EVO Universe 1: The First (3 page)

Dustin motioned to the correctional officer, “Fast forward the tape…”

The guard sweating bullets turned the dial to move the video into fast forward double time where the guards who did the shooting came in to check if she was really dead. Additional guards now came in, the Warden himself, witnesses on the other side try to move closer to look, but the officers moved them back and then ushered them out of the room to safety. County and state police now showed up along with local detectives. The on-site forensics doctor appeared checking her again, and pronounced that she was definitely dead. Additional forensics now came into view taking pictures, Armitage’s eyes widen as the feed moving at fast forward speed revealed something happening underneath everyone’s noses within that room.

Armitage shuttered as he tried to believe what he was seeing, “Is…is she growing?”

Dustin reaffirmed his suspicion, “Now I know I’m not still drunk…”

The two agents and the C.O. watched in disbelief as the “corpse” in the room went through a serious growth spurt; the video feed showed that about two hours and fifteen minutes had gone by.

Dustin motioned to the officer, “Stop right there…move in…now play it…Mark…tell me what do you see…”

As the footage began to play with a closer shot at Dennison’s lifeless face, Armitage realized what his friend wanted him to see. Through the thick partially dried blood on her forehead, the bullet wound that pierced her skull was no longer there. Five more minutes had passed…as a hand reached over to close her eye lids shut in preparation of placing her in a body bag, a scene out of a horror movie ensued as the dead came back to life again emitting an inhuman blood curdling scream that took ten years off of Armitage’s life just standing there.

Mark jumped back visibly shaken as if he had seen a demon with his very eyes, “Jesus…”

“You wish…,” Dustin responded also shaken despite this being the second time he had seen the footage.

Armitage watched as the dead rose back to her feet for a second time. Screaming once again filled the room mostly from full-grown men, those who had a gun and where terrified did not ask questions as they drew on her and screamed for her to get down. The prison scrub pants she wore looked like knee high shorts confirming that she had definitely grown while she was “dead”. When she took a step with her barefoot, it sounded like a diesel hammer smashing into the concrete floor. Someone freaked out and opened fire without order. Panic fire erupted within the room again hitting her from all directions; instinctively she covered up as smoke proceeded to fill the room. The gunfire was more vicious than before, but something was evidently wrong, ricocheting bullets hit two officers, one in the arm, and the other in the leg.

Through all of the mayhem, someone screamed, “Seize fire!” Seize fucking fire!”...a lot of the gunfire ended because of empty ammo.

The surveillance room filled with the audio sound of cursing and the relock and loading of weapons.

Time felt like it stood still in that moment; Armitage leaned in attempting to see through all the smoke and chaos. At that moment, a black and green blur came from out of the smoke emitting the same high-pitched inhuman type scream. The sound of seasoned guards and officers screaming coupled with the sound of soft bodies hitting something extremely hard rang from the speakers. It was as if an F-1 tank was rolling through the halls. The gunfire grew less and less as the echoing of destruction increased from what the audio picked up.

A shaken Armitage bore witness on the other screen as something extremely fast and powerful smashed through concrete walls and torn open steel doors on its way to freedom.

Mark gave a wave to shut it off as additional gunfire and yelling came into play, he now got the picture of what went down around here. He leaned up again the console of the observation room rubbing his jaw trying to process and make sense of what he just saw, “This can’t be happening…right?”

Dustin motioned to the equally unnerved correctional officer running the surveillance system, “Look at this poor bastard Mark…he was here when it was happening, and he’s seen the footage…how many times have you see it?”

“Four…four times,” the correctional officer held up four shaking fingers.

“Four times,” Dustin threw up his own four fingers, “I’d be the first guy to call bullshit on this, but as you can see him and
several
other people who was in the middle of it upstairs just saw super bitch bust out of prison!”

Mark tried to find his nerve by asking a question off topic, “Who was the C.O. she killed?”

“Dennis Buck Wilford,” Dustin rattled off, “Sixteen year career, ten between here and the Gatesville Women’s Prison, father of two…husband; you don’t want to see that footage…shit was brutal. Bitch singled him out and put him through three concrete walls including the one she smashed through to break out, he lost one of his arms during the second impact, and is now a puddle of goo on top of the obliterated cop car you saw outside.”

Mark rubbed his chin one more time, and started to walk out of the room to clear his head and get back into the game as his partner followed behind him, “I want to know who she is…every detail…most importantly any medical records…if you can find out when she got her first period I want that too.”

He snapped his fingers thinking, going down the standard list of protocol and field training gained over the years, “I want to know who came in to see her during her time here, conjugal visits if she had any; and anything in her prison cell is ours. Anyone she spoke to and made friends with here I want to interview them. Call brass and put her on the terrorist watch list right underneath Bin Laden…with a precaution
not
to engage. We need to know who or what the hell we’re dealing with first. Family and friends, where is she originally from?”

“Mount Vernon, New York…small town outside of the Bronx…Parents are still alive; father is from Jamaica, mother is from Belize…she’s a first generation born U.S citizen of three children, eldest to a brother and a younger sister,” Dustin employed his skill of finding Intel at the drop of dime.

Armitage rattled off another question, “So she met her husband here in Texas?”

“Correct, late husband is from Houston, they went to the same college; they got married and resided there,” Mark did not need Google or an FBI database with Dustin at his side.

Mark then began to set up his ability to strategize ignoring the fact that he was dealing with an individual that could possibly be on a superhuman level, “So she’s either going back to Houston, or heading back to New York...but just in case find out where else she traveled to…vacation…business…whatever. Did anyone see her bust through that wall last night from the outside?”

“You mean like the NCADP?” Dustin scoffed, “Bro, this is a red state. A local news team was in the front doing a story about her execution, she broke out from the other side, so no one saw anything, nor did they get any footage. We checked.”

