by Kipjo Ewers
Armitage continued to follow Mercer in as they took the elevator heading for the video surveillance room on the second floor.
“At 12:00 A.M. this morning, now escape convict Sophia Dennison was scheduled for execution by lethal injection.” Dustin began to rundown the events of six and a half hours ago.
Mark asked, “What was she in for?”
“Four years ago she murdered her husband, Lieutenant Robert Matheson, a former decorated Iraq War Marine Vet in cold blood, stabbed the poor bastard like forty-one times in their bed, bitch was found two states away in an airport hotel in Oklahoma with a one way flight to Brazil,” he said.
“Why’d she do it?” The motive did not mean anything to him. Mark wanted info to understand the mind state of the fugitive he would be hunting.
“Two point five million dollar trust fund…” Dustin responded.
Mark knit his eyebrows, “Say what? You mean insurance…”
“No trust fund.” He clarified, “Kid got it when he completed boot camp…father is a well-known Four Star General who comes from old money, and I mean after the Civil War days type money. He’s also got a lot of connections in both the military and private sector. Did very well for himself in both, poor kid was so trusting he dumped all the money into their joint savings and checking accounts, red flags went up when it was all transferred into her personal account within the same bank which she got a month prior to killing him. She transferred the money the same night she killed him. They’ve got actual footage of her withdrawing some of the money in cash from an ATM, driving through a toll heading to Oklahoma and checking into a hotel near the airport there.”
“Was he crippled or something?” Mark asked as they got off on the second floor of the building.
“Took shrapnel to the chest from an I.A.D, badly burned left arm, and lost sight in his right eye …other than that pretty healthy,” Dustin responded.
Mark now perplexed, “So how did she overpower a Marine? She kill him in his sleep?”
Dustin’s face was one of disgust, “Worst…she injected him with a serious paralyzing neurotoxin…numbs everything except for nervous system…poor bastard felt everything…and get this…she did this after she banged him.”
“How did she get a hold of…?” Mark began to ask.
Dustin cut off his question, rushing with him following to get to the surveillance room, “She’s a licensed neurosurgeon, graduated with full scholarship to Texas Southwestern then she did her residency at Memorial Hermann till graduation and got a position there. Records show she lifted it from their research facility.”
Mark threw out the driving question, “Okay, so how did she escape before her execution?”
Dustin uneasily hesitated again before he answered, “She didn’t escape…she was executed.”
Mark stopped dead in his tracks holding his hands up in frustration, “Wait! What? What the hell you mean she was “executed”? Then what the f…?”
Dustin grabbed his arm ushering him to keep moving, “Just walk with me man…”
“Dustin so help me if you don’t start making some damn sense,” was what Armitage thought as he snatched his arm away and followed him into the security observation room to look at some footage; one of the correctional officers in the room tensely monitored the series of screens as they walked in.
Dustin began his explanation, “At twelve midnight Sophia Dennison was executed…she was pronounced officially dead by the local county coroner at 12:05 PM…then this happened…”
Armitage watched the video feed at 12:07 PM, one of the officers walked over to remove the straps from a now deceased Sophia Dennison. The pronounced dead would begin arching her back and gasping for air scaring the living piss out of the 6’2” correctional officer, causing the pastor in the room to faint, and freaking out everyone else within the room and on the other side of the observation window.
What was even scarier was in the process of trying to sit up, the 5’6” 110-pound woman in a hyper-hysterical state ripping both her 6-inch thick arm restraints from the very table itself while rattling repeatedly, “Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out!”
Armitage would have thought it a fluke, a rush of adrenaline if his still 20/20 vision did not show the same woman snapping the restraints for her chest and waist right from the table itself sending pieces of metal that attached the restraints to the table flying. As she sat up, a correctional officer overcoming his shock and fear rushed over to restrain her when with one swipe of her arm, she launched a man who had at least 150 pounds on her clear across the room slamming him violently into the wall behind him. He dropped face first onto the ground like slab of beef.
After effortlessly popping the last two restraints from her legs, Dennison rolled off the table dropping to her knees sniveling, “I remember! I remember! I remember! I remember! I remember! I remember! I remember! I remember! I remember! I remember! I remember! I remember! I remember! I remember! I remember! I remember!”
“Dennison! St...Stay down!” a second male Correctional Officer trembled as he gave the order.
“I remember! I remember! I remember! I remember! I remember!” was what she continued to babble as she fought to her feet stumbling and falling against the glass patrician, separating her from the audience who had watched her execution on the other side.
