Executioner's Lament

by Justin Rishel

  Following his gaze, Aubrey saw it. A body hung on the interior of the cage, inside the Great Atrium. It swung at odd angles, twisting and bouncing against the steel lattice.

  The body was dressed in black. A cord cut deep into the neck of the body; the skin bulged out around it. The neck stretched grotesquely and unnaturally crooked. As the body settled against the cage with one last soft bounce, it spun to face them.

  It was a man with short brown hair, not unlike Rudolfo’s. His red bloodshot eyes were open. They bulged and were nearly bursting from their sockets.

  Looking around, Aubrey noticed Francesca also fixated on the hanging Tapper.

  He allowed himself another second to scan the other floors of the prison. Equal amounts of violence and bloodshed were being wrought on everywhere he looked.

  Through the metal cage he could see bodies lying in various states of bloody savagery. Bodily fluids dripped like long crimson ropes. Smoke issued from corridors and rose toward the skylight above. Two floors up, an inmate stabbed the head of another who lay facedown. On the same level, three men kicked and punched another. Several floors higher, bodies thrusted and gyrated in some violent act he couldn’t make out.

  Looking down was no different. Men and women on every level took advantage of the chaos to deliver some long-held vendettas. Or they were simply bored. Or they were bloodthirsty madmen feasting on a moment of consequence free mindless bloodletting while they could.

  The putrid stench of human waste, charred flesh, and blood drifted through the air into his nostrils. His guts turned and it was all he could do not to vomit.

  Shouts in the corridor behind them shook Aubrey from his thoughts.

  “We have to move, Martin.” Malina shook him. She had fistfuls of his shirt in each hand. How long had he been zoned out?

  “Yeah. Yeah, let’s go,” he said.

  On his feet again, he heaved the guard and Rudolfo up at once.

  “Where are your quarters?”

  “Down that corridor,” Rudolfo pointed to where the burning had come from. His eyes were still locked on the hanging Member. “A right at the last passageway, first door on the left. I have to scan my hand to get in.” He held up his left hand still in its black glove.

  “Okay, we’re close. Francesca, lead the way with that spear. Malina, keep an eye on our six. Don’t let anyone sneak up on us.”

  “Eye on our what?”

  “Our six. Six o’clock. Behind us.” He pointed behind them. She nodded.

  With a nod, Francesca stepped forward and turned left into the corridor. With the spear in front of her and her platinum blonde braid cascading down her back, she looked like a Viking warrior on a raiding party.

  The rest of the group followed her.

  They found the corridor empty. An acrid smell filled the air. Crossing passageway one, a cell to their right burped black smoke. The inside of the cell appeared scorched, something in there still smoldering.

  They moved silently, no one speaking.

  The first two passageways were largely empty. A few lone inmates ran here and there in the distance but wanted nothing to do with their group. Most took cover or otherwise looked like they were searching for a safe place to hide. Maybe the Tappers scared them away, or maybe they had no interest in partaking in the festivities with the other inmates. Either way, Aubrey was grateful to be left alone.

  How long had it been since he’d run out to help the guard? Five minutes at least, he thought, but no more than ten.

  Combat, especially hand-to-hand, always felt longer than it really was. He could remember sparring with other cadets at the police academy for three minutes and it feeling like three hours.

  How many people had been killed or maimed in just five to ten minutes? How much blood would spill in another ten minutes? Or by the time this riot was put down for good?

  Coming level with passageway three, the group peered down it in each direction. It was empty. Ahead, down the final passageway to the right, he could see the outer edge of a door. He gave Rudolfo a questioning look who responded with a nod in the affirmative.

  That was the room. Safety was thirty feet away.

  Footsteps and chatter reached them from somewhere down the outer passageway. An inmate stepped into view. He had a dark olive complexion and a spiderweb tattoo on his chin. In his hand he held a long, rusty metal blade, a homemade machete.

  The man with the machete stopped when he saw the group, eyeing them. They eyed him back.

  Francesca stood closest to him. She bent her knees and pushed the spear in front of her, bracing for battle.

  Only one, Aubrey thought, shouldn’t be too bad.

  As if reading Aubrey’s mind, the man with the spiderwebbed chin shouted over his shoulder, “Tappers up here,” then turned back to Aubrey’s group before continuing, “and women.”

  More footsteps. People running. Five more inmates barreled into view, four men and one woman. Spiderweb tattoos covered some or all of their faces. They were a gang. Each held some implement of death in the form of a blade or a club.

