The Last Days of October (10 page)

“Look,” Petey
said.
 
“This shit’s everywhere.”

On the bank of
glowing monitors covering one wall of the control room, men struggled and fell
in the bunkrooms that comprised the main part of the jail—the part he himself
would have been in but for Petey’s largesse—while jailers and trustees stumbled
in the corridors.
  
Black, white,
Hispanic, they all had the same narrow, wolfish look as the one who had tried
to gain entry to Justin’s own cell.
 
Justin counted two bunkrooms that appeared normal; in these, jumpsuited
men lay on bunks, on the floors, apparently unaware of the commotion taking
place outside.

They’ll find out soon enough.

“Holy shit,”
Justin whispered.

On one monitor, a
brown-shirted deputy stopped and stared at the camera.
 
Its black eyes held him motionless as he felt
suddenly overcome by the notion that the thing could see him, too; that it knew
he was there, could sense his bewilderment and fear.
 

It grinned and
bared its fangs.

“This is so fucked
up,” he said.
 
“How did it get up there
if this guy out here brought it in and you stabbed him?
 
I mean, that’s him laying right out there,
right?
 
How is this even possible?”

“It must have been
in here earlier,” Petey said.
 
He coughed
and grunted.
 
“Up there.
 
Came in again through in-processing, with
Asshole out there.
 
Came in from outside
the jail, though.
 
Means…”

“This same problem
might be developing out in the public.
 
Right now.”

“Bingo.
 
And check this out.”

Petey punched some
keys on a computer keyboard at the bottom of the monitor bank.
 
The top row of screens blinked and refocused
on new scenes.
 
In the corridors above,
small knots of afflicted deputies and trustees stood motionless outside of
bunkrooms.
 

“They’re waiting
to get in,” Petey said.
 
Light from the
monitors reflected off the sheen of sweat covering his face.
 
He took his breaths in uneven gusts that he
released in ragged sighs.
 
“Those are the
unaffected cells.
 
Eventually, they’re
going to figure out that if somebody buzzes those doors, they can all get in
there and eat.”

“Those guys in
there are fucked,” Justin said.

“Unless you want
to fight through an army of vampires to save them.
 
You want to do that, be my guest.
 
But my ass is…hey, check this out.”
 

Petey pointed to
the leftmost monitor.
 
Justin
looked.
 
Three figures in sheriff’s
department uniforms stood motionless before a closed door.

“What’s that?” he
asked.

“That is…”

Petey rose from
the chair and stood in the doorway.
 
He
pointed to a door beside the inprocessing office.
 
The stairwell.

“…right
there.
 
Hit the wrong button, those
bastards are coming out.”

Justin stared at
the door, then back at the monitor.
 
He
hadn’t thought it possible for his guts to feel any colder, but he’d been
wrong.
 
Less than ten feet separated him
and Petey from the creatures on the monitor.

The inmates of
this jail were damned.
 
There was nothing
he could do.

“So I suggest,”
Petey labored, “that we get the fuck out of here.
 
Now.”

He rummaged around
in a toolbox under the monitor table.
 
Finding nothing that suited him there, he straightened up and surveyed
the table.
 
Sweat dripped from the bags
beneath his eyes; he looked to Justin like he hadn’t slept in weeks.
 
The control room was redolent of body odor
barely concealed beneath his cheap cologne and the smell of latex from his
gloves.

He grabbed a pair
of clipboards and thrust them at Justin.
 
“Here,” he said.
 
“Use these to
jam the doors open.
 
I’ll be right behind
you.”

“Don’t hit the
wrong button.”

“I won’t.
 
Bank on it.”

Stepping over the
bodies, Justin made his way to the first of two doors that led from the
outside.
 
The buzzer sounded, the lock
clanked and he entered a tiny, square room the size of a broom closet.
 
To his left, a glass window looked into the
control room.
 
To his right, an
elevator.
 
In front, the door to the
public lobby.
 
And freedom.

He wedged a
clipboard in the first door and pulled the handle until the door’s weight
firmly held the clipboard in place.
 
He
stepped back and rested a hand on the second door and waited.

No buzz.

“Okay!” he
yelled.
 
“Go ahead and hit the second
one!”

Still nothing.

He turned to the
window and plastered his face to the glass.
 
On the other side, Petey sat before the glowing monitors, jamming his
index finger at a button on the console.
 
Justin passed back through the first door and stepped into the control
room.

“What’s going on?”
he asked.

Petey’s head
seemed to be swaying atop the mountain of his chest.
 
For a moment, Justin thought he had lost
consciousness.
 
But then he turned, his
face knotted with confusion.

“Won’t work,” he
said.
 
“I press the…button and…nothing
happens.”

If Petey had
looked sick before, now he looked near death.
 
His skin had gone white and pale, his lips a bluish tear at the bottom of
his chubby face.
 
Sweat beaded on his
broad forehead.
 
He blinked and turned
his head when he addressed Justin, almost as if he had trouble focusing.

He didn’t get bit,
Justin thought.
 
He
didn’t!
 
He said so!

Why don’t you ask him to show you his hands?

Justin looked
down.
  
A pair of white latex gloves
covered both of Petey’s hands.
 
He could
have received a bite on one of those.
 
Justin wouldn’t have known.

He swallowed and
said, “It’s probably a security measure.
 
Only one door open at a time, right?
 
Keep prisoners from escaping?”

