As it was, I resigned myself to putting up with the stupidity of the willfully ignorant and under-educated until at least one of them got himself (or herself) killed. I hoped it would be an adult, preferably either Chandler or Pepper.

  Once I pushed Blue across the yard, Jackie and Lisa came over to investigate. Everybody’s always interested in all the stuff I keep in her rickshaw. I showed them some of my things: my shield, Ginger (my other rifle) some tools and nails, a few Tommy gun parts, an oversized police uniform complete with a badge, stuff like that. None of them seemed very interested when I pointed out my shortwave. I didn’t mention Haven either.

  By then it was fully dark so I pushed Blue into the housing building and picked out a new cell for Tracer and I. We both took the bottom bunk.

  Chapter 2

  I woke up the same time as Tracer, hearing someone messing through my stuff. I’d left Blue in the corridor and Pepper had apparently decided that anything left in the common passage was common property. I hastened to disabuse her of that notion.

  “Hey! Quit messing with my stuff. That’s personal property you wretched larcenist!”

  She picked up my favorite red cloak. The thing had seen better days but I still had fond memories of it. Mainly, the thing kept getting covered with blood and brain gore, leaving it with a patchwork, piebald appearance. I’d tried to replace it with a grey overcoat, but it just wasn’t the same.

  “What kind of dress is this?” she asked.

  “It’s not a dress, lackwit, it’s a cloak. We’re not good enough friends for you to paw through my personable belongings while I’m sleeping, so get your grubby hands off my stuff you wretched hag.” I always find it best to establish boundaries right away when dealing with the morally challenged.

  Clearly Pepper was not used to anyone calling her out. She puffed up mightily, and began a spew of vitriol wholly unfit for the tender ears of the children present. Naturally that got everyone’s attention.

  Lisa spoke up first. “What’s going on, here?”

  As Pepper adopted a petulant expression, I proclaimed in my most outraged voice, “This vile knave was trying to misappropriate my precious belongings!”

  Predictably, Pepper attempted to deny it, “I was just looking through all this junk! I didn’t steal anything!”

  I counter accused, “Liar! I want her strip searched! Give me my stuff back you putrid thief! Help!” Meanwhile, I had surreptitiously worked my hand under my pillow and placed my hand on Zippy (my.44 caliber five shooter).

  Lisa shouted over my cries of injustice, “That’s enough! Pepper, did you take any of Gideon’s things?”

  Pepper replied in the negative, so I hopped off my bunk and untied the bungee cord which I’d used to zombie proof my room. After disentangling it from the bars of my cell, I stormed out and began a more careful search of my property. I saw Pepper trying to slip away while everyone’s attention was focused on my endeavors.

  I not to subtly brought Zippy into a sort of half threateningly position, and told Pepper, “Don’t you go anywhere, you perfidious prowler. If I finish this search before you give me back my stuff, I’ll shoot you dead. This is your only warning.” And I almost meant it.

  I know it seems harsh, but the world is a harsh place and ‘a good man does not take what belongs to another’, also, ‘whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much’. To my way of thinking I would have been justified putting a bullet in her brain immediately, rather than risk some worse offense later, possibly some offense involving life or death. If I couldn’t trust her to not steal from me, then I couldn’t trust her to not shoot me as soon as I turned my back. I could tell that no one there agreed with my logic, but I was the only one holding a firearm at the time. All that stayed my trigger finger for sure was the presence of Cynthia’s children.

  Chandler said, “You’d better give him his *$%^&* back, Pepper.” Which I resented. Nothing I own is scatological in nature, unlike some of the company I was keeping.

  Before the sentence was fully out of his mouth, she had begun divesting her pockets and purse of all my property which she’d purloined. Out came my collection of fake cop badges (the badges were all real, it was the cops who used to have them that were fake), my liberated cop gun with the three clips full of bullets that I keep for it, and my pepper spray (I wondered if she took it because her name was ‘Pepper’). Finally, she relinquished my few remaining candy bars. The spell-casting witch had stolen my candy bars! I felt my face begin to cloud over.

