Time Spike: Chapter Twenty Five

    Joe woke to the sound of a little shriek and a prisoner standing over the next bed.

    “If I were you, I’d lay still.”

    In the cot across from him he could see Judith Barnett looking wide-eyed at a man with a gun pointed at her head.

    The man was talking to them both. If Joe moved, Radford died. Then—the man held the repeating rifle in a way that suggested he knew how to work it—Joe would be next.

    “Easy does it, fella. We’re not in a hurry to die. We’re cooperating.” The lieutenant slowly sat up, praying the man wouldn’t panic and pull the trigger. “Just tell me what you want and where you want me.”

    The lights came on and Joe could see armed men in prison garb lining guards up along the east wall. There were at least ten men with guns, and a half dozen others with nightsticks. Some of them had vests and helmets. They had raided the armory.

    His eyes went back to the man standing over Barnett. What was his name? The face was familiar. He wasn’t one of the death row inmates. He knew each of them too well. This guy was from…

    A-block, he thought. Yes, before they had moved the prisoners.

    Joe glanced around the large room with its dozens of half walls designed to give each prisoner his own cubicle. A-block’s clientele were considered non-violent. In for robbery, if there’d been no violence involved. Maybe assault, if there’d been extenuating circumstances. But not murder, even in the second degree. They could be allowed a little more elbow room. And a little more contact with other prisoners.

    He remembered the name, now. Danny Bostic, in for bank robbery. The man had hit at least four banks before he was caught, but each of the operations had been well planned and he hadn’t hurt anybody. Whether that was the result of Bostic’s residual morality or simply the fact he was smart, there was no way to know. But, under the circumstances, either explanation was somewhat relieving. Whatever else, he wasn’t a hothead.

    “Danny, we’re moving slow.” He motioned for Judith to sit up. “Very slow.”

    Bostic took a step back. Using the gun’s barrel, he motioned to where the other guards were now standing. “Over there.”

    Barnett scrambled to her feet and rushed to the wall. Joe took his time. He didn’t want to spook the man into firing. He could tell the prisoners were edgy. All of them, not just Bostic. If just one man panicked, the whole room would turn into a charnelhouse. He joined the others on the wall, hoping like hell they weren’t being lined up just to be mowed down.

    Then he saw Collins, and that answered a lot of questions. How the inmates had gotten out of their cells, how they had gotten into the infirmary, how they had gotten into A-block without having to bust in the doors. He should have known the second he woke up.

    They’d all known Collins was a problem. But it had never occurred to any of them that the man would be so egotistically stupid as to throw in with the convicts. Did the lunatic seriously think he would survive in such a situation? He’d probably made more enemies among the prisoners than any other single guard at the facility.

    “Joe, my boy, hope you slept well.”

    Joe didn’t answer Collins. Instead, he studied the man who stood behind him. This would be the prisoner who was really in charge.

    Joe recognized him immediately, of course.

    “Luff and Collins,” he said. “That’s one for the books.”

    Collins grinned and Luff’s eyes turned to Joe. They were cold and calculating.

    “Take them to C-block and lock them up,” Luff said.

    Joe breathed a sigh of relief. They weren’t going to be shot, at least not right away. The relief quickly turned to worry as they were herded out the door and into the night air. They had been sleeping, so no one had shoes. Most were without socks. Some of them were like him, in tees, their uniform shirts neatly folded and lying on the chair next to the bed they had been on. A few of the men had stripped down to tees and boxer shorts.

    Marie woke, momentarily confused, trying to decide if she had heard a shout or if she’d dreamed it. The prison seemed quiet enough. She peered over the edge of the roof, wishing for a pair of binoculars and promising herself she would have Joe snag her a pair when day shift came on duty. The parking lot was empty. So were the areas between the buildings. The armory was dark. So was the guardhouse out by the gate.

    Moving quietly, she slid across to the other side of the roof, looked over the edge and almost let out a hiss before she caught herself.

    Even in the dim moonlight she could make out the prisoners leading what looked to be over three dozen guards through the exercise yard to C-block. They were armed, too.

