Early Release

by Jason Michelsen

  No more sounds emerged, but with David focused on the cracked door, he had a feeling in his gut that the store was not empty. He had survived too many of these situations not to trust that gut; anything that got him through both Baghdad mornings and D.C. nights was not to be ignored.

  Slowly, silently, he eased the door open, ever vigilant for an indication of danger. Motioning for Eve to stay put, David slipped warily into the dark store.

  With sharply trained eyes already adapted to the dim interior, he crept into the store's backroom. It was cluttered with small parts and hand tools lying scattered where they were discarded when the store was looted. To his left was an employee bathroom, to his right a small office with an overhead light fixture dangling just inches above an ancient and simple steel desk. Overturned boxes filled the main floor, clearly pilfered by the Prophet's men; the residents of a small town like this would have stolen with much more respect for the property. Probably left thank-you notes.

  Directly ahead of him, Saul could make out a heavy wooden door in the gloom. It stood partially open, but the angle obscured him from anyone in the public part of the store. Of course, it also provided cover for anyone hiding from him.

  Popping back outside, he found the girl waiting dutifully where she had hidden. Waving for her to follow, David walked in a quiet crouch back inside and led the way to the old office. He guided Eve to a better hiding spot behind the desk and once more signaled her to be still.

  Feeling more confident in the new arrangements, he made his way to the shopping floor. He paused at the door, listening for sounds of life to confirm his instincts. In moments he had his confirmation, hearing furtive footsteps slowly crossing the floor. David eased the pistol from his belt, clicked the safety off, and moved to the open side of the door.

  A familiar surge of adrenaline flooded his veins as the old cat and mouse game stepped up in intensity. David just hoped he was the cat.

  Peering through the darkness, he could just make out the silhouettes of shelving units that may have once been arranged in a more orderly fashion. Now, however, shaking earth and marauding felons had overturned many, giving the impression of a gigantic set of dominoes toppled by an unseen hand. Dying bonfires on the street sent flickering shadows drifting into the building with the scent of campfires. Had he not been in a life or death situation, David would have dwelt on the memories of nights in the Blue Ridge Mountains with Marta and Rachel. Those nights seemed so many lifetimes ago that he wondered if they were really his own memories.

  Presently, it was not his ex-wife's lithe form he saw sneaking low through the store. At least, attempting to sneak low through the store. The man he saw was short and squat, and not exceptionally agile as he stumbled his way through the storefront. Strangely, he seemed to be watching the street side carefully. Saul had assumed this would be one of the Prophet's men on a supply run, but his caution indicated something else entirely.

  Could one of the townsfolk be mounting some kind of resistance? Were there more allies that may get him through this night alive?

  With a deep breath, David pulled the door open and ducked through and behind one of the few shelves that remained standing. Just because he seemed a potential ally was no reason to get careless. Best to play it safe and let the stranger come to him.

  90

  Chris Thompson let out a string of curses under his breath as he tripped over a pile of tangled extension cords for the tenth time. When he first took cover in this building, he thought it was divine providence guiding him to much-needed weapons and supplies, but after sifting through the stock for an hour or so, he had nothing but bruised shins and a nice cut on his left arm that he was pretty sure would be infected soon.

  "Still better than getting caught by Hutchins," he reminded himself quietly.

  It was that hulking brute that drove him in here. The old saying about not wanting to meet some people in a dark alley had proved itself tonight, sending Chris practically diving into the first door he saw at a mere glimpse of the man the inmates called the Prophet.

  Thompson and the rest of the staff knew him as Matthew Hutchins, a former federal prosecutor who snapped and strangled a judge who had recently ruled for the government in a conspiracy case. No motive was ever established, but he took the stand and confessed in the most bizarre trial this country had ever seen that didn't involve a professional football player.

  Just thinking about the man gave Thompson chills, so he changed his focus back to the task at hand: Killing all the inmates that had escaped the carnage at Tanlau.

  He had never been exceptionally religious -- a man as devoted to the good of his country didn't need to be -- but if there had ever been a direct act of God in this world, the destruction of that cesspool was it. For the past two decades, Chris had watched thousands of heinous criminals parade through his system, only to walk out the door and back into the world when their sentence was up. He didn't even know what heinous meant, but he was pretty damn sure it described the felons he had seen. Either way, it was blindingly obvious to real Americans like him that releasing men like that was just bad business. Once a criminal, always a criminal.

  It was only men like Chris -- who guarded the gates of hell and kept the demons at bay -- that really understood the stakes. These men knew that society had charged them to not only contain the monsters, but to ensure that their suffering was sufficient to break their spirits. This was the United States of America, not that namby-pamby Europe with their short sentences and fancy rehabilitative centers. If American criminals reoffended more, it just showed how much stiffer their penalties should be!

  Not for the first time he considered how lucky he was to fulfill such a noble calling. By his hands, countless real Americans were avenged. Sure, he wasn't an executioner, but any good Correction's Officer knew a dozen ways to make an inmate suffer.

  Chris took a deep breath to calm himself. Anytime he let himself dwell on the great things he was doing with his life, he got overly excited. The doctor said that was bad for his blood pressure.

