Chapter IV: Hiding Behind Bars
24 Nov 0214 CST
South of Brazoria, TX, United States
Inez and Melinda stealthily snuck through the front door of the prison. Inez took out a flashlight from her bag and closed the door behind her and her sister before she turned on the light. It was pitch black in here with few windows to allow in the ambient moonlight from outside. The entryway was littered with debris along with the bodies of three dead guards and one skitter. Inez handed the flashlight to her sister and steadied her gun with both hands. "Keep it in front of us." Inez told her. They went down the hall and through a battered down wooden door. The office area was a mess, with papers strewn everywhere, computers and filing cabinets lying across the floor and bullet holes through the walls and the desks. Down the hall the breakroom, guards' locker room, armory and surveillance office looked like a war zone. It seems the guards along with several members of the Texas and Louisiana National Guard had perished here fighting off an attack by many skitters. Inez took a couple of tear gas canisters in case they needed them in the future before she left for another part of the prison. The visitation area wasn't any better either. A couple dead skitters were spread out by the door and one of the Plexiglas windows between the two sides of the visitation booths was split open. This wasn't a comforting sight, perhaps Inez thought, the prison cells themselves would be the safest place for them to stay. "Are you sure we'll be safe in there?" asked Melinda as Inez forced open the door into the outer cell blocks. "Yeah. We just have to make sure no one is inside first." Inez told her. "Come on, stay close and keep the light ahead of me." Inez instructed her sister. They entered into the outer halls and made their way towards one of the cell blocks. "They built this place to keep people from getting out. It should be just as effective at keeping aliens from getting in." Inez comforted Melinda. There were no dead aliens in here, that was a positive sign. When they entered into the cell block an atrocious stench overcame them. "What is that horrible. . . oh my!" Melinda began to ask before she staggered back, aghast at what she saw. Inside the cells were the rotting corpses of many prisoners who had died from thirst some time ago. Inez put her arm around Melinda and refocused her light away from the corpses down the middle of the cell block. "They must have left them here when the prison was evacuated." Inez stated. Melinda couldn't keep the light steady so Inez took back the flashlight from her and quickly scanned all the cells to make sure any of them weren't open to warrant further investigation. Melinda backed into Inez and clung tightly to her older sister as they walked down the hall amidst the foul odor that saturated the area. "I know these people must have done something to deserve being locked in here but that is no way to die." Melinda said horrified by what it must have been like to waste away in such a slow, torturous manner.
The girls left the cell block and sealed it and its foul fragrance off once again. They examined another cell block and found much of the same thing, a de facto death row filled with putrid bodies and the dreadful stench of death. The quickly exited and went on to explore other parts of the prison. "I wonder why the backup generators didn't come on when the power went out?" Inez thought out loud. They continued to search finding other wards less populated and foul but still with the grim reminder of death present. "I can't sleep around that." Melinda said. "Me either, I would throw up if I was in there much longer. If we have to we'll sleep in the hall." Inez replied. "You suppose this place is haunted now?" asked Melinda. "Don't be silly, ghosts aren't real." Inez answered. "But what about those people that died in there? You're not scared?" Melinda asked. "Nah, it's gross but not scary. Those people have all gone to heaven now, or hell." Inez replied. "I suppose so." Melinda said. Melinda was still terrified, though she didn't know if it was the thought of ghosts or aliens that scared her the most. Either way the concrete and steel walls of the prison did not seem to offer any real sense of safety for her and her sister.
They finally reached an area of the prison where it seemed that the evacuation had gone as scheduled. The cells were all open and emptied. "These might be our accommodations for the night." Inez said. She started going down the line shining a light into each cell and checking to make sure it was empty. As exhausted as she was Inez couldn't let herself or her sister rest until they were sure there were no aliens or human brigands here for them to worry about. She checked five cells all of which were clear, so far, so good. In the darkness to her right she heard a gun cock. She began to turn towards the noise but was warned not to. "That's far enough." a male voice threatened her from the darkness. "You talk so loud the cooties could hear you from a mile down the road." the voice continued. "If you have any weapons place them on the ground and back away." the voice instructed them. Inez couldn't see their assailant and assumed he couldn't see them either so she turned off her flashlight, took Melinda's weapon and laid it down on the floor in front of them and backed away. Melinda wouldn't be able to use it anyway. She was always too frightened to pull the trigger.
