Pulling the trigger of the pistol in his right hand, he managed to graze the temple of the guard that had screamed. The impact was light, but held just enough strength to chip away a piece of his cranium and send him tumbling from loss of balance. While Jason had already been flooded with adrenaline, the recoil of the gun in his hand, the sound of the bullet being expelled with explosive force, the smell of gunpowder and blood, and the sight of the opponent falling due to an action on his part both excited him more while also applying a form of focus. The situation was indeed dire, but with these guns and plenty of bullets, he finally had some control since the Black Stigmata had ruined his life. He had to fight his way out of this hellhole and work to ensure his survival, but that just meant his life was at last in his own hands.
With inmates and guards charging, Jason replayed all of the gunfights he had seen on TV. Forcing himself to breathe slowly, he picked his targets and began firing one bullet after another. As the slides of the two pistols jerked back over and over, smoking shell cases were flicked out like cigarette butts and bounced off the bloody floor. Many of Jason’s shots missed, but the majority of his rounds hit their targets, striking either the torsos or he heads of his opponents. While his aim wasn’t always reliable for headshots, they seemed like the only surefire way to kill the monsters charging towards him. Even after taking a round straight through the heart, the inmates and guards continued their run, at least for ten or more steps.
Once his enemies reached a certain proximity, Jason ejected the two empty magazines from his pistols and reloaded them. While pulling back the slides to chamber two rounds, he bolted for the side of the cafeteria, running with the wall to his shoulder and causing the swarm of ravenous killers to twist on itself like a large wave fumbling as it hit the coastline. Reaching the double doors on the other side of the cafeteria, he relinquished control of one of his guns by holding it in his mouth and used his free hand to grab a severed arm messily ripped from the corpse of an inmate. With the orange jumpsuit sleeve now deep red, he jammed the arm into the handles of the two doors, after rolling through the exit and shutting it to the oncoming horde. As soon as he pulled the arm through, the inmates and guards threw themselves against the doors, bending the arm near to the point of snapping the bones.
Having bought himself seconds at the most, Jason sprinted down the hallway as fast as his legs would carry him, while trying to calculate how many bullets he had left.
“Die!”
He heard the voice before he heard the tiles break in the ceiling above his head. Having been hiding in the ceiling like a spider waiting for a fly to fall into its web, an inmate dropped out from above the tiles and landed on Jason, forcing him to the ground. His face already bloody from a previous kill and his body more than twice Jason’s size, the baldheaded criminal pinned him down with ease and managed to sink his teeth into Jason’s arm. Feeling all the courage he had burned with just seconds ago vanish at the sight of his blood, Jason screamed in pain as the inmate’s teeth cut through his flesh. Wiggling his right arm free, he put one of his pistols to the man’s temple and squeezed the trigger, drilling a hole straight through his skull and splattering brains and blood across the nearby wall.
Bleeding profusely but knowing he had only seconds before the killers from the cafeteria caught up to him, he pushed the body of his attacker to the side and got back to his feet. He felt like his strength was waning with every drop of blood he lost, but he ran down the corridor with a look of terror on his face. He had to get out!
Momentarily smothering his terror, the sound of an earth-quaking explosion thundered through the corridors of the prison, while the building itself trembled from a mysterious force. With curiosity filling him, Jason allowed himself a brief detour and followed the smell of fresh smoke. The explosion had originated in the prison infirmary; he could smell overturned bottles of hydrogen peroxide and rubbing alcohol. The infirmary itself lay on the very edge of the prison with an exit to the yard nearby. At the end of the corridor, the double doors leading to the yard stood, locked and resolute. Along the right side, a row of reinforced windows granted a view of a wide room filled with beds lined against the wall. Small windows were set up along the wall, letting sunlight stream in and shine on the cabinets of medical supplies, all locked tightly.
The infirmary itself was a sea of black smoke, billowing from the helicopter that had smashed through the wall. All of the cots were on fire, the blade had carved through the medicine cabinets on the far wall, and the pilot and whoever might have been with him had either escaped or burned to death in the cabin-turned-crematorium. Jason couldn’t tell if it had been a news helicopter or police helicopter, but it did reinforce his fear of the Black Stigmata if its influence was so powerful that it could drive a helicopter pilot to plummet out of the sky.