  Lisa told me, “There’s no need for violence here, Gideon. Everything’s okay. You can put the gun down.” I did a neat little Old West gun twirl before replacing Zippy in his holster. I always liked that move because it looks so cool.

  Then I said, “There’s no need for violence now, now that I got my stuff back. Hey! any of you kids want a candy bar?” Naturally, I had three takers on that offer. While we munched contentedly away, I kept a steady eye on Pepper. She met my gaze for several hate filled moments, before finally dropping her gaze and retreating to her cell. I knew she would be a problem latter.

  Javier asked me, “Where did you get all the badges from?”

  “I got them from some police impersonators one state over.”

  Bennie wanted to know, “What do you mean by ‘police impersonators’?”

  So I had to tell everyone a heavily abridged version of that adventure, which led to Benjamin asking why I bothered to keep the trophies.

  My answer was, “Because they’re shiny.” Duh!

  Jack, Cynthia’s son, asked if he could have one, so I made him and his sisters my official deputies and pinned a badge on each of them.

  Benjamin noted how well armed I was (relatively speaking) and asked if he could ‘borrow’ one of my guns. Naturally, I was happy to comply, so I gave him my 9mm, the one that Pepper had so recently stolen. I never much cared much for that gun anyway.

  I did ask, though, “How come you guys don’t have more guns? I mean you’re in a prison, right?”

  Benjamin replied, “We did find a M16 rifle in the yard when we first cleared out the place, but it looked like it had fallen out of the lookout tower. It was busted up pretty bad.”

  Chandler pointed out, “The guards usually weren’t allowed to carry weapons in case the prisoners overpowered them and took their firearms. It was a safety protocol.” Sounded stupid to me, but the world fell for a reason. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to let the guards be armed, and then kill any prisoners who looked like they might cause trouble?

  Lisa asked, “Why do you keep a bungee cord tied around your cell bars like that, Gideon?”

  She was referring to how I had tied my door shut. I answered, “Because zombies are too dumb to figure out how to undo it.”

  She continued, “But, why? There are no ‘zombies’ here. What’s the point? You’re safe here.”

  It was cute how she believed that. I told her, “If one of you has a heart attack or something and dies in the night, then I’m safe. Well, safer anyway.”

  “What do you mean? You think anyone who dies turns into a monster?”

  Wow. Lisa was a total ignoramus when it came to the living dead. I said, “Not everyone; just some folks. But, why take a chance?”

  She asked me how I could be so sure. I spent the rest of the night explaining the basic rules of zombification as I knew them. I don’t think they believed me. Mostly I got the impression I was dealing with the sort of people who couldn’t wrap their heads around the idea of anything outside their personal experience. Like a fifteen year old surviving on his own. My youth made my credibility zilch in their eyes. And to think that I could have been sleeping. Oh well.

  Come morning, the first thing I decided to do was take a nap, after which I got together all my gear and headed outside wearing my beautiful red cloak. Everyone was standing around watching a debate between Lisa, Chandler, and Pepper. Even all the cats and dogs were taking in the show. The issue at hand was ostensibly the value of digging a long moat to protect the prison from attack. Actually, it was all about the potential rewards of work versus the manifest merits of sloth. Lisa was acting as the proponent of work, while Pepper and Chandler had taken the position of sloth.

  “...who knows how long it will be before the zombies will show up in dangerous numbers? It could be tomorrow. If you’re mistaken about the effectiveness of the fence, then it will be to late to do anything about it...” that was form Lisa. She had the kernel of a good argument but lacked the verbal verve to be truly charismatic.

  Pepper’s reply was something like, “*$%^&* you, you *$%^&* I don’t *$%^&* care what you *$%^&* think! You can just eat *$%^&* you *$%^&*. I’m not *$%^&* going to *$%^&* do any *$%^&* thing you *$%^&* say, so *$%^&* off.” I found the relative merits of Pepper’s argument to be quite colorful but poorly framed and inadequately articulated.

