by Paul Herron
“I don’t think so. Martinez said it was for the Northside staff room door. That’s where I have my locker.”
She must have seen the look of disappointment on my face.
“What?”
“Well… here’s the thing. You said all the inmates are loose. That all the cell doors in this place are open?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I hate to break it to you, but there’s only one way to get to the Northside staff room. And that’s past seven prison units. Through about eight hundred pissed-off, blood-crazed inmates. I’m talking psychopaths, rapists, pedophiles, murderers, child-killers, wife-killers, bank robbers, animal-fuckers, cannibals, and serial killers.” I smile humorlessly. “Welcome to the Ravenhill Correctional Facility. Abandon hope, all who enter here. Bed and breakfast included.”
“Oh,” says Sawyer. Then, “Shit.”
“Shit indeed.”
Nine
11:30 p.m.
The water in A Wing is just below my calves, but that’s definitely not from us opening the infirmary door just now. It’s getting in somewhere else, which means it’s going to keep rising. It’s not as bad as in the infirmary, but that’s like saying having a blowout where three tires explode is not as bad as all four tires going.
I wade to a door about six feet away and peer through the window into the corridor beyond. Most of the lights have been destroyed. The thick Plexiglas coverings have been ripped away, the globes smashed or stolen. Some of the casings have been ripped right out of the ceiling, the wires dangling from circular holes. Paper and torn books float on the surface of the water like leaves in a lake. There are more blood smears on the walls.
My stomach clenches up. This is reminding me too much of Afghanistan. My whole body is screaming at me not to go any farther. To find a place to hide, to find weapons, anything except go forward.
But just like then, I’ve got no choice. I have to stop thinking. Just act.
I take a deep breath and pull the door open. I half expect to hear someone shout out. Or jump at me brandishing a knife. But nothing happens.
I step into the passage. The light above the door is gone. The area surrounding me is cloaked in shadows. Sawyer follows. I wonder how she must feel. If she gets caught by the inmates…
I can’t help glancing over my shoulder at her. Christ, if they get hold of her…
“What?” she says softly.
I shake my head. “Listen, I don’t want to sound patronizing here, but you need to stay out of sight, okay? Even if someone attacks me… you need to keep hidden.”
“A gallant murderer. How sweet.”
“I’m not a murderer,” I snap. “Don’t call me that. I punished someone who killed my wife and baby. And I’d do it again. I will do it again. Soon as I get to the Glasshouse.”
She looks at me, surprised. “I thought we were going to the Glasshouse to find shelter. Are the men who killed your wife there?”
“They are now. And there’s no reason I can’t do both.”
She gives me a long look, but doesn’t respond. There’s nothing to say.
We start moving again, wading slowly along the passage, making our way toward the corridor that connects A Wing to Admin and Ravenhill itself.
There’s a faint rumbling sound that’s bothering me. It’s just on the edge of hearing, but it seems to be getting stronger. It’s not the wind. It sounds different. Somehow… deeper. I’m about to ask Sawyer if she can hear it, when we hear frantic splashing coming from up ahead. Then:
“No…!” A shout trailing off into a scream.
I grab Sawyer and push her through the closest door. I catch a brief glimpse of shelves of books—the library—then turn and quickly close the door. Not all the way. I keep it open just enough so I can see through the gap.
A figure sprints into view, his face twisted with fear. A wolf-like howling echoes from the passage behind him, trailing away into a series of yips.
The guy sees the library door. He leaps forward and tries to push it open.
I don’t let him.
“What the hell are you doing?” Sawyer whispers fiercely. She tries to pull the door open, but I hold it firm.
“Let him in!”
“Don’t be stupid.”
I use my hip to shove her aside and put all my weight on the door. The guy on the other side is pushing hard, forcing the small gap wider. He realizes that someone is actually holding the door closed, and he peers inward, locking eyes with me.
“Let me in!”
“I can’t.”
