by Donald Wells
Maynardville had been a thriving community for over a hundred years, right up until the time the new foreign investors closed the textile mill and moved their operations south, into Mexico.
The loss of the mill was a death sentence for the town, as nearly everyone worked either at the mill or in the town itself.
Those that didn’t work at the mill made their income by servicing those who did, in the form of bakers, barbers, and various other small town shopkeepers.
Maynardville had always fought hard against the encroachment of the big retail stores, and also the seemingly ubiquitous strip malls that lined the highways, all in an effort to keep the town from changing, but change wouldn’t be denied and made its dramatic appearance with the closing of the mill.
With no paychecks coming in and no way to pay the mortgage, property taxes, and upkeep, most residents, some with histories going back generations, simply abandoned their homes and scattered across the country.
Within a year, there were so few citizens left, that the schools closed and transferred the teachers to other districts. The town hospital, a one-story building that was more like a clinic, had been predominately funded by the mill, and when the mill closed, the clinic also closed its doors, along with the library and the tiny Maynardville post office.
The only sector of the town left unaffected was the police department, who wrote over ninety percent of their tickets to out-of-state speeders who used the mill road as a shortcut between the local highway and the airport, which was ten miles away.
The cops all stayed behind, along with Maynard, who swore he’d die before he left his town. The deputies were all single, but the mayor and the sheriff both had families, and a ghost town was no place to raise them.
With their departure, Maynard appointed himself to their jobs and became the undisputed ruler of a kingdom whose citizens numbered less than a dozen.
With no town services to pay for, the revenue from the speeding tickets was more than enough to finance the needs and even the wants of Maynard and his deputies, but with no one to answer to, and isolation their only ally, corruption followed as surely as night follows day.
The first incident occurred when Deputy Amos, the man Joe Cowley thought of as Fred, dragged in a drunken speeder to face the judge.
Maynard levied a hefty fine on the man in lieu of points on his license, and instead of expressing gratitude, the man sent a wad of spittle onto the Judge’s face.
Maynard, who was himself drunk at the time, leapt from behind the bench and beat the man so severely that he died overnight in his cell.
Covering up that death led the remaining citizens of Maynardville down a slippery slope, to the level of debauchery, and within a year, more than one attractive young woman stopped for speeding by the Maynardville P.D. was never seen again, and their bodies, raped and ravaged, were left in shallow graves throughout the Maynardville woods.
When change once again raised its head, it took shape as a crisis in the town’s infrastructure, as the sewage, power, and communication systems collapsed from neglect.
Maynard and his people were using generators and portable toilets on a daily basis by the time the Grayson Corporation came to call.
Grayson was looking for a place to build a prison. The Grayson Corporation saw the huge profit to be made from owning a private prison and thought that Maynardville would be the perfect spot for one.
The representative from the Grayson Corporation was Taylor Grayson, the founder’s son. After only one meeting with Judge Maynard, Grayson knew that he had found a corrupt soul and a useful fool, and a deal was struck to build the prison.
They built the prison in the valley on the banks of the Maynard River and soon busloads of prisoners were shipped in, the vast majority of them were illegal immigrants who had been scoped up in border raids.
The Grayson Corporation received nearly two-hundred dollars a day, per prisoner, money meant to go towards food, medical care, clothing, and upkeep.
In reality, most of the money was siphoned off and placed in offshore accounts, or used to fund Taylor Grayson’s real interest, his illegal drug trade.
When federal regulators made a surprise visit to the prison, they were appalled by the lack of documentation concerning the inmates and levied a damaging fine on the Grayson Corporation. Taylor Grayson was not a man to take a setback in stride and soon came upon a plan to regain the money that the federal fine had cost him.
A month later, through his contacts in the drug trade, he had a network in place to broadcast on the Internet to countries in South America, and that’s when the fights began.
Human cockfighting is what it was, as Maynard and Grayson forced men to fight to the death, while thousands watched and wagered on the outcomes.
With federal watchdogs now keeping a close eye on the inmate population, Grayson deemed it best to find his “contestants” elsewhere. Maynard and his men began abducting people from the nearby highways as Grayson offered them a hefty bounty for each warm body they procured.
The huge rise in missing persons soon attracted the interest of neighboring police agencies and so Maynard’s people began traveling farther afield for their prey.
That’s when Fred and Barney stumbled upon Joe Cowley and Jessica White’s husband.
***
The judge watched as his deputies herded the shackled men into vehicles for the trip to the prison.
He smiled as he thought about the man who had broken Deputy Dooley’s neck with one punch.
“Probably just a fluke,” Maynard mumbled to himself.
Still, it would be a good idea to visit Grayson and make a special deal for the man. If the man was as deadly as he seemed, he’d be worth a fortune.
Maynard grabbed his fedora from atop his desk and headed out the door with a smile forming upon his greedy lips.
***
Joe Cowley hadn’t been this scared since he was in Iraq. He, the stranger, and the rest of the men from the courtroom, were all being marched through the prison, as the inmates stared down at them from the upper tiers.
