The Warden's Son

by C. G. Cooper

  Her pregnant belly moved from side to side like the little thing would burst forth at any moment. It made me think of one of Kenji’s adventures. He’d led me into the prettiest meadow in the realm. I thought there’d be a cache of treasure or a flying horse for me to take as a trusted steed. Instead, there was a single egg the size of a wine barrel.

  “As you near the egg,” Kenji said, “it starts to pulse like something’s trying to get out. What do you do?”

  “I reach out and touch it.”

  Kenji nodded gravely. “You step forward and touch the egg. As your fingertips make contact, the egg pulses under your touch. You try to pull away, but your hand is stuck.”

  “Pull it away! I want to pull it away!”

  “You can’t. There’s a crack in the side of the egg now.”

  “Aw, come on, Kenji. Get me out of the meadow.”

  “Sorry, Jimmy. This is the price you pay for curiosity. With a shriek, the egg bursts open, covering you with gobs of gore. You wipe what you can from your face only to see a baby troll leering over you, its spindly arms and legs grasping.”

  I’d learned my lesson. I wasn’t getting anywhere near Mrs. Bell’s pregnant belly.

  “James, give me the towels.”

  Up to that point, Mrs. Bell hadn’t made eye contact. Then, her head twisted to the side, and her eyes locked with mine.

  “Get it out!” she shrieked.

  I fell back, the pot dropping from my hands.

  “James!” Mom said.

  I backpedaled on hands and feet, Mrs. Bell’s eyes never once breaking from mine. She pleaded with me silently, as if she could see inside me. Like she knew what I’d seen. Did she know? Had she seen me? Impossible yet possible.

  Mom picked up the overturned pot and pulled out a towel.

  “Now, now. You’ll be fine.”

  I knew she was saying it to Mrs. Bell, that poor woman, but I wished she was saying it to me. The horrid sight, the terrible smell . . . I’d had enough.

  “James, bring some ice from the kitchen.”

  I wasn’t listening. I had to get out.

  “Okay,” I said, not knowing what I’d said okay to.

  Out of the room and down the hall I went. Larry was waiting.

  “Stay here. I need to get something from home,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm though my brain was screaming for me to run.

  “I can come.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  I searched for an excuse. Any excuse. Come on, Jimmy, you’re good at excuses.

  “Mom needs your help.”

  “She does?”

  “Yeah, and she wants me to get you a surprise from the house.” Now I was rolling. “If you stay here, I’ll get it for you, okay?”

  “Okay!”

  A little white lie to give me a pass.

  Standing outside, I breathed in repeatedly. Clean air. Pure, clear, and fresh air. My nausea subsided, and my brain snapped back to semi-normal working order.

  “Carlisle,” I said to the darkness. I’d forgotten about Carlisle.

  I knew there was only one thing I could do. With a final look back at where I’d left Mom and Larry, I sprinted off into the night.

  Chapter One Hundred

  The tunnel’s earthen door felt like it was calling me. I traced an edge with my hand, kicking myself for not bringing a flashlight. It was ebony black down there. Regardless, it was the only way in. At least the only way I could think of.

  Stupid. A ten-year-old kid is running to the rescue. What else could I do? It was naive and reckless, but with the phones out and no sign of the local authorities, what were my alternatives?

  “Screw it,” I muttered, and took my first step into the prison proper.

  The sides of the tunnel were a mix of concrete and brick. I’d imagined a dirt passage crawling with worms. Well, no creepy worms. At least not that I could see.

  Not that I could see.

  I tried not to let my imagination take hold. There were too many possibilities of what lie hidden in the darkness. Critters. Crooked guards. Traps. Dead bodies.

  I pushed each and every image away by imagining Carlisle walking in front of me.

  “Come on,” he’d say. “There’s nothing here that can hurt us. You know who’s looking down on us.”

  That gave me the courage to pick up my pace and soldier on.

  In my muted new world, I couldn’t hear the sirens anymore.

  Chapter One Hundred One

  I found out I could see vague shapes there in the tarry blackness. I kept trying to tell myself that I had infrared vision like the dark elves in Kenji’s stories. My dead friend’s imaginary world helped me put one foot in front of the other.

  The end of the tunnel came so abruptly that I all but faceplanted into the door at the other end. My hand reached out and touched the cold steel. Fear gripped me again as I groped for a handle.

  It took a mighty push, but the ancient portal opened, dumping a new world of sound and smell onto me. The siren blared again, seemingly miles away.

  Something clanged nearby, and I flinched. Light bobbled and wavered. I got my bearings.

  I was in what looked like some sort of storage room, large and full of half-empty racks.

  There was a scream followed by the distant pop of gunfire.

  “Pssst . . .”

  I flattened my back against the wall. The contents of my backpack jammed painfully into my lower back.

  “Hey, kid.”

  I froze, fear pounding in my neck.

  “Kid?”

  A form materialized from the shadows, slow, shuffling.

  “Carlisle?” I asked, my voice a rasp.

  “No.” Followed by a strange giggle.

  “Who . . . who are you?”