  Chandlers contribution was a much more rational, “We don’t even know if there are any large groups of so-called ‘zombies’ out there. Also, that talk about ‘ghouls’ and ‘ogres’ seems like so much hype. That poor kid has been through a hell of a lot; I’m thinking he believes everything he’s said, but that doesn’t mean it’s literally true. I’m sure in his mind some of the monsters seemed...” His was a much better argument, full of rationality and harmony, inoffensive yet forceful in its rhetoric. Also, it had the advantage of letting everyone sit around doing nothing.

  When it comes to debate I have my own philosophies on the subject. Usually everything regarding that whole ‘to be or not to be’ (or, in this case, to do or not to do) sort of thing is best handled using a truly ingenuous dialectic method between two people who are simply seeking the Truth (although throwing in the occasional syllogism can be fun). If more people would be willing to adopt the Socratic method when reasoning through a tricky problem, then the world would be a better place.

  With these as my focused meditations, Tracer and I went over to the next blockhouse of inmates and tried pounding on the door while shouting a challenge. Then I backed off. After waiting a minute and getting no response I moved on to the next housing structure. Chandler came running over to me with Lisa, Jackie, and Javier following closely behind.

  Chandler demanded, “What are you trying to do?!”

  I had to laugh, “Don’t worry. There’s no such thing as zombie hordes, ogres, and ghouls, right? All these doors are locked, right? Or are you telling me you’re worried about something?” That shut him right up.

  Lisa said, in a much more moderate tone, “What are you doing, Gideon?”

  “I’m going to clear the prison, what else?” I began pounding on the door. I noticed that Cynthia had taken her kids inside and that Pepper and Benjamin were nowhere to be found. As I watched (still pounding away) I noticed Bennie coming outside holding his shotgun and looking like he was scared half to death, but willing to stand his ground.

  Lisa seemed confused and frightened by my actions, “But, how, what, why?” She seemed to be having trouble formulating her inquest.

  I stopped pounding on the door long enough to answer, “If you got an ogre locked up inside, then this will bring him out. Once he’s out here, I’ll kill him. The other option is to wait and hope for the best. Seriously, it’s just a matter of time before he gets bored and decides to walk through a wall. This way I can take care of the problem, hopefully before it becomes a problem.”

  Lisa responded, “I believe there are zombies in there, Gideon, you don’t have to prove anything! Why can’t we just let sleeping dogs lie?”

  “Because, like I said, it’s just a matter of time before someone raises his voice loud enough, or some little kid comes over here and starts to bounce a ball against a wall, or Bennie uses that shotgun he’s toting. As soon as that happens you’ll have a real problem, one you aren’t ready for.”

  I was getting no response from that building, either, so I moved on to the next. Who knew? Maybe there wouldn’t even be an ogre in the whole place. That sure would make killing the rest of the zombies easy, what with them being trapped inside a bunch of prison cells.

  Jackie had a salient question, “What should we do?”

  I wasn’t sure to whom the question was directed so I decided to answer it, “Don’t even worry about it, I got this. You should go and hang out with Cynthia and the kids, you know, make sure everything’s okay.”

  Javier hastened to obey, trying to pull Jackie along with him. Chandler looked like he really wanted to kick my butt, but then he remembered that I was armed. Lisa was still wrapping her head around my earlier comments.

  Once at the third dormitory (not counting our own) I began knocking. After a minute of that Chandler had regained all his confidence. He said, “Well, you have fun with that, Gideon. Let us all know how it works out.” I could tell that he thought that there were no threats remaining in the whole of the prison. He continued, “Hey Lisa, make sure Gideon doesn’t get ahold of any keys, okay? Some of the monsters might be loose inside their cell blocks.” With that he returned to the others.

  Only Lisa remained at my side as I went to the door of the next building. She said, “It doesn’t look like there’s anything to worry about, Gideon. Maybe we should just go back with the others.”

  I began pounding on the door, “Yeah, you’re probably right. You head on back; I’ll catch up in a minute.” I intensified my hammering on the door.

