Lights Out (31 page)

“That’s right, asshole.”

And then he ran, sprinting out of Unit B and down the hall. Charging away from Unit B, he didn’t need to look back to make sure the creature was following. He could hear its growl hot on his heels.

***

Diggs saw the bloodsucker chase after the priest and fought to decide what to do. He could hear the shouts and occasional gunshots from the officers who were storming Burnham. The smart thing would be to return to his cell, lie down, and wait for the cops to come lock the place down tight.

He couldn’t do that, though. Father Albright had shown major balls by making his move, and he owed it to the man to back his play.

He snatched a stake from the floor and started off after the priest and the vampire. But then Sweeny stepped out to block his path, a smile on his face and a sharpened hunk of metal in his hand.

“Hey, nigger. Where you goin’ so fast?”

“Outta my way, Sweeny. I don’t got time for you now.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, asshole.”

The skinhead’s arm moved in a blur. Diggs felt the shiv pierce his throat, then rip free and plunge through the skin again.

He dropped the stake and pressed the hand to his wounds. Even in the prison’s heat he felt the hot flow of blood over his fingers. Darkness swam toward him.

He tried to say something, but his voice gurgled and died. Collapsing to his knees, Diggs felt a final stab of fury as he saw the Nazi wave goodbye.

***

Marquez sat on the edge of a table in the cafeteria, coughing into his hand and fighting like mad to keep his head clear. His vision was beginning to blur around the edges, and his head hurt like had been pounded by a heavyweight for six rounds. He kept his eyes open, though. It sure as hell wasn’t easy, but it was what he’d promised the padre. He just hoped Albright brought that big daddy monster to him without getting killed.

He sucked down another lungful of near-useless air and ran a hand through his hair. It felt sweaty and dirty, as greasy as his skin, and he knew he had to look like complete shit. Didn’t matter. There wasn’t much time left, anyway. For better or worse, this would all be finished soon.

He closed his eyes and saw Jennifer’s face. She was just as beautiful as the last time he’d run his eyes over her. She sat in a sunny courtyard, wearing a flowing yellow dress. Her dark hair crashed over her shoulders like breakers from the ocean.

She smiled at him.

***

Darren raced down the hallway. He leapt over and darted around the corpses he encountered, whether they belonged to prisoners, staff, or the undead. The vampire followed closely. He could hear its dead breath rasp through ancient lungs, heard its snarls and growls, its teeth as they snapped together in anticipation.

As he ran, prayers flashed through his mind like subliminal messages. He would begin a benediction and then forget it as he bounded over or around another pile of bodies. The only word that stuck in his mind was
run, run, run!
That’s what he did.

Darren saw a doorway to his right, the barred gate open. Grabbing one of the bars in his sweaty hand, he swung himself through, dug in with his legs as soon as he hit the ground again. He took off down the hallway like a bullet, his stole flying off of his shoulders and fluttering to the ground. Behind him, the vampire snarled, and he could sense it leap over the holy garment and continue its pursuit. It was growing closer, so near he could almost feel its rancid breath the back of his neck. He pushed harder, but the air snatched away his oxygen, and soon he was choking as he ran.

Marquez must have failed to seal the cafeteria. Would their plan even work now?

“Please...God!” he cried between breaths. He hoped the prayer would help, because he still had a few hundred yards before he reached the cafeteria.

***

Sweeny looked down at the black corpse at his feet and laughed. About time! After so many years of dealing with that pain in the ass nigger, he’d come out on top.

He tossed his shiv away. The Unit was quiet, full of nothing but the dead or dying, but he heard the approaching gunfire. The shiv was the last thing he wanted in his hand when SORT or the State Police showed up.

“Looks like this hood is mine now,” he told Diggs. Giggling, he planted a kick in the dead man’s ribs. “I’m king of this entire fucking prison!”

A hiss from the shadows cut his laughter. He looked for its source but came up empty. It sounded like it came from behind him, though. Time to get out of Unit B.

