The Bomb and the Cage: Doree Anne (15 page)

“I was just going to slit their throats, good job falling into me.”

“Whatever, you know you wanted to cause them as much pain as possible.” Mendez laughed.

We searched the bodies and found two
Smith and Wesson
revolvers and two open boxes of ammunition.
We dragged their bodies into the freezer, closed the door, and locked it. We didn’t know if they would turn or not, but we weren’t taking chances.

We looked out the window. There were now two others outside the vans fueling them. Gus was still alive and managed to crawl to the corner of the lot undetected. He was pointing to the pumps. Taking a closer look, I saw that he rigged one of the pumps. There was a stream of gasoline making its way to us.

“Go out back and tell Fender what’s going on. I’m going to light this place up.”

Mendez went out the back door and I went back to the counter. There were a few metal cans of liter fluid on the counter near the pipes. On the counter was a rag. I doused the rag with one of the cans of lighter fluid and shoved the rag into the other can.

I aimed my gun towards the man pumping gas closest to Gus and fired. The window of the store shattered and the bullet just missed him striking the van behind him. He drew a handgun and fired six shots. Each bullet made a definitive sound as it whizzed by me. I ignored them, as I was trying to light the rag. Finally, the flame caught. I threw the bottle through where the window was.  

The bottle crashed and lit the stream of gas. The fire followed the stream until it connected with the pump. The explosion was so large that for a moment I thought it was going to take me with it. Everything went white, and then red as the van farthest to the right, the one the two guys we killed came from, was thrown backwards into the van behind it. The blast threw the man, who was shooting at me, towards the last van. He got up and ran back towards the middle van. Another man got out and started firing at the store.  Bullets were whizzing by. I dropped to the floor. A moment later the gunshots stopped and I watched as both vans left towards Clearwater. 

Chapter 34

09/18/2004 1145 Hours

Phil

Most people felt David was a burden on the community. However, I never felt that way. He was the reason I always kept food stocked up in my store. If I hadn’t started to sell food, he might have started living somewhere else. I can’t explain why, but I care for him and like having him around. Janet and I never had kids. We always want them, but it just never happened. David strangely enough was an answer to our problem. I was old enough to be his father. We spent a lot of time together and I was, had it not been for the apocalypse, going to ask him if he wanted to sleep at the store. There was plenty of room in the back for a bed and he could watch over the place. I even had plenty of work. I could remember the last time I organized the store.

When we got up this morning, Janet made a wonderful breakfast. She cooked my favorite, eggs over easy, corn beef hash, and two slices of buttered bread. After a breakfast we drove to the store. It was such a peaceful drive here, like it always was.

Janet, who wasn’t much for television, went straight to it when we got inside. I can’t explain it and I was sure she couldn’t either. She even walked past the coffee pot, which was a habit she never broke. When the television came on there was a man talking about the explosion.

As a group, we decided the safest place for us to hole up in was the three-story building on Main Street. The building was next to our stores and had been many things since it was first constructed in 1950’s. The bottom floor had been a bank, restaurant, office space, and most recently, a real estate office.  The second floor was currently used as office space. The third floor was apartments. I believed they were still being remodeled. With the building being vacant because of the weekend and having height to it, it was perfect.

The front door, which was a large metal gate, was locked. So we went up using the escape staircase. Once we were at the top David was kind enough to make three trips taking our supplies to the top and raising the bottom of the escape ladder in case one of those things learned how to climb.

Daniel and David seemed to be very grateful when they saw I had been storing two large duffle bags full of
Meals Ready to Eat
or
MRE
for short in the back of my shop. I also had three AK-47 assault rifles with five hundred bullets. I was planning for the economy to collapse and civil unrest when I started stocking supplies, not the dead coming back to life.

I was surprised to see Daniel also was stocking up for such an event. He seemed like the type that would sit around and pray that God will provide. Seeing his weapons gave me more respect for him and his religion. Too often Christians are described as being conservative, anti-violence, anti-fun types. I guess you can love God and not be a victim.