From the outside, the prison appeared to be a drab, gray fifty-foot high building, that had several satellite buildings on the western side of it. The largest of the outer buildings was a three-story home, most likely that of the warden, and it was surrounded by its own razor wire fence.
The other buildings were utilitarian in nature and much smaller.
Most of the inmates staring down at them were Hispanic and seemed impassive; however, a few pointed while making remarks to their fellows that Joe was certain were rude in their nature.
As they shuffled along in their chains, he searched the faces of his comrades and found fear the dominate trait animating them, but not on the stranger’s face. The stranger’s face appeared as impassive as the foreign faces glaring down, with one exception, the strangers eyes were taking in everything that they could, and Joe could only assume that he was already planning his escape.
The deputies from the town guided them along a corridor on the left and the concrete floor beneath them changed from gray to red. Other than the change in floor color, the corridor offered something else, a view. As they approached the cells, they could see down into what must be the exercise yard, as various weight sets and benches were scattered about. The yard was empty now, and the patch of sky above it looked as dark and devoid of hope as Joe felt inside.
Fred pulled a radio from off his belt and yelled into it.
“Open red zone!”
Within seconds, the white bars on the dozen cells slid aside and they were pushed into them haphazardly, but Joe was relieved to find that he was in the stranger’s group.
There were two men already inside, a lanky guy with a freckled face and straw-colored hair, and an accountant type, whose left eye was surrounded by a sickly, yellow splotch that looked like the last trace of a bad bruise, as if he had recently suffered a beating. Both of the men looked as if they hadn’t shaved in weeks.
It took only two cells to hold them, and Fred once again yelled into the radio.
“Close red zone!”
As the doors clanked shut, Fred, Barney, and the other guards, began walking away. When they reached the end of the corridor and made the turn, one of the prison guards slipped in behind them and headed for the cells. However, before he could reach them, Fred came running back with his radio in his hand. Apparently, whoever manned the cameras had warned him of the guard’s presence.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“To have a talk with the prisoners,” the guard said. He was about six-feet tall and built, with short, dark hair and brown eyes.
“It’s not allowed,” Fred said.
“More men, what are their crimes?”
Fred hustled him away from the cells, but their words reverberated off the gray walls.
“That’s none of your business; I thought Warden Grayson told all of you guys to stay in your own section.”
“This ‘red zone’, it doesn’t make any sense. I’ve been in the town, there’s plenty of room in the jail there to hold these men.”
“What do you care where we keep our prisoners?”
“What happened to the men that were here two weeks ago?”
“They were all released, all but two,”
“Why are they always released overnight? They’re here when I go off shift and gone when I come in the next day. Don’t you think that’s a little odd?”
Fred stared at the man.
“What’s your name?”
“Simmons, Steve Simmons,”
“Listen to me, Steve Simmons, ask me one more question and I’ll kick your ass, you got it?”
Simmons stepped closer.
“Bring it on, fat boy,”
Fred made a fist with his right hand, but as he gave Simmons a closer look, he decided that words might be a better tactic.
“I’m gonna report you to the warden.”
“You do that,” Simmons said, as he looked over and studied the men in the cell. Joe took note that Simmons’s gaze passed over him, but that when he met the stranger’s eyes, the two men held the gaze and nodded slightly to each other.
One more suspicious glance down the corridor, and then Simmons turned and walked away, with Fred following closely behind.
***
With the prison guard gone, Joe asked the stranger a question.
“That guard, Simmons, do you know him?”
“No, but I know his type,”
“Which is?”
“He’s a man of his own; which means they’ll probably fire him soon.”
“Oh,” Joe said, as he took in his new surroundings.
The cell was ten feet by twelve, with two bunks on each side that were supported by chains. A single sink and toilet and the tour was over.
The lanky guy with the freckled face walked over and held out his hand.
“I’m Gary, welcome to hell.”
The stranger ignored his hand and asked a question.
“What is going on here?”
“You’re here to fight. They pick two of us and tell us to keep fighting until one of us is dead.”
“What?” Joe said.
“It’s true, they also film it, God only knows what sort pays to watch it, but I’m sure it’s being broadcast somewhere, I’m in telecommunications and I recognized the equipment.”
“You stupid fuck, why the hell are you talking to them.”
The words came from the other man, the one that looked like an accountant. He was sitting on the edge of the bottom bunk, on the left side, and his eyes looked devoid of hope.
“These men are your enemies. You may very well have to fight one of them tonight, fight them and kill them, or be killed.”
The man shook his head, then he laid down on the cot with his back to them.
Gary tossed his head in the man’s direction, and whispered.
“He’s had to fight; the guy he killed was a friend of his.”
Joe scratched his head.
“It sounds like the Roman Colosseum; how the hell can they get away with this?”
“They get away with it, because the guy running this place has the law in his pocket.”