Mark nodded continuing his course of action, “Then we need to keep this contained inside here, speak to the Warden and the Chief of Police, tell them to convey to their people that no one is to talk to anyone about what went down here, failure to comply means being charged with obstructing a Federal investigation. Last thing we need is mass hysteria in the streets. What are the chemicals they use to administer the execution again?”

Dustin quickly reached into his jacket pulling out his mini-note pad running through the notes he took earlier, “Usual stuff… Sodium thiopental used to induce unconsciousness, pancuronium bromide for paralysis and respiratory arrest, and potassium chloride to stop the heart.”

“Chemical residue to the lab, I want to confirm if that’s what they really are; on top of what she ate for her last meal.” Mark ordered.

“You might want to speak to this guy over here,” Dustin motioned to another agent who brought forth one of the watch tower guards stationed earlier that morning; “This is Sergeant Michael Wexler, a guard and tower watchman #2 of the four towers, also a former Army Ranger and Sniper…”

“Army…infantry…,” Mark addressed a fellow military man, “What can you tell me that I don’t already know solider?”

Sergeant Wexler responded as a man still military forged despite not wearing the colors, “After the escape inmate exited the building from the eighth floor of the facility destroying the squad car she crashed onto on the way down with Office Wilford killing him; she hit the quad going for a run. I tracked and hit the target with an Armor Piercing M2 round to the back of her skull…”

“What are you doing with that type of round in this facility?” an inquisitive Mark asked.

Sergeant Wexler responded with a true soldier’s only answer, “Being prepared for anything sir…”

Mark nodded, “Continue…”

“She went down hard,” Sergeant Wexler continued with his assessment, “But was up again in less than a minute…I believe the round barely pierced her skull. I then proceeded to fire a total of eight rounds after that hitting her in different parts of her skull, neck, and chest when she turned to face me, and that was on top of the other rounds fired from the other three tower guards. Each round after the first initial one was ineffective right up until she threw a patrol car at me and I had to bail from my nest.”

Mark tried to wrap his brain around what the sergeant just said, “She threw…a car…at you?”

“Yes sir,” Sergeant Wexler responded without hesitation, “The smashed up Charger outside buried by part of the tower. I believe it was on instinct…since it was the closest thing to her at the time, the shot also appeared to be lucky…she seemed disoriented all the way till she smashed through the courtyard wall.”

Mark wondered if Sergeant Wexler was superhuman, “You don’t seem the least bit shaken…”

To which Sergeant Wexler smirked, “During my tours I’ve seen a lot of things sir…nothing much shakes me…”

Mark gave a slight smirk, and nodded again out of respect, “Stick around…May have some more questions for you…is that a helicopter I hear?”

Armitage looked at Mercer who shrugged his shoulders not clear what was going on in the madhouse they were in as they walked to one of the windows to see a jet black twin engine Sikorsky private helicopter descend into the court yard of the battle ridden Mountain View Unit.

“Who the hell?” Mark asked with an irritated twisted look on his face not ready for any more surprises.

Dustin shrugged matching Mark’s expression of irritation, “Damn if I know…”

As the helicopter landed sending dust and fresh smoke from an ousted fire everywhere, the door opened and the automatic steps folded down. A tall well built man in black (suit that is) sporting horn rim glasses and a buzz cut stepped out first. He waited as a medium built clean-shaven man with a two hundred dollar haircut and a ten thousand dollar light grey suit stepped out looking around at the mayhem all around him as officers, soldiers, and agents looked back at him in bewilderment.

Additional suits all in black, stepped out. The last to exit the helicopter was a near dwarf like elderly man who had a Santa Claus disposition to him with his clear bald head, long white beard and bifocals; his suit looked cheaper than Armitage’s and reminiscent of the 1950’s. Following him were three people in lab type coats carrying silver cases of equipment appeared to be his assistants.

“Who is that?” Dustin sneered like a wolf defending his territory for an invading pack.

“Don’t know,” Mark began to grind his teeth, “But I smell asshole…”

Armitage watched as the mystery man looked up in his direction, gave what appeared to be an obnoxious smile and proceeded to lead his team into the prison.

Not liking the look he gave him, Mark motioned to his partner, “Five bucks says where he’s headed…”

“Lethal injection room,” Dustin said filling in the blanks.

“Let’s get up there and greet our mystery guest…make sure he doesn’t piss all over
our
crime scene,” Mark gestured to Dustin.

“This’ll be fun…” Dustin snorted as they left the second floor taking the elevator to the eighth, which housed the lethal injection room. Once they got onto the floor, Armitage could see that the damage there was worse than the damage outside.

Armitage looked around to see walls obliterated and steel doors ripped from their hinges like tin foil; his feet kicked around shell casings, which littered the floor from shotguns, semi-automatics, and handguns along with used tear gas and smoke grenades. The lingering smell of the gas made his eyes water a bit as he looked around in disbelief; having seen enough, him and Mercer marched themselves to the lethal injection room to see their own team originally in there standing outside the room, while the mystery team was now inside taking pictures and samples. Mr. Mystery himself stood there in the middle of the room with his back turned and arms folded taking it all in.

The scene pissed Mark off to no end, “What the hell is going on?”

A now nervous F.B.I forensics agent responded to Mark, “Uh…the gentleman there identified himself as a Director, told us our services were no longer needed, to pack up and leave.”

Mark looked as if he wanted to tear the agent’s head off with his bare hands, “Director of what?!”

Armitage palmed the agent out of the way before he could respond. Before he could enter the room, a solid six foot five frame bruiser of a man stepped in his way. The one that first exited the helicopter with the clean look down to his crew cut, and the M.I.B ensemble five thousand dollars more expense than both Armitage and Mercer’s suits combined.