The first punch had been pulled slightly, Max had no desire to break his hand, but the blow had been strong enough to see if the glass had any give to it and how much it would hurt his hand. The answers to those questions were 'yes' and 'not much'. He pulled his arm back for another punch.
The guard door behind him opened. “Well I don't know how you knew, but you are right the army ordered the town to be evacuated, we are heading east. They are taking the kids south then east along highway eighty through Omaha…. what are you doing?”
“Are you letting me out to get to my kids?” Max asked looking back at the guard.
“No, the prisoners are being moved tomorrow or the next day. Elderly, disabled, kids and their mothers are going now, the civilians without kids are scheduled to go this afternoon and tomorrow morning, we go after that.”
“Not good enough and not what I was told would happen.” Max turned back to the window and smashed it with his fist again. The blow landed solidly and cracks radiated out from where his fist hit.
The guard looked stunned, the glass was strong, he had been a deputy sheriff for five years and they had all sorts of people through the county prison in that time, many of whom thought breaking through the glass of the holding cell was their ticket to freedom. Three people had broken parts of their hand trying to smash through the glass, one man had snapped his own wrist in the attempt. None of the past attempts had damaged the glass in the slightest way. Max had cracked the glass. Except for Tom and Cory the other men in the cell backed away from Max, not wanting the trouble he was getting into to spread to them.
“I. Am. Going. After. My. Family.” Max said, biting each sentence off with a punch to the glass. Pieces of it were falling to the bench and floor around him.
“Stop!” the guard yelled, fumbling for his keys.
Max turned towards the guard and looked at him over his undamaged fist. The guard held the keys up, then thought better of it and fled out of the door back to the office. Max saw him get on the phone immediately.
“He is calling reinforcements.” Max slammed the window another ten or fifteen times, shattering the glass completely, then he worked his fingers through part of the window until they could wrap around some of the wire reinforcing it, once he snagged that he pulled until the wire snapped. He noted with disgust that only one wire broke, he was hoping they would all pull out at once. Max now had a finger hole he could put his eye to and look out of. There was nothing to see. He knew they were on the third floor of the building, but he didn't know how he was going to get down once he broke the window out.
“Shit.” he said as he continued surveying through the hole.
“What?” asked Tom.
“There are bars over the window, even if I get the glass out. I don't know if I can get through them.”
“The cement can't be stronger than the glass.”
“True.” Max took aim at the wall below the window and gave it test punch. It felt solid and his hand hurt from the blow. “It might be too solid. Let me get the glass cleared out, maybe we can pull the bars out.”
It took them another ten minutes to get the glass cleared out of the window, by which time all of the other men were crowed back against the far bars, where they stared at him. The door behind them slammed open and two soldiers and a sheriff rushed into the hallway with rifles, “Down! Down! Down! Everybody down now!”
The men and boys at the front hit the ground, leaving Max, Cory and Tom standing alone at the far wall.
“Get down now!” the sheriff yelled again, gesturing with his rifle.
“He won't shoo..”
Max was cut off as the sheriff fired a warning shot into the wall next to the window.
“I said now!”
“Fuck.” Max, Tom and Cory stepped clear of the broken safety glass and lay down on the floor.
The deputy unlocked the door and everyone but Max was evacuated, Tom and Cory were handcuffed and led out of the cell, leaving Max alone with the sheriff and two soldiers. Both soldiers kept their guns trained on Max while the sheriff approached and handcuffed his hands behind his back. The sheriff then jerked Max upwards by his arms to his knees.
Max didn't yell out at the pain, just climbed up to his feet as the sheriff continued to pull him up. Part of his mind noted that the kids were heading south quickly now. They would soon be out of his range to track.
“You gotta let me out of here.” Max said to the sheriff.
“Listen orange head, I could have you shot right now. Right now. And no one would say anything. There is a war on out there. My friends and neighbors are dying and I do not have time to come down here and deal with some fucked in the head clown who can't follow the rules. You are contaminated, you will stay where we put you and do as we tell you or your kids will never even find your body.”
“What right do you have to…”
The sheriff hit Max in the face with the butt of his rifle, knocking him to the floor. “Don't you fucking demand your goddamned rights to me!” he brought his gun to his shoulder and aimed down the barrel at Max, “You have no rights! This is martial law and if I have to kill one citizen to save a hundred I will do so and know I did the right thing for the rest of my life!”
Looking up at the man Max chose his words carefully, “So what now?”
The sheriff brought the rifle barrel down, “That is a much better attitude. The attitude of a man who wants to see his children again. You are going to be checked over again, no one can break that safety glass. I half suspect you are one of them right now, that you got through somehow. So first we do that, then we find you a nice quiet place where you can think things through and remain very, very calm until we evacuate you. Got it?”
Max nodded, his eyes blazing. '
“Is this him?” the sheriff asked the doctor.
“Yeah, I never examined him after he showed me his wounds, things got excited there for awhile when he wanted to back out and leave. Hello Max.”
“Hi doc.”
“Are you going to give me any trouble?”
“No.”
The doctor smiled and gestured at Max to sit down on the cold examination table. The sheriff pulled his arms sideways and put another handcuff on his right arm, the other end he clamped to the rail along the edge of the table. He then went around and used a third set of cuffs to attach Max's other hand to the other side of the table. Max could sit and lay down if he wanted to, but his hands were now attached to either side of the bed by handcuffs. The sheriff took the original set off of him and tucked them into a pouch on his belt.
“Can you draw blood with him like this?” he asked the doctor.
“I have on other prisoners, gag him will you? I want to check for a pulse and heartbeat and don't want his teeth near my head or hands.”
The sheriff pulled a nylon strap out of a drawer, the strap had a small rubber ball in the center of it and the ends were covered with Velcro. “Drop your head.”
Reluctantly Max did and the sheriff put the ball over his closed mouth and pulled the Velcro ends tight behind his head. “Open. Open your goddamned mouth!” Max did and the slightly greasy feeling ball was pulled into it as the sheriff bound the straps behind his head.
“We've had to deal with biters before the zombies ever came along. Now don't cause the doctor any problems, just stay calm and let us see if you are still alive.”
First the doctor listened to his heart, then took his pulse and blood pressure. “He seems to be alive. We should be able to tell if he is infected with a blood sample.”
The doctor pulled out a syringe and looked for a vein in Max's arm, the needle tore a hole through his skin and he watched as blood flowed into the small ampoule. After the first was filled he took three more samples.
Finally the doctor nodded to the sheriff.
