The Undead Situation (10 page)

Luck was a rollercoaster. Only seconds before we were royally screwed, and the next it improved. The Hummer spun a hard right up a slight incline not too far away from us. I couldn’t quite see over the few hills the road disappeared between, but I saw the tops of two towers. A large wooden sign the Hummer passed by confirmed my suspicions as to what the building was. Carved block letters read, “Monroe Reformatory.” “Survivors” and a ^ were spray painted between the two words, a declaration that the prison had been taken over by crazies. The engine of the Hummer faded from earshot, leaving Frank and I alone.

The good news was we knew where the Hummer was headed. The bad news was “Survivors” implied multiple.

I glanced down the roundabout at the undead milling towards us. Nothing could be easy, could it? It was unreasonable how many zombies were around these days.

“Let’s get a move on. This is going to take the rest of the day, I’d imagine.”

“You lead the way,” Frank said.

I thought about how I’d infiltrate. It was reasonable to estimate a minimum population of ten, and perhaps a maximum of thirty. I wasn’t a god, and wouldn’t be able to kill that many on short notice with no planning. If I did make it through to the Hummer and Pickle was in it, what would I do about Gabe? Should I go find her?

Putting my thoughts on hold, I formed a plan. Step one was to find the Hummer, with a sub-step of finding the keys if they weren’t in there. Despite all the movies I’d seen, I was never motivated to learn how to hot wire a car. I was regretting it, but as they say; shoulda, woulda, coulda. But if I got far enough to find the keys, I’d consider saving Gabe. After explaining the overall scheme to Frank, we headed towards the prison.

The reformatory wasn’t anything special—tall walls, fences, towers. It seemed like a good idea to tide over in there while the undead were running the earth. However, scavenging would be difficult, and if a single zombie got in there, their good idea would turn bad in a jiffy.

Luckily, Frank located the Hummer on the west side of the grounds within minutes of checking the perimeter. We were spotted by a woman who was missing most of her chest cavity, but I took care of that without any problems.

It was still light out, but twilight would soon be on its way. The sky grew warmer with the shades of a sunset, and the night promised to be clear. Good weather for a car re-hijacking. I fished my silencer out, twisted it onto the 9mm, and made my way to the fence.

I wanted things to remain as quiet as possible for as long as possible. Frank hadn’t spoken more than a few words since we broke in. We both knew the moment we were discovered our mission would get a lot harder. Always prepared, I took a pair of wire cutters from my vest pocket and set to work. Items like that were necessities—you didn’t have to use them solely on wire.

I worked until I had room enough to squeeze through. After bending the fence open as much as I could, we shimmied in. Despite our best effort the metal still rattled, and I winced at the sound. It wasn’t too loud, but if anyone were listening…well, we’d be screwed.

Inside, the grounds were wide open and forgiving. Everywhere was either brown dead grass or the gray stone of buildings. Guard towers were vacant, as were the windows overlooking the fields of open space. Was everyone inside? The fences were all closed, so maybe they thought there was no threat?

Too bad for them, there was a threat. Me and Frank.

Still on my guard but more confident, I walked back to where we spotted my Hummer. It was a welcoming sight, still full of ammo, supplies, and keys. Whatever the hijacker wanted to do, it had prevented him from casing the vehicle. Inside was just as I left it, with two small alterations.

One, Gabe wasn’t in it. Two, neither was Pickle.

I looked up into the lighted windows of the prison and frowned. Nothing could ever be easy, could it? I searched the vehicle a second time, but the results didn’t change.

“There ain’t no gain without some pain,” Frank said. He walked towards the prison, unfazed by our misfortune.

Disgruntled, I jogged to catch up to him as he made it to the back of the prison to an unloading area I had seen earlier.

There were two docks, both with additional door entrances. Parked at the farthest dock was a cherry red Mustang, looking misplaced in the back of a prison. We went to the first door and stepped inside the Monroe “Survivors’” Reformatory.

After opening the door, we were assaulted by a flood of cheering coming from somewhere within the building. I could make out a dimly lit, sweltering hallway. From the stone walls and the summer heat outside, the place must have been an oven around the clock.

There were no other doors in the hallway, so we had but one choice: forward. At the end of the hall, we found a metal staircase that went up and another corridor that led to the left. The cheering was coming from down this corridor, so I went up instead, ahead of Frank. (If I were holding a ferret and a bitchy girl hostage, I’d keep them as far away as possible from the general festivities.)

Upstairs were administrative offices, but the end of the hallway opened into a larger area. A roaring was coming from there, too, but the acoustics downstairs didn’t carry it as far up here. Curious and taking advantage of my position, I inched over and looked down. After deciding we were safe, I motioned Frank over.

Below were cells, tiers of them, with huge open space in the middle. There were at least a hundred men, shouting and chanting. They had constructed some kind of podium in the middle of the lowest floor, and a priest, black robes and all, held his hands up for silence. Most of the congregation had some form of weapon slung on their back, as they looked up with reverence at the priest.

The cells were filled with women, some just kids. Something in me said I should be disturbed by what I saw. These women were going to be forcibly impregnated, then forced to give birth to babies who would undoubtedly be really, really screwed up. I grimaced at the ever-rising conscience within me. Why did it decide to show up during situations where I couldn’t do anything?

It didn’t take long for the heat to get to me. Outside the weather was balmy, but inside was humid and uncomfortable. Everything I was witnessing intensified my uneasiness. I wiped the back of my hand against my sweaty forehead and itched to unzip my tactical vest.

“Fellow survivors!” the priest bellowed. The room quieted. “We have gathered enough of them for the Great Beginning! There will be one for each of you, but only the strongest will take multiple.”

