[M] Song of the Jailbird

[Simone]

Song of the Jailbird

The civilians had all left, the guards with them for protection. She’d been forsaken to her providence. Her bonds to the chair were secure. But, where any man would writhe and scream in defiance of his fate, she smiled wide- a cruel, malicious smile and she slouched comfortably in her chair and tilted her head back as laughter bubbled from the pit of her dark soul, if she had a soul to begin with, that is. It passed her lips, a terrible sound that resounded off the lonesome walls of the enclosed room. Once the moment had passed, she let her head loll back down, resting her chin on her chest. She noticed a light blinking in the darkness. Her glaze flicked to it lazily. The light came from a button on the control panel to the chair she was sitting in: The electric chair. Had it not been for the impeding horde of infected, she’d have died with hundreds of volts tearing through her body. It was an experience she felt deprived of. To feel so much raw power coursing through her veins with her mortal blood… That climaxed with the eternal blackout. Ah… Now that would be an experience!
But, alas, no. She would be left to be eaten alive by other humans. Certainly a deserving fate and certainly the feeling of her own flesh shredding, strands of her own muscle separating and the feeling of warmth her own blood would bring as it dripped from her wounds would be delicious, but it was not the thriller that she so craved. As she sat in her chair, she let her lids close again. Moving her head slowly and slightly, back and forth to the rhythm of a song in her head. A song she’d sung often to the guards around her. The melody slowly began to rise from her throat- Starting off as a soft hum and intensifying into words and full song.

“-Thyme… Remember me to one who lives theah…”

Footsteps raced up the stairs. Simone continued singing. “For she once was a true love of mine… … Tell her to make me a cambric shirt… Pahsley, sage, rahsmary and thyme… Without no seam nor fine need needlework… … And then”

“You!”

“-She’ll be a true love of mine,” she finished, singing to the male inmate who’d just arrived in the room. He blanched at her. He was holding keys.

“The guards have left with the civilians.”

“Tell he'ah to wash it in yonder dry well…”

“And they set the prison in lock-down afterwards.”

She plucked a loose hair from her shirt and raised her eyebrows in a mock expression of pity as she continued singing, never stopping. “Pahsley, sage, rahsmary, and thyme…”

“We… Need…”

“Which never sprung water nor rain ever fell…”

“We need your help dammit!” he shouted at her crossly.

A smiled broke out on her face, baring her fangs. “And then she’ll be a true love of mine.” His face contorted further in rage… But also desperation. This man and the other inmates behind him had foolishly laid their lives in the hands of a serial killer who cared nothing for their safety nor her own. Twas strange indeed how an apocalypse that divided and destroyed so many families brought such odd people together. She shrugged as best as she could through all the chains and straps. “Free me if you will, deah. Helpless little me won’t hurt you… too badly.”

He scowled, but approached her and set the key in the lock. He hesitated only a moment, face-to-face with her, that wild glint shining her eyes as her lips remained curved into a smile. He undid the chains and stepped back quickly. She sat for a moment, frozen her spot- her eyes staring straight ahead. For beneath her feet she could feel them infiltrate the prison. They’d arrived. A thrilling wave of excitement latched on to her a moment. Leaving her momentarily paralyzed, only her crazed eyes shifting back and forth above the smile that never left her face. The man backed away from her further, a near terrified look on his face. At the sound of his movement, her eyes snapped in his direction and her smiled widened. She rose then and stepped closer to him, each step deliberate, calculated, and confident. She matched his eyes for a moment, the dim light of a dirty bulb overhead illuminating her pale skin. Then, very suddenly, she whipped her head in the direction of the stairs before turning sharply on her heel and striding out. She descended the stairs to the first landing. She paused for a moment. Behind her she caught the whispered conversation of two men.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“They say evil neveh dies. She’s the creepiest… Thing I evah saw. If she can’t do this, none of us can.”

But their thoughts were none of her concern. She looked right. Then she looked left. Ah… Theah she is. She walked over to Fire Emergency box. She grabbed the crowbar and broke the glass with it and grabbed the axe inside. She hefted the weapon in her hands. Sturdy… It’ll do for now. She continued down the stairs, picking up a pistol off an already deceased guard. Across the cafeteria she’d stepped into- the infected were pounding on the doors. And the doors were starting to give. She licked the blade of the axe as a hand burst through a new hole in the door that was rapidly growing in size.

