Free Hamsikker 3 by Russ Watts

chaos, and carnage. Inside the bus, the prisoners were still moving, but they were still bound by their chains. Jonas wondered if they were chained to their seats, unsure what the protocol was anymore. Perhaps it depended on the nature of who was being transferred. Dead, rotting, horrible faces leered at them as he and Bishop approached the wreckage. The door to the prison bus was mangled but open wide enough for a man to slip through if he put his mind to it. As Jonas got close to it, the smell hit him.
    “Probably a routine transfer that just got caught up in this whole sorry mess,” said Bishop, keeping his voice low. “There’s a correctional facility over at Oregon. These poor folks were either on their way in or out. Doesn’t much matter now, I guess. They got far worse than anything they were facing at Oakhill.”
    “Why would they bring the bus through here in the middle of homes and shops?” asked Jonas.
    “Beats me,” replied Bishop. “Could be the shit was hitting the fan, and they made a choice to get off the main road. From the way those men are moving around in there, I’d say they got the shackles off, but not the handcuffs. I’m not in the business of looking too closely at the dead. It’s the living I’m interested in.”
    Jonas grimaced as they passed the door. The stench from inside was foul, worse than anything he had smelt before. It was as if the air’s very atoms had succumbed to death, and the putrid smell made his eyes water. The rancid stench permeated his sleeve as he held it over his mouth, and Jonas hurried his feet along. There was nothing he could do for them now.
    “We’re going to have to go through the store on the corner,” announced Bishop. “The only way through the road would be to climb over that car, and I’m not about to risk that.”
    Jonas saw the car that Bishop was talking about, a dark green Honda with its dead driver still buckled in, thrashing about like a fish on a hook. Climbing over the car would be relatively easy except the sunroof was open, and the zombie could easily reach them. Bishop was right, it was too risky.
    “Through here. I think there’s another door on the other side, see?”
    Jonas followed the direction of Bishop’s finger. The coffee shop had large windows, and being on the corner where the two streets met, it did look as if it had another door on the other side. They could slip through and avoid the crash completely.
    “After you,” said Jonas.
    Bishop winked and reached up to the door handle. “I thought you might say that.”
    Jonas nodded, and Bishop pulled open the door. It was unlocked, and both men slipped inside the shop quickly.
    *
    As they did so, neither of them noticed one of the prisoners straining at the bus door, leering at them, gnashing its teeth, and pulling furiously at its chains to get out. Having become aware of the presence of the two living men, all of the prisoners had shaken off their lethargy and started trying to free themselves. Fortunately for Jonas and Bishop, but unfortunately for the dead prisoners, the chains held fast, and as the two living men disappeared into the shop, the prisoners began to groan and move around in the bus with more urgency. The one nearest the front tried to escape, and pressed himself up against the door, but with his hands chained together was unable to figure out a way through. Over the months it had spent in confinement, constantly pushing and pulling at the cuffs around its wrists, the zombie had worn away the dead skin on his hands and wrists. The metal handcuffs were no longer rubbing against skin or muscle, but against pure bone, and the cuffs had started cutting into the fragile bone, slowly wearing it down day after day after day. As the dead man strained to get out it kicked its legs and surged forward.
    Suddenly it was free.
    The bone on its left hand snapped, leaving the dead man with a bloody stump, and a bony, severed hand at its feet. With the handcuffs now