“Caxton?” Gert asked. The sparks were coming from very close to the top of the door. “Um, is that all you have?”
“Wait for it,” Caxton said. “When they burst in, don’t run at them. Make them come to you. If you can take them on one at a time, that’ll help. And whatever you do, don’t hold back. They aren’t human, so don’t worry about hurting them. They’re already dead. Just hit them as hard and as fast as you can.”
“Okey-dokey,” Gert said. She turned to face the door.
The jet reached the top of the door. Bright silver slag had run down the painted metal like dripping candle wax, all the way from the top to the bottom. The jet of sparks sputtered and then went out.
One half of the door slipped out of its tracks and fell inward. It hit the floor with a deafening clang. Revealed beyond it was nothing but darkness.
Gert started moving forward, knife out in front of her.
“No!” Caxton shouted. “Wait.”
The half-deads came at them all at once. A crowd of them, most dressed like COs, a few in orange jumpsuits. Their faces were torn to shreds and their eyes were alight as they swung knives and shanks and shock batons through the air. They jumped over the fallen section of the door and came roaring toward Caxton like a wave of pain.
She lifted her shotgun. Waited for the perfect moment. Then fired her plastic bullet right into the bag at their feet.
Its contents erupted upward like a silent fireworks display, ropy streamers of wet orange goo shooting upward with incredible speed. It splattered across the oncoming half-deads, splashing across their legs and chests and faces and then hardening instantaneously, snarling around them in a mass of slimy tendrils that dried in the air as Caxton watched.
The half-deads weren’t even aware of the sticky foam exploding around them at first. They kept coming, legs lifting for the next stride, arms swinging to menace the waiting prisoners— and then froze in place. The hardening foam held them fast, barely able to move, their limbs trapped, their ravaged faces covered in the ropy mess. What little range of motion they had was spent trying to pull the sticky tendrils off their bodies, with little or no success.
Caxton had been surprised to see the foam pack in the guard post. She knew that the air-activated aqueous foam had been designed originally for use in prisons, as a way to immobilize rioting inmates and keep them from attacking the guards. She also knew that after a few live tests it had been all but banned from prison use, because it had a bad habit of covering its victims’ noses and mouths in solid gunk, making it impossible for them to breathe. The potential lawsuits had convinced the Bureau of Prisons to look elsewhere in its constant search for the next great compliance weapon.
Half-deads didn’t need to breathe. Even if they did, Caxton couldn’t care less. They couldn’t hurt her anymore, or take her captive, and that was what mattered.
“Oh my God,” Gert said, snorting with laughter. “Did you see the look on that guy’s face when—”
Caxton grabbed her celly’s arm. “Move,” she said. “There might be more on the way, and I only had one of those.”
Together the two women ran around the side of the stuck mass of half-deads. The creatures cried out in misery and a few, whose arms hadn’t been completely pinned by the foam, tried to reach for them or stab at them, but they couldn’t follow as Caxton and Gert made their escape from the SHU.
Now Caxton just had to figure out what she was going to do next.
21.