    She hunched down as much as she could and still see what was happening. Collins was not being led, she suddenly realized. He was one of the men doing the leading.

    That bastard!

    She squinted into the darkness. The guards were shoved through the door to cell house C. Then, the prisoners started dividing up. A few followed the guards inside the building, but most of them continued through the exercise yard, coming to a standstill outside each door. She knew what they were doing. They were going to attack the lone guards at their posts, all at the same time. None of them would have a chance.

    She snatched up her radio to call a warning to them, and stopped. A warning wouldn’t help anyone. There was nowhere for them to go, and nothing for any of them to defend themselves with. All she would accomplish would be drawing attention to herself. No. If she was going to get caught, or killed, she was going to make it worth something.

    She watched silently as one guard after another was pulled from their post and marched to join the other guards in C-block.

    Not one shot was fired.

    They weren’t killing the guards. Why? It wasn’t morals; that she was damned sure of. The answer came to her very quickly. Over half the guards left behind when Andy set out to find the Indian camp were women.

    “Oh no, you don’t, you assholes,” she muttered under her breath. “No way in hell.”

    She watched as Collins veered away from the others. He was headed toward the infirmary.

    She made her decision. If she was going to get caught or killed, Lieutenant Terry Collins was the one she would take out first. He was the traitor. And she had the pistol she’d taken from the armory on a holster on her hip.

    She keyed her way into the infirmary, hesitated, then left the door unlocked. If one of the prisoners decided to join Collins, she had just let him in. And that could be bad. But she might need a quick way out, and an unlocked door could be the difference between instant death and a chance at escape.

    The baby was still wailing and she could hear several women screaming at Collins to let them out. That meant they were locked in one of the holding cells. The crash of metal on floor told her not all the women were locked away. One of them was in the examining room with Collins.

    That would be Casey Fisher, she thought. She was the youngest and the prettiest, except for Elaine Brown—and given Collins, Marie didn’t think he’d be attracted to a black woman. He hid it pretty well, but she was sure the man was a bigot on top of everything else.

    Marie pulled out the pistol and made her way toward the room. When the women saw her they stopped yelling. Then Elaine Brown, quick-witted, began screaming with a renewed vigor. The others realized what she was doing and why, and joined her. Marie made a motion of turning a key. Caldwell shook her head and pointed toward the examining room.

    Okay, they couldn’t give her any help. All she could hope for was surprise.

    She approached the door carefully. It wasn’t closed, which meant she could see inside. It also meant she could be seen, but neither Collins nor Fisher was in sight. The sounds had moved to the storage area and were slowing down. Fisher was losing.

    Marie increased her pace. She took four steps to the entry, turned right, and peeked around the corner. Collins didn’t see her. As she’d expected from the noise, he was pre-occupied. Casey was on her back, on the floor, with a bruise on her cheek. Probably put there by the butt of the pistol Collins still had in his right hand. He was grinning and unfastening the belt to her pants with his left hand.

    Marie drew her head back out of sight.

    How should she handle it? A gunshot would draw attention.

    Casey screamed. Collins cursed.

    She didn’t see where she had any choice. It would be insane to try to subdue Collins with blows. He was almost twice as big as she was.

    Marie slipped into the room and stepped up to the two figures struggling on the floor. She’d been well trained in the procedure to follow. Aim your gun—shout halt or I’ll shoot—give the prisoner time to respond—he will—he does not want to die—

    None of which had any relevance.

    Collins spotted her at the last moment. His head started to come up. That was good because it meant Casey was well out of the line of fire. Marie’s pistol was six inches from his skull when she fired. Collins spilled over, flat, with just his leg still on top of Fisher.

    Marie was so angry that she almost fired another shot—or three or four or five—at the body lying on the floor. Barely, she managed to restrain herself.

    First, Collins was dead anyway. No doubt about it. She was an excellent shot, she’d fired at point blank range, and her pistol was .40 caliber. Half his brains looked to be scattered across the floor and there was blood splattered everywhere on that side of the room. One of his eyes had come out of the socket, connected to the skull only by the optic nerve, and his hair was smoldering around the entry wound.

