“Perfect,” Chris said as he walked along the floor. Above him, on the catwalk, guards nodded down at him. To his left and right prisoners looked through their cell bars. Chris being the first guard to walk the floor in over a day.
Chris stopped at a cell and peered in. Two sets of eyes looked back. One set belonged to Jared “Hardline” Patterson. A behemoth of meth addicted fury, he had raped and murdered six women before they caught his ass. Jared had only gotten bigger and more brutal inside. The second pair belonged to a skinny little shit in drag.
Chris waved to the guard in the control room. “Open fifty-two B,” he called.
The guard nodded. The cell door began to open.
Jared nodded to Chris. “What’s this about?” he asked.
“Just a check-up,” Chris told him, and stepped into the cell.
Fifteen
Erin flipped off his bunk and landed with practiced grace. Went over to his cubby and picked up his snow globe, shook it and set it back down. The snow dancing around the boy and father skating.
“You never did tell me the story behind that,” Bill told him.
“I didn’t?”
“Nope.”
“Huh.” Erin climbed back up onto his bunk and lay down, lacing his fingers behind his head. “So the first thing we need to figure out is transport,” he said.
“Like trucks?”
“Exactly.” Erin nodded. “There’s no way we’re running out of here. But that means I’ll have to get to the loading bay, I would assume.”
“Or the parking lot.”
Erin shrugged. “That’s a tough place for me to bullshit my way into.”
“True.” Bill was silent a while. “How are we going to get the girls?”
Erin said, “Mercedes will have to figure that part out.”
“Does she know that?”
“Not yet.” Erin laughed. “She doesn’t even know I’m planning on leaving.”
“Would she rat us out?”
“What for?”
“To get back at you.”
Erin thought about that. He couldn’t know for sure. But before he brought it up, he planned on finding out.
Sixteen
Phil paused at the lock that led from admin to the female wing of Brennick. Male guards were rare in this wing, and he knew it. But he didn’t think it should make much of a difference. He wanted a shower and didn’t understand why everyone had turned into fucking robots since they left two days before.
“Whatcha doin’ over here?” a voice asked from behind him. Phil turned and found Mystique standing there, smirking at him.
“I’m trying to take a shower.”
“Is that so?” she asked, and arched a perfectly groomed eyebrow. “I heard you had quite the day in town.”
Mystique was that girl that everyone wanted, and the ones confident enough to ask got to have. Phil had never gotten a shot at her, not because he couldn’t bring himself to try, but because he had never had the opportunity.
“Yeah,” Phil said, nodding. “Really got me worked up, if you know what I mean.”
“I do.” She smiled at him.
He glanced over his shoulder. Then back at Mystique, her long hair slightly curled. “You know, they kind of frown on male guards being over here.”
She nodded.
“It might make everyone feel better if I had an escort. You know, just so they know I’m not gonna try and take advantage of some poor girl.”
She smiled again. “Of course,” she said. “My shift was over an hour ago. I’ll walk you to the showers.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you,” Phil told her. Put his arm out and she hooked hers through it. The lock opened when Mystique nodded to the guard. They passed through, arm in arm, Phil whispering in Mystique’s ear.
Seventeen
Maurice and the column of survivors paused as the guards counted them.
“I got twenty-eight,” one of them called.
“Same,” another returned.
The column got moving again. They had been doing that every few minutes: counting heads, making sure no one had disappeared into the prison. Where they weren’t allowed. Keeping tabs like they were prisoners.
They passed through a steel gate and entered a long, wide hall. The floors painted with arrows and stop and go signs. The walls covered with stenciled reminders to keep their hands in front, eyes ahead, and that any offense was a punishable offense.
Went down the hall for a few minutes. The guards stopping them at two wide double doors. Beyond them, Maurice could hear the chatter of low voices. People inside. A lot of them.
The front guard pushed open the doors and kicked down the stop, leaving them open so the survivors could stream in.
“Everyone pick a bunk and make yourself at home,” the guard instructed. “We don’t have set beds. The sheets’ll be cleaned at each shift change. That’s every twelve hours. Starting tomorrow we’ll be putting you to work, too. So just pick a spot and like it.”
The auditorium was massive, probably ten thousand square feet. A perfect rectangle with folded bleachers running along either side. The center was a grid of cots laid out four feet apart, running from about ten feet from the doors all the way to the other end. About half full. Probably a hundred male guards milling or sleeping.
Maurice chose one at the end. Sat down and sighed. He was dead tired, he realized. Maybe he could sleep now. With the walls between him and danger. Maybe he could rest.
He wasn’t sure.
Eighteen
Chris could feel seconds tick away from his life at every lock he passed. It was maddening. How many hours had he lost over the years, waiting for fucking doors to open in this place?
“Come the fuck on,” he hissed at the guard. “I don’t have all night.”
The lock started to open and he cut around it as soon as the opening was wide enough. The voice was angry with him, and it wasn’t being shy about it.