“You can only come to the morning through the shadows.”

The door shattered further and the battlefield paused, each side seeing the other: A horde of infected versus a small army of criminals.

"Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster."

[Simone]

(Listen to this song at the same time as you read.)

All at once. Chaos broke loose. An infinite stream of the infected surged forth to attempt to overwhelm the survivors who watched the unspoken leader amongst them for instructions.

“What do we do?” the man who’d released her asked anxiously.

She didn’t move. The infected got closer.

“HEY! What are we supposed to do?”

She continued to stand still, her eyes closed and craned her chin up to the ceiling. Then, suddenly, she whipped her head back down and snapped her hand with the pistol up and fired six times- all found their mark in the heads of the gruesome, former humans. With the shots out now, she dropped the pistol and she gripped her axe with both hands.

“Fight and run fah the doah, deah. Or, you can stay here and die!” She yelled with a wild whoop.

She ran forward, dipping her shoulder down and flipping one zombie over her like a football player. The inmates followed up behind her, finishing her work. She ran to the next, slamming her axe blade into its stomach. The zombie stayed impaled for a split second before Simone flicked the axe to the side, ridding herself of the bloody thing. As it fell, two more came at her. She side-stepped them both, ducking down and then swinging the axe at their feet. Twirling on her heel, she stood again to face the next oncoming zombie. She swung her blade up, embedding in the putrid thing’s chin and throat. She kicked it in the stomach, knocking it out of her way. Two were on their way to passing her. Seeing them in her peripheral vision, she spun around and took the axe through an infected’s abdomen, splitting it near in two. Then, she turned to the other side, and the zombie there took a deadly blow to the face. Straight forward from her, an odd thing with hooks and bandages around its face was coming for her. She dropped to the ground, rolling past it before turning and burying the blade of the bloodied axe in its back. The next zombie was too far off to hit yet, so she hefted the axe back behind her shoulder and then threw it.
The force took down the other one beside it and they both flew backwards like they’d hit a clothesline. She ran forward and took the axe from its body and, after a quick swing that arced through the two zombie’s throats, sliced open another nearby zombie. Its entrails falling to the ground before it did. Another was upon her quickly and closed the distance before a good swing at it could be made, so she ducked down and flipped it over her shoulder again. One infected was about to pounce at an inmate behind to her left. She whipped the blade out, catching it mid-leap. Immediately, she bashed the next zombie coming at her in the head in a fatal blow that carried enough force to flip the scrawny thing over.

Finally, they’d reached the cafeteria’s doors. Just down the hallway, that was so wide it was like a hotel lobby, was another set of doors that lead to the outside. But the battle was far from won just yet.

She paused for a brief moment over a dead guard’s body to steal his pistol. Another zombie, one with an arm that seemed to be made of cords and three claws for a ‘hand’ appeared amongst the infected storm. Simone fired her pistol at is just as its fist whirled past her to take another man. She heard a scrabbling noise above. She looked up and shot quickly at the odd thing with the hooks that was crawling along the ceiling. The bullet hit the thing’s spine and it dropped the floor. She kept moving, never pausing for long. Her eyes always roving across the scene, missing nothing.

Infected oddities were becoming more prominent here. One hook flashed in her eyes. She leaned back, her hand touched her calf she bent back so far at the waist. The hook cut the air with a dangerous whistle above her nose where her neck had been just moments ago. The pistol in her hand was unnecessary baggage holding up her necessary right hand, so she shoved the pistol into her shirt. She tossed the axe from her left hand to her right. She reached out with her left hand, grabbed the hooked arm and smashed through it with her axe with her other hand. With two weapons now, she raked the hook across the freak’s face and it screamed with anger. She turned the hook and back-swiped through its throat, tearing out the tough tendons and esophagus. She kneed it in the stomach then and then slammed her elbow into the back of its neck, feeling its pitiful spine buckle beneath the blow.

