Down the Road: The Fall of Austin (15 page)

“Take it easy,” he said, charged by her
energy. Her fingers pulsed with electricity as it passed across his
back.

And suddenly, the last words he mouthed to
her just moments before in the school parking lot became perfectly
clear.

Take it easy.

These were always George’s parting words, no
matter what the conversation or circumstances.

Take it easy.

For the rest of that final, fateful day at
school, she followed his advice. Even when several children in her
class fell ill with a severe fever, she found a happy place. And
when she heard one of the coaches had bashed in the head of one of
the monsters that morning with a football helmet, she tried to take
it easy.

On her return home, her now ex-boyfriend had
left a cruel message on her cell phone.

“
Hi, Keri. It’s Chris. Thank you for
making my life much better by dumping me. I was tired of your dumb
shit anyway. There’s no money in teaching. Yeah, you might be young
and pretty now, but just wait. One day you’ll wake up just another
gray-haired crone, bitter and angry. You’re a loser, Keri. I don’t
want to waste the rest of my life with a loser. So thanks for the
dump. See ya’.”

She tried to take it easy.

She tried.

But everywhere she looked in the sacred space
of her home provided a painful memory: The dining room table where
Chris made a candlelit dinner. The couch in the living room where
every Friday night was movie night, where they drank, shared a jay,
and had sex.

All that seemed like yesterday, but things
had not been the same for the past three months. No candlelit
dinners. No movie night. No sex.

She tried to take it easy.

She tried.

But she couldn’t.

She was realizing how scared she was of being
alone, but even when she wasn’t alone she still felt lonely. Had it
always been this way?

The news reports on TV didn’t help her
depression any: Economic decline, perpetual war, allegations of the
dead rising from the grave and attacking the living.

She could think of only one distraction: Go
back to work and catch up on her grading.

And so she drove, ignoring the ambulances,
the police sirens, and the sporadic scenes of chaos. Everything
would soon be under control, surely.

And so she went to class and she worked.

And worked.

And worked some more.

She entered grades. She worked on lesson
plans. She prepped her room for the spring months. She swept. She
wiped boards. She sanitized desks. Anything to pull her away from
Chris’ memory.

Then something did.

As twilight fell across Branton Junior High,
a movement outside caught her eye. She moved to the window to get a
closer look.

She could not run away anymore. Not from
Chris. Not from work. And not from the mysterious plague. The
sunset—the twilight of the dead—was shifting quickly to night, and
it would be hours before daylight would arrive. Hours before she
would even dare try to run. She had to face two realities:

One: Chris was gone. He was not going to
return to save her.

Two: The crisis was real. It was right
outside her classroom.

She tried to “take it easy,” but
couldn’t.

Stuck and alone, she fell asleep the same way
she had the night before. Only this time, a cold floor and howls of
undead pain were the solace that kissed her tears away.

It wasn’t until the next morning that the two
creatures found the door she had unwittingly left slightly ajar.
That afternoon, they found her. Good thing George did, too.

Sometimes the universe provides what you
need when you need it most
, she decided.

The momentary solace provided at the school
now at its end, she sat in her car at the bridge that led to the
access road leading to IH-35 north. It was the quickest way back to
Austin. The Burger King at one corner was now itself being
flamebroiled and the Conoco across the bridge at the adjacent
corner was abuzz with activity. The road she was about to travel
looked more like a demolition derby than a freeway.

Taking a deep breath, she crossed the bridge
to face her destiny somewhere up the road on north IH-35.

11:35 AM

Travis County Jail

“We’ve contained everyone considered
dangerous in Cell Block 3, but we’re not sure now how many others
might be sick with whatever it is they’re going crazy with,” Nick
Lopez reported to his nemesis, Deputy Officer Jeanette Coleman.

“Well, it doesn’t matter now, Lopez,” she
said, looking distressed and distracted. “I just got a call from
Homeland Security. We are to release all prisoners.”

“Do what?”