Now to see if her assumption was correct. After the sound of Melinda's gun touching the cold concrete floor sparks from a lighter flicked several times before it sustained a flame a distance of about seven cells away from Melinda and Inez. A shadowy figure lit a kerosene lantern and held it aloft to reveal Inez with her rifle pointed in his general direction. Once the two of them had each other in their sight the man pointed his Colt revolver at Inez at the same time Inez trained her weapon upon him. "You're not going to rob us." Inez sternly told the man, a scrawny African-American teen with short, unkempt hair. "I wasn't going to rob you. I thought you were going to hurt me." the boy told her. "I'm not going to hurt anyone, unless you're one of those alien kids." Inez told him. She slipped Melinda the flashlight and her little sister shined it onto the soiled red and white striped sweatshirt the boy was wearing. "I'm not strapped if that's what you mean." the boy replied. "Show me. I promise I won't shoot you." Inez told him. The boy didn't want to shoot anyone, not after the last time, so he took the risk of trusting Inez. He slowly turned around to show Inez that his back was clean, all the while praying silently that she wouldn't shoot him. "See, not strapped, just like I said." the boy said as he turned back around. "What are you doing in here? Were you an inmate here?" Inez asked. "I could ask you the same thing, what are you doing snooping around a prison at night?" the boy asked in response as he refocused his weapon towards Inez. "I asked first." Inez demanded. "My folks and I were running away from the cooties. The group we were with fell into an ambush outside of Lake Charles. I was the only one to get out of there. The adults they killed and the kids were taken away to get strapped. I kept running and running til I got here. I thought I could hide out for a while but I was going to have to start running again real soon." the boy stammered out an explanation. Sounded like a reasonable enough story Inez thought. "We were just looking for a place to rest for the night. That is all. We don't want to be a bother but we can't have you causing any trouble either." Inez told him. The whole time Melinda remained silent, paralyzed with fear now coming upon her from three lines of reasoning. A distant wailing groan from a passing mech silenced both Inez and the boy. Everyone froze up and listened to the footsteps of the mech, waiting for it to move on. It was likely just on patrol along the highway and not looking for them. So long as they didn't give it a reason it should leave them alone.
When the mech had departed without incident Inez and the boy resumed their standoff. "Listen, it's cool if you stay. I'll keep out of the way, honest." the boy told her. "What about you, how do I know that you won't stab us in our sleep?" asked Inez in a hostile tone. "Stab you with what? My finger?" the boy sarcastically asked in response. "No, really I won't mess with you at all. It would be nice to have more people around in case the cooties find their way inside." the boy told her. Since when did she stop trusting people? Since the aliens came that's when, Inez answered her own question. She couldn't blame herself though, ever since El Paso fell nearly every encounter she had began with a gun in her face. She could end this situation once and for all with a bullet through the chest of this kid and the next day she would think nothing of it. After she had shot that would be rapist in the desert she had begun to become desensitized to it. Inez had taken many lives on their journey across the state. It wasn't just aliens either; whether it was thieves, strapped kids or others where she was just too frightened to give them a chance, she had to put down several humans as well. Melinda on the other hand was different; she had still hung on to something from the world before. She was hesitant to harm her own kind. The aliens were monsters. She had no qualms about fighting back against them but when it came to humans that was different. Melinda still felt for people, good or bad. She was young and didn't quite understand the world the same way that Inez did. That kind of blind idealism, the remnants of better days, did not serve them well in this world that they lived in. The same look she saw in Melinda when she couldn't stand to take a human life, having to leave the dirty work to her sister, was the look that the boy staring her down had. He wasn't much older than her little sister, young and cast into the cold cruel world. He was trembling, unable to keep his gun steady as he pointed it towards Inez. He didn't have it in him to shoot her; he couldn't do it even if he had too. This kid was weak, Inez thought, and this gave her the upper hand.
"Give me your gun." Inez demanded. "What?" asked the boy, astonished by Inez's audacity. "There's two of us and one of you." Inez said as she motioned for Melinda to retrieve her weapon all the while making threatening gestures towards to boy to deter any hostile action on his part. "You can't shoot both of us before we take you down. Now I could either shoot you right here and now or you can hand over your gun. Either way I will sleep well tonight." Inez threatened the boy. The boy knelt down and dropped his gun on the floor. "Now come here and get in the cell next to me." Inez said. She couldn't know if the boy had any more weapons stashed in the cell he was in so he had to be in one that she had thoroughly inspected. Inez backed up and away from the boy as he walked into the cell and sat down. She shut the cell door behind him. The hinges creaked as it closed. She didn't have the key to lock the cell but she had an alternative solution for that. While she kept her weapon trained on the boy she dug around in Melinda's bag and pulled out her combination lock and bike chain. They hadn't had a bike between the two of them for some time since they left El Paso. They had traded them to man in Del Rio for a few grenades so that they would have something they could use against the mechs. The chain however was useful in making it harder for people and skitters to get into places they were hiding and in this instance would keep the cell door closed. "So now that I let you lock me away do you feel better?" the boy asked. "I don't mean to be rude but we've been burned too many times to trust someone we've just met out here. We'll let you out before we leave in the morning." Inez told him. "I'll hold you to that." the boy replied. "Go ahead." Inez replied. She and Melinda checked out the rest of the cells and found one that was to their liking directly across from the boy's for the night. Melinda crawled into bed and Inez stood guard. Melinda wouldn't sleep unless she thought her sister was standing guard over her. Inez would lay down once her little sister was safely in the arms of Morpheus. "So kid, what's your name? Melinda asked. "Chase." replied the boy. "So Chase, I don't think you're a bad kid or anything. We're just doing what we have to do. If it means anything to you, I hope you get through all this mess going on with the world alive." Melinda told him.