by Paul Herron
“This is Sheriff Montoya. All staff is directed to meet in the cafeteria. Repeat, all staff to the cafeteria right now.”
The voice is scratchy and tinny as it issues from the speaker. Sawyer barely hears it. She’s sitting in the staff room in Northside, her stomach in knots as she watches the storm through the reinforced glass.
Everything is dark. Lightning flickers every few seconds, illuminating the churning clouds, lighting up the torrential rain as it’s thrown from the sky. Debris flies through the air and tumbles hard to the ground. She’s already seen a car bumper, a street sign, and random pieces of wood. She tracks all the wood and timber, doing a mental jigsaw in her head as she tries to identify its origin. She thinks it must have been a shed or a hut that’s been ripped apart.
What the hell is she doing here? She must have been insane to fight her way to work this morning. Was it even worth it? Nobody has really noticed she’s come in. She could easily have postponed her first day, skipped town with the other evacuees and come in once everything had returned to normal.
But no. She had to stick to her plan. Her timeline. That was all that mattered to her. Making sure everything was done properly. It was stupid. She can see that now. Her stubbornness has a very real chance of getting her killed. But she had to do it. For her brother.
She blinks and looks away from the window. What had the sheriff said? To meet in the cafeteria? Right.
She stands up and uses the keycard Martinez gave her to exit the room. She hasn’t come across the cafeteria yet. She’s not sure where it is. She moves along the silent corridors, peering through doors as she passes. Lots of offices, some empty rooms, some storage closets, a small gym with bikes and treadmills squashed inside, but no cafeteria.
She eventually finds it close to the door into the long staff corridor that leads to Admin. But it’s empty. Just a few tables and two vending machines, one with drinks, one with junk food.
That’s when she realizes how much of an idiot she is. Martinez said there was a staff cafeteria in Admin. That’s where everyone will be. That’s where all their offices are.
She swears under her breath and uses the keycard to open the door leading into the staff corridor. She pauses briefly at the daunting sight of it stretching ahead of her. She knows she’s going to come to hate this corridor. She hates it already and she’s only used it once.
She sighs and sets off at a fast walk.
When Sawyer finally arrives in Admin, it’s completely deserted. All the desks in the open-plan office are empty.
Soft music comes from somewhere; a hidden radio tuned to a seventies station. “Well I don’t know why I came here tonight…”
You and me both, she thinks. She shivers, glancing around the empty bull pen. She feels odd, like she’s trespassing. Like she shouldn’t be here.
She picks one of the corridors leading out of the office space. She has no idea where she’s going, so one corridor is as good as another. It leads her deeper into the large building Martinez called Admin. She moves silently, her ears straining, but she doesn’t pick up any sounds other than those of the storm.
She’s about to turn back, intending to take another of the passages, when she spots an evacuation plan on the wall. She hurries over to inspect it, finds the “You are here” mark, then searches outward for the cafeteria.
There. Back through the bull pen and along a corridor to the left. She takes the map out of the Lucite frame and folds it up, placing it in her back pocket. She might need it if she gets lost again.
She retraces her steps to the passage indicated on the map. It doesn’t take long to find the cafeteria. It’s a large space with tables and benches bolted to the floor and a long food pass-through on the opposite side of the room. Off to the left there’s an open doorway leading into what she assumes is the kitchen.
The cafeteria is empty.
Sawyer feels a growing sense of alarm.
“Hello?”
She waits, but there’s no answer.
“Hello?” She shouts this time. Still, nothing.
She pulls out the map and unfolds it. She finds what she’s looking for—Sheriff Montoya’s office. She needs to find him. Find out what’s going on.
She heads through the cafeteria and into the kitchen. Both walls are lined with huge ovens and gas cooktops. She exits into a narrower corridor, then turns right, making her way along the hallway until she enters one of the main passages of Admin. It’s much wider than the others, easily ten feet across; according to the map, it travels from one side of the building to the other.
She counts the doors as she walks until she finds the sheriff’s office. She knocks, but there’s no answer.
She pushes the door open and peers inside. Empty.
She’s about to close the door again when her eyes are drawn to the desk. It’s covered with charts and printouts. Satellite imagery of the hurricane. She moves closer, glancing through the various pieces of paper. They’re all from the National Hurricane Center. The first page is dated three days ago, and each one is an update on the path and severity of the hurricane as it gathers strength and approaches land.
No… hurricanes. She reads the reports with growing horror. Josephine and Hannah. Coming together to form a superstorm.
She flicks back to the first page. It’s a projected timeline of the superstorm as it passes over Florida. The tail end of the hurricane is only going to pass them around midday tomorrow, but the projections are all saying Florida will be totally flooded by then.
One particular sentence catches her eye. It gives the projected time of the eye of the hurricane arriving over the Miami coastline, 5:05 a.m.
And scribbled next to it in red ink: 5:40–6:20.
That must be when the eye passes over the prison. The eye of the hurricane—an area of calm, usually about a mile wide.
She hears a door slamming shut somewhere farther up the corridor. She exits the office, searching for the origin of the sound. She’s starting to panic now. She has a growing suspicion about what’s happened, but she doesn’t want to admit it to herself. Because if it’s true, it means she’s in serious shit.