The roof entrance was unlocked. I entered with Daniel. The lights were on inside which meant there was still power, at least for now. We descended the wood steps into a long hallway. There were four doors, two on each side on this floor. The doors on the left were marked
A
and
B
. The doors on the right were marked
C
and
D
. Past the doors was a window and stairs that turned sharply to the left and went down.

All four apartments were unlocked. Each apartment was three bedrooms and one bathroom. There was wood flooring throughout and the walls were painted a light tan with white crown molding and baseboards. The kitchens in
A
and
B
were finished and had brand new stainless steel appliances with the plastic protective wrap still on them. However, the kitchens in
C
and
D
were torn apart and didn’t have appliances or cabinets.

We took the stairs to the second floor. The floor had a musky smell that reminded me off wood that was allowed to get wet and dry in a humid environment.  There were five doors on this floor. Four of the doors had large frosted glass windows in them. The doors were locked and unmarked except for one with a metal plaque that read:
Attorney David Carr
.

The staircase opened up into a large entryway going down. At the bottom were the large metal bars that had blocked us earlier. It would be perfect for keeping out monsters.. The only thing bad was we didn’t have the key.

“Maybe the door without the frosted window on the second floor was the janitor’s closet.” Daniel said. “There might be a key for this door there.”

“Good idea! It’s not necessary to have it, but it would be nice to have access to all the doors here.” 

We went back up to the second floor. We had already tried the door earlier. Daniel kicked it in without hesitation. The room was filled with the aroma of a multitude of different cleaning supplies. It was a small room, but they had managed to squeeze in a wood desk at the back of the room. The desk faced the right wall and there was a metal folding chair behind it. On both sides, leading to the desk were metal shelving that went to the ceiling. The left side was paint cans and paintbrushes, doorknobs, and other miscelHowardous items. The right side was tools and a variety of different size containers that contained what smelled like cleaning supplies.

I went over to the desk and opened the top draw.  Inside were a
Playboy Magazine
and a handful of pencils of various sizes and colors. I moved the magazine and underneath was a metal key. A large brass key with the words:
Folger Adam CO
inscribed on it.

“Do you think this opens the front door?” I asked.

“Maybe, it sure looks old enough!” I placed the key in my back pocket.

“Well let’s finish searching in here. I don’t feel like walking down those stairs only to have to come back up here.” Daniel agreed and we continued searching.   

Chapter 35

09/18/2004 1200 Hours

C.O. Carlos Mendez

I ran into the gas station with Fender just as the vans peeled out. Ted was outside pressing the emergency shutoff switch. Gus was lying on his back, staring straight up.

“Gus! Are you alive?” He turned his head. There was a blank stare on his face. He was still alive and probally in shock.

I ripped his shirt open, revealing a bulletproof vest.

“Dang, you’re one lucky guy!” Gus slowly looked down and started to laugh.

“I was afraid to move. They said the vest would stop a bullet, but you never know how true it is until you use it. Hurts like hell being shot. I tried not to move, take a chance of them shooting me again or taking me with them. Or worse, shooting me in the head because they think I’m one of those
Biters
.” There was a short pause, and then he continued. “Funny how things work, never wore the vest until today. Once all that chaos started it was the first thing I did. Who the heck were those guys?”

“They were the Battle brothers from the prison. Did you see anyone else with them?” I said.

“I saw two others, but I didn’t get a good look at them. I saw was that pump hanging there and an opportunity to get away.”

“Well, Ted and I killed them. We put their bodies in the freezer.” I said.

“This isn’t good, if people start escaping from the prison things could get bad around here.” Fender said. “Did you get any weapons off of them?” Fender said looking at me.

“Yes, two revolvers.” I said, handing Fender one of the guns.

He opened the cylinder, held it up to the light, and read the numbers carved into the side of it aloud.

