CHAPTER ONE
"Sir, I'm sorry, but we give up. We're going home to our families. This thing is getting too big and too hard to control. You can shoot us in the back if you want to, but either way we're going home and . . . taking our rifles with us."
Wordlessly, the warden watched as three hundred prison guards marched out the open gates of Virenna Maximum-Security Prison. They had endured some hardships during these past few days as the isolated prison got news of the chaos reigning in the world around them, and they never budged. The whole time, they had never budged an inch. But now, hearing that even the President was being evaced from D.C.? They were going home to their families.
The Warden looked around at the quiet prisoners staring at him accusingly from their cells, with their ribs showing. Food had been scarce lately, and the Warden had given the order only to feed the guards and the trustees.
"Now, boys," he said very slowly. "I know I've got no chance of living the instant I press the button releasing all of you from your cells. So I'm going to press the button and then I am going to implement this device here." He raised a gleaming nickel-plated revolver with a hollow smile directed towards the puzzled inmates.
"Don't you want us dead, you old fart?" yelped one of the prisoners, staring suspiciously at the Warden through the bars of the cell that he had been behind for at least a decade or so. "Have you got more guards waiting outside to shoot us when we come just a-running out, eh? Because if you do, just let us starve in here."
The Warden shook his head with a gentle smile. "I am going to release you from your cells now. It's your choice whether to go outside or stay in the open cells. I'm giving you a chance to have your lives back. Go to your families, go see your kids that have been born while you've been in this hellhole. Go bed your wives one last time before these infernal creatures that God has sent upon us devour us all. But, there's a catch. Death smiles at us all this day." He pressed the button, closing his eyes and lifting the revolver to the side of his head and pulling the trigger. The loud gunshot echoed throughout the quiet prison as the Warden slumped over sdieways, dead as a doornail.
The prisoners walked out of their cells ever so slowly, footsteps booming in unison on the tiled floor. Then with one large "YEE-HA!!" echoing all over the prison even louder than the gunshot, they stampeded out of the gates after the guards. Some were planning on catching up the guards and giving some long-deserved revenge. Others just genuinely wanted to get to their families. Still others just wanted to go out and repeat the murderous crimes that had gotten them in prison in the first place. This time, they'd commit them in a lawless environment against helpless refugees, however.
Only seven inmates still sat in their cells, that cramped space they had lived in for so terribly long. At the same time they all stood up and walked out into the empty hallway and stared at the corpse of the Warden as if waiting for it to get up and try to eat them and turn them into a zombie. Everything was silent except for the Warden's radio blaring nearby.
"There has been a state of emergency declared," the voice yelled on the radio in a thick foreign accent. "London has been abandoned. Paris is enduring heavy defensive manuevers with the French Air Force and ground forces but the city is falling. Washington, D.C. is being torn apart by looters and the White House has burnt to the ground. Now, the one capital city truly remaining is Moscow and we aren't going to be able to stay afloat for too terribly long. This may be our last transmission. If this is true, then good luck and Godspeed to you all." The voice then stopped, probably forever.
One of the inmates stepped forward. This guy would put someone in mind of a rabid dog that has been chained for far, far too long. His narrow blue eyes were like two windows on the afternoon sky and they gleamed with a deadly intelligence. He knelt beside the Warden and grabbed the revolver, checking the load and ejecting the empty shell carelessly. He aimed the revolver at the other prisoners coldly.
"We are all that's left," he stated very calmly and very slowly. "You may have stayed here for your own purposes -- I don't really give a shit what they are, to tell you the truth -- but I'm going to secure this prison against the undead and try to hold out. I don't want to die and I sure as fuck don't wanna be a zombie, alright? If you're with me, step up. If not, stop wasting my time and go out the gate or I'll shoot you through the face. Any questions, boys?"
