I’m at the stairs. I hold the railing. Something white catches my eye. I tell myself it’s nothing, but then it disappears for a split second, and I’m staring at these two white floating orbs and I realize they’re eyes. Maddie yells that I’m a piece of shit coward. I drop the canvas bag, training my pistol on the blinking whites, blood dripping from the handle down my wrist to the floor.
It’s a Chuck, has to be.
I inch forward. Maddie yells to kill him. The eyes keep blinking. My finger presses against the trigger, but I’m not some green motherfucker like a week ago—I know exactly how hard I have to squeeze to dole out death.
The floating eyes speak: Chase, Chase, I’m fucking sorry, bro.
It’s Typewriter.
I can make him out now—a cowering mound of orange jumpsuit, his hands raised like I’m PD.
So fucking sorry, he says, please just don’t shoot.
I stand there naked in the drafty garage covered in Maddie’s blood. I’m realizing what the fuck is going on—the two of them teaming up, just like I thought they would. I want to blast a hole between Type’s eyes.
Typewriter’s bent forward like he’s praying at my feet.
I was right thinking his comments were a good-bye. Motherfucker knew he was bolting. Knew he was killing us all.
He’s nothing but tearful pleas and apologies.
Maddie keeps yelling that I’m a coward.
And the whole thing breaks my fucking heart. I lift Typewriter’s face up with my hand and tell him to stand the fuck up and his whimpers become sobs and giggles from outside swirl around the concrete and I tell him the only thing that seems true at the moment: Any one of us is capable of anything.
So fucking sorry, I’m so fucking—
It’s over, done with. Nobody needs to know, you feel me?
Please…
You came down with me, we saw Maddie, that’s it.
Type’s nods stop for a second as he’s putting together what I’m saying and then he starts nodding faster and this is him understanding and agreeing, selling out a motherfucker who doesn’t matter, becoming complicit, becoming my boy.
Maddie laughs.
He sits there in his own blood, his head leaning against the police car. Typewriter won’t look in his direction. We take the stairs one at a time.
Fucking kill me, Maddie begs.
Step, step, step.
Kill me, you fucking pussies. Fucking kill me.
1:27 AM
I set all the lab gear down on a fingerprint station inside of booking. Typewriter keeps apologizing. I say, Shut the fuck up, didn’t happen, feel me? Maddie was bolting. You came down to help. We made him see the errors of his ways. Simple as that.
Type nods. I hit him on the shoulder. He tries to smile. We’re all just trying to smile. I hear giggles and I stare past Type’s shoulder and my eyes have adjusted and I make out a shape through the Plexiglas. I inch closer. I stare at Frank. He has no idea what’s going on. He won’t die and he won’t live and the cure didn’t work for him years ago—God and powerlessness and service and turning our lives over—and it didn’t work for him now.
I think about KK and about atonement and about not dying and the pressure behind my retinas is back and I just want to be out of this jail and someplace safe with the people I love and I wonder if they love me back.
We start running.
I’m sprinting back through the booking station and into the hallway and I see flames huddled together in block C and KK’s voice is the first to reach me, her screaming about me being hurt, he’s fucking hurt, and I grab her tight, tell her I’m fine.
Derrick has a pistol pointed at Type and me. He says, You’re bit.
Maddie’s blood, I say.
Maddie’s bit? KK says.
No, no, it doesn’t matter, it’s fine—
Shut the fuck up and slow down, Derrick says. I know he’s not messing around. I try to breathe and to tell them what happened, first about hearing something, that Type and I went down and found Maddie, about him being scared, thinking about bolting, but we talked and he apologizes, that he’s coming back up.
I’ll kill him, Derrick says.
He gets it. He’s fine. Trust me. He’ll never do something like that again, I say.
Jesus, Randy says.
So fucking dead, Derrick says.
