Murphy's Law (Roads Less Traveled Book 2) (9 page)

On the northern and southern sides there were four watchmen, what Michael had called snipers, and four on the eastern and western sides as well. The snipers each had a pretty nice shooter’s bench set up with a supply of ammunition and a cooler next to them containing drinks and snacks.

After making it to the roof, we stood at the edge and looked out over the grassy field. Acre after acre on this side was plowed up and planted. On the other side of the inner prison fence, several head of cattle lazily picked grass next to a chicken coop which housed a dozen or so chickens. Next to that was a pig lot with its own little barn. Though it was too far away for me to count how many pigs were inside, I could definitely smell them. I leaned over the edge and looked below us after seeing a barbed wire fence bordering the large garden. Sure enough, there were our horses, picking grass with several other horses, in the fenced-in pasture below. I stood on my toes and caught the top of the horse barn on the right side of the building. Now that I had my bearings straight concerning what parts of the complex we’d been in the night before, I turned my gaze back to the inner fence gate ahead of us.

Michael had binoculars to his eyes and was watching his snipers’ progress. At this distance I couldn’t make out what state the zombies were in, but there were at least a dozen and it sure as hell looked like they were trying to climb up the chainlink fence. They had complete access to the livestock on their side of the fence, though apparently weren’t interested in them. Yet. We stepped back a few steps, faces grim and sober, Nancy with her arms crossed and one hand covering her mouth, Mia with her hands stuffed in her pockets, Zack with his hands on his hips, and Jake with a smile on his face and nodding with each gunshot. Gus sat very close to my feet with his tail tucked underneath his butt. These men were skilled, no doubt about it. The fence was at least a hundred yards away, and the deadheads were moving targets. It occurred to me then, these “runners,” were probably what we had encountered in the grocery store, and they were obviously much more skilled than their slower brethren. If they were clawing at the inner fence, that meant they had already scaled the outer fence. I made a mental note to ask Michael about them later.

After the last shot was fired, I turned my back to Michael and his men and motioned for the others to join me at the door. I stood at the exit and waited for them to gather around, my arms crossed and my old nail-biting habit rearing its ugly head again.

“What’s wrong?” Zack asked.

All of them looked concerned; brows furrowed and mouths set in deep frowns. I took a deep breath then pointed between Mia and Jake towards the fence near the gate where a couple deadheads still clung to the wire even after their brains had been blown out.

“We’re in deep shit here, guys,” I finally said.

They looked confused for a second, most likely thinking I meant with the prison folk. It wasn’t until they saw where I was pointing that they finally got it. It hit them in the face like a brick, that sense of security we’d felt since arriving flying right out the window. Now they were thinking about what had happened in the goddamned IGA. Evidently it wasn’t an isolated occurrence.

“What are we gonna do?” Jake asked.

I stared at Nancy, who had been quiet the whole time, and waited until she met my gaze before dumping the question on her. She was skilled, smart, and had kept up so far, but these “runners” were another deal altogether. Let’s face it, Nancy wasn’t a spring chicken. If—and it was a strong
if—
we decided to move on after the convicts, I would’ve preferred it if Nancy stayed behind, safe behind these walls.

“What do you think, Nancy?” I said, not a question as much as it was an order.

“Let’s talk about this later,” she said. Michael was walking over to us. His snipers had reloaded and were pulling Pepsis from their coolers, trading good-humored jabs about the others’ shooting skills.

“Shirley, get the clean-up crew over to the south gate,” he said into his radio.

“Will do, Control out,” Shirley answered.

He stopped and sighed heavily next to Jake, clipped his radio back onto his belt, then passed a hand across his forehead.

“Let me ask you something, Michael,” Zack said.

“Sure.”

“You see many of those fast ones? I think you called them runners.”