  They all smiled and snarled at their prey. As one the gang moved toward Aubrey and the other.

  “This way,” Rudolfo hissed, pulling Aubrey and the guard backwards into the third passageway, on their left. “Francesca, this way.”

  She backed into the passageway, managing to keep the inmates at bay with her spear. The gang moved slowly but didn’t stop. Apparently, two Tappers together were something to approach with caution.

  Aubrey threw the guard’s arm off and reached back pulling Malina in under it. To Rudolfo, he said, “Get them to safety. I’ll slow these assholes down so you can get away.”

  Malina’s eyes protested, but he ignored them. “Go,” he said then he turned and stood by Francesca’s side. The prisoners were still wary of her. After five more seconds, the standoff ended.

  The prisoner with the machete moved first. “Killed me one Tapper today. Happy to make it three,” he said as he reared back with his machete, swinging it at Francesca in a long arc. She caught it on the spear, the dull rough edge twanging against the wood of the spear. She threw it off and cracked the man in the head with one end of the spear.

  Two men rushed at Aubrey, both with weapons raised. Sidestepping the nearest one, Aubrey got in close. He pushed an arm as it came down, spinning the man into the other attacker.

  He grabbed the collar of the nearest inmate and pulled the body in. He found the hand holding the shiv. With a double-handed, iron grip on the wrist, he pulled inward toward himself, making a Heimlich maneuver motion. The blade punched into the man’s gut. His strength immediately washed away.

  Aubrey dropped him, pulling the blade from a slackened hand.

  He sidestepped and backpedaled, as the second man rushed at him with an axe.

  Aubrey jumped back, letting the axe blade clunk harmlessly into the hard floor. Aubrey lunged forward with a hard step onto the wooden handle, pinning it and the inmate’s hands to the floor.

  Aubrey didn’t look as he threw his hand holding the blade forward. It sank into the man’s neck and he toppled forward. Blood poured from the severed jugular, spreading across the floor in a widening circle of crimson.

  The rest of the gang had been occupied by Francesca and her spear, and Rudolfo, who’d joined the fray in spite of Aubrey’s order.

  Just as Aubrey moved to join them, Rudolfo fell from a club strike to his head. He crashed to the floor. The inmate turned his attention to Malina.

  “Now that that’s out the way,” he said, skulking toward her.

  Aubrey raised the axe. “Hey,” Aubrey shouted.

  The man turned just as Aubrey swung the axe down. It landed where the man’s neck joined the shoulder. He collapsed in a heap to the floor. Aubrey reclaimed his axe with a quick pull.

  Ten feet away, he saw Rudolfo moving. It was a good sign.

  Aubrey bent and pulled the club from the dead inmate’s hand. Wielding both weapons, he strode towar
d the remaining four gang members. Francesca still held her own against the original spiderwebbed inmate with the machete.

  Aubrey swung the axe through the air with one hand at the nearest prisoner, the female, and she ducked; the rest of them stepped back. Anticipating that the woman would duck, Aubrey kicked and his foot connected with her face. She flew back.

  Swinging at her as she scurried away, Aubrey saw the other two spreading out. They were going to flank him. That would be trouble. Panting and with his arms burning, he didn’t know how long he could keep up the fight.

  Going for broke, he threw the axe end over end at the man to his right and jumped at the man to his left. He held the club high and brought it down on the prisoner.

  The club connected but broke in two. Aubrey dropped the stump of it. He punched and thrusted, he grappled and twisted. They fell to the ground, the inmate on top of him. Fatigue soaked him like sweat.

  Another inmate came near them. He kicked and yelled, at the one on top of Aubrey. “Move goddammit. I got him.” He held something. The axe blade glimmered near Aubrey’s head.

  “He’s mine, motherfucker,” said a wet voice in his ear. A hand tightened around Aubrey’s neck. Blackness cut into his vision. His strength had vanished.

  The man on top of him grew lighter. The tightness around Aubrey’s throat loosened and he looked to the side. The man with the axe lay down beside him, staring at him. Not staring, Aubrey thought, dead. Inches from him.

  The man on top of Aubrey didn’t move. He was dead too.

  “What the hell?” Aubrey said. He pushed the dead man off.

  He got to his feet. Rudolfo stood nearby, wiping a black substance from the tip of his gloved finger.

