Chapter Eighteen

But at the moment, I was still locked in a struggle with the guard. This ended abruptly when Popcorn flew in from my right and grabbed the guy's left arm. Popcorn was snarling like a beast and was already covered in fresh, hot blood from the men he had stabbed. He climbed up on the guy I was fighting, holding onto him and biting his forearm, as he plunged a shard of glass into the guy's neck. I was showered with blood as it shot from the guy's neck and came flying off the shard as it repeatedly slashed up and down.

The guy screamed and staggered backward. I grabbed the rebar away from him as he collapsed. He fell to his knees, with his left hand clutching at his neck, blood pouring from between his fingers. The crowd's chant of, "Kill! Kill! Kill!" crescendoed, but I hardly needed any encouragement. There could be no mercy, both for what he had done, and for what he would become if I let him bleed to death. The last thing we needed was a zombie in here.

I brought the rebar down on his head once, then again when he fell onto his face. The crowd above us let out a cheer, just as they had when Frank was being murdered last night. As one might have expected, their cheering did not indicate approval of the winner, but merely excitement and near orgasmic joy at the maiming and killing they were witnessing.

Popcorn stood up beside me. Now his face and especially his mouth were covered with blood. It was even streaked throughout his long, wild hair. He was panting and licking his lips like a wild, rabid beast, which was not far from what he was at that moment. I couldn't say I blamed him, or even that I found the behavior all that disturbing, under the circumstances. I think anything short of drinking the blood or consuming the flesh of his tormentors would have been defensible, even decent, behavior.

I looked over, and Copperhead was still throwing himself backward against the bars of the cell, smashing Tanya into them. It didn't look fun for either of them, but she clearly seemed to be holding her own, and he seemed to be weakening.

The guy with the baseball bat finally decided to make a move toward me and Popcorn. I think at this point it was mostly an attempt to fight past us and just climb out of the Pit altogether. Good. We were no longer on the defensive, and we even had the crowd's support, if not their sympathy, for I doubt they had any. Maybe we wouldn't die that night.

The guy swung the bat at Popcorn, who nimbly jumped out of the way. He swung the bat at me, and I swung the rebar to counter it. The rebar stuck between some of the nails, so that we were then wrestling over the weapon. Popcorn dove for the guy's throat, but this time the guy let go of the bat to defend himself. They wrestled, and Popcorn continually slashed at his arms and throat. I disentangled the rebar from the bat and smashed the guy across the head with it once, then again, then one last time after he'd fallen. The crowd cheered wildly.

I handed the bloody rebar to Popcorn and took up the bat myself. With no more Pit crew near us, we finally ran over to help Tanya. She was wheezing and sweating from being slammed into the metal bars, but it was obvious now that she could feel the life ebbing from her tormentor. She looked at me, her teeth gritted, lips pulled back in a snarl, her eyes filled with rage, her mouth right next to his ear as his swollen, grotesque face turned blue.

He too was looking at me with his bugged-out eyes, and I imagined they were pleading, but I couldn't be sure. Perhaps worse, I'm not sure I would've cared whether or not they were. Worse still, the thought flashed through my adrenalin-soaked brain that if they were definitely pleading for mercy—something from which Frank and Popcorn had so bravely refrained—it might make what we all knew was coming next even more delectable. And I cringed, for the prospect of wreaking vengeance and punishment on this piece of filth was already terrifyingly sweet.

"You know, Jonah," Tanya hissed, "you probably don't know this, since you're not some inbred, redneck asshole who crawled out of some swamp—but you got to hit a snake in the head really hard if you want to kill its stupid, sorry ass."

I swung the bat back to deliver the blow. It was the cruel, up close and personal type of execution that a sadist like Copperhead would've found especially enjoyable, so I tried not to revel in it too much. But after the suffering of Frank and Popcorn, it was just plain impossible not to. You had to allow human nature some visceral, fleshly enjoyment from curing such a disease as Copperhead, like lancing a ripe boil, or even picking at a scab. I would've been much more inclined to show mercy to one of the undead.

Above us, the chant of, "Kill! Kill! Kill!" rose to an orgiastic crescendo.

"Die, you stupid son of a bitch." I slammed the bat into his forehead. The glitch and crunch was much louder this time than it had been with Frank, close as I was. I pulled the bat back, wrenching the nail loose from his skull, then Tanya shoved him off with a shriek of disgust as the crowd above us went wild. He fell onto his face with a thud that was barely audible above the cheers.

Tanya and I were panting, and our satisfaction was so intoxicating that we paused along with Popcorn to watch the puddle of thick, dark blood spread out from under his face. I looked at Tanya, and the bliss was almost of post-coital quality.

At that point, I really didn't care if the other inmates put my head on a stick. I'd sent the ruler of this pathetic little hell to the real thing. If anything else good ever happened to me now, or even if I just kept breathing for a few more minutes to enjoy this victory, then that was just gravy, and I'd put it on my list of things that hinted at a God interested in the guilty being punished. He had, at least, answered the prayer I had made when I buried Frank the night before.

The three of us stood there a moment, panting and covered with the warm and sticky blood, before two more screams tore through the prison, accompanied by lightning flashes and nearly immediate thunderclaps. The cheering above us stopped suddenly.

The screams were long, piercing, as though from people who were being torn apart, and at the exact same moment that I heard them, I inhaled the strongest odor—even over the nearly overpowering metallic smell from all the blood—of rotting flesh. And then I could hear the other sound—a low and persistent moaning.

I really didn't want to, but I slowly turned around, away from Copperhead's body, and I saw that about forty feet away from where we stood, extending all the way back to the entrance to the prison, the ground floor was packed with swaying, shuffling human shapes. It must've finally started raining, as steam was rising off of them, as if they were soaking wet.

At the next lightning flash, I could see their rotten, undead visages—their blackened teeth, bloody mouths, foggy eyes, mottled flesh, and matted manes of straw-like hair. And though some were at present occupied with devouring two of the Pit crew, those in the vanguard were staggering toward us with their usual lack of coordination, and complete superabundance of determination and focus.

Defeating sadists and rapists only to be confronted by an army of the drooling undead—this place was about as close to hell as I hoped I would ever get. Now it seemed that we were most definitely going to die that night. It seemed it would be a lot quicker than I had previously imagined, but every bit as horrible, too.

I made sure to tack on a little extra prayer right then—that my guts were torn out and eaten before Popcorn's and Tanya's, so I wouldn't have to see that happen to them. No, wait, that would be selfish and unfair. But it didn't seem right to pray for them to die first. What the hell, I guess we could leave that part up to the Lord, as He always seemed to have the part down where innocent people died horribly, so I stopped praying and started to back up slowly.