  Mentally running through his prescribed regimen of relaxation exercises, Thompson could feel his heart slowing and the tension fading. With a concentrated effort, he considered his mission dispassionately. He thought himself twice blessed, for after a full career punishing people offered up as sacrifices to the gods of justice, he was now called to snuff out their despicable lives of depravity. When he crawled out of his hiding spot in the Special Holding Unit, he could feel the higher purpose that now drove him. While the weaker staff members tried to help those injured in the collapse, Chris had known what was coming. Having seen the demons for what they were, he hid before the inevitable carnage came.

  And it did come.

  The screams seemed to go on endlessly until they punctured through his skull into his brain, and from there into the deepest fibers of his being. There they still nestled, faded now to the faintest of whispers; these were the whispers that now guided him on his path.

  They told him that no one was meant to leave Tanlau. They all needed to be hunted; they needed to be killed.

  And Chris Thompson had been called to do it.

  Having regained control over his racing pulse, the man with the mission turned to face the exit of this place, and the entrance to his destiny. With his purpose cemented in his mind he set out with a new target in mind.

  "Alright Prophet, let's see if you see this coming!"

  Chuckling at his own wit, Chris boldly strode to the door leading to the stockroom. His confidence was as high as it had ever been, right until a flurry of movement to his left ended with the barrel of a 9mm pressing firmly into his temple.

  Now conflicting emotions assaulted his fragile mind. Fear for his life. Anger that his childlike habit of telling jokes to himself had distracted him. Pride that despite his shock, barely a trickle of urine had escaped down his leg. And then that fear again, which seemed committed to being the dominant feeling he experienced.

  "Are you armed
?" asked a dark figure he couldn't quite focus on. The voice was not angry, nor did it sound particularly evil. Only confident, and dangerous. Lying did not seem like a good idea.

  "Y-Yes," he stammered. "There's a .45 under my c-coat."

  "Alright, now very slow and calm, right hand on top of your head. With the forefinger and thumb of your left, unzip your jacket." The click of the hammer cocking back underscored the need to do exactly as he was told.

  With trembling hands, Chris followed instructions to the letter. He briefly wondered if this was what the inmates he executed in Santa Maria felt before the end.

  "Now, both hands behind your head, fingers interlocked."

  As he complied, the stranger roughly turned him to face the wall. His feet were kicked out beyond shoulder width and he was pushed forward until his head braced him against the wall. In this tripod-like position, he had no balance and felt a vulnerability he hadn't known since being shoved in his locker the day before he dropped out of high school in favor of home schooling.

  When his gun was snatched from its holster, Thompson was glad he had been truthful about it. The maniac behind him may well have splashed his face across the drywall had he tried to hide it. He didn't know if it was one of Prophet's men or some other hoodlum with a gun trained on him, but the guy was obviously no good. Anyone who pulled a gun on a man in a Bureau of Prisons uniform had to be the lowest of the low.

  After a disturbingly thorough pat-down revealed no more weapons, the hand that had kept him leaning against the wall was removed, but Chris still didn't move.

  "Turn around and keep your back to the wall." The instructions were delivered clear and concise, with the bored professionalism of someone who had done this many times.

  Doing as he was told, the correctional officer placed his back firmly against the wall. He still couldn't make out his captor, who stood farther back in the shadows, but he could see that the gun had been lowered. Maybe he would survive this after all.

  "Thompson?"

  His heart didn't skip a beat, it completely forgot how to beat. If this man knew his name, it had to be an inmate. Which meant he was a dead man.

  Sensing his last chance, he lunged at the man. Better to go out fighting than be butchered like so many of his colleagues.

  Unfortunately, his attacker was more agile and the admittedly chunky officer found himself face down in a pile of wing nuts. The minor indentations he was sure the hardware would leave in his face were not nearly as disconcerting as the knee in his back or the gun pressed into the back of his skull.

  "I'm going to chalk that up to post-apocalyptic jitters, Mr. Thompson, but I'm going to need your assurance that it won't happen again."

  Chris could feel his nerves unraveling like the knockoff Persian rug in his apartment. Voices of fallen comrades encouraged him; they gave him the comfort of knowing he would not die alone.

  "Just kill me and get it over with." The growling voice came out so strong he almost didn't recognize it as his own.

  "I'd really rather not, but I'm not ruling the option out. Now, can I trust you to stay calm if I let you up so we can talk?"

  What the hell was going on here? This sadistic madman wanted to chat before he tortured and killed him? For just a moment he considered that this man was not an enemy, but the whispers in his head said he would be crazy to believe that. Still, it might be beneficial to play along and see what the scam was.

  "I'll be calm."

  "You're not just saying that so I'll let you up, are you?"

  "No, I think we should talk."

  No one moved for a few breaths; the knee in his back must be attached to a carefully considerate mind. Finally, the pressure eased and Chris was allowed to sit up. He turned slowly to look at his attacker.

  "Saul?" This was worse than he thought. "Is that you?"

