The half-dead was crouching up on the top bunk, waiting for her.
This one was proving way too smart. It leapt down on top of her, one arm back, holding the knife high, pointed downward toward her. Its orders might be to bring her in alive, but clearly it was willing to wound her if that’s what it took.
One of its boots clipped Caxton’s ear as she tried to roll out of the way. Her head rang and her ear instantly felt hot. She brought her knees up to protect her body and felt them dig into the half-dead’s groin, a blow that would have left a living man gasping in agony. The half-dead didn’t gasp. It didn’t even need to breathe, and what it had between its legs wasn’t that sensitive anymore.
Still, the impact left the half-dead off its balance and rolling off of her to one side. Caxton grabbed at the toilet/sink unit and started dragging herself upright, fighting the fuzziness that was spreading through her head. The half-dead jumped on her back and its knife came around to swing at her face.
Caxton couldn’t stop the blow—she was moving too slowly. But she was still stronger than the half-dead. She bucked wildly, like a horse, and it flew backward and off of her, the knife sliding through the shoulder of her jumpsuit but not even connecting with her skin. She spun around to find it standing in the doorway, the knife low, holding it out toward her, ready to lunge.
She kicked it in the wrist as hard as she could.
Had she been wearing shoes, or been just a hair faster, that would have disarmed the half-dead and left her with the advantage. Instead the half-dead managed to yank its arm back just as her kick connected. Her toes curled back painfully as they collided with the half-dead’s arm. All she accomplished with the kick was to make her opponent step backward, out of the cell. That left her trapped inside the small cell. The half-dead could simply slam the door shut behind her and engage its latch, locking her inside. Then it could call for reinforcements and just wait until they arrived. That’s what she would have done, and this one had proven to be no fool so far.
She screamed in rage as it smiled at her and reached for the edge of the door.
It didn’t get a chance to push the door closed, however. Harelip appeared behind it and leveled her shotgun at the back of its head. Somehow she must have gotten out of the guard post.
“Freeze, asshole,” the female CO said.
The half-dead started to turn around. It didn’t drop the knife.
Caxton dropped to the floor and covered her head as Harelip pulled the trigger. The shotgun roared and fire burst from its muzzle. It didn’t contain any buckshot, Caxton knew, or any weight of slug—the shotguns the COs used fired beanbag rounds, soft nylon bags full of ceramic balls that expanded in flight to spread the energy of the impact. For a normal human being, getting hit by a beanbag round was incredibly painful, even incapacitating, but it rarely resulted in permanent damage.
Normal human skulls, however, had a lot more structural integrity than a half-dead’s. The head of the thing that had once been named Murphy exploded like an overripe pumpkin hit by a sledgehammer, spattering the interior of the cell—and Caxton—with pulpy brains and shards of bone and plenty of unidentifiable goo. The beanbag itself, which looked like a sweat sock full of marbles, bounced off her back and landed with a squelch on the floor.
“Shit,” Harelip said.
Caxton started breathing again.
“That wasn’t Murphy,” the CO told her. She was crouched next to the body.
“You’re right. It might be Murphy’s body, but—”
“Murphy had a tattoo on the back of his hand. This asshole doesn’t.”
Caxton glanced at the hand and saw this was correct.
“So what the hell is this thing doing, wearing Murphy’s uniform?”