Another zombie like it leaped onto the not-yet-fallen corpse of the freak and brandished its hooks in her face as its tongue lolled out of its terrible-smelling mouth with black saliva. She noticed that its sharp legs had dug into the other’s corpse and it was now stuck. Simone quickly knocked the body over. It hit the ground, taking the other one with it. She whipped the hook through its throat, like the other but this time it got stuck. So she let go of it and moved on to the next: a normal zombie. She swiped at it once with her axe, spun on her heel and got another zombie in the face with her elbow, stunning it, as she faced forward again. She kept the momentum and energy in her right arm going, as her left had gone back, she’d brought her axe forward and then back-swiped it across an infected’s throat. She drew her pistol from her shirt and fired two rounds at some more freaks further away. She put the pistol in her pocket as another freak approached.
She stooped slightly and swung low in a back-swipe. Catching it in the leg, causing the scrawny thing to come up in the air as she raised the arc of the axe’s path. The leg came up with it, refusing to break. As one leg came up, so did the other and its hip was eye level with Simone as it started falling back to the floor. But, she decided to help him along. She slammed her blade into its chest, pinning it to the floor viciously. Another infected pounced for her. Unable to free the blade of the axe from the freak in time to hit it, she turned and as she did so, decked the zombie in the face as hard as she could, breaking its jaw and the apparently brittle bones in its neck since its head snapped sideways. As she spun around to face forward again, she loosed the axe blade and rammed it into another infected’s face. She saw another infected aiming to run past her on what would have been her right if she’d turned fully to face forward. Quickly, she spun around again and pounded a well-placed her fist into its face; clothesline-ing it. It hit the floor hard. Simone strode closer to it calmly and took her axe through its neck.

As she looked up, she was staring through the open doors. One of the inmates behind her rushed forward. They all heard a falcon-like shriek as he ran across the dead grass of the prison lot. A winged zombie swooped down and carried him off, screaming. So close to freedom the rest of the inmates took their chances and ran off anyway for the break in the chain link fence that the infected had made for themselves. Several of the winged things swooped down.

“What the hell are those things?!” the inmate beside her asked, the same who’d freed her.

“I don’t know. There ah probably a score of them. We won’t be able to fight them, not that many. We’ll have to wait for them to all take theah prey.”

“Do we really have time for tha- NOOOOOOoo!” A freak that was still inside had grabbed him by the collar and was dragging him off excitedly where there was yet more infected. “Help me!” Simone pulled out her pistol and shot the freak coolly. She went back to facing forward immediately and fired her last two shots at a group of oncoming infected. She dropped the empty pistol and hefted her axe again in both hands. In one hefty swing, she took out one infected and the other two with a back-swipe. Suddenly, the ground beneath her rumbled. An ape-like thing with bones sprouting from its body had appeared on the scene and it was coming for her. She stood at ready, not sure what it would do. When it was within range, she swung her axe at it, but the blade met with the base of a spike and went no further. With a masterful, subtle swipe from its massive hand, the axe went flying, leaving her weaponless. She didn’t bother looking to see where it’d landed. She stared down the spiked thing. Smiling darkly in the face of the angry beast, in her eyes was a challenge. The monster roared and pounded its fists down to the ground beside her.

Time seemed to freeze and everything was quiet. Simone looked at the spikes as the tremors ran through the ground, right through the thin soles of her shoes. One particular spike looked loose. She saw a hole in its chest where one had been removed. Time unfroze and the sounds of screaming and the cries of the flyer’s returned to her ears.

She reached to grab the loose spike; the Spiker put its hand back to make a swipe at her. She grabbed the spike and had enough time to tug on it and get a vice-like grip. But the Spiker was fast too. It wrapped its massive hand around her body and picked her up, she took the spike with her, though. It roared with pain in her face angrily and then threw her across the lot. The air whistling past her body as, for almost five seconds, she flew through the air. Her left shoulder blade hit the ground first. The momentum was enough that her body bounced once on the grass before sliding several feet, tripping several zombies. Her body finally stopped, leaving her on her back.

A groan escaped her lips, but the sound quickly turned to an amused chuckle.

“Ain’t that a bitch…” She, slowly started moving her legs and arms to get up, but she was too late and too injured for that. She was down and she was weaponless and the zombies nearby were hungry. One, a particularly tall and strong-looking one pounced on top of her.

There was no parley between the two, he went straight for her throat. She managed to dodge the fatal bite to the throat, but the attempt was too feeble. Instead, the sharp teeth dug deep into the muscle right to her collar bone.

