Tim nodded. He turned his head to the guard behind him. “Come on, T-Bob. There’s a spot by the wall over there where we can dump him.”
The inmates were laid in neat rows with a yard of spacing between each. The two guards gingerly stepped through, avoiding the bodies more out of concern of tripping than respect for the dead. Tim looked about and wondered who would be replacing Burl as Warden. There was no way the governor could leave him in charge. The buck always stops at the top.
A new fear started to creep over him. Would the governor close Paradis? He would lose his benefits and health insurance. Sure, he could go back and fish for a living, but that was a hard, uncertain life. Exactly what he wanted to get away from when he applied here. He liked the normal hours the prison offered.
What if Paradis was ground zero for a new epidemic? Maybe one of those new forms of influenza, swine or bird flu. What if this very moment I’m incubating the virus and the next to drop dead?
The thought made Tim shudder.
The guards set the stretcher down, and Tim leaned his back against the wall. He unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt and felt his forehead with the palm of his hand. It was cool to the touch.
“You feeling bad?” T-Bob asked.
“I don’t know. All these prisoners getting sick are making me feel ill. I also got some other stuff on my mind.”
T-Bob scanned the room. “Eh, so what if these assholes die? They’ll just ship in a new batch of criminals to take their place. Fuck ’em. That’s less trash the taxpayers have to worry with. I don’t understand why there’s a life sentence anyway. If someone does something that bad, just kill ’em and get it over with. Why I’d—”
T-Bob stumbled backward and fell on his rear across the legs of an inmate.
Tim looked over. “T-Bob? Watch where you’re going.”
“Hey! This bastard’s got a hold of my ankle! He—ouch!”
The inmate’s back lifted off the floor as if powered by a springboard. The prisoner rolled on top of the surprised guard, digging fingers into T-Bob’s face, and tearing at his throat with his teeth.
The god-awful scream momentarily stunned Tim, but he quickly jumped into action. Leaping over to T-Bob, he slammed the point of his boot into the inmate’s side. Ribs cracked, but the desperate cries of pain and angst came only from the fallen guard. The inmate continued to bury his face into T-Bob.
“Get off him! Get off!” No matter how hard Tim kicked, it did not deter the inmate’s ravenous feeding.
“What’s going on over there?” Parsons dropped his clipboard upon hearing the scream. He took five steps toward the fray before two inmates in his path jumped to their feet. Their eyes were open, but vacant. Parsons looked into their black pupils, staring into the emptiness that death brings.
Parsons yelped and threw his hands up as if to stop a stampeding herd of horses. Each inmate took one of his hands by the wrist, and simultaneously, munched on Parsons’ fingers. The doctor fell to his knees, begging for mercy that fell on undead ears.
Tim gave up on his futile attempt to kick the inmate off T-Bob. He dropped on top of the inmate instead and managed to snake a half nelson around the inmate’s arm and neck, flipping the felon on his back, and pulling him off his friend.
Parsons screamed.
Tim could only imagine more of the inmates had awakened, and in their delirium, had begun a voracious assault. “Help! Somebody! We need help in here! HELP!” He felt his cries were too little, too late, as he struggled to keep the inmate pinned to his chest. He didn’t know how much longer he could hold out. Tim had wrestled for Johnson Bayou High and had come very close to making state finals. He had never faced another wrestler who had so much raw strength and single-minded determination. His arm had already started to numb.
A flash of pain shot up his right leg as a set of teeth clamped down on his shin. He craned his head enough to see another prone inmate chewing through his pant leg and gnawing on bone. Tim tried to shake the crazed man from his leg, but couldn’t. Blood flowed freely underneath his calf muscle and splattered to the floor.
Bright orange filled his view, as an inmate hovered over him, and bit into his forearm. The inmate held in Tim’s grip quickly escaped, spun around, and sank his teeth into Tim’s neck.
Tim’s world faded into darkness. His own screams echoed in his head, and finally, into oblivion.
Another set of guards ferrying yet another ‘dead’ inmate on a stretcher, nearly dropped their passenger to the floor when they heard screams coming from the gym. The first guard to arrive at the door saw Parsons torn apart by a raging group of inmates. He pulled the baton from his belt and ran to Parsons’ aid, bringing his club down hard on the back of the nearest inmate’s head.
The guard who followed stopped cold at the gym’s entrance. Blood spewed through the air as Parsons’ arm detached from the shoulder joint. His fellow guardsman beat franticly to no avail. The more he swung at the attacking horde, the more they rose from the floor to surround him.
The second guard could do nothing but watch in stunned disbelief at the savageness of the inmate’s violence. This was nothing like the riot he had experienced some eight years earlier. Something was very different about the inmates. Something that didn’t catch his attention at first. Their movements were mechanical, almost as if they were sleepwalking. The expressions on their faces contorted into a hideous, monstrous display. The distortion was so severe that he was only able to recognize two among the crowd.
With the situation utterly hopeless, he turned and ran screaming for help.
* * *
Two MPs opened the power company substation a half mile away from downtown Botte. The key had been provided to Colonel Hart by the mayor.
“What do you think happened to call for lockdown?” one asked the other.
“Can’t say for sure. I wouldn’t put it past old man Hart to do something like this because he’s bored. He’s pulled some shit like this before. It’s probably just a drill to keep us on our toes. Plus”—the MP smiled sheepishly—”he likes to fuck with the locals—throw his weight around. So what if they can’t use their phones for a few hours?”
The other MP followed his hand drawn map until he came to the appropriate electrical breakers. “Sorry, residents of Botte, orders are orders.” He brought three breaker handles down in succession. The loud hum of electrons flowing in the equipment reduced to half its volume.