“It’s fine,” Chris told himself. “I’ve got to wait a bit anyway. Everything is still perfect.”
He made a right and went down the hall. Stopped at a trash can and dumped a few spent needles into it. Kept on. He had about an hour to kill, by his calculations. Just enough time to get one last thing done before he and the voice had their vengeance.
He would need to call ahead, he decided, he couldn't just wander around in the female wing.
Nineteen
Mercedes could feel something in the air. It was like a shift in weight. The feeling you get when a loved one dies: even before the phone call, you know something’s missing. Like a sadness that can’t be explained. Like a black hole, sucking all the light out of your life. Only this one was moving.
It was somewhere close, but she didn’t know why she could feel it. Like a rabbit sensing a wolf, she knew it was there. But what was it?
Maybe, she thought, it was all in her mind.
Everything that had been happening, her world was changing too fast. It was making her nervous, and now her nerves were paying her back for the strain. Now she was on edge. That was all.
She felt it move around her.
Abstract. So far away, yet breathing on the back of her neck. Evil. So evil it made her want to cry. Why was this happening?
“You feel that?” Jessie asked her from the bottom bunk.
Mercedes nodded, even if Jessie couldn’t see her. “What is it?” she asked.
“Feels like a ghost.”
Mercedes waited. Jessie went on, “I remember when I was little. We got a ghost in our house. My grandma said it came in through the mirror. If you put a mirror in a room and don’t put space between it and the wall, she said it makes a portal because you can’t see behind the mirror.”
“Sounds stupid.”
“That’s what my mom thought. And then one day – I was little, like seven – I was taking a shower. You know, too big to take baths. And I felt something. Something just like that. I opened the shower curtain and the
re was a man standing there.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. He disappeared right away.”
Mercedes waited. Jessie didn’t continue.
“And?” Mercedes asked.
“And nothing. It feels like a ghost.”
Mercedes watched the ceiling, tracking the feeling as it moved. “There’s no such thing as ghosts,” she said.
The cell was quiet. Nothing but the two women breathing. Then a latch clanked and Mercedes snapped up, sitting in her bunk, her eyes staring at the cell door, which was opening.
Ramirez, one of the female guards, short and petite and olive skinned, stood on the other side. The door slowly rolling right. “Warden wants to see you,” she told Mercedes.
Twenty
“I think about the devil, sometimes,” Tall Bill told Erin.
Erin sighed. “Not this again,” he said.
“Totally different take on it.”
“How’s that?”
“I think about what he would be like, to meet him,” Bill explained. “Would he be suave? Would he be smart? Would he be handsome?”
“That’s how he’s always described. He’s, you know, whatever he wants to be. Like God. God can be a bum or movie star handsome. Whatever he wants.”
Bill was silent a moment. “I guess,” he said.
“Why? What were you thinking?”
Another pause. “I was wondering,” Bill told him. “How would you know it was the devil? I mean, everyone says this person is evil or that person, but how do you really know?”
Erin shrugged.
“I mean, the easy one is Hitler. Everyone accepts he was pure, unadulterated evil. But the people around him, they thought he was great.”
“Sure,” Erin agreed.
“So, I’m just wondering, what does true evil look like? And if you saw it, would you know?”
Twenty-One
Chris watched her walk into the shower room. God, he thought, she was beautiful. He had never really thought about it, but she was. Even in her prison uniform, she was stunning. He couldn’t imagine how he had missed it. He just hadn’t seen her with his new eyes, he told himself. Everything was clearer now. Almost perfect.
“Mercedes,” he called from the corner.
She started, looking around. Then she saw him, and gasped.
“It’s okay,” he told her, “it’s just me.”
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked, her voice trembling.
“Nothing,” he said, grinning. “I’ve never been better.”
“You look like you died and came back.”
“Oh, that,” he said, and let out a nervous laugh, “just fighting a cold.”
“You said you’d never been better.”
Chris thought he heard something. Let his eyes scan the bright room. The lights were too much. He squinted against the glare. “You hear that?” he asked.
“No.”
“Anyway, what I meant was: I’m in charge now. Watkins is gone. I’m the man now.”
Mercedes shrank back against the wall. “Warden’s in charge.”
Chris shook his head quickly. “Not for long,” he said. “I’m gonna be in charge. You’ll see.”
He came up to her. Quick. Startling her. He touched her shoulder. She recoiled. He pressed closer. Until she was backed against the wall. Trapped between the cold tile and his body.
“We can have everything,” he whispered in her ear. Smelled her. She smelled delicious. He wanted to taste her now. He licked her neck. So sweet. He wanted more. His lips parted, teeth coming out. Her arms were up against him now, pushing. Chris shook his head and eased back a hair, looking into her eyes.
“Our baby,” he said. “We can have our baby.”