    Secondly—most importantly—she knew people reacted differently to one loud sound than they did to a series. One loud sound… could be anything. Two or three or four would be recognized as gunshots.

    After a few seconds, she sighed, thumbed the decocking lever and reholstered the gun.

    “You all right?” she asked Fisher.

    Casey’s head was turned, her eyes on Collins’ corpse. “Are you sure he’s dead?”

    “Are you kidding?”

    Casey choked. Half-sob; half-laugh. “Okay, stupid question. God, that’s the most horrible looking thing I’ve ever been so glad to see.”

    “Barbara, can you give the baby something so it won’t cry?”

    The LPN shook her head. “We don’t have anything like that.”

    Marie nodded. She hadn’t really been all that hopeful, but she had to ask.

    “All right. Kathleen, you keep that baby of yours quiet. No matter what you have to do, don’t let him cry until you hit the woods.” She handed Barbara the crude map she had drawn on the back of a used work order. “When you get to the river, go upstream, about a four hour walk. Well, four hours if you’re in good shape and making good time. You’ll probably need longer. You’ll come to a hilly area that’s covered in strange-looking stones. Most of them are taller than you. Look for one that has a tree growing out of it. The tree isn’t all that big, maybe six feet tall. About ten yards directly west of it will be a small cave. The opening is only about half the size of that tree I’m talking about. It’ll be a tight squeeze getting in, but once inside, you’ll have plenty of room. There’s enough shrubbery and fallen branches in the area that you should be able to disguise the entrance.”

    She rubbed her head, sure there was something else she needed to say but couldn’t figure it out what it was. She looked at the map once more, trying to think. Then she knew.

    “Use the moon’s new position as your directional guide. Figure it’s dead east and moving west. It doesn’t. But that’s the guide for the map.”

    “Okay,” Barbara said. “We’ll do that. But after we get to the cave, how long do we wait for you?”

    “I don’t know. Give me at least a day. Um. Better make it two days.”

    Lylah Caldwell was frowning. “Elaine and Kathleen aren’t in shape for this. They’re both wide open.” The RN pointed to the area on the paper Marie had indicated was forested. “They’ll get an infection sure as hell.”

    “Lylah,” Kathleen hissed, “are you crazy? I’d a lot rather get an infection from tramping through the woods than catch what we would from a prisoner gang rape. If we lived through it at all.”

    “Same goes for me,” said Brown.

    “That’s not what I meant. I meant we needed to take some antibiotics along, that’s all. I know we can’t stay here.”

    The six women and one baby came to a halt just inside the administration building. What had once been an area that was always staffed with a minimum of three C.O.s, was now empty. The glass doors leading to the outside were unguarded. The small guard shack that sat a dozen yards from the edge of the parking lot was empty.

    Marie nodded toward the outside. “I want you to run, don’t walk, to the edge of the woods. Take off, and don’t look back. And don’t wait for one another in plain sight. Get inside the brush, then you can wait.”

    “I’m not going to make it,” Elaine Brown whispered, tears welling in her dark eyes. “I thought maybe I could, but I can’t.” She leaned against the wall. Even in the dim light the women clustered around her could see the beads of sweat on her face.

    “You have to,” Marie hissed. “You have no choice.”

    Brown closed her eyes. With her teeth clenched tight she said, “You have no idea how much pain I’m in, girl. I can’t go on. Period.” The C.O. pulled up her blouse, exposing the bandages on her abdomen. There was fresh blood seeping through. “The walking is tearing everything loose. There’s no way I can make it through a long hike in the woods.”

    “Oh, hell,” Barbara Ray whispered. “Marie, she’s right. We’re going to have to slow down.” The LPN looked at the others. “Better yet, you guys get going. I’ll stay with Elaine. We’ll catch up with you.”