“They’re going to—”
Four figures suddenly appear in the corridor, ululating in triumph. They leap through the water. One grabs the terrified inmate by the neck, slamming his face against the door. I jerk back, trying to hold it steady.
The attackers throw the guy to the floor, then lay into him. Kicking him in the face, the ribs, stamping on his head. He starts out screaming and moaning, but it’s only a few moments before he falls silent.
Still, the beating continues. Then one of the figures pulls out a long bread knife that must have been stolen from the kitchen. He leans down and slices it across the unconscious figure’s throat. Blood pools out, slowly spreading and darkening the water.
The four inmates watch for a few moments, then stroll off, laughing and joking as they go.
I turn—
—straight into Sawyer’s slap.
I stagger back, eyes wide with amazement. “The fuck?”
“The fuck? The fuck? You just let that man die!”
“There was nothing I could do!”
“You could have let him in!”
“And then what? Those four would have come after him. We’d all be dead now. I was protecting us.”
She opens her mouth to argue, but I cut her off.
“Save it. Look, I’m sorry you feel shit, but it was him or us.”
“You’re responsible for his death!”
I frown, but not because of what she said. There’s something…
“All you had to do—”
I hold up my hand. “Shut up.”
Sawyer actually takes a step back to get a full look at me, as if she’s not sure she heard correctly. “Did you just…?”
“… tell you to shut up? Yes! Now shut the fuck up! Listen!”
She stops. We both stand in silence, surrounded by books and water that I suddenly notice is almost up to my knees.
“What…?” she says.
“Look.”
I point to the water. Ripples are spreading toward the center of the room. I put my hand on the wall. I can feel it thrumming, a vibration that’s growing stronger by the second.
Sawyer and I lock eyes. I can hear a noise now, a low roar that rises above and beyond the constant background cry of the hurricane. It hits me like a heavy bass beat in the chest.
Something is coming.
I feel a primeval fear in the very depth of my being, the fear of being at the mercy of something I have no control over.
“What is that?” whispers Sawyer.
The ripples in the water are growing larger, faster, lapping up against my legs. I can feel the vibration through my feet now. The roaring sound is growing louder and louder.
I look around desperately, but there’s nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. We’re trapped.
The noise increases in volume, a roar that is shaking everything. Books fall from the shelves, splashing into the water.
I pull the library door open. The water in the passage outside surges back and forth in waves, whitecaps breaking against the walls and surging up into the air.
I think I can hear the sounds of screaming above the roar.
I lean out and peer along the corridor just as the door we used to enter this part of the prison bursts inward, pulled from its hinges, flying through the air and banging against the wall. Water explodes into the passage, a torrential flood that pummels and slams into every corner. The walls themselves start to bu
ckle, then sag. Holes open up, jets of water spraying through before the walls give way under the pressure and collapse.
I slam the library door shut. Sawyer and I move back against the far wall, but we’re trapped. No way out.
The door slams open like it’s been hit by a battering ram. Water roars inside, a gushing, surging flood that instantly engulfs and swallows us.
My feet fly out from under me. I go under, the crosscurrents tossing me around as if I’m a leaf in a gale. I’m thrown against the wall. My head cracks into a shelf, then I’m yanked away and thrown sideways as the floodwater surges into every corner of the library.
I try to right myself, try to fight the raging currents. My lungs strain for air. I need to climb, to break the surface. I try to swim upward, but I can’t get anywhere. I can’t escape the water. I stop fighting, whirl around in confusion. I think I can make out lights beneath me, on the floor. But that can’t be right. Why would there be lights on the floor?
No. I realize I’ve been turned around. I’ve been swimming in the wrong direction.
I kick off toward the lights, clawing with my hands, trying to fight the swirling currents. I finally break the surface, gasping in lungfuls of air. I’m about three feet from the ceiling, and the water is still pouring inside.
I turn in a frantic circle, searching for Sawyer. I can’t see her anywhere.