He pushed forward again, kissing her soft lips. His tongue trying to enter her mouth. He was so hungry. He needed her. He needed to taste her. Mercedes lips stayed clamped. Her hands pressed against his chest. He fought her. Took her wrist in his hand and twisted. She started to cry out and his tongue flicked into her mouth. Rolling inside. Consuming her.
He felt a shock like lighting and doubled over. Realized she had kneed him in the groin.
“Stay the fuck away from me,” she shouted in his face, and pushed him away. Got around him and made for the door.
“No you don’t,” he snarled, limping after her.
Twenty-Two
Phil stopped pumping a moment and said, “Did you hear that?”
Mystique said, “No,” and rolled her hips.
Phil groaned. “I thought I heard someone shout,” he said.
“It’s a prison,” Mystique told him, keeping up the workout without his help. Breathing heavy. Almost there. “It’s filled with criminals.”
Phil shrugged and got back into it. Watching as he slipped in and out of her, his right hand pressed against the shower stall’s wall, keeping them upright.
Stopped again. He could swear he heard a man’s voice now. Low and angry. There shouldn’t be any men in this wing, he thought. Turned his head and listened.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Mystique spat and pushed him away. “At least pretend to be paying attention.”
Phil ignored her. He knew he heard it now. He pulled his pants up, fumbled with the belt.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
He wasn’t listening. Got his belt secured and pushed the curtain aside and came out of the stall. He heard Mystique curse but didn’t care. He could hear it louder now. Coming from just outside the showers. He crossed the open space and put his back against the wall, listening. They were close.
Rolled out of the door and found Chris with a female prisoner, on the ground. Chris pounding her head against the floor.
Phil felt something inside him break. Came up behind his boss and took him by the hair. Pulled until Chris cried out and let go of the prisoner. Then Phil tossed him by his hair against the wall. Chris grunted as his head slapped against the hard concrete block.
“How’s that feel?” Phil asked him, and kicked him in the side. “You fucking like that, man?”
Came up on him, looming over, and punched him in the jaw. Again. And again. Took a step back and kicked him in the head. Again. And again. Leaned back down and punched him again. Took him by the hair and pulled his head back, ready to smash it against the wall.
“Phil!” He turned and saw Mystique standing behind him, ashen.
Phil held up a finger. “One sec,” he told her, and wracked Chris’ head into the concrete. Pulled back for another and felt something odd. A sharp pain. Small. Like he’d been stuck with a needle. Then his muscles locked up and the world hazed and he passed out.
Twenty-Three
Chris couldn’t move. His body awash in pain. His skull felt like it had been split open.
Maybe it had, he thought.
There were stars dancing around his peripheral. Somewhere in the distance, someone was talking in a quick, machinegun burst of words. He couldn’t make them out. They just blurred together with the pain.
He tried to move his hands. Got them under him and went to push himself up. His head weighed too much for his arms to carry. He lay back down.
“Get up,” the voice instructed.
He tried to tell it he was trying, but only gargled. Sipped the blood back into his mouth and swallowed.
“Get up, or you’ll die here.”
He tried to push himself up again, this time finding the strength. Got up to his knees and tried to look around. Everything was smoky and faint. The person was still chattering off somewhere, but he couldn’t see the speaker. His head starting to clear. His mind clicking into gear. Fear stabbed deep into his chest. The voice was right, he had to move.
“Go,” it told him.
Chris got to his feet. Shook his head and winced. It weighed so much, how was his neck supporting it?
Took a few steps.
Now he was walking, but he didn’t know how. He couldn’t remember building the momentum.
&nb
sp; Now he was running, but to where? Everything was wrong. Everything was fucked.
“Everything is perfect,” the voice reminded him. “Just keep going.”
“Where?” he asked it, his voice a croak.
“D-Block.”
Twenty-Four
Warden Bowers came out of his dream with the ringing of his phone. He glanced around, his mind fogged with scotch. The television screen was a blue blank. He flipped it off and pushed himself up off the couch. Went around it and picked up the phone.
“Someone had better be dead,” he said into it.
Mystique’s voice came through hurried, “It’s Phil,” she said.
“Phil who?”
“Craig. Phil Craig.”
“What about him?”
“He just almost killed Chris.”
“What?”
“I had to tase him to get him off.”
Warden Bowers shook his head and rubbed his eyes, not understanding. “Why?” he asked.
“It’s a long story.”
“Where’s Chris?”
“I don’t know. He got up and took off.”
“Why didn’t you stop him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where’s Phil?”
“He’s here, on the floor.”
“Where’s ‘here’?”
“Outside the women’s showers.”
“What the fuck were they doing there?”
“It’s a long story.”
Bowers sighed and rubbed his eyes again. He couldn’t take one fucking night off, he fumed. And, with all the shit going on, now he had his night shift supervisor running around where he shouldn’t be, and getting into fights with guards, who were also not where they were supposed to be. Didn’t they get it? He needed them to step up, not start killing each other.
Outpost Season One Page 24