“Not until after the thaw. I’d say we kill four or five a week, until now that is.” He jerked a thumb behind him, gesturing towards the now very-dead pile of deadheads. “We’ve never had that many at once before. And we’ve
never
had problems with them climbing over the outer fence.”

Zack and I looked at each other, his jaw working like he was grinding a piece of jerky, then around to the others, who were all in different states of subdued alarm. Michael watched all this with sympathetic understanding, waited until after we’d suppressed the panic and terror we were all feeling, then led us off the roof without a word.

* * *

“We need to find out if this guy knows anythin’, then get on the road. Time’s wastin’ here,” Jake whispered to Zack.

Michael was giving us the tour of the compound, introducing us to everyone we ran into, and making his daily rounds before lunch. The incident earlier didn’t seem to have much of an effect on the people here; just another day in the joint I suppose. It had also seemed to distract him from our conversation earlier; he hadn’t said another word about it since. I was walking ahead of the others, next to Mike, so I wasn’t quite sure what Jake was on about, but I was sure it was pressing; he was whispering so fast he sounded like a balloon with a hole in it.

“Just chill your ass out, Jake. I’m sure Kasey is working on it,” Zack replied.

“I’ll chill your ass, you tell me that again. We should’ve been outta here already, but instead she’s takin’ her sweet damn─” Jake was hissing, until Nancy gave him a swift backhand to the head. He made a face and rubbed the back of it.

“You shut your mouth, Jacob. Any more of that and you’ll get more than a smack upside the head,” Nancy said, chin stuck out.

Jake was still pouting when I turned around to see what all the commotion was about. Nancy threw a smile on her face immediately, like nothing had happened. Michael had led us to a picnic bench in the center of the courtyard, so I decided to leave it alone for the time being and sat down next to him, the others piling in around us.

“Well, it certainly seems like you’ve got things under control here,” I said.

The weather was getting steadily warmer, temperatures well above normal for this time of year. The trees were in full bloom, leaves starting to replace the dead appearance of the woods. Flowers were blooming as well, and the first new grass of the season was already ankle-high. The smell of fruit trees carried through the air on a slight breeze. Pre-Z, this would have been a beautiful day. Still was, if you could forget about the horrors outside the walls of the prison.

“Well, thank you, Kasey. We do what we can around here, but it wasn’t always like this. After…
it
first happened, things were pretty crazy. Chaos, that’s the only word to describe it. Luckily there were a few in town who kept their heads on straight those first few days. The mayor called a town meeting, and that’s when it was decided everyone would pack up what they could and come on over here. He’d been in contact with the warden, so it was all squared away by the time we finally got folks together and moving.” He stopped and seemed to drift away for a moment, no doubt remembering what it had been like that first week or so.

I waited for what seemed like a reasonable amount of time before cutting through the bullshit and getting to the point.

“Listen, Mike, like I said before, we’ve been on the trail of a group of prisoners, not from here, from over in Cedartown. We’re guessing they were headed towards the river, to cross into Ohio. That’s what we were doing when you and your men found us.” I figured that was a good reminder.

Michael stared at me so long after I finished I thought he was having a petit-mal seizure or something. I was about to snap my fingers in front of his face when I saw his jaw clench, then he took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Yep, that had jogged his memory.

“Yeah, I know just the fuckers you’re looking for.” He jerked to his feet and started off towards the housing section of the complex.

“What? Was he done?” Mia asked.

We were looking at each other, once again with that
what-the-hell
look all over our faces, which I’m sure would happen plenty more before this never-ending carnival of horrors was complete. I shrugged and wiggled my way out of the bench, pushing Zack and Jake out of the way, and hurried to catch up with Mike, gesturing back at the others for them to hustle. I caught up with the seething man just as he entered the building. Instead of taking a left towards the sleeping quarters, he took a right, and strode straight to a door at the end of the hallway.