She spots something that pulls her up short.
A door stands wide open, a ring bristling with keys dangling in the lock.
She approaches cautiously and peers into the corridor beyond. According to her map, this corridor is a sally port that leads into the first of the prison units. Unit 1 of Gen Pop. There’s no one around. She pulls the keys from the lock and steps into the corridor.
“Hello?”
She follows the passage until she comes to another open door on her left. This one leads into a security control room. She steps inside. It’s empty, but there are monitors and computers everywhere, camera feeds showing various shots from the prison blocks.
Sawyer stops moving, her eyes wide with shock as she attempts to take in what’s happening on the screens.
There’s a riot going on in Unit 1. All the cell doors are standing wide open. Every single one.
The inmates are free.
Sawyer’s eyes flick among the security monitors. It’s just… it’s just people killing each other: inmates fighting, stabbing, breaking necks, mobs chasing down lone figures, throwing them to the ground and kicking the life out of them, stomping on faces and skulls.
She tries to look away, but every monitor holds something similar. Scenes of death, the floors and walls covered in blood.
Three of the monitors show an outside feed. She stares in shock as a bus passes the camera. Her eyes widen. It looks like the bus is filled with COs.
They’re leaving. Abandoning the inmates.
Abandoning her.
She turns to the desks. Five computer screens show electronic blueprints of the prison. All the cell doors that are supposed to be locked and marked red are currently green.
She pulls out a chair and sits down. She uses the mouse to pull back the view. It’s not just Unit 1. It’s the entire prison. Even
the Mental Health and Administrative Control units—the two blocks where the psychopaths are kept.
They’re all loose. Eight hundred inmates.
And they have the run of the prison.
Sawyer feels panic well up inside her. Her neck prickles, like someone is standing behind her blowing on it. She hesitates, not wanting to turn.
Her stomach twists. She lunges to her feet, shoves the chair back and whirls around.
There’s no one there. She takes a deep breath, her eyes fixed on the open door leading out into the corridor. Jesus Christ. If she’s found wandering around…
She darts forward and slams the door shut.
She needs to get out of here. Now. Her thoughts are racing. How? What can she do?
The bus. They obviously didn’t know she was here when they left. Martinez said she wasn’t on the employee list yet. That’s why she had to give her a temp keycard. They’ll come back for her, surely? She just needs to tell them she’s still here.
Next to the monitors is a small box with an LCD screen and a transmitter hooked to the side. She grabs the transmitter and pushes the button. “Hello?”
Nothing.
She checks the box. The screen isn’t even lit up. She finds the power button. Static bursts out of the speaker. She pushes the button again. “Hello? Anyone there?” She releases the button. Still, no answer.
This isn’t going to work. She needs to know what channel the bus communications are on.
She searches around the desk until she finds a binder with laminated pages inside. She starts to flick through it when she hears a shout outside the room.
She ducks down, then crawls to the window. She peers through the thick safety glass, sees an inmate sprinting down the corridor chased by two other men. None of them try to get into the security room, but she uses the keys she found to lock the door anyway.
She stays low and crawls back to the binder, paging through it until she finds the channels for the prison buses. There are only four. She types in the first number.
“Sheriff Montoya? Are you there?”
Nothing. Just static.
She tries the next code, then the next and the next, before going back to the beginning and trying them again, one after the other, until finally someone answers.
“H… hello?”
“Who is this?” she demands.
“Uh… Louis.”
Sawyer hears a loud screeching over the speaker, then someone shouting.
“Louis? You still there?”
“Who is this? Is this the National Guard? We need help.”
She’s about to answer when she hears a sudden crashing and a scream of fear. “Watch out! Watch—”
Then a burst of static.
“Louis? Hey, Louis, talk to me.”
No answer. She pushes the button again. “Louis? You there?”
Static.
Jesus Christ. Sawyer slumps down onto the floor. Was that really what it sounded like? She can’t escape the thought.
That was the transport bus crashing.
She throws the transmitter back on the desk in a fit of rage. What the hell were they thinking? Abandoning their duties like that? Leaving the prisoners to fend for themselves while they made a run for it? Why would they do something like that?
Her thoughts race. The only possible reason—the only thing that makes the slightest bit of sense—is that Montoya didn’t think this place was going to survive the coming storm. Obviously they thought the Glasshouse would; they wouldn’t be using it for the evacuated prisoners if they didn’t. But it wasn’t looking good for the Ravenhill Correctional Facility itself.
Or for the prisoners inside.
Or, in fact, for her.
She can hear the inmates screaming and shouting now. The volume has been steadily increasing over the past few minutes, but she’s tried her best to ignore it.
She can’t. Not anymore. She blinks and looks around as if seeing her surroundings for the first time. What is she going to do? She has to adapt her plan. She can’t just abandon it al-together. This might very well be the last chance she has. If she’s going to die, she’s at least going to die doing what she came here for.
She crawls to the window and peers out into the corridor. She presses her forehead against the glass, trying to see into Unit 1. But she can’t. The angle is all wrong.