The water surges over my head again. This time it goes in my mouth, up my nose. I cough and splutter, feeling my lungs constrict. I panic, take another huge breath, swallowing more water as I’m pulled under. Dim pools of light flash and flicker behind my eyes as I try to find my way back to the surface. I’ve been tossed around again. I can’t tell what’s up and what’s down.
I try to force the water from my lungs, but I just end up coughing, sucking more in. My throat constricts. I gag, but there’s no air. My lungs spasm. Panic wells up and I frantically pull myself in any direction I can, hoping it might lead me to the surface.
Something grabs me by the hair. Instinctively I lash out, trying to escape, but then I realize it’s someone trying to pull me up. I stop fighting and push off with my legs and arms, finally able to figure out which way is up.
I burst through the water and slam my head against the ceiling tiles. I suck in air and reach up, trying to stabilize myself against the roof. The water swirls fiercely around me. I wipe my eyes and see Sawyer treading water next to me, trying to steady herself against the wall and the ceiling.
I look around desperately. The water is boiling and frothing by the door, although the doorway itself is now completely submerged. There’s no way we can fight the current and get out. And even if we could, so what? Where can we go? The water is everywhere. A Wing is the lowest set of buildings in the prison compound. It’s being swallowed up by the hurricane.
Then something catches my eye. Where my head hit the ceiling tile, there’s a small gap. My eyes widen. Of course, the library is supposed to be staff only. No need for concrete ceilings in here. I push up, shoving the ceiling tile in. A dark space greets me. I wave at Sawyer, gesturing upward. She clambers through first, then I pull myself up after her.
The actual roof of the prison is about four feet above us, forcing us to stay hunched over. Pipes and cable-tied electrical wires cover the walls. I balance on the metal support struts so I don’t fall back into the room below.
The sound of the hurricane is deafening up here. The screaming of the wind, the rattling and pounding on the roof itself, the roaring of the water below. It’s hard to even think straight. Adrenaline surges through my body. It feels exactly like it did when I was in Marjah. That urge to act, that need to keep moving, to fight. To survive at all costs.
Sawyer and I start to move. It’s not totally dark. Some of the downlights are still working, their illumination shining back up into the ceiling space. It won’t last long. The water is going to trip the electrics soon enough.
I think we’ve been moving for about a full minute when Sawyer stops. I get close to her, shout in her ear.
“What are you doing?”
“Listen!” she shouts back.
I tilt my head, trying to hear anything different in the sounds of the hurricane. I think I can hear screaming coming from down below, almost hidden beneath the thunderous boom of the water.
Sawyer kneels down on the struts and slams a few of the ceiling tiles out. They drop a foot into the water and are swept away by the current. Through the gap I can see some inmates struggling to stay afloat in a room. I think I recognize one of them. Castillo. A lieutenant in the Latin Kings gang.
“Leave them!” I shout.
“No!” she screams. “We can’t.”
She leans down even farther and holds her arm out.
“Hey!”
Castillo turns in her direction. Sawyer gestures for him to swim toward us. He looks confused at first, then spots me next to her.
I sigh and lean down, holding my arm out too. Castillo tries to swim toward us, but the surging water keeps pulling him back. He eventually stops fighting the current and just relaxes, letting the water take him round in circles until he’s passing directly below us.
He grabs Sawyer’s hand. I shift over and take hold of him too, the both of us dragging him up into the ceiling. Other members of the Kings have seen what we’re doing and are trying to swim toward us. But one guy—Silas, I think his name is, one of the biggest guys I’ve ever seen—decides not to even bother trying. He jabs upward with a meat cleaver he’s holding, pushing out a ceiling tile about ten feet away.
I straighten up. Castillo hesitates, his gaze lingering on Sawyer. Then he turns and moves across to where Silas is now struggling to pull himself up into the ceiling space.