The cellphone tower went dead as did the land telephones lines. So did the power to the town’s main water pump that had temporarily been rerouted to one of the breakers tripped, while its main breaker was undergoing repairs. The spare water pump kicked on when the main pump went down. The spare pumped half the capacity of the main and didn’t put up near the same amount of discharge pressure. Not far from where the town’s water supply passed underground near Paradis, a line with a pressure sensing control valve was the only block keeping the systems separated. When the spare pump kicked in, a low-pressure sensor opened the valve to raise the mainline water pressure.
A concentration of vaccine only going to the prison now pumped its way into the town’s water supply.
* * *
Earlier at Paradis
“Is that low life, good for nothing, Colonel Hart, there? We’ve got a situation going on over here at Paradis!” Burl said into his cellphone.
“Sir, Colonel Hart has reported back to the base, but is unavailable. Would you like to leave a message?” the voice on the other end said.
“I’ll leave him a message. Tell him that all the inmates dropped like flies and woke up in a pissy mood. We’ve got a jailbreak going on here! My guards are being ripped to shreds. Tell him to send the posse over and save our sorry asses before there’s no one left alive.” Burl ran into the back of Mitch, who had stopped and fired a round of buckshot square in the face of an inmate that had shambled into their path.
Another inmate lumbered his way toward the gun’s discharge. Mitch hastily fired another shot and severed the inmate’s arm at the elbow. The next shot left a fist size hole in the man’s chest. The inmate absorbed the impact, but quickly continued his advance.
“Son-of-a-bitch,” Mitch mumbled under his breath. The next shot took down the undead when the double-aught buckshot entered its eye and exited out the back of its head.
Burl bounded down the hallway and opened the door leading outside. “The coast looks clear. Come on!”
Mitch watched three more reanimated inmates turn the corner and head in their direction. He only had two shells remaining and thought better of using them both now. Burl motioned with his hand for him to hurry on, so he did.
Once outside, they ran to the center road leading to the gate. An eighteen-wheeler carrying Kentwood water had stopped just inside the entrance. The gates were wide open, and the orange clad inmates poured out of Paradis to freedom.
The watchtower’s searchlight pointed up to the sky. Mitch thought he understood why. The grounds were well lit by halogen lighting, but still, dark shadows jutted about, harboring the mind’s worst imaginations.
“What do we do?” Burl said, the corners of his mouth drooped down more than normal and quivered.
“We need to find the other guards. We need to find a safe refuge and button up until help arrives. Did you get anyone on the phone?”
“I got some numb-nuts and told him our situation. I didn’t have time to shoot the breeze. I told him we need help right now.”
“We should fast-tail it to the armory. We’ll grab more guns and search for survivors.” Mitch’s frantic gaze caught the soles of a correction officer’s boots sticking out of a shadow nearby. He hurried over and found mangled remains. If not for the victim’s name badge, he would have never known his identity. It was Gary Johnson.
A shotgun lay by his side. Mitch was able to eject three shells to add to his own weapon.
“Better move it, Mitch. A pack of them is heading our way. They look mean enough to chew the hide off a hog.”
Mitch lifted his gaze and saw eight undead closing in fast.
“I’m heading for the truck. Follow me!” Burl screamed.
Mitch turned to run, and he was brought down to the ground by a hand that had grabbed his belt at the small of his back. He rolled over and was stunned to see the mangled guard had returned to life. All the flesh from his face had been eaten off. His right arm was missing, and huge chunks of meat had been gouged out under his torn shirt.
The sight of the zombie guard paralyzed the ex-Ranger for a moment. When the thing went in for the attack, Mitch slammed the butt of his shotgun into the bridge of its nose.
It staggered backward.
Mitch jumped to his feet and delivered a second blow to its head, cracking it like a melon. The contents reminded him of something he once saw at a Halloween haunted house inside a witch’s cauldron.
The pack of inmates was nearly on him, cutting him off from following Burl to the sanctuary of the truck. His best chance to make it out alive was to head to the watchtower.
Burl stepped up into the cab of the truck, closing and locking the door behind him. The engine turned over as Mitch raced for the entrance that led to the tower. He glanced over quickly, and his last sight of Warden Burl was gruesome. Two hands emerged from behind the driver’s seat, grabbing the warden across his face, and, then, a large splatter of blood coating the inside of the windshield.
The horrible image burned into his mind. Mitch had seen death before. The Vietnam War had introduced him to death on a large scale long ago. It was war. Death was expected. More than once on his tour, he had shared a pot of coffee with squad members only to be wiping their blood and guts off of his face minutes later after an attack. It was war. Sad to say, but you got used to it.
Many years had gone by since then. This time, death came with a new set of rules, rules that Mitch was at a total loss to explain.
Mitch ascended the steps and found himself looking up at the knees of an inmate. He quickly brought the shotgun to his face.
“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! I ain’t one of them!”
Mitch nearly pulled the trigger anyway. He instantly recognized the voice of Curtis Brown.
Brown was in for a crime of passion committed 25 years earlier. He had been a model inmate since Mitch arrived at Paradis.
“Turn around and move it.” Mitch held the shotgun in both hands and used it to push Brown up the stairs.
“This ain’t gonna do us no good. The guard up there has the door locked!”
Mitch continued his ascent in silence, his heart pounded so hard he could feel it in his temples.
When the two reached the door, Mitch gave it a few quick raps with the butt of his gun. “Open up! Damn it! This is Mitch Blackwell. The area’s hot! Open up!”
Keys fumbling in the lock on the other side kept his hope alive. The door jerked open, and Mitch ran past the guard, with Brown acting as his shadow.
“Hey, why’d you let him up here?” The guard slammed the door shut and locked it.
Mitch held his hand up as he leaned against the short wall to regain his breath.
Brown’s eyes were as wide as saucers. The guard had his shotgun aimed three feet from the inmate’s head.