“You heard me. I’m initiating a Code 26 call
in five minutes. All staff needs to evacuate before the cells are
opened. Get your gear and get ready to leave. You’re relieved of
your duties.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

His heart began pounding nervously. As soon
as he exited the office he moved into the hallway to call his wife
on his cell phone. After two rings, she answered.

“Nick?” she said, as if his cell number
popping up on their caller ID wasn’t sufficient proof it was
him.

“Theresa?”

“Oh, Nick,” she sighed, a fair maiden
answering the call of her knight in the parlance of their time.
“Nick, there’s some strange shit going on.”

“Baby, I know all about it—and then some. Are
you and L.J. okay?”

“We’re fine. Just get to us, please.”

“Listen, I need you to lock the doors and
stay in place. I’ll be there soon, okay? I promise.”

She started sobbing, happy to hear him, yet
detecting the urgency in his voice. “Nick, what’s going on?”

He wasn’t going to bullshit her. “Theresa,
baby, things are about to get crazy around here. Just trust me.
I’ll get to you as soon as I can.”

Her love for her man was resonating in her
being, reaching out for him, dreaming of his return. “You’d better
get here, goddammit. You’d better. You promised.”

“I promise you, baby.” He added one last
comment. “Kiss L.J. for me, okay?”

They said their goodbyes.

His heart continued to pound in his chest.
His plan was sinister, but he knew it might be the only way he
could guarantee his escape. He could not do it alone.

* * *

Nick Lopez was Hector ‘Sleepy’ Arana’s
outside man, and if Nick could get to him before the Code 26 call,
he would have a distinct advantage over the others. In his first
full day of incarceration, Sleepy had already assumed control
within his cell block. Alliances were quickly switched and a power
struggle was now ensuing, with several factions vying for
control.

Walking along the hallway, Nick could hear
CB’s spring to life, signaling the beginning of the Code 26 call.
It was giving all Travis County employees (the ones that decided to
show up to work, anyway,) a chance to evacuate the building before
all the prisoners were released.

—Every solitary one.

Nick entered the munitions room and grabbed
two shotguns. He exited the room and broke the key off in the lock.
Now the only access was a keypad near the door, and he knew the
number.

The prison hummed with the scurrying feet of
evacuating employees, who were more than ready and willing to flee.
Nick was moving against their current, the only one attempting to
go deeper into the prison.

He was not sure what the problem was, but
knew the sick people being released could be a definite X-factor in
the escape. They were going to have a lot to deal with along the
way; they didn’t need crazy biting people to hinder their
progress.

He had hatched a simple plan. Moving close to
the cell block holding the sick inmates, Nick attached eight
handcuffs he took from the ammunition room to the bars of several
cells to prevent the door to the cell block from opening. He wasn’t
sure if it would work. But it was the only plan he had at the
moment. No one passing by questioned him, despite their
suspicions.

Nick then moved toward Sleepy’s cell block.
No one was at their post, and Nick entered the code to enter the
cell block.

Sensing the urgency, the prisoners were
getting restless. From every cell came screaming voices and the
clattering of tin cups. A thin paper arrow whizzed past his head.
Several flaming rolls of toilet paper had already been tossed and
were rolling around on the prison floor.

He found Sleepy’s cell, and saw the thug
reclining in his bottom bunk.

“Nick Lopez,” he said. “What brings you
here?”

“They’re letting ya’ll out. Travis County is
going their own way. I need your help.”

“
My
help?”

“I’ll let you out now. Get a jump on the
escape if you’ll help me. I know a place we can go.”

Sleepy looked around at the panic surrounding
them. Then he looked at the two shotguns Nick was holding. Then
Sleepy looked into Nick’s eyes and nodded his head.

“I’ll help you.”

Nick handed him a shotgun.

Sleepy immediately turned around in his cell
and blasted his cell mate directly in the chest. The fellow had
barely stepped down from the top bunk, curious as to why a prison
guard was visiting. His mortally wounded heart pumped its last few
streams of life force in all directions, his face forever frozen in
painful surprise.