  With a mystified and disappointed cast to her features, Lisa began making her way back to where Bennie was standing guard. I stepped back from knocking on my most recent door and turned to go to the next. That’s when things got fun.

  I got that sudden sense when things don’t quite feel right, like I just made a mistake, and did an immediate forward roll. The prison door came flying off its hinges and lofted over my tumbling form. As I sprang to my feet, amid Tracer’s animated growling, I saw not one, but two ogres stomping straight for me. Both of the Changed were of average height, wearing orange jump suits, and apparently in a moderate state of decay. There was nothing spectacular to draw one’s attention to them except for the fact that one of them had just knocked a steel door flying off its hinges. If it weren’t for that I could easily have mistaken them for common zombies (which one of them might have been, for all I know).

  As it was, I drew my girls, Apollyon the Slayer of Vasty Multitudes and the Short Road to Eternal Damnation, and Abaddon the Harbinger of Final Judgment who Paves the Path to Perdition with the Souls of Mine Enemies, from their respective sheaths and let them pick the music. Because of all my recent harvesting the day before they chose ‘Bringing in the Sheaves’, which is better music to kill ogres by than one would think.

  Our dance was over far too soon by the simple expediency of my leaping in close and skewering each of the blighted horrors with a single thrust up under the chin and into the brain. One skull for each of my girls (they appreciate that kind of even handedness). Then I did a quick check of the interior of the prison house since the door was no longer an impediment to my investigation.

  What I saw inside was your typical bunch of zombies all trapped behind bars. When the ogres had torn out the bars to their own cells they hadn’t thought to free any of their undead buddies. Typical unholy behavior of the walking dead. I decided to circle back and finish them all off after checking on the rest of the prison.

  By the time I had reached the next inmate dormitory Lisa was back at my side, her face covered in fear. Bennie was charging over at top speed with Javier and Jackie close behind. Chandler was finally over his initial terror at seeing a steel door go sailing across the prison yard and was dragging himself back over to me, one fear filled step after another.

  I told Lisa, “You see? That’s how it’s done. If the ogres ever get motivated then they can leave their respective cells anytime they want to, so it pays to deal with them on our own terms rather than wait around.” She didn’t have much to say, which I took as a hopeful sign of someone committing herself to the educational process (it can be so difficult for normal people to learn with their mouths open).

  When Chandler came up to me he said, in a hushed tone, “What do you think you’re doing?! Are you trying to get us all killed?”

  I told him, “Shut up, Chandler.” I was getting sick of that guy. He looked a bit surprised by the abruptness of my suggestion. Dressed as fine as he was, I got the impression he wasn’t used to being treated as his words and deeds merited.

  To Bennie I asked, “Are you with me?” because he looked a bit panicky and in need of direction.

  He got ahold of himself and replied, “Absolutely. What do you need me to do?”

  What I really needed him to do was not accidentally shoot me. What I said was, “I want you to get back on guard duty, right where you were. It would be for the best if everyone else went with him,” I said to the rest of the group. “Just let me finish up and then we can talk about it all day if you want to. Lisa, could you please give me the keys to the main building?” I assumed she had them with her.

  As I looked over to the inmate holding building that we were all using as housing, I noticed that Benjamin had taken up a post at the only door. He was holding the cop gun which I’d given him, and was clearly trying to screw his courage to the sticking point, with indifferent success. But at least someone with a gun had the brains to stay behind and guard the kids. I had to respect that.

  No one seemed too happy with my suggestions, especially Chandler, but they did as I asked them anyway. I hate to be standoffish like that, but really, what good were they? In a fight I mean. The way I figured it, I had a whole lot of zombie killing to get done and didn’t need the distraction of looking after people who had no clue when it came to personal defense.

  Once they were out of my hair I was able to go to the remaining cell blocks and make sure they were secure. Then I went back to the beginning and began opening up the door to each prison block, in order to make sure there were no zombies wandering around loose inside. In the final inmate detention building I found that all the cell doors had, in fact, been left open, just as Chandler had feared.

 

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