I grab hold of Derrick’s arm. It’s not aggressive but it’s confident and I tell him it’s fucking done with, hundred percent, kid fucked up but gets it. I say, We need to leave right fucking now. Hole’s big. We don’t have time to wait until sunrise.
He stares at me for a solid three seconds before nodding.
We get our belongings.
KK won’t leave my side. We’re in my cell and she’s crying and I tell her Maddie will be fine and we’ll be fine and I’m giving her a shotgun, clasping her hands around the stock. I put my forehead to hers. She sniffles. Her bony shoulders shake. She says, Okay, even though I haven’t said anything.
We start jogging down the hall and I’m holding on to KK with one hand, the pistol in the other. We reach the booking station. I’m expecting to see Maddie standing there all sheepish and begging for mercy, but he’s not.
The fuck is he? Derrick yells.
I’m hearing pleas. I realize that we’ve accidentally locked Maddie down there in the garage. I run to the door and push it open and he stumbles down and crumples and KK screams or maybe that’s Type and the giggles from the garage are deafening.
Randy flicks a lighter.
Derrick bends over Maddie’s whimpering body. He puts his pistol to the back of his head and then our ears ring and I scream no and KK’s body deflates at my side.
The fuck? I yell.
He was bit.
No, that was the blood from when I—
Derrick grabs my neck. He yanks my head so I’m looking at Maddie’s back. It’s covered in scratches and bite marks. Even just with a lighter to see, I can tell they’re already scabbing. He lets go and I cough and KK cries and I tell myself this isn’t my fault, leaving him down there, my sealing of his death sentence by framing him with the stolen scante.
Typewriter’s at the door to the garage, pulling it tight. He shoves a desk in front of it. It won’t do a fucking thing. My ears still ring. Maddie’s blood pools and I realize I’m naked and feel vulnerable and our exit strategy is fucked, the garage swarming with Chucks. We’re silent in the dark amidst the smell of gunpowder.
I say, I need to get spun.
2:02 AM
We’re passing out the guns. I make sure Type, KK, and myself have ones with real bullets. Randy volunteers to carry the canvas laundry bag full of our lab. We don’t say much. Maddie’s blood covers the floor. Right before we start off into the corridor toward general population, Derrick breaks out a big hunk of splice. We load our rigs from the same spoon. We get spun.
One hurried shot turns into two.
Typewriter says he wants to go to an island, St. Thomas maybe.
I wonder how the fuck he even knows there’s a place called St. Thomas.
Randy says England would be good right about now.
KK pumps Buster.
I’m back to feeling and seeing auras. Each of ours is a dark cloud. I tell myself that no death is my fault.
2:17 AM
We go single file, pressed up against the cinder-block wall on our left. We’re in some hallway or maybe it’s a corridor. Derrick leads, then me, KK, Randy, and Typewriter brings up the rear. We creep past block A. The dent has become a hole. Hands reach through. We keep going. It’s even darker. Shapes stop maybe two feet out from my face. I can’t hear anything but demonic laughs. They’re taunting us, damning us.
Derrick yells that it’s a hundred feet to a set of doors separating juvie from County, then another fifty to the mess hall doors.
One foot in front of the other.
KK holds on to the back of my jumpsuit.
We don’t have much time. The doo
r leading to the stairs will give any second, if it hasn’t already. The only thing worse than walking straight into a locked room full of criminal Chucks would be getting flanked by them on both sides.
We reach the first set of doors. I press my ear to the cold metal. There’s no pounding, no giggling. Derrick fumbles around his key ring and he tries a key and says fuck and then another and I’m telling him to hurry up. Typewriter yells and it’s the same scream he made while being bitten trying to climb out of Cheng’s window and then Randy shouts, They’re coming, they’re fucking here!
The smell reaches me first and it’s pure death. Then their cries of war.