Nick was equally taken by surprise when
Sleepy cocked the gun and pointed it at him. He put up his
hands.

“What makes you think I won’t kill you?”
Sleepy asked, lightly tapping his finger on the trigger.

“Hey Lopez!” someone shouted. “What are you
doing?!”

It was one of the security guards, an
acquaintance to Nick, but nowhere close to a friend.

Rule change.

Sensing an opportunity to prove his
allegiance, Nick turned to the guard and blasted him in the
belly.

Nick turned back to Sleepy. “You wanna keep
talkin’ or do you wanna get the fuck out of here?”

Sleepy laughed his approval as Nick manually
unlocked his cell. Another fiery roll of toilet paper bounced
against Sleepy’s cell bars as the two raced away.

On the way down, Sleepy moved to a locked
cell and opened fire on the imprisoned. He then crossed to another
and shared his metal load with two more inmates, bathing their cell
in an abstract painting of murder.

He then raced to a final cell but did not
fire.

“Tiny!” he yelled. “Tell our homies we’re
rumbling outside!”

“What?!” Tiny asked.

“They’re letting ya’ll out in about two
minutes,” Nick said. “Meet us at the armory. Be ready.”

“Oh, shit. Okay.”

Sleepy turned to face the entirety of the
cell block and made a declaration of war against the few power
brokers who had aligned themselves against him in his brief time in
the pen. “All you
pinche
scabs and slobs! Especially you,
Bingo! You fuckin’ come get me outside if you think you can!”

As Nick and Sleepy exited the cell block,
Sleepy’s dead cell mate started moving again. Slowly and with much
effort it rose to its feet, then shambled out the open cell
door.

The other men that had been helplessly
blasted in their cells, (with the exception of one who was still
clinging to life,) slowly began to twitch and move. The man
fighting to survive had no idea his cellmate was about to strip his
final moments away by biting into his jugular.

The cell block was now infested with the
mysterious plague of the dead.

Nick and Sleepy dashed back to the armory.
Deputy Officer Jeanette Coleman and two other guards were fumbling
with the keyboard, trying to open the weapons room when Nick and
Sleepy arrived.

“Lopez, what the fuck are you doing?!”

“It’s time for you to shut the fuck up,
bitch,” Nick said.

He and Sleepy blasted the three Travis County
employees.

Nick stepped over their corpses to the
keypad. He tapped in the numbers.

Red lights flashed and a horn howled. The
iron clink of hundreds of cell doors unlocking and rattling open
resonated around the building.

The proverbial hounds were now unleashed on
Austin, Texas.

With every prisoner armed to some degree,
even if only with crude shivs, fistfights and stabbings were
occurring in massive numbers.

Two inmates smashed another’s face into
prison bars until it was soggy mush. Three others pushed a man into
a cell and proceeded to stab and cut him to ribbons. Another group
cuffed a man to prison bars after severely beating him, then doused
him with hairspray and set him on fire.

Sleepy’s victims had been standing and ready
outside the cells, waiting for food to come to them. Though the
initial bum rush of liberated prisoners knocked a couple of the
reanimated corpses to the ground, they quickly found their feet and
went on the offensive. One inmate punched Sleepy’s risen cellmate
in the face, oblivious to the gaping hole in his chest—oblivious
that he was already dead. The dead man simply grabbed the man’s
hand and chomped down on his arm. Blood spurted out onto the
zombie’s face like beer from a bottle that had its top popped,
dripping red down its eyes, cheeks, and lips. The man screamed.

The other men Sleepy had shot had risen and
joined the fray, each attacking a liberated prisoner and biting
them.

Any prisoner who could not pull free was
feasted on.

* * *

Nick and Sleepy were elated to see Tiny
arrive safely with their homies. They handed weapons to
them—shotguns and rifles. The entire armory was liquidated and the
well-armed thug force numbering nearly a hundred strong cut a path
of gunfire and death on their way to the face-off with their rivals
outside the Travis County Jail.