapt attention. His breath came in quick bursts. This was it. He’d know soon.

  The monsters yanked at the bars, screeching with the effort. The men inside screamed. Ribisi could almost smell their terror. He could sense the rest watching. Some yelled at the creatures, at the men inside. Others remained silent, but he knew every last one of them was watching, waiting. Just like him.

  They didn’t have to wait long.

  There was a groan of iron, low and scraping. When the two gangbangers heard it, they began to cry like children. They made no effort to grab weapons, only watched the monsters and wailed. Ribisi could hear their sobs over everything else.

  The vampires wrenched at the bars, so excited they were almost desperate. The iron moaned, its pitch shifting, until the cell’s door finally flew open with a loud clang!

  The noise was awful, a chorus of terrified and agonized cries, but Ribisi couldn’t turn away from the spectacle. Every second unfolded in horrible slow motion. He saw the monsters swarm into the cell as a single entity, saw the flurry of limbs as they attacked the men inside. The men’s screams reached new heights, then faltered and hitched. Anton watched as the vampires dragged the men, still thrashing in a futile attempt at escape, out of the cell and into the unit.

  The creatures ripped the men apart and drank what was left. They were savage, incensed by their kill. Claws and fangs and sinewy limbs worked like awful, hellish machines.

  Ribisi had done a lot of terrible things to people in his line of work, but he’d never seen so many people slaughtered so quickly and so brutally. Never. He hadn’t known something like that was even possible.

  And it got worse. As Aldo and the others finished, they tore the two bodies into smaller pieces. Hissing in a wa
y that almost sounded gleeful, they threw these chunks of flesh into the nearby cells. They smeared them across the floor, leaving bright, crimson streaks in their wake. Some men screamed, hurled curses and promises of death. Most watched in dumb horror.

  When the vampires finished, they scooped up Hall and the two guards and left. Ribisi listened to their shuffling footsteps as they walked away, quickly but without hurrying. They’d made their point. They weren’t afraid.

  ***

  Marquez stared at the bloody floor for a long time, ignoring Rocha’s pained moans and apologies. He took in every scrap of flesh, every splintered bone. Every last smear of blood. Three men. That’s all it took to kill five--to rip open a cell door and tear apart men inside like old newspaper. And there were more out there. Omar knew that. Eight bodies missing so far. That meant there could be as many as five more, and he didn’t dare hope the bodies the monsters had left with tonight would stay dead forever.

  Cold crawled over his skin, worked its way into his bones. He wanted to speak with Ribisi, with Diggs and Sweeny. They needed to decide on a course of action, a way of staying alive.

  He wanted to speak with Father Albright.

  None of them were safe. There was no doubt of that now. These things could get to them if they wanted, whenever they wanted. The prisoners of Burnham were in some serious shit.

  Ten

  “I want complete media silence. I won’t accept anything less.”

  Governor Leslie Graham was a lot like her predecessor. She wanted things done her way, no excuses. When needed, she could be ruthless, and she usually acted the same way if there was no call for it. She had a photogenic smile, a wonderful family, and a glowing record a mile long. And just like her predecessor, she wanted to forget the State’s prisons existed. Just keep the men inside quiet and out of her hair. You pull that off, and everything’s just fine, might even get you a bonus at the end of the year.