    Brown shook her head. “No. You go with Lylah and Kathleen. They’re going to need help with the baby. And you can’t stay with me. One person might be able to hide. Two won’t. Marie, get them out of here. I need to drag my sorry ass off someplace safe, and I don’t have time for a debate.”

    Marie nodded. She knew what the woman wasn’t saying, and she agreed with her. Elaine didn’t think she had a snowball’s chance in hell, anyway, so there was no reason for Barbara Ray to throw away her chance at living.

    Barbara looked like she was going to argue, but didn’t. Instead she took the baby from Kathleen and started toward the doors. “Don’t tell anyone where you hide. If we get caught, we can’t tell what we don’t know.”

    Elaine Brown walked away as soon as Kathleen and the nurses were out the door. Neither Casey Fisher nor Marie Keehn looked in her direction. Barbara Ray’s comment about not knowing where the C.O. hid had struck a nerve, and neither of them wanted to be able to even guess where she would be holed up.

    Instead, Marie and Casey watched the women work their way across the open ground. When they disappeared behind the trees and foliage, Marie whispered, “I really don’t like sending them off like that, with nothing to defend themselves with except one shotgun and three shells. They could run into some animal and…”

    “Yeah, but we only had the three guns, and for what we have to do, we couldn’t afford to give them any more than that,” Casey said.

    Marie nodded but didn’t feel any better. She knew exactly what type of animals the women could run into. And with some of them, their death wouldn’t be any easier than death at the hands of the men inside the prison. But out there, they had a chance. Inside the walls, they had nothing.

    She drew her gun out of the holster. “You ready?”

    “No, not really,” Casey said. “But I won’t be in an hour, either, and we better get started or the sun will catch us.”

    They made their way to the back of C-block. There was a seldom used door leading to the furnace room that Marie figured wouldn’t be guarded. At least, she was hoping the prisoners were feeling safe enough they wouldn’t have felt the need to post sentries at every entrance.

    They were in luck. No one was there.

    They made their way down the deserted corridor leading to the holding area as fast as they could, being careful to walk on the balls of their feet. They didn’t want to have their heels clicking on the tile floor, announcing their presence. They came to the door that opened onto the cellblock, their hearts in their throats.

    The view port was located dead center of the steel door, five and half feet off the floor. Casey was the taller of the two women and she stood only five feet, four inches tall. Marie dropped to one knee, lifting her other leg, giving Casey a platform to stand on.

    Casey climbed up, looked, and then came down. “The place looks empty, except for our people in the cells,” she hissed. “Where are the prisoners? Why aren’t they guarding them?”

    Marie shook her head. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “It doesn’t make sense. But we’ve got to go with it.”

    She pulled the key ring she’d taken from Collins out of her pocket. Careful not to make any noise, she tried unlocking the door. She thought she’d picked the right key but she wasn’t positive. The last thing they needed was for her to spend a minute out here trying out every key on a big key ring.

    It was a little awkward. She was using her left hand to work the key, since she had the pistol in her right. But at least she’d picked the right one. The lock turned. Using her left hand, still holding the key ring, she pushed the door open.

    Nothing. No one.

    Just in case someone was hiding behind the door, she pushed it all the way flat. Hard, with her pistol ready.

    Nothing. No one. The cells were packed with captured guards and no one standing watch over them.

    It was crazy, but she figured somebody leading the convicts—or somebody else they’d put in charge of the task—had screwed up somewhere. And she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

    “Well, shit,” said Butch Wesson, standing over the corpse of Terry Collins. “Looks like somebody else already did it for us.”

    Carl Yeager frowned. He was one of the guards who’d been standing watch in C-block. Butch had ordered all three to follow him to the infirmary. They weren’t really needed at C-block, to watch over the captured guards, since the doors were solid and locked, and Butch had figured he might need some help. Collins was a big bastard, and as vicious as they come.

    “Yeah, that’s great,” said Yeager. “But who?”

    One of his companions, Eddie Trenton, had a jeer on his face. “Hell, I can think of thirty guys right off the top of my head with a score to settle with this shithead. Could have been any one of them, decided to take the opportunity.”