He stepped toward the gate, ready to surrender to the cops, when he heard another hiss. This one came from in front of him. As the silhouette of a figure climbed to its feet, the weak fires from Unit A showed him the sound’s source.

“Fuck me.”

More noises reached him, growls of anger and hunger.
They’re waking up,
he realized.
A brand-fucking-new crop.

A cold hand grabbed him by the throat, and he couldn’t draw air to scream.

***

Every muscle, every joint in his body burned with pain. He fought through it, even as his eyes grew hazy in the poison air. The cafeteria doors appeared on his left, and he shoved through them. He saw the rows of tables, the chow line and the kitchen beyond. Omar Marquez lay sprawled across the floor, chest rising and falling in a weak rhythm.

Darren heard the monster enter the cafeteria behind him.

“Omar!”
he called between body-shaking coughs. The Mexican looked up with glazed eyes. Something like a smile played across his lips.

“Padre.”

He collapsed to the ground, unable to run anymore. An instant later, the vampire fell on him, wrapping him with powerful arms and sinking its teeth into his neck. He screamed as pain exploded through his neck. With his last bit of strength, he swung his open hand against the creature’s head, shattering the half-full vial of holy water against its skull.

The monster howled in agony as it grabbed its face and spun away from the priest. Darren crawled forward, fighting to regain his feet. Marquez stood in front of him, and he couldn’t help but smile when the man offered him his hand. He took it, and the boss hauled him to his feet.

“You ready?” he asked, drawing the Zippo from his pocket.

Marquez nodded.

They turned to face the vampire. It looked up at them with one eye. The other had burned shut. Half of its face was a smoking, melting mess. It roared, nothing left but rage, and charged them.

Darren flicked the lighter.

***

Warden Timms dove to the pavement as half of Burnham State Maximum Security Penitentiary suddenly burst into a ball of flame. Even behind the high wall, he felt the blistering wave of heat on their skin. He screamed once, and then was on his feet again, running through the gate. Brass came out of nowhere, grabbing him, but Ron shoved the officer away.

He stumbled into the yard, looking up in awe at the flames that had engulfed the prison and were now spreading at a terrible rate. The first tears rolled down his face, and he fell to his knees, still watching the blaze.

The officer’s hand closed on his shoulder. “Warden, we have to get you away from the building.”

Brass tugged at his shoulder, but he ignored the man. He didn’t care anymore. Let the flames reach him. They were surely reaching his friends by now. Didn’t he deserve to die with them? After all, his inaction--his absolute refusal to listen to their pleas--had brought about their deaths.

He stood and started toward the gaping hole the riot tank had punched in the prison’s wall. Already, inmates and officers were streaming out of the hole, running for their lives. Brass tried to stop him, so he spun around long enough to deliver an uppercut to the man’s jaw. The officer fell backward, landing in the grass, and lay still.

Ron Timms stepped forward, feeling the heat bake his skin. No one else tried to stop or dissuade him. The smoke reached his lungs, and he coughed. He fought on though, entering the prison’s structure and breathing the smokey air deep.

He saw light in the distance, a roaring orange light that sent men of all kinds fleeing before its advance. Wiping away his tears, he ran toward it.

EPILOGUE

He woke shortly after the tunnel collapsed, sealing them in. He did not care. He was not afraid of the dark, because now he could see in it. And he did not worry about food, even though his belly growled to be fed. The voice in his head, that reassuring, somehow familiar voice, told him he could live forever even if he did not feed.

It did not matter, though. He could smell the blood above, smell it roasting in the flames, sizzling under the heat. It was intoxicating. Sooner or later, the tunnel would open again, just as it had before. One day, he would taste the blood.

Yes, you will,
the voice of Dr. Wilson said in his head.

Good,
Maggot replied.
Good.

AFTERWORD

Heya. How’s everything going in your world? I hope you had fun reading this one. As dark and grim as
Lights Out
is, I honestly feel it’s one of the few “fun” books I’ve written.

