Prisoners - It started a year ago
‘God, a year? Can it be a year already?’
‘They say time in prison is slow time, time you live through and never experience. Still time.’
‘Fort Coffield Prison. Not a big name in the prison business but a big enough prison to hold a max of 3,000 men; men convicted of at least half the same amount of simple or unique crimes to make them fit right in. Murderers, rapists, crooks, pedophiles, wife beaters, and all the possibilities in between.’
‘Me? Simple man, Oliver Breckle? I was just a house burglar. And a good one. Good enough to land me a 3 year stretch. I was supposed to get out next month but now? Now I never wanna leave this place.’
‘Time seems to move faster since it all happened. Since the whole world went nuts and started turning inside out. When the people went crazy out of nowhere and no one was prepared for it.’
‘Not even us. The judged scum of the earth. Most of us couldn’t handle it. There were some that thought they could but their true colors found their way to shine.’
‘It’s been a year and I remember it like it was yesterday.’
‘A plain day. I think it was a Tuesday. We had what I’m now certain of to be powdered eggs and a serving of what passes for meat patties for breakfast. We were out in the hard when the commotion started. A bunch of the guards left their posts for unknown reasons. A lot of us noticed right away since we love it when there is less of them around. A few even dared the idea of trying to start a riot but then the thoughts of the last attempt came about. It happened before I was there so I don’t know much about it other than it wasn’t successful. It was still odd that so many guards just up and left. Left us to maybe a dozen of them, watching a few hundred of us, and it was barely lunch time.’
‘That’s when it happened.’
‘The alarm went off. We saw a transfer bus was making its way down the road from the yard. The alarm was different from the one that went off when new inmates were coming. A bunch of us stopped and stared at the bus making its way down the road rather fast. Within a minute, the entire yard was focused on the bus. It didn’t make its turn towards the entrance when it was supposed to and it kept heading straight for the gate and the yard we were in. It was picking up speed.’
‘One of the guards on the tower made an attempt to take out the driver with a few rifle shots but it didn’t help. It ran through both gates like tearing paper and turned on its side when attempting to stop. It took all of us by surprise and as much as we wanted to make a run for it, we knew the guards would have no problem shooting us since they didn’t have a problem shooting the officer driving. I saw the man driving was definitely an officer but there was something off about him. Something about his face that I hadn’t seen before.’
‘The riot guards came and tried to drive us away from the wreckage. We didn’t think anyone else was in the bus but we soon heard laughing. Uncontrollable laughing coming from inside. Then we could faintly see the figure of another person trying to break the front window with their foot.’
‘After a few strikes, the windshield fell and the person stepped out to reveal that it was a woman. A half naked woman with an odd face painting. Very similar to the officer who was driving. She shouted out things about fucking and began waving around what was clearly a man’s penis.’
‘We were all shocked as the guards attempted to stop the woman but she hurled herself at them. A few shots and she was down. But she wasn’t alone. I remember there was at least a dozen of them that came out after her. Men and women all with the same face paint, all partially naked, and all covered in blood and holding body parts as if they were weapons.’
‘The entire yard of prisoners watched as the guards tried to put them down but a few were killed before they could. Or we thought they were killed, I guess you can say.’
‘Suddenly, a few of them stood up and they too had the odd marks on their faces now. They laughed with a sickening grin and began shooting at whatever they wanted. Guards, us, it didn’t matter. They fired until the rifles were emptied and then… then a few started shoving their gun barrels up their own ass or the down the throats of men who were dying.’
‘After all the gunfire, everything went into overdrive. Prisoners began to scatter and more guards tried to get things back in order but it was no use. Anytime a prisoner tried to make their way through the opening in the gate to escape, they were caught by the few of those marked and either bitten or thrown to the floor to have a rifle shoved up their ass. The guards fired on the prisoners and on marked ones but oddly they weren’t going down without a few shots being put in em.’
‘The mark is what got me. It was almost like an infection the way it grew across the face of anyone who was exposed to it. The cross going from their forehead to their chin and from cheek to cheek. I had never seen anything like it in my life and I was one of the few that thought it to be a good idea to run back into the prison. Getting away from the yard was all most of us thought about. Anyone out there was either someone I didn’t want to touch, dead, or lucky enough to have escaped and is hopefully getting far away from whatever is happening.’
‘Before the day was over, there was over fifty people with the mark. Eventually, they moved their attention from the yard to the prison itself. There wasn’t enough guards to manage the chaos so the inmates started helping. For the first time, we got along. A common enemy can do that I guess. We all witnessed what these..things were capable of and none of us wanted any part of it.’
‘Not many died after that but one fact was certain; there was now more prisoners than guards and we were given guns.’
‘The prison erupted into a frenzy of nightsticks, fists, and gunfire. Once we had the control, we started to think about the next steps to take. The majority seemed to have forgotten what took place in the yard earlier that day but most of us were still haunted by it. We tried calling out but no one answered. We tried using the radio but it wouldn’t work. We turned the TV’s on to see that directly under our noses, while we fought and killed each other, the world was killing itself. Images of people with the same marks running wild and killing people, shouting non-sense and even mutilating themselves.’
‘Truce’s were made from that point on and we did our best to rebuild what we could of the prison.’
‘We had stocked up food to last us a few months with the amount of guards and prisoners we had before shit hit the fan. The food was then able to stretch well into this last year and we still had some to count. To be safe, we started sending people out to check on the cities near-by, scout for food or ammo or survivors; people to tell us what it was like out there now. We hadn’t seen anything for months. All contact with the world outside stopped barely weeks after we were attacked. Not many of those scouts ever came back.’
‘The prison held about 2,400 men before the chaos give or take, and that’s including guards and medics, but now we were down in the hundreds. Spread out among this vast structure, some blocks kept more people than others. Our block had about 50 of us; a few guards, convicts that didn’t bother anyone, one doctor and a nurse. We spread everyone out to keep each part of the prison protected.’
‘I don’t know about the rest of them, but I had always feared looking out the window and catching the glimpse of the windshield off a bus coming down that road at full speed. Another attack we couldn’t stop. A choice I’d have to make to either fight and risk becoming one of those damned things…or ending it all on my terms.’
‘I kept close to a handful of guys who weren’t murderess criminals but more like me, and we watched each others back. We thought rationally, unlike some of the others in our block, and we kept better control of it as well. I heard rumors of the other blocks having trouble. Gangs that still thought they could control the world, thought they were indestructible. I never understood how such divide can still occur when it seems that the world had finally come to an end.’
‘We cared more about killing ourselves over power than we cared about survival.’
‘God. It’s only been a year.’
(DISCLAIMER: This is part of a collection of short stories which are based off the guidelines of a comic book series titled “Crossed”. I, in no way shape or form, own the rights to the original text or publishing's of this comic series. This is merely a style of fan-fiction within the same universe as the comic book. The publishing rights belong to Avatar Press & if you are interested, feel free to check out the series. It is quite good.)