Simone’s eyes flashed as her survival instincts took over- giving her the wild and ferocious look of a caged animal. Her crazed mind thinking rapidly as the strong jaws of the infected latched even deeper, trying to take muscle and bone in one bite. Have to get up. No weapon. Arms too weak. Teeth. Without even truly thinking, Simone did what had to be done. She lurched her head forward, and her own teeth dug into the zombie’s neck. She bit as far deep as possible before yanking away, the zombie’s fragile, decrepit flesh coming off in her teeth with a black, absolutely vile tasting liquid. The zombie screamed and let go of her. She spit out the decaying flesh and punched it as hard as she could in the temple. She then grabbed the spike that she’d taken from the spiker and slammed it home in the zombie’s neck before kicking the its body off the spike.

Standing now, she spat at the corpse after picking a loose piece of flesh from her teeth. Surveying the battlefield before her, she wiped her mouth off on the back of her hand. The spiker had rampaged inside the prison, the fliers were busy with their meals and the freaks were still inside the prison, it seemed. Above the sounds of crunching and the tearing of human flesh, she heard gunshots within the prison. On the upper story she saw a flash of a man with blonde hair in the window. He was working his way down the stairs to get out. She vaguely remembered his face and knew he was a good shot- he'd probably get out alive. Not that she cared one way or the other. She was more interested in getting out alive. All other inmates were likely dead. Simone looked down and picked up another pistol. She shot some walkers that were lumbering too close to her before running to the hole in the fence as blood leaked from the bite wound. With every heart beat, the disease that had corrupted so many spread throughout her body.

[Simone]

Hardly a mile from the prison was a small town. A VERY small town. Village even... Perhaps degraded down into a campsite with a Walmart. That was the extent of the town. The Walmart store was the only real building of the entire settlement. The houses were all trailer homes and hardly counted. Within the flimsy homes lived the families of the prison guards when they were on duty. The cheap houses were provided expense free and the guards could live there for the months that they were on duty. The island was off from mainland America. Not far, but far enough that any normal human would not be able to make the swim. 'Normal' excludes Olympic Athletes. Which Simone was not. She stood now on the drop off of a cliff, looking to the coast.

"Not going to happen," she grumbled, The bite still throbbed and felt inflamed, reminding her constantly that she needed to bandage it up somehow. She searched the coastline with her eyes, roving over every detail. Miles further down the coast, nearer to the town, was a military boat. It was always left with a half empty tank in case an adventrous inmate decided to escape in it. Trying to do so wouldn't get them very much closer to the coast, but it'd help. Simone turned back and resumed her jog down the dirt road, the field of trailer homes appearing through the trees. And the Walmart sign. Assuming that the zombies who'd attacked the prison were the former inhabitants of the town, it was most likely void of life. But she needed a new weapon. And new shoes... And better clothes. The fabric of her jumpsuit was thin so the guards could tell if she was hiding a weapon or not. The fabric had torn in the back from her flight across the prison lot, curtesy of the spiked asshole.

As she reached the paved street she slowed her jog as she looked around. Her deep teal eyes caught sight of the Walmart sign and she stopped, debating whether to go to it or not. She turned in the direction of where the boat would be. She needed to get to shore, that was most important. Decisively, she kept jogging towards it. Soon enough, the trailer homes gave way to the beach and the small dock that it sported. Simone slid down a sandy slope and walked with precise steps toward the old rotting wooden platforms where the military's charter boat was anchored. It was shaking about. Simone pulled out her pistol and ghosted closer to it. She saw a man fliting around, getting the boat ready to set sail. Judging from his uniform, he was guard personel... And propably the ususal captain.

She snuck on and stood behind him before pulling the hammer back on the pistol. He froze.

"Where ah the keys?"

"I- In the ignition," he answered, his voice trembling almost as much as he was.

"Is the boat ready to set sail?"

"Y-... Yes..."

"Hmm... I got good news and bad news."

"What's the good news?" he asked, his meek voice rising in hope.

"Good news is I owe you a dept of gratitiude of preparing this for me. Bad news is, I'm going to kill you anyway. She fired the pistol and he crumpled to the floor. Simone picked him up like a garbage bag and tossed him into the water. On the other side of the dock of couse, Wouldn't want his body getting caught in the motor and jamming it up. She got back on the boat and brought the engine to life and taking it out to sea.