An older black man that had been in the cell across from the first guy stepped forward, right into his face and stared the younger man down, not even looking at the revolver aimed at his chest. "I haven't spoken once in the thirty-eight years I've been in prison, so consider these words very, very carefully, kid. You're a lot like me," he said finally, in a gravelly voice. "You're a former murderer. But you're a good, almost reformed guy. I'm staying with you, man. What's your handle? Mine's Roger. Roger Horton to you."
The guy stared at Roger for a moment longer, probably considering his words carefully before answering. "I'm not a murderer like you. You killed two people. I'm a mass murderer, Roger. But I'm much obliged to you wanting to stay with me. I accept your generous offer. My name's Danny Godfrey."
One of the other prisoners that had not yet stepped forward twitched, as if he recognized the name. Danny's lip curled slightly. His exploits had gone across America like a hot knife through butter and Danny wasn't necessarily proud of it, but that was how it had gone down and that was the past. Now, the future was before him and he was going to take it by the balls.
The next man stepped forward and looked Danny right in the eye boldly. This entergetic gentleman was -- surprise, surprise -- Hispanic. And to look Danny in the eye, he had to look up because he was very short albeit with a broad-shouldered build. Despite this, his beady green eyes gleamed with mischief, but no anger.
"I'll stay with you," he offered. "I've got no reason to go back to California, despite the seven million I've got waiting back there. They call me Richy Rich. Got busted on a two-bit coke deal few years or so back. Haven't been corrupted by the system yet. Hopefully I can be of some use to you. I sure as fuck don't wanna go out there and get chomped on by some fucking zombie." He extended a hand towards Danny, who didn't shake it but Richy understood that he was accepted and stood back.
The next man was rather large and gave off a feeling of creepiness. He looked like he had been a pedophile or something. "We're in the middle of nowhere. Where the fuck am I gonna go to do my . . . work?"
Danny squinted at the man suspiciously. "Yeah, whatever sicko . . . Watch yourself or I might just cut your balls off just for the way you look at me. I don't like you already and that doesn't bode well for you."
The man stepped back with a wide grin, hands held up in mock defense, and let the other guys step forward. The next man looked like he had the worst acne in the entire world, and his uniform was stained with unimaginable substances. He was looking at Roger distastefully -- luckily Roger wasn't holding the revolver at that moment -- and grinning unpleasantly.
"I don't know if this shit is really really," the stained guy told Danny. "This might all be a figment of my imagination, but either way I'm in it with you, man. I just hope I'm not crazy. I hope this is all real. That'd be a relief." He stepped back, as well.
Another prison walked almost past Danny, who aimed the pistol at his face and indicated the open gate coldly, in case the guy wanted to leave. He looked at the gate and the distant retreating forms of the other inmates longingly, wanting to belong apparently, wanting to fit in. He was obviously a very insecure guy. Finally, wordlessly he nodded at Danny and walked back to the others, signifying he was going to stay.
The two final men stepped forward together without meaning to. One man was a hard-looking, scarred guy that appeared as if he had been through World War II two days ago from the cold, hard look on his face. The other was a smiling guy who looked like he enjoyed life no matter what. Danny instantly liked both. They each nodded, and that was that. Not counting himself, Danny had six inmates to garrison a massive, very empty maximum-security prison. And they had a lot of time on their hands and nowhere else to go now.
"First, we're gonna close that fucking gate," Danny yelled. "Then we're gonna break down the fucking door to the armory. I'm sure the pigs locked it before they left, but I know there are still some rifles and shotguns in there. Secondly, if zombie's come that gate's not gonna stop them for long. So we need to make sure we're prepared. It's . . . what, like seven feet high? That's really high enough to stop zombies if they pile up? No . . . Haven't you guys seen ANY zombie movies, you dickheads?"
He looked around, waiting for the affirmative response, but only some raised their hands half-heartedly. Roger flat-out shook his head. He had been in prison for thirty-eight years; Danny wasn't even sure if Roger had not been in prison when the original Night of the Living Dead was released.