  “Carlisle sent me.”

  I could see the man now. His body was slightly off-kilter like he’d been knocked left and never righted.

  “What’s in your backpack? Got any food?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  There was a shrug and then another chuckle from my first prison contact.

  “It’s okay. Just hungry is all. The cafeteria workers haven’t fed us today. Your friend Carlisle’s upstairs, by the way.”

  Emergency lights cast themselves across his eyes. My breath caught when I saw his one dead eye, milky and unseeing.

  “Ca . . . can we go see Carlisle?”

  Like he’d forgotten his task, he nodded suddenly. “Look at me now. Some helper I’ve turned out to be. Carlisle will think I’ve gone off my rocker again. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  Chapter One Hundred Two

  My guide ushered me forward, murmuring to himself along the way, occasionally telling me we had to be quiet. Despite my mind and body being on the proverbial edge of reason, I couldn’t help being impressed by his duality. There was no doubt that his mind wasn’t all there, but somehow he knew every turn, every place we had to stop and wait to make sure the coast was clear. There was a deeper part of his mind unscarred by life. It was like some primal GPS accessed by whatever vestiges of sanity he had left.

  “Almost there,” he murmured. He crouched down and motioned for me to do the same. “Say, you sure you don’t have any food in that bag?”

  It was probably the tenth time he’d asked.

  I went with my old standby. “No. Sorry.”

  He shrugged unconcernedly again and then looked at me as if he recognized me. “Your name Gilly?”

  “No.”

  “Got a brother named Gilly?”

  “No.”

  He squinted at me. “Huh. Not sure I believe you. But you’re alright.”

  A thunderous boom shook the room, and I put my hands on top of my head for fear that the roof might cave in.

  “Flashbangs, probably,” the inmate said, picking his teeth with a pinky. “I wish they’d go on and get this over with. Need to get back to my job in the laundry.” He giggled to himself.

  Th
en he was up and moving again. A trio of inmates with an assortment of homemade weapons ran across the hallway. My escort didn’t slow.

  Voices and shouts were coming from every direction. Bangs and screams. I would have jumped straight through the ceiling if someone had tapped me on the shoulder.

  “Here we are.” There was a doorway up ahead. My escort gestured grandly to it. “Entre Vous.”

  Gulping, I stepped past the door noticing that it hung off its hinges.

  What I saw inside made me inhale my guts back down my throat.

  Chapter One Hundred Three

  “You made it,” Carlisle said, crouched by the body of a blood-covered guard. He stood up and shook my escort’s hand. “You did good, Jo Jo. Thank you.”

  “All good, Carlisle. Now, I better get back to the laundry.”

  Carlisle put up a hand. “Don’t go the usual way. Take the back way. When you get there, hide. You hear me?”

  Jo Jo cocked his head to one side. The move seemed to help his brain compute, and he said, “Right. I’ll get there and hide. You’ll come to get me when it’s done?”

  “I will,” answered Carlisle.

  Jo Jo grinned, and then he was gone.

  “Come here, Jimmy.” He crouched next to the unconscious guard.

  Squeamishly, I stepped closer. A crimson-soaked rag wrapped the guard’s forehead.

  “Is he going to live?”

  “Probably, but he needs help.” He stood and wiped the blood from his hands onto his pants. “Not exactly a walk in the park, is it? The trip here, I mean.”

  “What’s happening, Carlisle?” I wanted to hug him, to make him tell me that everything was going to be okay.

  He shook his head. “I was wrong. I thought it was all about smuggling.”

  “Smuggling what?”

  “Some drugs. Some weapons. Mostly a bit of money here and there. I mean, it is about that, but it’s not.”

  “Where’s my dad?”

  “Holed up with some guards.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “Then, we need to help him.”

  “Don’t you worry. The warden can take care of himself. Besides, I need your help with something else.”

  Carlisle told me what he needed. He described it with little or no emotion. And I knew before he finished that I was going to ignore his directions.

  Chapter One Hundred Four

  There was a group he described as “safe inmates” and a small cadre of guards that he wanted me to escort through the tunnel to safety.

  “You get them out and take them to the greenhouse.”

  “Okay.”

  He looked at me like he saw my deception. “You sure? No questions?”

  “I trust you.”

  “Good.”

  We dodged two skirmishes and one verbal battle between barricades. Along the way, we picked up a pair of inmates here and a trio of guards there. The guards were scared and still armed. I didn’t ask the obvious question of why they weren’t part of the fight. They didn’t ask why I was there. They seemed to glaze over my presence, even when Carlisle told them I was in charge. They had the blank look of sheep without a master.

  By the time we got back to the storage room and the tunnel entrance, I’d counted a total of twenty in our entourage.

  Carlisle halted the procession. “Boss Hicks?”

  A portly guard I recognized from the front gate turned to face Carlisle.

  “Jimmy here will show you the way. You remember what we talked about?”

  “Sure, sure.” It didn’t look like Guard Hicks was all there. His eyes shifted from left to right as if they ran on clockwork.