I yell at Derrick to open the door and I’m watching his fumbling hands insert a key and then I’m looking into pure fucking darkness and KK’s nails dig into my back. I have no idea how close they are but the sound is growing louder and then the door opens, Derrick grabbing me, throwing me in, and KK tumbles on top of me and then Randy and Type and Derrick rushes inside, slamming the door shut. It’s not but two seconds later that the metal erupts into a fit of pounding.
We stare at the door, unsure if that really just happened.
Let’s go, Derrick says.
We start forward. We’re not in a line anymore. We’re close, touching, shuffling our feet, terrified with what’s all around us. Somebody’s crying. Maybe it’s me. There’s a strange calmness. Time standing still. Us wanting to. Derrick stops us. I squeeze the pistol, aiming it at blackness. He crouches down. I do too, not sure why. Then we all do.
See something?
He doesn’t respond. He takes out the Ziploc full of crank. I’m like, Are you fucking kidding me? He doesn’t respond, just dumps out a handful of chunks. He crushes one with his gun. He snorts it right off the floor. Mounds of it. I hear Typewriter say, Pass it, and I’m like there’s no fucking way we’re really doing this right now but I’m crushing dope too, snorting deep into my brain, and we all are because this is probably our last taste and because we want to feel invincible and then maybe we are, invincible that is, because I’ve just taken two teeners’ worth and I’m licking my hand, pressing it to the residue, licking it again.
We stand.
I kiss KK hard on the lips.
One foot in front of the other.
I am a warrior.
I am not a coward.
I am God.
We’re at the doors to the mess hall. There’s noise on the other side but it’s not as bad as block A. Maybe the metal is stronger inside the big-boy lockup? Maybe the Chucks are mostly still contained in cells? Maybe it’s not as bad as we thought.
All live ammo up front, Derrick says. He has a single key separated from the ring. He says, I open the door, and you fire. They’re right here. We unload and run.
I will lead us to the Promised Land.
Motherfuckers will talk about this for eternity.
KK’s eyes are closed and her mouth moves and Typewriter’s chewing his face off. I have two shots and that’s it and my mind fills with music, with “Bullet in the Head,” and it’s building, the music, just about at the point when shit gets real and vocals scream and Derrick says, Ready? I nod and make sure I’m slightly in front of KK and I will not let her down and I will not let down the rest of them and I will not let down mankind or my parents and Derrick puts the key in the door and yanks it open.
A Chuck spills into the doorway and I am the first to fire—a shot through his gaping mouth.
Then it’s three rapid shots, lightning striking trees.
Three more drop and Derrick holds up his fist like he’s some Semper Fi motherfucker. We stop and there’s ringing in my ears but no giggles. He motions forward. I hold on to KK. We’re not running like the plan. There isn’t a need. The room’s empty. That it? Four of them? All that fear for that? I whisper to Derrick if he knows where the fuck he’s going and he tells me no.
I’m putting my trust in something greater than myself, just like they told me to do in AA. God. A higher power. I follow the hulking shape of Derrick.
I can sense there’s a wall coming up. Derrick feels around for a door. Behind me there’s a flick of orange. I spin around but it’s Typewriter holding his lighter. This is his absolute worst nightmare—venturing into the dark, battling the monsters his mother insisted weren’t real.
Derrick walks up to the wall and finds a door. He tests the handle. It’s locked. I’m looking at the gray door—everything in jail either gray or white—and it doesn’t have one dent. Not one fucking fist or head smashed from the other side. How the hell did the few Chucks get in? There’s got to be some other entrance, maybe through the kitchen and I say this to Derrick and he says, Who the fuck cares? I nod, but something seems wrong. He’s got the master key out ready to open the door when I tell him to stop.
What?
Maybe it’s a trap.
What?
Yeah, like being quiet and wanting us to go through there.
They can’t think.
He puts the key in the door. He turns it.
I’m expecting an ambush and I’m expecting shit to get heavy but there’s nothing, not a single laugh, not the rank stench of decay.
KK squeezes my hand. She says, Keep your shit together.