“Yeah,” Petey
panted.
 
“I think that’s right.”

“So we have to
fool the system, make it think that other door’s closed.
 
You got any duct tape around here?”

“Of course we got
duct tape.
 
What kind of rinky-dink
outfit you think we’re running here?”

Am I imagining things, or is his voice
changing?

Justin took in a
deep breath.
 
He had to do this while
Petey remained in control of his faculties.
 
Because once Petey stopped being Petey and lost the inclination to
operate the control board, Justin would have nobody to buzz him out.
 
Even if he rammed one of those makeshift
stakes through Petey’s heart and made his vampire career a short one, he’d be
stuck in here.
 
Maybe not in a cell, but
stuck anyway.

Claw marks
.

“Can you get it
for me?”
 
Justin asked.
 
“Or tell me where it is?”

With what appeared
like a titanic effort, Petey reached under the table and came up with a plastic
bin of sundries.
 
He pushed it down the
length of the table at Justin and collapsed back in his chair.
 
The seat back groaned beneath his
weight.
 
“Jesus,” he muttered.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine, I’m
just…fuck, man, I’m feeling like shit all of a sudden, you know?
 
You think I could be having a heart attack?”

Where is it where is it where where where IS
THE FUCKING DUCT TAPE

At the bottom,
just beneath a dirty Burlington Royals ball cap, Justin located the tape.
 
His right hand closed around it and he jerked
it out.
 
“Naw, man.
 
You’re nineteen.
 
Folks like us don’t have heart attacks.”

“Yeah, but I’m a
big, fat, nasty pig.
 
I ain’t got blood,
I got grease with pieces of bacon floating in it.”

“You’re all
right,” Justin lied.
 
“Now get your
fingers to that control board.
 
We’re
getting out of here.”

“That’s a big
ten-four.”

Justin exited the
control room and waited for the first buzz.
 
When the door opened, he held it ajar with his body while he tore a
length of the gray tape and applied it to the security roller on the lock’s
striker plate.

One down, one to go.
 
We can do this.

He stepped inside
the tiny vestibule and let the door close.
 
Then he turned and knocked on the control room window.
 
On the other side of the glass, Petey jabbed
at the button.
 
But nothing happened.

“What’s
wrong?”
 
Petey asked.
 
It came out
wass-ong
, like a drunk.

It’s magnetic, not mechanical.
 
If metal doesn’t touch metal, that damn thing
knows it’s still open.

I’m fucked.

His head swam with
a sudden surge of panic.
 
It attacked
with such force that he nearly lost his balance.
 
He steadied himself on the wall, resting his head
against the glass.

“Justin?”

No.
 
He wasn’t fucked.
 
Not yet.

He raised his
head.
 
Then he walked back through
in-processing and into the control room.

“What’s wrong?”

“You got your
truck keys on you?”

“Uhh…yeah.
 
Why?”

“Can you throw
them to me?”

Petey stared at
him.

His eyes are going to go black.
 
Any minute now.
 
He’ll blink and they’ll be solid black.
 
And he’ll have fangs.

But then he
reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys.
 
He tossed them onto the table, where they
fell with a jangle.
 
Justin grabbed
them.
 

“What’s wrong?”

“What’s under the
gloves, Petey?
 
You got bit, didn’t
you?
 
On the hand?”

Petey looked down
at his gloved hands.
 
His head swayed
precariously, then rolled into a resigned nod.

“I’m going to get
help, all right?
 
We’ll get the feds,
Center for Disease Control, all those people.
 
We’ll get this fixed.
 
Including
you, okay?”

“Gotta hurry,”
Petey said.
 
His voice was almost a
whisper now.
 
“I feel like ass.”

“I can do
that.
 
But I need you to stay with me a
bit, okay?
 
I need you to operate these
controls.
 
Because the system knows
there’s still a door open.
 
The duct tape
didn’t work.”

“Duct tape…always
works.”

“Not this
time.
 
Stay with me, all right?”

Petey nodded.
 
Justin could tell in the way he moved his
body he didn’t have much time left.

“I’m going to let
that first door engage.
 
Then you buzz
the second.
 
Okay?”

“Ten-four.”

Justin left the
control room.
 
He pulled the first door
open and removed the length of duct tape.
 
Then he stepped through.

The door closed
behind him.
 
Giddy panic seized his brain
again.

He’s going to lose it now.
 
Right now.
 
And you’ll still be in here.

His eyes fell on
the door in front of him.
 
The
handle.
 
It didn’t buzz.

Oh, God
.

He rapped on the
control room window.
 
“Petey?
 
Buzz me out, man.”

No response.
 

Justin pressed his
face against the window glass.
 
On the
other side, Petey sat slumped in his chair.
 
His shoulders twitched weakly.
 
But for that, he could have been

Dead.
 
Dead like you’ll be, only dead a lot faster.
 
Yours won’t be like that.
 
Gonna take a while for you to die in
here.
 
Three days?
 
Four?

His hands formed
into fists.

Somebody will find you eventually.
 
They’ll know how you died.
 
It’ll give them nightmares.

He screamed
then.
 
He had never screamed like that,
not at Kayleigh, not at his worthless mother, not at anyone.
 
His chest erupted in the scream of the
unjustly damned, a scream of razor blades and broken glass that tore at his
vocal chords.
 
He attacked the
window.
 
He beat his fists against it.