23 Hours: A Vengeful Vampire Tale

20.

The half-deads didn’t waste much time. They didn’t bother beating on the door or shouting threats through it at the women inside. Instead they decided to cut their way through.

The door of the SHU was a plate of steel a quarter-inch thick. It was designed to resist any attempt the inmates made to tear it down or pull it off its rails, but the prison’s architect had assumed they would never have access to an oxyacetylene torch. There was a loud hissing and a couple of high-pitched screams from behind the door, and then a spot near the middle of the door started to glow cherry red.

“Get back,” Caxton said, and she and Gert moved away from the door just as sparks erupted from its surface and molten slag began running down its face. A jet of yellow sparks emerged from the hole the half-deads had made and began traveling down the height of the door. It looked like they intended to cut the door in half. The jet didn’t move very quickly—it was going to take a while, so Caxton had time to get ready. She spent that time mostly sitting, watching the door, trying to make plans in her head.

Gert didn’t make it easy.

“So what are we going to do?” she kept asking. As if she wanted to know whether they should go to the mall or just get their nails done. “What’s the big plan, vampire killer?” It seemed she had total confidence in Caxton’s ability to outwit their enemies. “When they come through, where do you want me?” Gert asked. There was a nasty gleam in her eyes.

Caxton tried to ignore her. She could have forced Gert back into the cell at any time. Gert had that knife, but Caxton had a shotgun loaded with a plastic bullet. It would be easy enough to shoot Gert and then get the knife away from her in her resulting pain and confusion. Once Caxton had the knife, Gert wouldn’t be able to fight back in any kind of meaningful way. Caxton could force her into the cell, lock it, and have one less thing to worry about.

She kept telling herself she didn’t know why she was hesitating. Why she didn’t do it right that second. In truth she knew exactly why she hadn’t shot Gert—and why she wasn’t going to. If she did she would be alone. Alone in a housing unit full of women who hated her, looking at a door behind which was a bunch of monsters waiting to kill her, and beyond them a vampire who would try to destroy her soul.

There are times when nobody wants to be alone. Even if your only choice for company is a multiple murderer.

“I mean, you do have a plan, right? We’re not just waiting here to get our asses kicked.”

“It would help,” Caxton admitted, “if I knew how many of them there were. Or how they were armed.” Half-deads never used guns. Their rotting bodies lacked the coordination to aim properly. Beyond that it was anyone’s guess. They would try to take her alive, she knew, but they wouldn’t be afraid to hurt her. Gert they would kill just to get her out of the way.

Caxton had one round in her shotgun. She was certain she could take down one half-dead with it. After that she would need to reload. She doubted they would give her the time to do that.

The jet of sparks reached the bottom of the door and fire licked along the cement. It stopped for a moment, then it reappeared at the top of the cut and started working upward. Caxton estimated she had about two minutes left to think of something.

The door was nearly cut in half when inspiration struck. She realized what was in that squishy bag she’d found in the guard post. She ran back and got it, then dropped it about six feet from the door. Then she checked her shotgun again. Made sure it was loaded. Made sure it was ready to fire.

“Caxton?” Gert asked. The sparks were coming from very close to the top of the door. “Um, is that all you have?”

“Wait for it,” Caxton said. “When they burst in, don’t run at them. Make them come to you. If you can take them on one at a time, that’ll help. And whatever you do, don’t hold back. They aren’t human, so don’t worry about hurting them. They’re already dead. Just hit them as hard and as fast as you can.”

“Okey-dokey,” Gert said. She turned to face the door.

The jet reached the top of the door. Bright silver slag had run down the painted metal like dripping candle wax, all the way from the top to the bottom. The jet of sparks sputtered and then went out.

One half of the door slipped out of its tracks and fell inward. It hit the floor with a deafening clang. Revealed beyond it was nothing but darkness.

Gert started moving forward, knife out in front of her.

“No!” Caxton shouted. “Wait.”

The half-deads came at them all at once. A crowd of them, most dressed like COs, a few in orange jumpsuits. Their faces were torn to shreds and their eyes were alight as they swung knives and shanks and shock batons through the air. They jumped over the fallen section of the door and came roaring toward Caxton like a wave of pain.

She lifted her shotgun. Waited for the perfect moment. Then fired her plastic bullet right into the bag at their feet.

Its contents erupted upward like a silent fireworks display, ropy streamers of wet orange goo shooting upward with incredible speed. It splattered across the oncoming half-deads, splashing across their legs and chests and faces and then hardening instantaneously, snarling around them in a mass of slimy tendrils that dried in the air as Caxton watched.

The half-deads weren’t even aware of the sticky foam exploding around them at first. They kept coming, legs lifting for the next stride, arms swinging to menace the waiting prisoners— and then froze in place. The hardening foam held them fast, barely able to move, their limbs trapped, their ravaged faces covered in the ropy mess. What little range of motion they had was spent trying to pull the sticky tendrils off their bodies, with little or no success.

Caxton had been surprised to see the foam pack in the guard post. She knew that the air-activated aqueous foam had been designed originally for use in prisons, as a way to immobilize rioting inmates and keep them from attacking the guards. She also knew that after a few live tests it had been all but banned from prison use, because it had a bad habit of covering its victims’ noses and mouths in solid gunk, making it impossible for them to breathe. The potential lawsuits had convinced the Bureau of Prisons to look elsewhere in its constant search for the next great compliance weapon.

Half-deads didn’t need to breathe. Even if they did, Caxton couldn’t care less. They couldn’t hurt her anymore, or take her captive, and that was what mattered.

“Oh my God,” Gert said, snorting with laughter. “Did you see the look on that guy’s face when—”

Caxton grabbed her celly’s arm. “Move,” she said. “There might be more on the way, and I only had one of those.”

Together the two women ran around the side of the stuck mass of half-deads. The creatures cried out in misery and a few, whose arms hadn’t been completely pinned by the foam, tried to reach for them or stab at them, but they couldn’t follow as Caxton and Gert made their escape from the SHU.

Now Caxton just had to figure out what she was going to do next.