Authors: Adam Millard
'Be quick,' warned Shane. 'We don't have all day here.'
Billy managed to roll over; the big man – although both of them were huge and it was like watching Godzilla fight Mecha-Godzilla – was underneath now, those dark eyes staring up at Billy Toombs with vehement determination.
Billy shifted his weight so that his elbow was across the throat of Xander, who choked beneath the weight of it. Billy levelled the knife and slowly pushed it into the creature's eye. There was an audible pop as the eyeball burst; dark ooze squirted out and landed on the creature's cheek.
Shane quickly assessed the position of the approaching creatures. They were within spitting distance; a few seconds, maximum, was all that remained before engagement.
When Shane turned back, Billy was clambering to his feet, wiping the small blade on sleeve of his overalls.
The creature lay motionless. The tiny knife had been long enough to penetrate the socket and slice into the brain.
'Shall we go now?' Shane asked, stepping away from the two creatures, who were clawing at the air and snapping with blackened teeth.
'That would be nice,' Billy grimaced.
They turned and ran.
*
Being at the end of the row had its drawbacks. For one, Rooster and Marvin had no clue that they were the only ones still in their cell. They simply couldn't see that everyone else had realised the doors were open, and the noises from the past three hours had been linked with the riot, not associated with the murderous assault of the hellish creatures as they swept across the prison.
Yes, being on the end of the row certainly had its drawbacks.
'It's all gone a bit quiet, now,' Marvin said, shuffling the cards so badly that Rooster wondered whether the man was developing some sort of disease. 'Fifty bucks says Hart's in solitary.'
'
Fifty
?' Rooster said, shaking his head. 'How about a hundred?'
'You're on,' grinned Marvin. 'Easy money.'
Rooster was becoming bored of cards, but there seemed to be nothing else to do. Going to bed was not an option, not whilst there was a riot in progress. Going to sleep would be dangerous, especially if the guards were pissed off at the prisoners. See, that was the thing: if a riot was instigated, it wasn't just the minority who were punished, the ones who had plotted and started the uprising...it was
everyone
. To fall asleep now made you an easy target for the guards, who would no doubt be round very soon to cause some trouble of their own. You were likely to be woken with a steel toecap boot to the jaw, which was never a nice was to be roused.
'Wish we had a chessboard,' Rooster sighed. 'I could play chess for fucking hours.'
'That's a bit like draughts, isn't it?' Marvin asked.
This question made it pretty obvious to Rooster that having a chessboard would have been presently pointless, unless he somehow taught his cellmate the rules, which would have been like trying to teach a chimpanzee to sing opera.
'It's
nothing
like draughts,' he finally replied. 'You trying to tell me you don't know how to play chess?'
Marvin nodded. 'Some of us didn't have chessboards growing up,' he said. 'I had a penknife and a fishing-rod.'
Rooster tried to imagine Marvin “Murderer” Manson as a child, innocent, heading off to the river with a boxful of bait and excited expectations. It was, perhaps, such isolation that had led to Marvin becoming unhinged and killing three people in cold blood. Fishing was a dangerous sport if you couldn't cope with the tranquility and hours of tedious sitting. Marvin had developed his psychotic tendencies whilst eating a cucumber sandwich, listening to Enya from a crackly old radio sitting next to him on the bank.
'I used to play a lot,' Rooster said. 'Too much, in fact. My sister could never understand why the bishops could move diagonally, and the little horse, that's what she used to call 'em, did that silly move that they did. I couldn't tell her why, but I just told her to play properly and stop being such a little brat.' Rooster paused. The memory seemed to be more than he had expected, and the feeling that came with it he certainly hadn't anticipated. 'Dad took the board off of me after a while. Said that chess was for fucking pussies, and did I want to grow up to be a
fag
? My sister took to calling me a fag after that, and she and Dad would laugh about it.'
'That's pretty fucked up, dude,' Marvin said as he picked up dropped cards from the floor.
'I fucking hated them for that,' Rooster continued. 'I stopped playing chess because I believed him. Can you believe that? I thought that my dad was
right
.'
'Your dad sounds like an asshole to me,' Marvin laughed.
'He was,' Rooster said. 'Which is one of the reasons why I killed him. In hindsight,' he smiled, 'I wished I'd shoved a few fucking knights up his shitpipe for the forensics to figure out.' He burst out laughing.
'Probably a good thing we don't have a chessboard,' Marvin sniggered.
'You're right.'
Rooster stood and stretched. His back made a terrible cracking sound which Marvin grimace at. They had been playing cards for hours, that and listening to the riot play out. Now, though, everything had fallen ominously quiet.
Rooster took a few steps towards the cell door. 'What would you be doing now if you weren't here?'
'What, like if I hadn't been caught?' Marvin asked with a slightly confused expression. Rooster nodded. 'Fuck knows. Maybe I'd still be killing. Maybe I would have settled down, got it all out of my system and married some whore named Crystal.'
Rooster grinned. 'I like the sound of that,' he said. 'Me, I'd probably just drive around the country, taking everything in. I've always wanted to do that, you know? Just hire a car and keep on driving.'
Marvin smiled tentatively. 'Wouldn't you have to return the car?'
Rooster shrugged. 'What would it matter, unless I got picked up by the pigs?'
'That sounds awesome, dude,' Marvin said as he stood from the table and stretched. His back, however, did not crack.
'Funny how shit works out, isn't it?' Rooster whispered.
Marvin didn't think it was funny at all, but nodded anyway.
Rooster placed his hands on the bars of the cell, which rattled with instability. A sudden realisation hit Rooster Hill.