They scattered in terror and disbelief as a second officer lunged to tackle her to the floor. Much to his own shock and dismay Dennison’s apparent adrenaline rush allowed her to stop him in his tracks, in the struggle she managed to grab him by the front of his shirt lifting him off his feet.
Sophia screamed, “No!”
She threw him backward as if tossing a stuffed teddy bear. His near bone-crushing blow against the wall was anything but that of a stuffed bear tossed, he too dropped face first hitting the concrete floor with a sickening thud; the wall behind him made of solid stone partially caved in from the impact he made.
She then stood there clutching her skull; she appeared to be in excruciating pain shaking like a leaf. In frustration, she screamed pounding on the reinforced observation glass cracking it, her blathering chant changed to, “I…got…I got…to get…out…”
She hit the glass again with a heavier shot giving it a large shatter pattern. It looked as if an aluminum bat had hit it; one more shot would send glass raining everywhere, while on the other side of the glass people screamed backing up terrified at what they were witnessing. As a disoriented Dennison looked to deliver another blow four guards swarmed on her in an attempt for a dog pile…it went horribly wrong.
Armitage watched in disbelief as one woman tossed around correctional officers like rag dolls. There was no finesse to what she was doing; making it obvious that she was not a trained combatant, but her strength apparently was beyond what the four guards could handle combined. In one swipe of her hand, she accidentally backhanded a male guard into a tailspin; in an attempt to break free, she threw an elbow into another’s chest.
The shot lifted him off his feet and folded him in half as he hit the floor back first; he rolled to his side gasping for air as if she broke his sternum; reports would later show that she actually shattered it. The female guard in the mix hung desperately onto one her legs in a failed attempt to bring her down. Dennison’s movements thrashed her around like an ankle biter holding onto a mop as the last male guard having enough grabbed his baton and let loose a skull crushing shot to her skull. It staggered her and drew blood, but she remained standing; he stopped because he stood looking at the same metal baton bent in half.
“What the f…,” said the stunned male officer.
Before he could not finish his sentence, Sophia now with blood dripping down her face from a possible fractured skull and a severe concussion grabbed him by the front of his shirt. She pulled him in on instinct, and then shoved him backwards sending him through the shattered
glass hitting a couple of witnesses knocking them down as he slammed into the back wall on the other side. His limp body fell more awkward and painful, as the freight train of a throw knocked all of his senses out of him.
She was in daze as she wiped the blood off her face, as the yelling and screaming now filled the lethal injection room; realizing the window was broken, she advanced to freedom, but felt a weight on her right leg. It was the female officer holding on for dear life.
“Let…me go…please…let me go…,” a still out of it Sophia pleaded.
“I can’t do that Sophia…,” a now terrified female correctional officer returned still bound by duty.
Sophia reached down grabbing her by the front of her shirt pulling her to her feet, lifting her into the air with one arm.
The officer now screamed and held onto Sophia’s arm for dear life while pleading with her, “Please Sophia….you know I got kids…please…”
Sophia tried to reassure her, as she only wanted her to let her go, “I…I’m not…”
Before she could explain to the female officer calming her down, a voice called out, “Dennison!”
BLAM!
Was all that rang out as she staggered back a bit releasing the female officer who scurried away for cover, the front of her green jailhouse scrubs became red; as she tried to advance forward, gunfire erupted into the lethal injection room. Armitage watched in disgust as bullet after bullet tore through the young woman’s body due to panic fire, after twenty shots she was down on her knees; it took five more to drop her, one hitting her skull, which snapped her neck back as she crashed onto the now bloody floor lifeless once again.
It should have been over, but Armitage remembered what Mercer said. Mercer watched his most oldest of friends turn to him with a visage he had never seen on him before.
Mark uttered with unsettling nervousness, “You said…she escaped…”
Dustin motioned to the correctional officer, “Fast forward the tape…”
The guard sweating bullets turned the dial to move the video into fast forward double time where the guards who did the shooting came in to check if she was really dead. Additional guards now came in, the Warden himself, witnesses on the other side try to move closer to look, but the officers moved them back and then ushered them out of the room to safety. County and state police now showed up along with local detectives. The on-site forensics doctor appeared checking her again, and pronounced that she was definitely dead. Additional forensics now came into view taking pictures, Armitage’s eyes widen as the feed moving at fast forward speed revealed something happening underneath everyone’s noses within that room.
