The Ashes: an Eden prequel by Keary Taylor Page A

earlier.
    The man in the dark.  Something was thrown.
    I make my way to my hands and knees and crawl to it.
    It’s a plastic bag.  The kind you get at the grocery store.  Inside it is a bottle of water, half a loaf of slightly moldy bread, two Snickers bars, and a small cup of applesauce.
    I’ve devoured half of it before my brain fully registers that I’ve eaten.
    Massive stomach cramps immobilize me and soon I’m lying on my back again, staring up at the gray ceiling.  My eyes open and shut in pain.  But it’s a good pain.  It means maybe I won’t die today.
    My eyes trail across the ceiling to the entrance to my cell.  The door is still open.
    But I don’t even have the strength to crawl out it.
    Seven years.  Seven years I’ve occupied this cell in the SHU.  D block is the segregated housing unit.  I deserve my stay.  But after seven years, my chance at freedom is right there, and I don’t even have the strength to get to my feet.
     
    42°6′20.1″N   71°17′23.9″W
     
    “You still alive?” a voice says.  Suddenly I’m blinded and I feel my eyelids being pulled open.
    My fist connects with a jaw in fight or flight reaction.
    Someone curses and stumbles away.  A flashlight hits the floor and rolls into the corner.  I shakily climb to my feet but nearly fall to the ground again.  My muscles seem to have forgotten how to work.
    The figure in the dark is still cursing when the flashlight is turned back in my direction.
    “Guess you’re still alive then,” they say.  “You’re the only one on D block.”
    “Everyone else?”  Once again my voice is haggard.
    “They’re dead.  Starvation and dehydration took ‘em,” he says as he walks closer to me.  His gray prison clothes match mine.  “Probably best.  Come on, we’ve got to get out of here.”
    I don’t question him as we head out the door.  I grab the sack with the remaining food before we leave.
    Out on the walkway, the smell is overwhelming.  Some of them must have died at least a week ago if it already smells this bad. 
    “The corridor leading to Medical’s blocked off,” the guy says and starts toward the isolation rec block instead of out toward GP.  The only way in or out of the prison is though Medical.  “Roof’s caved in.  I was hoping there’d be another way out in your neck of the woods.”
    I don’t look into the other cells as we pass by.
    The doors are open out to the isolation rec block that separates the SHU where I reside and Death Row.  I’m momentarily blinded as I look up at the barbwire-covered opening.  Out to freedom.
    We’re both deathly quiet as we walk through the narrow block toward the next door.
    This one is open too.
    Death Row is silent and smells worse than the SHU.  I dare a glance into one of the cells.  There’s a man lying on the floor, flat on his back.  He’s staring blankly up at the ceiling, a bullet hole between his eyes.
    Every single one of them was shot.
    “Rough,” my companion says quietly as we work our way to the end of the block.
    We luck out and find the door leading out to the main corridor open.
    It’s as if someone decided we were all going to die anyway and just opened every single door.  Maybe they figured we’d kill each other off.
    We step out into the main corridor.  I glance back in the direction of the SHU and GP and see the roof has indeed collapsed, blocking off the back end of the prison.
    “What’s going on?” I ask.  The entire prison looks abandoned.   There are bullet holes and shell casings everywhere.  “What happened?”
    “Not sure exactly,” my companion says.  “I saw something on the news before all this, something about zombies, I thought.  Didn’t pay attention cause I thought it was a joke or something, you know?  Haven’t you heard anything?”
    “No,” I say simply, my jaw tightening.
    “Oh, right,” he says, barely glancing back at me.  “D block.  Segregation.”
    “There was someone else,”