She hesitates, wondering what to do. Wait and hide? Or take a chance?
She already knows the answer. She was never one to play it safe.
She puts one hand on the keys still sitting in the lock, the other on the handle. She slowly unlocks, then opens the door, slipping the key out, then back into the lock on the other side of the door.
She hesitates one last time. Once she steps into the passage, she can’t stop again. She’ll have to keep moving or she’ll be eaten alive.
Sawyer takes a deep breath, then moves out into the corridor. She pulls the door closed behind her, locks it and pulls out the keys…
… Then she runs.
She feels an instant wave of panic. She stumbles, almost turns back. This is stupid. Suicidal. She’s going to die. She’s going to be caught. Fuck knows what they’ll do to her.
But what else can she do? Hide underneath the desk for… how long? Hours? Days? Until the hurricane strips the roof away and takes her out? No. She has to move forward. Staying still—stopping—means death.
She pushes on, forcing one foot in front of the other. She can hear screaming, shouting, shrill laughter coming from the open units behind her. God knows what’s going on in the seven complexes that make up Ravenhill. All those inmates roaming around, free to settle scores, free to do whatever they want. It’s going to be a bloodbath.
Her thoughts keep going back to what would happen if they caught her. She can’t help it. She glances over her shoulder. Nothing there. But she can’t shake the feeling that someone is going to just reach out and grab her, yank her back and drag her into a room.
And then—
“Hey!”
She throws a look over her shoulder. There are two guys standing at the other end of the corridor, back toward the security room. They glance at each other, then start to run.
Sawyer stifles a sob and sprints along the corridor, emerging back into the open-plan bull pen. She heads straight across the floor, into a random passage, running until she finds herself in the entrance and reception area of the prison. There’s a door on the opposite side of the room. She makes for it, yanking it open and sprinting through. She almost falls flat on her face, suddenly finding herself in a downward-sloping corridor. She regains her balance and glances back, thinking she has time to lock the doors. She doesn’t. The men are too close.
“Where you running to?” shouts one of them. “Come on. We just wanna have some fun.”
Sawyer puts her head down and wills every last ounce of energy from her body, using the downward slope of the corridor to gain extra speed. She collides with the door at the bottom and pushes down on the handle at the same time, throwing it open and swinging around in a circle as it opens. She slams it shut behind her and grabs the keys, sobbing in frustration as she rams them, one by one, into the lock. None of them fit.
One of the inmates hits the door. The handle goes down and the door opens slightly. Sawyer throws her weight against it, using her shoulder to try to ram it closed.
A flash of pain surges through her arm. She cries out and pushes the door closed, seeing a blade withdraw back through the gap. She tries to ignore the pain and keep the door handle pulled up while she fumbles another key into the lock.
This one fits. She yanks it to the right, sobbing with relief as she hears the tumblers click into place.
She lets out a shaky breath and turns around, sliding down onto the floor as the inmates pound on the door. She can feel it vibrating through her skin.
She examines her shoulder. There’s a gouge there, easily two inches long and about half an inch deep. Blood wells from it, soakin
g into her shirt. She holds the material down over the wound, hoping it will stop the flow. It won’t be enough. She needs to find the infirmary. She can get wound glue, or maybe surgical staples.
She pushes herself to her feet, pulls the map out of her pocket. She traces her path and realizes she’s in A Wing, the newer part of the prison that was built lower down on the hill. She checks over the evacuation map until she finds the infirmary for this wing. It’s not far from where she is now.
She sets off. There’s nobody around, but she can hear screaming and shouting coming from somewhere in the distance. She pauses at the end of the passage and peers around the corner. She freezes. There are three inmates moving away from her. One of them jumps up and smashes the overhead light with a long piece of metal. They laugh and disappear around the corner.
Sawyer takes a deep breath and slips into the passage, making her way toward the infirmary. Every step she takes is like walking through mud. Her whole being screams at her to run in the opposite direction, to hide, to make herself as small as possible. She feels the panic rising in her again, an urge—a need—to just flee. It’s almost impossible to fight. Every fiber of her soul screams out that she’s walking toward her death.
But all she can do is keep going forward. She’s trapped either way. She tries to block out the screams of pain, the shouts of triumph, the calling of gang names.
“Woods!”
“Chicanos!”
“East Bloods, motherfucker!”
She doesn’t know what’s going on. A standoff between gangs for control of the wing? For weapons? What? She feels tears well up and angrily wipes them away. No. Fuck you. I will not cry.
She keeps going. It’s the hardest thing she has ever done in her life, but she makes it to the infirmary door and finds the correct key.
She has just pushed the door open when something slams against the back of her head.
She cries out in pain, staggers. She holds herself up by the door as her vision swims. The nurse’s station in the infirmary fades in and out of view as she tries to pull herself around again. Her hands aren’t working properly. Her feet get tangled and she drops to her knees.
There’s a loud ringing in her ears. Echoing shouts come from down the hallway. She grips the door and tries to look into the corridor. An inmate is running toward her. Her head drops. She finds herself looking at the screed floor. Something there doesn’t make sense. It’s a pool ball, covered in blood. It has the number 7 on it.