Free Refuge From The Dead (Book 1): Lockdown by Joseph A. Coley Page A

that little comment. Get the hot boxes from the chow hall and make it happen. If you tell any of the inmates anything other than what they are having for dinner, I swear to God I will shoot you myself.”
    Most of the men nodded in unison, minus Cunningham. He had other plans.
    “Men, this place will become a hot spot for people to come to. Since the area isn’t highly populated, we might have a few hours to a few days before people come here. When they do, we need to be ready for them.”
    “What about the inmates? What are we supposed to tell them?” Michael asked.
    “I’ve already cut TV off, but chances are, they know already. We keep them on lockdown right now until we can figure out what to do with them,” Winston answered.
    “Sir, this prison could help house a lot of good people. Much better people than we have here,” Michael said.
    Winston nodded. “So that begs the question. In the apocalypse, is it better to have the dangerous people on the outside amongst the public, or do we keep them here to live among us?”
    Michael didn’t have an answer for that.

CHAPTER 10
     
    Michael hadn’t been this nervous since his first mission in Iraq. Six months removed from basic training, he was manning a .50 cal on top of a Humvee. He had been a big fucking target on top of the Humvee, with little to protect him. Any moment, there could have been a Hajji sniper just waiting to blow his fucking head off. He’d nearly pissed himself the first time that he took enemy fire, and even today, the sound of gunfire made him edgy. Even at that, he was going at it with a whole platoon of infantry; now he had one other man. Granted, that one man had gone out of his way to speak up and volunteer himself to go and rescue his family. Michael was eternally grateful for Ryan wanting to go out, but what in the hell were they going to be running in to? The dead coming back to life? It seemed like too much science fiction and not enough fact.
    But the facts were piling up quickly.
    Details of the Mortui Virus were starting to come to life, but it was a little too late. Most major cities had been powder kegs for the last few weeks, just waiting to explode. At some point, they hit critical mass and could no longer contain the virus. Scenes of pure chaos and anarchy populated the airwaves. From New York to Seattle, images came across the TV. In Ney York, aerial views of the city showed fires burning out of control, the FNDY unable to keep up with the demand for fire suppression. In Seattle, videos of people trying to hole up at CenturyLink Stadium were taken off the air quickly after the undead broke through. Thousands of infected poured into the field and stands. They had little hope of escape.
    The CDC had released what limited information they had about Mortui. The virus was extremely contagious, but only transmissible by body fluids. Blood, saliva, and sexually transmitted fluids were the main source of infection. Intricate details of the virus were slow in coming, maybe never to be discovered. The virus was very complicated, acting on more than one area of the brain at a time, but no one knew how.
    None of this information mattered to Michael and Ryan Helton. All they knew was that there were seven people in the parking lot that were presumed to be undead. The initial infected man that had been pounding on the fence was now aimlessly wandering the parking lot with the rest.
    The door buzzed as Michael and Ryan waited to be let back out of the institution. With them was Captain Winston. Winston was escorting them to the armory to arm up for their trip into town. While they waited in the sally port, the lights flickered once, and then went out. Five seconds later, the generators kicked in. Winston looked at his watch.
    “Shit. Five o’clock and the goddamn power out. I was hoping to keep it on the rest of the night, at least,” Winston said, glaring at his watch as if the timepiece were the reason behind the power failure.
    “So