“Who’s running things,” the stranger said. “That judge, Maynard?”
“No, as bad as Maynard is, he’s a piker compared to Warden Grayson. Warden Grayson is the Devil, and if he’s not, he’s close enough.”
***
Eight hundred yards away, in the Warden’s home, Warden Taylor Grayson welcomed his guest, Judge Maynard.
The woman who escorted the Judge to the Warden’s study was beautiful and scantily dressed. She had honey-colored blond hair with green eyes, and her hips swayed enticingly as the Judge followed behind her.
“Judge Maynard to see you, Warden.”
The warden stared at her.
“Thank you, Lyla.”
Lyla backed out of the room while closing the double doors behind her, and the two men were alone.
“Damn, Grayson, where’d you find her?”
“A gift from one of my partners, that girl was taken from her parents in Germany when she was only four and has been servicing one master or another ever since. Being a whore and a hostess is all she’s ever known.”
“What happens when her flower fades, say ten or twenty years from now?”
The warden sent Maynard a perplexed look as he picked something up from his desk.
“Who the hell cares? She’s as replaceable as this pen. Now, Judge, tell me what’s on your mind?”
“The new prisoners, I want to talk to you about one of them.”
“You mean the one that killed Deputy Dooley?”
“Yeah, that’s the one,” Maynard said, and realized once again that nothing went on in Maynardville that Warden Grayson didn’t know about.
“What about him?”
“Well, hell, that sort of punching power is special. I think that we can up the fee and have that guy go two on one. It should bring in more money.”
Grayson shook his head in disagreement.
“No more fights, the fights are over,”
“What? Then what the hell do we do with those men?”
Grayson smiled as he took a revolver out of his desk drawer and pointed it at the judge. A moment later, he spun the cylinder and placed the gun at his own head.
As the answer to his question dawned on the judge, he grinned.
“Russian roulette? Well, hell, if that don’t make money, nothing will.”
The warden placed the gun back in the drawer.
“We’ll start tonight, and we’ll use the man who killed Dooley. The sooner we get rid of that troublemaker, the better.”
The Judge began chuckling.
“What’s so funny?” Grayson said.
“Nothing really, I just can’t wait to see that dude’s brains splattered on the wall, the son of a bitch threatened me.”
“Really? Personally, I have killed him on the spot.”
“That would have been a waste of money.”
Grayson shrugged.
“You have a point.”
***
Inside the cell, the man named Gary explained the prison to them.
“As far as I can tell it’s a real prison even though it’s privately owned. I got a cousin doing time in a place that looks just like this one; he’s in for intent to distribute.”
“The guards are in on it, the fighting, I mean?” Joe said.
“The night shift, yeah, but the day shift is much larger due to the fact that the regular prisoners have to be out of their cells. All the food and the clothing is made here by the inmates and it takes a lot of guards to keep watch, that guard, Simmons, he’s not the first one to get suspicious.”
“How long have you been here?” Joe asked.
“I don’t really know, you lose track in here, but I’d say it’s been at least four weeks.”
“Have you fought?�
�
“Once, halfway through the fight, the other guy tried to grab a weapon off one of the deputies. They shot him dead on the spot.”
He moved beside Joe and asked Gary a question.
“That house on the property, is that where the warden lives?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Just gathering info,” he said. “If I’m going to escape I need to know as much as I can.”
“Buddy, there ain’t no escape, there are three separate fences keeping us in, all topped by razor wire, and in the area between the second and third fence they let the guard dogs patrol at night. Add to that the snipers in the guard towers, and you haven’t got a prayer.”
“Do whatever you want, but I’m getting out of here. My wife thinks I’ve died, and thanks to these bastards I can’t even let her know that I’m alive.”
“I got a wife too, but I also got eyes, and I’m telling you, escape is impossible.”
***
Later, as the stranger lay across the top bunk on the right side, Joe came over and talked to him.
“Hey, don’t do anything crazy, okay?”
“I’ll do whatever it takes to get back to my wife.”
“I understand, but getting killed in an escape attempt won’t accomplish that.”
“What about you, are you married?”
Joe hesitated before he nodded his head.
“Yeah, I was married, but she died; she died and it was my fault.”
“What are you saying?”
Joe released a deep sigh as he laid his chin atop his hands.
“I came back from Iraq a mess. I drank like crazy and wouldn’t let anybody help me. I just thought that if I gave it time, that I would forget all the things I saw over there, all the friends I’d lost... anyway, one day I crashed the car while driving my wife home from work. It was a bad wreck and we were both pinned inside. She bled out right in front of me, the only woman I ever loved and I had killed her.”
“Accidents happen, Joe,”
“Yeah, especially when you’re drunk, it took hours for them to free me from the wreck. By the time they gave me a breath test, I came in just below the legal limit, just below, you see, so I escaped being charged because I was trapped in that car long enough for the alcohol to leave my system, but it didn’t change a thing. I killed her, as surely as if I had shot her. I killed my own wife.”