Armitage shuttered as he tried to believe what he was seeing, “Is…is she growing?”
Dustin reaffirmed his suspicion, “Now I know I’m not still drunk…”
The two agents and the C.O. watched in disbelief as the “corpse” in the room went through a serious growth spurt; the video feed showed that about two hours and fifteen minutes had gone by.
Dustin motioned to the officer, “Stop right there…move in…now play it…Mark…tell me what do you see…”
As the footage began to play with a closer shot at Dennison’s lifeless face, Armitage realized what his friend wanted him to see. Through the thick partially dried blood on her forehead, the bullet wound that pierced her skull was no longer there. Five more minutes had passed…as a hand reached over to close her eye lids shut in preparation of placing her in a body bag, a scene out of a horror movie ensued as the dead came back to life again emitting an inhuman blood curdling scream that took ten years off of Armitage’s life just standing there.
Mark jumped back visibly shaken as if he had seen a demon with his very eyes, “Jesus…”
“You wish…,” Dustin responded also shaken despite this being the second time he had seen the footage.
Armitage watched as the dead rose back to her feet for a second time. Screaming once again filled the room mostly from full-grown men, those who had a gun and where terrified did not ask questions as they drew on her and screamed for her to get down. The prison scrub pants she wore looked like knee high shorts confirming that she had definitely grown while she was “dead”. When she took a step with her barefoot, it sounded like a diesel hammer smashing into the concrete floor. Someone freaked out and opened fire without order. Panic fire erupted within the room again hitting her from all directions; instinctively she covered up as smoke proceeded to fill the room. The gunfire was more vicious than before, but something was evidently wrong, ricocheting bullets hit two officers, one in the arm, and the other in the leg.
Through all of the mayhem, someone screamed, “Seize fire!” Seize fucking fire!”...a lot of the gunfire ended because of empty ammo.
The surveillance room filled with the audio sound of cursing and the relock and loading of weapons.
Time felt like it stood still in that moment; Armitage leaned in attempting to see through all the smoke and chaos. At that moment, a black and green blur came from out of the smoke emitting the same high-pitched inhuman type scream. The sound of seasoned guards and officers screaming coupled with the sound of soft bodies hitting something extremely hard rang from the speakers. It was as if an F-1 tank was rolling through the halls. The gunfire grew less and less as the echoing of destruction increased from what the audio picked up.
A shaken Armitage bore witness on the other screen as something extremely fast and powerful smashed through concrete walls and torn open steel doors on its way to freedom.
Mark gave a wave to shut it off as additional gunfire and yelling came into play, he now got the picture of what went down around here. He leaned up again the console of the observation room rubbing his jaw trying to process and make sense of what he just saw, “This can’t be happening…right?”
Dustin motioned to the equally unnerved correctional officer running the surveillance system, “Look at this poor bastard Mark…he was here when it was happening, and he’s seen the footage…how many times have you see it?”
“Four…four times,” the correctional officer held up four shaking fingers.
“Four times,” Dustin threw up his own four fingers, “I’d be the first guy to call bullshit on this, but as you can see him and several other people who was in the middle of it upstairs just saw super bitch bust out of prison!”
Mark tried to find his nerve by asking a question off topic, “Who was the C.O. she killed?”
“Dennis Buck Wilford,” Dustin rattled off, “Sixteen year career, ten between here and the Gatesville Women’s Prison, father of two…husband; you don’t want to see that footage…shit was brutal. Bitch singled him out and put him through three concrete walls including the one she smashed through to break out, he lost one of his arms during the second impact, and is now a puddle of goo on top of the obliterated cop car you saw outside.”
Mark rubbed his chin one more time, and started to walk out of the room to clear his head and get back into the game as his partner followed behind him, “I want to know who she is…every detail…most importantly any medical records…if you can find out when she got her first period I want that too.”
He snapped his fingers thinking, going down the standard list of protocol and field training gained over the years, “I want to know who came in to see her during her time here, conjugal visits if she had any; and anything in her prison cell is ours. Anyone she spoke to and made friends with here I want to interview them. Call brass and put her on the terrorist watch list right underneath Bin Laden…with a precaution not to engage. We need to know who or what the hell we’re dealing with first. Family and friends, where is she originally from?”
“Mount Vernon, New York…small town outside of the Bronx…Parents are still alive; father is from Jamaica, mother is from Belize…she’s a first generation born U.S citizen of three children, eldest to a brother and a younger sister,” Dustin employed his skill of finding Intel at the drop of dime.