Sawyer kicks in more ceiling tiles, leaning over and pulling up any of the Kings she can grab from the room below. I hesitate. I should just keep moving. I don’t owe Castillo anything. He’d kill me as soon as look at me any other day. And Sawyer… well, it’s becoming obvious that’s she’s actually insane. Or terminally naïve. Either way, she’s going to get me killed eventually.
But I don’t move on. I sigh and join her. The quicker it’s done, the quicker we can get moving.
When it’s clear there are no more inmates in the room below, I gesture to Sawyer that we need to go. We managed to rescue nine inmates in all. I’m not sure how many there were to start with. Sawyer pauses, but then nods. Good. So she’s not entirely stupid. We set off. I leap from strut to strut, heading in the general direction of the uphill corridor that leads into Admin.
I know I’m close when we reach a brick wall in the roof space that blocks any way through. That means we’re moving out of the staff areas and into the prison proper. I kick in the ceiling tiles below me. The water doesn’t look as high here. Maybe just above my chest. There must be a few closed doors stopping the flood. They won’t last long, though.
I drop into the water, Sawyer following right behind me. Castillo’s men do the same, sticking with us in the hope that we have some kind of plan. Joke’s on them. I’m probably leading us all to our deaths.
I start swimming and wading, pulling myself toward the doors that lead into the corridor. Sawyer is right next to me, her hair plastered to her head. I look behind me and see Castillo and his men still coming. There are others too. Inmates from A Wing taken by surprise by the flood, all following us in the hope that we’re heading to safety. The water is rising fast. It’s almost up to my shoulders now. The roaring is growing louder again, like we’re standing beneath a massive waterfall. I wipe my eyes as we arrive at the door and I try to open it.
It’s locked.
Sawyer moves in front of me and fumbles with her keys. The inmates are crowding behind us now, pushing us against the door, shouting panicked questions.
I try to shove them back, but they’re too tightly packed. I have to turn and lash out. Punching those closest to us, yanking them by the hair, just to give Sawyer room to try to get the keys into the lock.
She’s fumbling beneath the water, trying to insert the keys by touch. I hear a deafening crash from somewhere behind us, followed by screams and a sudden increase in the sounds of surging water. What the hell was that? Another wall going down? The roof caving in?
I look at Sawyer. She is pale and struggling with the lock. Then her face clears and she nods in my direction. She tries to pull the door open. It doesn’t budge. I grab the handle with her. Pull. Nothing. Other inmates grab hold, all of us trying to fight against the weight of the water.
The door finally shifts. Water surges into the corridor as we slowly pull it open. It’s absolute chaos as everyone rushes through, clambering over each other, fighting to get away from the rising water.
We’re all swept up in the rush. Nobody can stop. It’s either move forward or be crushed underfoot. I try to find Sawyer. I catch a glimpse of her up ahead, helping someone who must have been knocked over in the stampede.
We all move as fast as we can up the slanted corridor. It feels like it’s never-ending. I look back and see that even more inmates have joined the exodus. Jesus, there must be at least eighty now, all trying to funnel into the narrow passage leading up to Admin.
The door ahead is only about twenty feet away, but it doesn’t seem to be drawing any closer. The water level is rising rapidly, the floodwater entering the corridor and surging up the incline. The inmates are shoulder to shoulder. It’s getting difficult to even move.
Then the water starts to lap over the heads of those at the bottom of the corridor.
I can feel the shift, the rise of sudden panic. Inmates start to flail around, desperate to leave A Wing behind. We’re pushed forward by those at the back, some tripping and plunging beneath the water, trampled underfoot.
I’m shoved up against one of the small windows. A flash of lightning outside draws my attention. At first I can’t figure out what I’m looking at. The lighting seems to be reflecting off a wall about thirty feet high.
Another flash. I see a car tumble past, lifting into the air and skimming across the surface of the water like a skipping stone.
And behind it, lit by the lightning… a wave… a storm surge that looks like a tsunami, thirty feet high, cresting, coming straight for the prison.