  "What are you doing in here?" The normally quiet inmate kept the gun trained on him, but casually in a manner that suggested it just happened to be pointed that way.

  "I saw your boss in the alley and ducked in here to wait him out." Thompson would never admit to fleeing and hiding in terror.

  "My 'boss?'" The confusion on his face would have been convincing if the officer weren't already aware of this particular convict's prodigious acting ability.

  For the past three years, Inmate Saul had been a model prisoner. No write-ups, no time in the Hole, and no conflicts with staff that required alternative discipline. By all appearances he seemed to be a reformed man who genuinely regretted his past actions.

  This is how Thompson knew he could act. Once a criminal, always a criminal.

  "Hutchins. I saw him come into the alley up ahead, and the time was not right for me to face him."

  "You plan on facing the Prophet?"

  "You plan on stopping me?" Chris felt the world pause as he challenged the gun-wielding man with the kind of bravado that can only come from a divine calling.

  Saul stared hard at him, obviously contemplating putting a bullet in his head to defend his master. Such a good little lapdog he was, now that he stopped the charade of being at odds with the big guy that took up so much time back in the prison. Yes, this inmate's talent for deception made him dangerous, but now his true colors were showing.

  "No, I don't plan on stopping you. As a matter of fact, we could use your help."

  The voices of his exterminated partners screamed in his head as this opportunity opened to him. He now knew what he must do.

  And David Saul would die last.

  91

  Darkness descended, leaving the gym flickering in torchlight; a haunted house where the figures of wax had come alive and seethed with furious vengeance. To the half-drunk guards at the periphery of the building, the prisoners looked cowed, huddled as they were in the bleachers. But the whispers they took for fearful pleas were actually fervent prayers and final plans. These people were the heart of the America that was, they were no more capable of submitting to prolonged injustice than blood was capable of flowing back into the veins of those who gave their lives to establish their freedom.

  Lisa surveyed their flashing eyes and listened to the growing sounds of drunken revelry outside. More blood would flow tonight, and at her direction. None of her adventure novels ever described the mix of resolution and dread churning in her gut.

  The time to act was rapidly approaching, and oddly enough, many of the men and women gathered here were now looking at her. True, she had developed the plan, but as fragile as that was, she had hardly earned leadership status. Not for the first time she found herself wondering what David would do.

  Her plan had no specific actions designed to find her rescuer, but she fully intended to repay the heroism and loyalty he had shown her. Even in absentia he continued to help her; she had spread word that he was out there somewhere and his abilities had grown through the grapevine to herculean standards.

  John moved to sit next to her and pat her knee with a reassuring hand. "It's almost time. I think a few words might be in order."

  Lisa smiled and nodded, turning in her seat to give the old mayor her undivided attention. After a few seconds of awkward staring at each other, he chuckled quietly. "No dear," he said with a glint in his eye, "they don't want to hear from me tonight."

  Glancing around, the nurse realized that the entire assemblage looked to her now. If the knowledge that her plan would endanger these people had made her queasy, having them depend on her motivational speaking ability had her downright terrified. They were strangers, people she had tried to abandon to this gang, but now they saw her as their champion. If they knew what I was feeling right now, they wouldn't trust me so much.

  But they did trust her, and for once in her life, she would not disappoint those who depended on her. She was no hero, but she would honor those who were by giving it her all.

  "Yesterday morning I didn't know any of you. I was intent on bypassing Webster en route to Midling, and although I knew that this gang was here, I didn't care. I had m
y own concerns, and this town was only an obstacle between them and me.

  "But I wasn't alone, and my hand was forced. I was accompanied by a man that gave all he could give for this country, before the country took what he couldn't give. His selfless service was repaid by the raping of his soul, and he broke. If he hadn't, I never would have met him, nor would I have met you all.

  "See, while I tried to skirt around town, this man showed his real soul. It wasn't a flag or a government he was made to serve, but an ideal. When they threw him in prison, they couldn't take the Soldier out of him. When they kicked him out of the Army, they didn't remove his values. Everything they did to him only made him stronger. It was that strength, that commitment to an ideal, that made him stop here. It was him that made me stop here."

  Lisa knew she was blowing this speech, but all she could do was continue from the heart. She had revealed her cowardice and selfishness, at least now they knew what kind of person they followed. Remembering how David had won her trust and inspired her to find self-confidence to face her toppled world, she met their eyes as she continued.

  "Now I know the ideal that he lives for. Now I know why he is imprisoned somewhere in this town where he knows no one. You are that ideal. People everywhere have forgotten that a neighbor doesn't have to share your skin, creed, or accent; the only requirement is a shared community. Small towns like this are where that sense of community must flourish if America is to return to what she was created to be. Our world has fallen apart, and we have all suffered grievous losses. But now is our time to make a stand. Together we will stand against not only these men who hold us captive, but also against the very idea that we can be divided.

  "We will stand in defiance of a sadistic tyrant who thinks he can subjugate us through fear. He thinks he can intimidate us by hurting our neighbors and threatening us with the same. But we know better; we know that in hurting our neighbor, he already hurt us. We will not stand idly by and wait our turn, for our turn is long past due!"