“Alpha-One-five-two-three-six.” Fender closed the cylinder and handed back the gun. “This is very bad. This gun came from the prison’s arsenal.”

“The arsenal isn’t something the inmates know about.” Mendez said.

“They must be working with someone, an officer. Did you see any officers with them Gus?” Fender said.

“No, the other two I saw, they were wearing the inmate uniforms..”

              The van closest to the exposition was resting on its driver’s side. We walked over to it, tried the back door, and it opened. Inside was completely empty. I climbed on top and tried to open the passenger’s door. It opened partially but stopped when the door touched where it had been dented from the explosion and flip afterwards. I pulled up forcibly and the metal snapped open and held its place. Inside was loose ammunition scattered around. There were also two assault rifles, three shotguns, and a handful of revolvers on the floor of the van.

“What’s inside Mendez?” Ted asked.

“More weapons and ammo than you can shake a stick at.”

“Well, let’s get it out.” Ted said.

“Okay, go grab some plastic bags.”

Ted came back with a rag of garbage bags. We picked up all the loose ammunition and sorted it by caliber. After the last bullet was picked up and sorted. We had several bags full of ammo. We brought those bags into the store.

“I’ve never been in the arsenal. How much of it was in that van?” I asked Fender.

“It’s about a third of the prison’s arsenal.” Fender said looking back to the van. “I’m sorry guys. We should’ve gone there first. I had the key in the control room. I just wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s not your fault. I knew it was there too and never said a word. I didn’t think there was a rush to get in there. I didn’t think any inmates knew about it..” I said.

“They shouldn’t, it's not marked, other than
Mailroom
. They have to have help. You said that those inmates were housed in
The Box
?”

“Yeah, they are, so were the Battle brothers.” I said.

“So we can assume Williams, Jacobs, and Roberts are helping the inmates?” Fender was unsure of it. You could tell by the way his eyes looked around the room trying not to make eye contact. It sounded more like a question, than a statement.

“There’s no telling. Maybe he’s with them, maybe he’s dead, or maybe someone else told them about it.” Gus said. He was right. It was a bunch of
maybes
and zero
facts
. The only thing we did know was that we weren’t the only ones with guns out here.

“So what do we do now?” Ted started. “They left towards Clearwater. I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel like running into them again. Want to head towards Leefield?”

“I think that’s a fine idea.” Fender said. He smiled for a moment, and then frowned, remembering the phone call he had with his wife.

There was a
thud
sound in the room.

“Do you hear that?” Ted said, looking in the direction of the freezer. The sound was muffled and had it not been for the sever lack of sound we might never had heard it.

We walked to the freezer, stopping in front of it. It was silent and after a few moments of the silence I pressed my ear against the door. It was cold and I heard only the hum from the motor keeping everything inside cool. Then there were the moans of someone, followed by the thudding sounds of footsteps. Silence again, then there was a loud bang, which startled me.

“How is that possible? Were they bit?” Ted asked. I tried to remember the bodies. They didn’t have any bite marks and we used clean knifes to kill them. There was no way it could be a blood borne virus, unless it was also airborne. If it was, then we were already infected.

“Maybe it’s not transmitted through bites.” Fender said and leaned against the door. He looked at us, with his head still pressed against the door, and continued. “It’s the same as when I was in the control room, when the explosion happened.”

I never liked working in the control room on visitation day. All those smiling happy people, that came here to prison, to kiss their boyfriends and husbands. If they only knew half the things those lips touched just hours before. Homosexuality was ramped in prison. I’d say about ninety percent had or was involved in the act. Their lips go from touching a man to their wives, girlfriends, and kids.

If only the visitors knew what their loved ones were really doing. I wanted to tell them. I wanted to yell it in visitation. Share the inmate’s dirty secret with each visitor, all the sexual deviance. But I wasn’t allowed, and even if I did do that they probably wouldn’t believe me anyways.