It’s weird, because I don’t feel like I’ve been doing this for a long time, but I wrote
Lights Out
a decade ago. The idea had been percolating in my brain a long time, and I’d recently proven to myself I could finish a novel (that mythical first novel remains unpublished), so I figured it was time to sit down and turn this big concept idea into a proper book.

I wish I could say there was some big lightbulb-over-the-head moment when the inspiration for
Lights Out
struck me, but that isn’t the case. I’d been a fan of the TV show
OZ
, so I was fascinated with the concept of the prison system, but it wasn’t some bolt from the blue that struck me. Instead, the idea came in fits and starts. A piece here, a bit there. Over the years, I’ve found that process works best for me. If you just keep collecting parts of an idea and bits of information, they’ll eventually come together in a way that’s both more solid and more interesting than any single idea would be if you try to force a story out of it.

One of those ideas, and the closest thing
Lights Out
has to a theme, is the idea that even the worst people are still people. Being human is a unique gift and punishment. We have free will and all the privileges, responsibilities, and punishments that go along with it. Sometimes, just being alive is the most wonderful and the most terrible thing in the world. The prisoners in the book don’t think they’re good people, but they know they’re
people
, and they know some things are worse. I dig that.

Originally titled
Ain’t It Hell?
(after a Lonnie Mac song…he lived in my hometown),
Lights Out
was largely written in bed. I’d recently picked up my first laptop, and I found it easier to curl up in bed than sit in my “office,” which was really a room I shared with a pair of litter boxes. I stuck to a 1000 word per day schedule through October, getting the pieces set up and figuring out how the characters interacted. More importantly, I figured out who the characters were.

It was during those first 30,000 or so that Anton Ribisi and Omar Marquez became my favorite characters. As a writer, I know I’m not supposed to pick favorites. Or, if I have a favorite, it should probably be somebody like Charlie “Crawdad” Crawford, the white trash magician who appeared in
Deeper Waters
and a few short stories who might just save the world someday (okay…so he’s up there). I like Ribisi and Marquez, though. They’re assholes, but they’re wise and respectful assholes. They haven’t survived as long as they have by being reactionary. They’re the two chess players at the checkers tournament. Toss in the fact that, on some level, Marquez just wants his family near him, and you’ve got the makings of an amazing character. I’m more than a little sad that I wrote
Lights Out
so early in my writing career, as I really do believe Marquez in particular deserves a better write than I was at the time. Of course, maybe there’s a guy under bandages in a burn ward somewhere telling people monsters are real. Hmmm….

The last 50,000 words of
Lights Out
’s first draft was done entirely in the month of November, the closest I’ve ever come to participating in NaNoWriMo. I did this, as well as the first part of the writing, while listening exclusively to Faith No More’s incredible record
Angel Dust
. It helped make things a little nastier and grimier than they would have otherwise been, I think. Since then, I’ve always created custom track lists for the things I write. It helps set a mood.

Lights Out
was supposed to be my first published novel. Delirium Book picked it up, but only after substantial rewrites. It was a confusing time, where I wasn’t sure if the book had been accepted or not. Vague comments like, “We really love it. Please cut out 20,000 words,” didn’t make things any easier. I believe another 10,000-15,000 had to be cut before it was officially accepted. I made these cuts while sitting beside my father’s hospital bed. He’d recently had a heart attack, and he was on a ventilator. Editing proved to be a good distraction from the awful shit going on in my life at the time.

Before it was published, Delirium switched to a digital only-model. While I don’t have anything against eBooks, they wanted to amend my contract in a way that would allow them to publish an eBook while keeping any physical copies from ever appearing. Luckily, they were nice enough to allow me to leave the contract. I decided that was the best case scenario.

So, what you hold in your hands is now the fourth edition of
Lights Out
, after Thunderstorm Books’ two hardcover limited editions and a paperback from Deadite Press. I’m thankful to those publishers who gave this book a life, just as I’m thankful to Sinister Grin for giving birth to it one more time, including fixing some typos that had previously been missed. Ugh.