"You gotta be kidding me," Danny groaned with a sigh. "You guys suck. I should have expected this from cons. I'm like the only zombie-smart prisoner here. Okay, the first lesson is that we work as a team, no matter what. If some zombies get through, we don't just run away like pussies. The best defense is a good offense. I'm not your commanding officer, I'm just your teacher." He waited for the prisoners to protest, but they didn't and so he continued. "I'm out of my element here, but I'm going to try. You guys are alright in my book, because you didn't leave to go rape innocent survivors. This may be the world's end but I'd rather be in it with you guys then some dumbasses in a mall."
The other prisoners nodded silently. They were hard men. They had raped children. They had killed children. They had killed other people. They had stolen cars, robbed houses, kidnapped people, shot up their schools, every crime imaginable, one of these seven men had done it. But they had one common goal: they wanted to survive.
"You get the point basically," Danny said finally after a long, long uncomfortably silent silence. "Now let's secure those gates and then make sure the prison is empty of any fucking zombies. Then, we're gonna go to the armory and get those guns and--"
"You mean THESE guns?"
Two shotguns cocked loudly. The 'freed' prisoners turned slowly to see the owners of those shotguns and their eyes beheld two women standing about ten feet down the hallway aiming the weapons at them. It was the prison's psychiatrist, Cora Durant and her assistant named Allie. Cora was an unusually beautiful woman with chocolate-brown skin and full lips that were curled into a smile right now as she approached Danny, the shotgun aimed towards his groin.
"So, you're the brains of this operation, are you?" she asked him, apparently amused by this idea. "I have a problem with that, though. See, you lifers are not eligible to be paroled for ummmmm . . . Never, right? So, you can't have these weapons or the others in the armory and your friends here definitely can't. I'm sorry. Get out those gates and stay gone or I'll put you back on death row." She twitched the shotgun to show what she meant. "You guys are pure predators. Each and every one of them and especially you. So take that prison bus out there and leave or it'll be your time to die."
"Don't kill him," came a voice from behind the psychiatrist and she turned, staring at the speaker in confusion and surprise. It was Roger, and he was of course simply distracting her. Danny grabbed her from behind, getting her in a headlock and Richy Rich gripped the shotgun tightly, pulling it from her grip before she could fire it. He aimed the shotgun at the assistant, Allie, and she aimed back at him.
"You won't kill me," she yelled defiantly. "You're not a killer. You're just a fucking coke dealer. I read your file, you little spic bitch."
"Are you sure about that?" he replied coldly, stepping closer and closer and making the woman back up more and more until she was against a wall and Richy was only a few feet from her, both of them still aiming at each other.
"Please, don't do this," she whimpered, letting her shotgun point at the floor and she slid down the wall into a sitting position, sliding the weapon away in surrender and sobbing quietly. Richy knelt beside her, leaning the shotgun against her throat very gently, finger on the trigger, and he whispered in her ear, "If you ever point a gun at me again, you little sissy girl, I'm going to kill you. You're a fucking weakling."
Danny shoved Cora over to where Allie was against the wall and grabbed the shotgun that the assistant had shoved away. Richy and Danny stood aiming the weapons at the two women. Cora stared defiantly up at them, eyes burning bright.
"Just end it," she screamed. "Come on, you cowardly little pricks." She looked directly into Danny's fierce eyes. "Yeah, you. You crazy animal. You killed your entire high school math class just because your mom was a drunkard and didn't hug you enough when you were a little kid. Why can't you kill me, you little prick? You sick . . . sucker. Here's your chance to kill again."
Danny lowered the shotgun. "I'm all used up," he said quietly, apparently replying to Cora's words. "I don't need this shit right now. Richy, throw the bitches in one of the cells and find out how to close it. We'll find out what to do with them later." He looked at the creepy guy who he had thought looked like a pedo or some rapist. "Don't touch them or I'll do things to you that you can't even imagine, you sick fuck. The only reason I'm not doing it right fucking now is that I don't want to become you." He looked at Roger next. "You, me, Mr. Rapist, and the other three besides Richy are going to come with me. We're all gonna get better acquainted while we close the gate and secure it."