Moving over to the exit, he pushed and pulled unsuccessfully against the doors, but the locks held with untested resistance. He even emptied his second to last clip into the lock, trying to break it loose. The mechanism, even while scrambled with pulverized bullets, would not give in. That meant that there was only one way out…
With a single pistol and only one magazine left, Jason filled his lungs with all the fresh air he could gather and pushed open the door to the infirmary. The smoke that met him burned his skin like scalding steam and left him nearly blind. The black vapors were so thick, charging into the infirmary felt more like wading through hot quicksand. Holding his breath with his heart beating in his ears like the pounding of sledgehammer, he rushed over the helicopter and struggled to climb on top of it. The nose and windshield were designed to deflect air, making it next to impossible to climb on top, and with the cabin burning like the pits of hell, any opening he could use for a handhold would burn his fingers clean off.
With his lungs now aching, he threw himself up onto the nose of the aircraft, finally managing to grab onto the creases along the edges of the windshield. The windshield itself looked like magma, as the flames inside churned furiously in search of oxygen and streamed out of any crack and opening. If the windshield broke while Jason was on top of it and he fell in… it would be the end of him. Cutting his hands in the process, he fully climbed up onto the nose of the helicopter and grabbed the edge of the chopper’s blade like a lifeline. There was just enough space above the helicopter for Jason to squeeze through the hole it had broken in the wall.
Careful to avoid putting his weight on the windshield, Jason’s heart seemingly stopped as he heard frantic thudding. Looking down, he saw hands beating against the underside of the windshield. Whoever was inside of the chopper, they were still alive but were beyond saving. Jason could see it, the flesh melting off their hands and sticking to the windshield like caramel. He could see the exposed muscle in their palms and fingers as they beat against the tempered glass. There seemed to be only two inhabitants, and leaning forward, they at last became visible. With flames streaming up around them like foaming water, they screamed in agony and beat their foreheads against the windows. The flesh of their faces had already been burned away, their eyes were charred coals within their sockets, and their cheeks were melting off and revealing their teeth.
Trying to hold back tears of loathing for the horrors he was being forced to bear, Jason reminded himself that there was nothing he could do to help the people inside and made his escape. Climbing over the top of the helicopter, he gasped at the first wisp of relatively clean air that brushed against his face. Tumbling to the ground, he allowed himself a few moments to enjoy the feeling of grass against his skin.
SMASH!
The sound of the nearby doors creaking robbed Jason of any and all relief he had managed to find. The inmates and guards from the cafeteria had followed him. Hearing the horde of possessed men throwing themselves at the door a second time, Jason forced himself to his feet and began to run. He could see an opening in the fence in the distance, made when a SWAT van had lost control and crashed into the barrier. Similar vans and police cars were scattered around the perimeter of the prison to try and keep anyone from escaping, though he didn’t see any officers gathered around the broken fence. This was his chance!
It felt like he had just ran only ten or so paces when he heard the dreadful noise of the locks on the exit finally give way and the steel doors swinging open. Screaming, laughing, or even just swearing, a horde of guards, inmates, and SWAT officers streamed out of the prison like demons pouring out of Hell, each of them drenched in the blood of their victims. Turning back while he ran, Jason emptied his last magazine into the tsunami of killers, though this was nothing more than a foolish mistake. Not only was he wasting his bullets on an unstoppable swarm, but looking back and seeing how many monsters were chasing him only terrified him further. Close to a hundred men were running after him and their numbers were growing! They had spread out into a wide tidal wave rolling across the prison yard, while simultaneously converging on Jason. This was more than just the crowd he had seen in the cafeteria, was the entire prison chasing after him?!
With the sickly green grass beneath him, the bleak gray sky above him, the army of possessed cannibals chasing him, and the prison burning like a bonfire behind him, Jason ran as fast and hard as he could. Tears were streaming down his face as he repeatedly told himself how much he didn’t want to die, and how much he cursed destiny for letting this happen to him. The opening in the fence was so close and yet so far away, he felt like he had been running for miles and still had miles to go before he would have his freedom. He could hear the men behind him, screaming in their mindless bloodlust and their insatiable hunger for human flesh. They were shouting for him to be disemboweled, torn to pieces, raped to death, butchered and eaten, and other similarly gruesome fates.
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