I’m trying to put it all together. The mess hall. The walking dead in there. The utter silence. My mind projects a map of County and it’s in blueprint form and I’m picturing us in a hallway and maybe the mess hall is between cell blocks and this would make the most sense, not having inmates walk past other blocks to eat, so the kitchen is in the middle. I reach into my pocket and take out my lighter and flick it and it doesn’t catch so I do it again and again. Finally there’s light.
The fuck you doing? Derrick asks.
Mate, maybe the light isn’t the best idea, Randy says.
I’m thinking that all I want is to be able to see. That’s it. Life would be perfect if I could fucking see.
Baby, KK says.
I take my wallet out from the breast pocket of my jumpsuit and I take out all the paper—Subway punch cards, numbers to junkies wanting to buy scante—and I light them on fire. Derrick says, The hell you doing? I watch the paper catch. I hold flames in my hand and I am Hephaestus, god of fucking fire, and then I tell KK to give me anything she has—her jumpsuit she has tied around her waist—and Typewriter is like, Bro, let’s move.
Fire.
Will you calm him the fuck down? Derrick says.
The fire alarm. It won’t be on the main power grid. A generator. Get lights so we can actually see.
He’s got a point, Randy says.
The burning paper starts to scorch my hand. I drop it.
Give him the suit, Derrick says.
KK unwraps the juvie uniform and I take its sleeve, holding it to the small pile of flames. I’m praying for it to catch. I just want light. Finally the sleeve catches. The flames leak up the stitches. More, I say. KK hands me what can only be described as a training bra. Randy gives me his socks. We need more. Derrick cusses and takes off his windbreaker and that shit catches right away. It’s getting smoky and the flame is maybe a foot high. I’m waving the smoke upward toward the ceiling. I think I see something farther down the hall. I shout for more. Typewriter tosses me his T-shirt. I light it and ball it up and throw it down the hallway we’ve just stepped into.
The ball of fire lands on the floor and it’s eyes, pairs and pairs of them, just like that fucking Rockwell nursery. They bob to uneven footsteps.
Oh, my, fucking, God, go, go, go, Randy yells.
We start running down the hallway in the opposite direction, but I know this is just as bad because there’s another cell block down this way, meaning more Chucks and us being just as fucked. We need to get to the kitchen, the middle point, some place away from general population. An ear-piercing wail fills the concrete hallway and white strobe lights erupt in epileptic bursts. Sprinklers cover us in pre-come. Ahead, there’s a wall of shuffling motherfuckers.
Ra
ndy’s leading the way. He trips while trying to change directions. Every second there’s a flash of light and we see eyes and open mouths and missing skin, the discotheque version of Randy being torn apart. His cries are drowned by laughter. We turn once again, just needing to get back to the mess hall. I lead the way and KK’s hand is my life preserver and I know it will be close, us getting to the mess hall door before the Chucks do, maybe three feet for us, five for them, but I get there first, throwing my shoulder against the door. It’s still unlocked and somebody fires a shot and we tumble in and Typewriter slams the door.
He pushes against it and it’s trembling from the Chucks bashing into it. He yells for Derrick to lock the fucking door. I slam my shoulder into it and so does KK. Derrick turns the key in the hole and yells that it’s locked but I’m too scared to quit bracing.
Typewriter pulls at my arm, tells me, Let’s go, it’ll hold.
I hear KK’s muffled cries. I could pick them out of any lineup, the way each one builds on the other, none of them allowed to escape the cavern of her mouth.
Derrick says, Door’s secure. He has his massive hand around my bicep.
We need to go, KK says.
I ease up on the door and KK puts her arm around my waist. I press my forehead against hers. Our noses touch. She says, You need to keep your motherfucking mind.
3:11 AM
We can see a hell of a lot better with the emergency lighting. We cross the mess hall. Derrick reaches back and places something in my hand. It’s a nub of dope. I eat it. The taste is crushed pills and ammonia. My teeth feel like they’re coated in wool sweaters.
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