  “The rest of you listen to me.” The motley crew hushed their chatter and gave Carlisle the floor. “You go where Jimmy takes you and don’t say a word, you hear me?”

  There were murmurs and a couple of curses.

  Carlisle put his hand on my shoulder. “Jimmy, you’ll be fine.”

  “I know.”

  “You be quick and then get back to your family.”

  “I will.”

  There were no long farewells. Just a nod from Carlisle’s head and he disappeared into the darkness. If I’d known it was the last time that I’d see him face to face, maybe I would’ve said something profound.

  Chapter One Hundred Five

  I was emboldened now. Instead of walking, I took the tunnel at a trot. And it wasn’t the guards that offered to take the lead; it was a couple of inmates.

  “You’re one of Carlisle’s pigeons too,” one of them said.

  “Brave kid,” the other said, a fat man with a gut that could stop a combine.

  I preferred my first trip down the tunnel. This time we had flashlights, and though it made the going more accessible, this trip I could see the skittering of rats at the tunnel edges. Now the shaft felt like a living, breathing thing. A tube that seemed like it could suck us back in at any moment.

  By the time we reached the other end, we were in a full run.

  The lead prisoners took the door first, peering out and then sliding out sideways, the man with the belly grunted as his stomach brushed the steel door.

  “Clear,” came the quick whisper, and I was back outside.

  “I’m never going in there again,” the fat one said, sucking in a gutful of fresh air.

  “Where are we going, kid?” asked Hicks.

  I pointed in the right direction. “That way.”

  Hicks stepped off, gun in hand. “Let’s go then.”

  I made like I was counting the men. In reality, I was waiting for the end of the train. I let the last man pass, a skinny guard who looked like he’d been in high school the week before. He gave a shy nod. The hand that held his gun trembled.

  I let them get further ahead until they’d passed into the night. When they were gone, I went back the way we’d come. I sprinted this time, feeling in the bottom of my bones that Carlisle was in real peril.

  Chapter One Hundred Six

  I breezed through the tunnel and back into the prison proper. The emergency generators blinked out the second I left the storage room. It left me bathed in black and silence.

  Then the cacophony of fighting started up again. Rather than skirt my way around it, I aimed right for it. I snuck with my father’s revolver in hand into the belly of the beast,. He’d inherited it from his father. My grandfather got it from his father.

  I was the fourth in line. I’d fired it on a practice range before, and while I was no expert, I figured that in the long shot that I had to use it, I could at least keep it in hand. I held no illusions of shooting a moving target at fifty yards. But I could scare someone. At least that was the plan.

  It was easier going now. Every door hung open. Someone had gone to great lengths to open the entire prison.

  “Fuckers!” I heard someone scream, and then three shots in rapid succession—no more profanities from that guy after that.

  I passed the body of a guard who’d once stood post on our front porch during a night drill. His nametag said Pemberly. I prayed for Guard Pemberly as I tried to ignore the neat hole in his forehead and the mottled spatter on the wall behind him.

  In another room, I almost heaved when I saw a pile of four or five dead inmates; their limbs splayed like ragdolls.

  All I had to do was follow the sound.

  Follow the sound, Jimmy.

  Carlisle had said that Dad was holding out, but holding out against whom?

  The sound of boots beating pavement gave me just enough time to skitter to the shadows. Two guards and three inmates passed, all armed.

  After waiting a few seconds, I took up the chase. It was easy to keep pace; they were hurrying even though not enough to let anyone catch them unawares. They trotted through the cellblock and then past the administrative offices. I recognized the clinic where we’d taken Larry.

  I stopped to catch my breath and put a hand against the wall. My hand slipped on some
thing slick. I peeled my hand away, and it was covered in blood.

  I ran on to avoid puking on the spot.

  Chapter One Hundred Seven

  Smoke greeted me at the exit. There was a succession of explosions that rattled the ground. I saw the guard/inmate detail sprint across the quad. I stayed put. No way I could make it across without being seen.

  Think, Jimmy.

  That’s when the doubt seeped in. Who am I? I am a kid: a kid with a gun. I could get in big trouble. Worse, I could die. I could get shot or blown up.

  Then I knew it. I remembered what I’d told Larry about being brave. I remembered something that Carlisle once said, “The difference between being brave and pretending to be brave—ain’t no difference at all.”

  My knees knocked. I clamped my teeth together and gripped the revolver tighter.

  Alright, then. I’ll be the man I’m supposed to be.

  I was lifting my foot off the deck when a voice behind me froze me to the spot.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Chapter One Hundred Eight

  “Denny,” I breathed. The gun in hand sagged to my side.

  “Jimmy,” he said incredulously.

  Something bothered me about him. He was as put together as ever. Not a smudge on his straight ironed shirt. He had an automatic rifle pointed at the floor. But it wasn’t his clothes or his arsenal that concerned me. It was the way his eyes danced. Not with worry. Not with concern. They had a grotesque calm that made me want to run.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he repeated.

  The gun at my side, my index finger curled around the trigger, as if by instinct.

  “Where’s my dad?” I said quietly.