He fumbled with a large key ring until he found the right one and slipped it into the lock. By this time everyone else had caught up and was holding their breath, watching and waiting to see what had crawled up Michael’s butt. I was a little shocked when I saw what was on the other side of the door, but really, I don’t know why I would have been. It was a prison after all, and just because the world had gone to hell didn’t mean crime was taking a vacation.

“This way,” Michael said, barely missing a beat. The door swung wide and he stomped briskly to the end of the right-hand row of cells.

The others hung back a bit, leaving me to catch the brunt of whatever was about to blow. He came to a stop at the very last cell and kicked the bars with his steel-toed boot.

“Hey! Get your ass up, you got visitors!”

There was a man lying face down on the bed. The guy was big, and dressed in a filthy orange jumpsuit. I don’t have to tell you what was written across the back.

“Son of a bitch.”

I took a step closer to the bars. Michael was standing off to the side, his arms crossed and looking mad as hell. I glanced at him when the prisoner didn’t respond.

Michael just tipped his head in the guy’s direction and flared his nostrils. “This guy was with the bunch you’re looking for. They came through here a few months back, intent on raiding Blueville. What they hadn’t counted on was us being there. Call it luck, call it coincidence, whatever, but we were there, loading up more supplies for this place, when they came through. Let’s just say not many of those thieving bastards survived. A few of our people died, and a few of
them
got away, but this piece of shit was found among the bodies afterwards.”

No wonder he was pissed. I knew the feeling well, and was getting reacquainted with it when Jake appeared at my elbow. I knew what he was thinking, because I was thinking the same thing. It wasn’t until he put his hand on mine that I realized my fingers had been curled around the butt of my pistol.

“Not yet,” he cautioned.

I gritted my teeth and glared at him. Still, I knew he was right. We’d be screwed if I went all OK Corral on the prisoner. Michael was fumbling with the keys again and mumbling something, so Jake pulled me away from the bars. Michael unlocked the cell, opened the door, and stepped inside. Zack, Mia, and Nancy had finally come up behind me, just in time to see Michael grab the prisoner by the hair and yank him right off the bed. The guy yelped and grabbed at Michael’s hands, but was tossed around like a rag doll. This dude was twice as big as Michael. Don’t ever say anger makes you weak.

“Stand up!” Michael shouted again. He grabbed the prisoner around the throat with his other hand, his fingers still curled in the big guy’s hair, a nice old handful he threatened to rip out at any second.

“‘Fuck you want man? I didn’t do nothin’!” the prisoner shouted back.

That was a mistake.

With reflexes that would’ve made a cat jealous, Michael let go of the guy’s throat and grabbed the other side of his head, yanking down hard as he brought his knee up. Nose and knee collided with a sickening crunch. The prisoner started screaming and tried to put his hands over his nose, but Michael sucker-punched him in the guts and then kicked him in the right kneecap. Now the prisoner was howling in pain and kneeling on his good knee, his other leg stuck out stiffly to the side, blood gushing from his nose, and fighting back the urge to puke after the gut shot.

“Now, you’re gonna answer the lady’s questions, or I’ll throw your bleeding ass over the fence.”

I was at a loss for words after seeing that. Sure, the prisoner deserved that and more, but
damn
. The prisoner shuffled himself around until he was looking in my general direction. I cleared my throat a few times, not wanting to appear weak in Michael’s or my friends’ eyes, and asked the first thing that came to mind.

“Where are the others?”

“I don’t know, man, honest to God I don’t.”

“Bullshit. Where are the others?”

“Aw shit, I’m tellin’ ya, lady, I don’t know,” he whined.

Apparently Michael didn’t like his tone with me; after the lady bit, he kicked him in the back of his left thigh. The prisoner screamed again, then started crying. I was disgusted with the scene he was making.

To Michael I said, “Might as well throw his ass over the fence. He’s no use to us, and all he’s doing for you is eating up your supplies and wasting space.” I turned my back and acted like I was leaving, convincingly enough that Nancy, Zack, Mia, and Jake started to follow me.