'You know when I asked what you would do if you weren't here?' he said.
Marvin nodded. 'Uh-huh.'
'Well how about we find out,' he said.
And with that, he threw the cell doors wide open.
*
Terry Lewis took a quick glance around the corner. There were seven of them, four on the floor and three standing. The four on the floor were picking at the bones of something unrecognisable, whilst the others meandered around the corridor, confused, hungry.
Terry made the signal of the cross against his chest.
'How many?' Jared asked. He was half-in, half-out of the laundry room.
'Seven,' Terry whispered. 'But we should be able to get by them without them noticing.'
The door which they needed to get to was a few feet away from the creatures. Terry knew that the ones feeding would be too busy to spot them as they passed, and if they were quick enough and waited until the others were facing the other way, they could make it without alerting any of them.
'I don't want to,' Jared said, fearful. His eyes were filled with tears. Terry realised that he didn't know his cellmate at all, not
really
.
'Do you want to stay here?' asked Terry. 'You want me to leave you to hide in there, on your own?'
Jared's eyes widened even more; his mouth fell open into a terrified O. 'What if they see us?' he managed. 'What if they see us, Terry, and we can't beat them?'
Terry knew the consequences of such a predicament, but his faith had returned somewhat. Not completely; it wasn't the same as when he'd first discovered religion all those years ago, but when you were young you believed in anything. It was, however, enough for Terry to believe that God didn't want him to die, not yet. He had once been a training servant to the Lord; that had to count for something.
'We don't have a choice,' Terry said. 'We need to get to the yard and pray that those things haven't had the same idea.'
'I trust you,' Jared said, closing his mouth. Terry knew, right then, that he was not just surviving for himself.
He had to take care of another soul, too.
'I'm going to take another look,' Terry said as he placed the flat of his hand against Jared's chest. 'I'll wait until the coast is clear, but when I go,
you
go. There'll be no time to piss about. We head for the door, second up on the right, and we don't stop running until we reach it. Do you understand?'
Jared nodded.
'Good.'
Terry stuck his head out again. One of the creatures that had been standing was now feeding with the others, which meant that there were only two now who could possibly get to the door before them. Those two, though, were heading down the corridor, bumping into each other and bouncing off the walls like fleshy pinballs.
'Now,' Terry whispered, and took off. Never once taking his eyes from the door, he listened to the creatures as they gnawed through bone and sucked at the flesh of the poor soul. It was enough to make vomit rise in his throat, but he quickly swallowed it down, never once faltering. He just hoped that Jared was following closely, for if he wasn't, then it would be too late for him to make it.
One of the ambling creatures had turned, and was now sliding along the corridor with teeth bared. It growled, but the five feeders didn't pay it any heed, even when it almost tripped over them and the cadaver upon which they fed.
Terry reached the door and turned to find Jared had been less than a step behind him all the way. As he turned they almost clashed heads.
'Get in!' Terry said, pulling the door open and forcing Jared through it. He followed, slamming the door shut as quickly as he could.
There was a single lock halfway down the frame, which Terry slid into place. It would be enough to keep the creatures out, for now; the sheet of glass which filled the upper half of the door would take some breaking, too, and those things were weak. It would take a lot of them to push through the glass, and they didn't seem to possess the brain-capacity to figure out a large brick or mop-handle would be enough to break it.
Terry wasn't taking any chances, though, and moved away from the glass. It was frosted, but that didn't mean the creatures wouldn't see them moving around on the other side.
'The yard,' Terry whispered, pointing across to the other side of the room, 'is through there, out onto the corridor, and a hundred feet down. If there aren't any of those fucking things out there, we shouldn't have any problems.'
Jared took a step in the direction of the door. A hand yanked him backwards. He was face-to-face with Terry Lewis, who was holding his index finger up to his lips.
'
Shhhh
,' he said, pointing to the frosted door which they had just come through.
There, standing on the other side of the door, was a creature, silhouetted through the glass. A hand came up and pressed against the door; blood dripped down from the fingers; the light from the corridor made it a brighter red than it actually was.
With its other hand, the creature was trying the door. The doorknob rattled, slowly at first, than more urgently. Jared, Terry could see, was fighting the scream that so naturally wanted to emerge.
The hand slapped, open-palmed, against the glass, but there was no fear of it shattering. The creature moaned, tried the knob once again, and slowly moved away from the door. Light spilled back into the room from the corridor as the silhouette departed.
They both exhaled, relieved that the creature had decided not to pursue them further or alert the others. Terry smiled smugly, which Jared didn't appreciate too much.
'Let's go,' Terry said, ushering his cellmate towards the door at the opposite side of the room. When they got there, Terry took a deep breath, Jared took a step back, and Terry grabbed the doorknob.
He turned it.
*
Nothing happened. The door was locked. Of
course
it would be, terry surmised. It would have been too simple to just waltz all the way across to the yard with no obstacles.
'Don't suppose you know how to pick locks?' Terry asked.
'I was one of the best,' Jared said. 'Just give me a lock-picking set and I can get us in.' There was more than a hint of sarcasm in his tone.
Terry turned and began to survey the room in which they found themselves.
Boxes, different sizes and multicoloured, were stacked against the walls. It was some kind of file-storage room, no doubt containing obsolete paperwork from years ago.
'Wait here,' Terry said. He made his way across the room, keeping a close eye on the glass of the door at the other end.
He grabbed a box down from one of the shelves and took the lid off. As he suspected, there were folders dating back to a time when even
he
wasn't an inmate. All of the folders had names written on them in permanent marker, but none of that interested him.