My suspicions were confirmed.

“We will reproduce and create a new civilization. A greater one, immune to these demons.”

I had to cover my mouth to prevent the building laughter from escaping. I thought about how Gabe would take to being one of their wives.

Oh. They didn’t want the Hummer. They wanted Gabe.

“Well, I’ll be damned. I didn’t think they’d resort to this so soon,” Frank whispered.

While it made sense a huge number of people would go berserk when a traumatic event—such as the dead rising—occurred, why in the fuck did people have to do things like this?

After the speech carried on another ten minutes, the group dispersed into the lower levels of the prison. Silence seeped into the building. I picked up on distant crying from the cells. Frank and I shared a look before continuing.

My back pressed against the walls, so I wasn’t close to the railing where I could be seen, I hurried with Frank down the left wing. The closer we got, the louder the wails grew.

“Down here!”

Gabe stood in front of the bars. From her nose to chin, blood was thick and caked on. Knowing her, she probably put up a good fight before being imprisoned. Around her were a handful of women, crammed into the bunks and sitting far away. They glared when she shouted, hissing for her to be quiet.

Raising my finger to my lips, I hushed her, too. No crazies were visible, but that didn’t mean they were out of earshot. Carefully, we made our way down a level to the cells. Not a soul stopped us. This was too easy.

The women all hushed when they saw us, cowering away into the back of their cells. This wasn’t an uncommon occurrence for me, so I didn’t take offense.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” Gabe whispered once I was close enough.

“Yeah. Neither can I.”

“Why did you come back?”

“The Hummer is an asset I don’t want to lose. And my ferret was in it.”

She glared at me. I grinned at her.

I set down my gun, studying the lock. It was operated electrically, probably from a control room somewhere nearby. The men had improvised, throwing a good ol’ chain and padlock on the sliding part of the cell door, linking it to the stationary. During the sporadic bouts of electricity, they must’ve disabled the locks so they could use a more manual, primitive method.

“Who has the key to this?”

Gabe shrugged. “They knocked me out before I was put in here. I don’t know.”

From an adjacent cell, a middle-aged woman, skin midnight black and glistening with sweat, called out, “Jim-Jones-wannabe has the key to everything. He doesn’t delegate, so no one else has a key.”

I like her style, I thought. Straight to the point.

I went to her cell. “Do you know anything else?”

With arms more powerful than I could predict, she reached through and slammed me up against the bars. My teeth jammed up into my lower lip. I tasted blood.

“Listen, boy. I’m not interested in getting knocked up with a lunatic’s baby. I’m not interested in letting it happen to the last of my daughters either.”

Frank took his time stepping in to pry the woman’s hands off me.

I rubbed my mouth and glared at her. “Was that really necessary?”

“Violence is the only way to get what you want,” she said, moving on as though she hadn’t hurt me. “Their leader comes by here alone first, to take his pick of us. Their meeting just ended, so you have about half hour tops before he comes rolling along. You kill him and unlock my cell.”

I bared my bloody teeth at her in defiance. “Why the fuck would I do that for you?”

“I know where they keep their guns. We need them to take this place back,” she said. “Plus, I know you’re looking for your pet and I know where it is. When you come back, I’ll tell you, but one of you needs to escort us to the guns.”

As soon as she mentioned my albino companion, I nodded. She hit a sensitive spot. The idea of more weapons was appealing, too. She let me go and I took a few steps back, composing myself. It wasn’t often that I was completely overpowered by a woman.

I surveyed the area, looking for a good spot to hide.

“He comes from this direction, usually,” a woman offered, reaching her hand out from the bars to my right.

There was absolutely nowhere that provided cover, no matter what direction the guy came from. We would have to go up or down a flight of stairs to have a chance.

“Where does he take you?”

The black woman jerked her head back the direction I came from. “You came through the administration offices connected to the back entrance, I assume. He takes us to the warden’s office. You can wait there.”

“What do you think about this?” I asked Frank.

He shrugged. “You need to get Pickle. We need to get Gabe. Plus, we aren’t going to just leave these ladies here.”

If I had come alone, there wouldn’t be a moral dilemma in leaving the women. But if it meant finding my ferret, I’d get that cell door open for them.

“Fine. We’ll do it, but first tell me why I can trust you. How do you know all this?”

Jaw set, she said, “Because, honey, I was the warden.”

* * *

A couple minutes later I was crouched under a desk, my 9mm sidearm out and silenced. This was going to be a stealth operation, one hundred percent, until I was driving that Hummer out. I waited for the target to arrive.

Frank was wedged between two large filing cabinets, his back pressed against the wall. The metal cabinets provided enough coverage he wouldn’t be seen from the door.

Look at me, on a whacky adventure to save a woman I didn
’
t know or care about. My life was looking more like a morbid sitcom by the minute. Regardless of my mental resistance to grouping up with people, or rescuing anyone, I was doing it a lot lately.

“You’re a chosen one,” I heard in the distance, waking me up from my musings.

“Fuck you, you cocksucking lunatic!”

“You will produce blessed children.”

Yeah, it was definitely the crazy boss and his selection of the night. They came in and the door slammed. From my vantage point, I saw her scuffed boots and the hem of his robe. He shoved the woman to the ground, and she landed right in front of the desk. The only thing I saw in her eyes was anger. She didn’t say a word or even acknowledge me before she pushed herself off the ground.

The meaty sound of a punch. The man stumbled and shouted, but I didn’t watch from under the desk anymore. As I was rising up, the woman landed another hit to his side before he used his bodyweight to hurtle her against the desk.