    Butch wasn’t happy with that explanation. Sure, it could be true, but—

    The third of the men he’d brought put his doubts into words. “Then what happened to the women?” demanded Gary Reading. “If it was just one guy, how’d he get all of them to go with him?”

    “And what would he want with the old bitches anyway?” Yeager said. “Butch, something’s wrong.”

    Wesson’s jaws tightened. He’d have to report this to Luff right away, and Luff was going to be pissed as all hell. The boss was still a little mad at him for messing up the Cook business a while back.

    Marie ran to the cells packed tight with guards. She found the right key on her second try and started unlocking the gates. They swung open and the men and women poured out.

    Nobody said anything. They knew they had to keep silent and they knew they had to move. Marie and Casey’s pistols were the only weapons they had.

    Marie led them back the way she’d come. Joe Schuler brought up the rear. He and three other guards took turns helping to half-carry Keith Woeltje, with his bum knee.

    Back down the hall, out the door, through the exercise yard, hugging the walls, staying in the shadows. Through the double set of gates leading to the administration building.

    Through the admit center and past the x-ray machines. Through the set of double doors leading to the parking lot. Toward the guardhouse, the field and the woods beyond.

    So far, the guards had been moving pretty slowly, since they were trying to keep quiet. But their discipline finally started fraying, seeing safety up ahead. Temporary safety, anyway. They started hurrying toward the woods; then, trotting; then, running.

    Joe Schuler tried to restrain them, at first, hissing orders to keep quiet. But Marie didn’t really see any point to it. The terror they’d kept under tight control was breaking loose, and there’d be no holding them back.

    And why bother, anyway? They’d make it to the trees long before any prisoner with a gun could get within shooting range, even if they were spotted. And, after that, who cared? Convicts could be dangerous as all hell inside the walls, even without guns. But Marie didn’t think more than a handful would be worth a damn in the wilderness.

    So, she was running herself by the time she passed into the trees. So was Joe Schuler, insofar as he could run carrying Woeltje piggyback. Luckily, Keith wasn’t a big man, and Joe was both big and in excellent physical condition.

    She stopped then, and looked back.  The sun was just starting to come over the horizon. So far as she could tell, their escape had still gone unnoticed.

    For a moment, she wondered where Elaine Brown was hiding. But there was no point in that. There hadn’t been time to rescue her anyway. Not without jeopardizing dozens of other people.

    So, she just sent her a silent mental salute. Good luck, gutsy lady.

    Elaine Brown turned the knob of the door to the basement slowly. She didn’t think there would be any prisoners inside the furnace area, but she couldn’t keep her hands from shaking, or her heart from racing. She had heard voices coming from the upper level of the administration building, so she had stayed on the lower levels, wandering in and out of rooms looking for someplace she’d be overlooked. The kitchen would get too much traffic; she hadn’t bothered to even look there for a place to hide. The payroll department seemed deserted enough, but with its fifteen floor-to-ceiling windows, every nook and cranny would be too well lit once the sun came up. The bathrooms didn’t have any windows, but they were still useless as a place to hide. That left her nowhere to go but the dirty, moldy, roach and spider infested basement.

    And that door was kept locked. The only people who went down there on any sort of regular basis were the maintenance crew. She went into the small room they used as an office, hoping there’d be a spare key somewhere. A search through the drawers turned up a key ring with four keys, and to her relief the third key on the ring unlocked the door.

    She entered the stairwell and closed the door behind her, then locked it again. She played her flashlight along the basement’s interior, and suppressed a groan. There were sixteen steps she had to climb down those stairs.

    She shut off the light and shoved the flashlight into her hip pocket. Then she clutched the metal handrail with her right hand and applied pressure to her blood-soaked dressing with her left. She had a handful of butterfly strips and the supplies for one dressing change. Once she found herself a little cubbyhole, she would use the strips to stop the bleeding, apply what was left of the antibiotic salve to the wound and then cover the area with fresh bandages.

    The C.O. gave a small whimper in anticipation of the pain, and began the long climb down.