  “Is that,” Aubrey paused, not sure what to call it, “is that what you use to …”

  “Yes,” Rudolfo said, not making eye contact with Aubrey.

  Aubrey checked the two corpses now at his feet. Both had inky black splotches on their necks at the base of the skull. A chill passed from his ankles to the nape of his own neck. He rubbed it, suddenly grateful to be on Rudolfo’s side in this fight.

  Looking around, he saw that the skirmish had moved them back to roughly the halfway point of the passageway. Francesca stood ten feet away, pulling the spear from another inmate lying on the floor.

  The female inmate ran back the way she’d came. Breathing hard and clutching his side, Aubrey watched her run.

  Turning to the others, he said, “Let’s get going before she comes back with more friends.”

  Now using the axe as a crutch, he and Rudolfo slowly hoisted the guard onto their shoulders and began making their way down the passageway. Francesca led the way once again. Her spear now a proven weapon.

  At the door to Rudolfo’s room, the Member raised his left hand in front of panel in the wall. The door clicked open.

  “Take him,” Aubrey said to Rudolfo. To Malina and Francesca, he said, “Let’s go grab our gear and some of the computer equipment.”

  The observation room where they’d met moments earlier was a short distance down the passageway. Aubrey kept watch outside the door while Malina and Francesca gathered up the equipment. The passageway remained clear while they worked.

  Minutes later, the three of them were back in Rudolfo’s room. The guard lay on the bed; his chest moved lightly up and down. Aubrey walked to the bed and checked his pulse. It was weak.

  “He’s alive for now. But he needs a doctor.” Aubrey turned to Rudolfo who stared at the guard. Something like tenderness crossed the elder Tapper’s face. Maybe they were friends, Aubrey thought. It was likely they knew each other having worked alongside in the prison.

  Malina dropped bags of equipment onto the floor. Francesca did the same. Aubrey moved to the door, slammed it shut, and mashed a button in the wall to activate the magnetic locking system.

  He turned to Malina. “Get the video feeds back up. We need eyes on what’s going on out there.” As they worked, he and Rudolfo tried to make the guard as comfortable as possible. They cleaned his wounds as best they could with what they had on hand.

  “We’re up,” Malina said behind him.

  Turning around, Aubrey saw the three monitors standing upright on the floor already displaying video feeds from all over the prison.

  The carnage he saw from the catwalk several minutes ago was nothing compared to what he now saw on the monitors. Francesca sat on the floor, scanning through the feeds from dozens of cameras. Not a feed passed that didn’t show evidence of the bloodshed. Bodies, pools of blood, viscera and limbs littered the hallways in every shot. Inmates running, clutching homemade weapons. A group of men mercilessly beating another on the floor. A guard lying in a pool of blood. She continued scanning, lingering mere seconds before switching to another feed, then another. Each camera showed some version of the grisly violence outside.

  “If this is a random sample of what’s happening out there, this entire place is now a living nightmare,” Aubrey said.

  “It’s everywhere,” she said. “Everywhere. The whole prison is rioting.”

  Francesca stopped on one feed that showed a passageway on level thirty-two. The pile of bodies reached almost to the ceiling. Blood seeped from the bottom of the pile, forming a slowly growing pool around it. A woman in white poured a liquid on the pile. A second later, the feed went white, then came back in focus. Aubrey watched as the pile of corpses turned into an inferno of burning flesh.

  “Gangs.” Rudolfo sat on the bed gently wiping the guard’s face with a damp rag. “Rival gangs must be responsible for the mass violence.” He rested his hands on his knees, gazing at the guard. “You saw the face tattoos of the inmates we encountered? They’re the aranas. One of the major gangs here. Many more minor ones exist, of course, but the four major ones are especially heinous.”

  “So, what’s the plan here? What’s the protocol for a riot?” Aubrey continued watching the feeds as Francesca scrolled through them.

  “Nothing on this scale has ever happened,” Rudolfo said, now standing next to Aubrey, his eyes locked on the monitors. “Wards have rioted in the past, occasionally an entire level. Not the entire prison. Never anything like this.”

  “What are they going to do? What are the guards and administrators supposed to be doing now?” Aubrey asked.

  “The guards and Members have safe rooms where they are supposed to hole up.” Rudolfo pointed to the ceiling. “They’re more like secure closets at various locations on each level.” He sighed heavily. “For a multi-floor riot, all the guards from the other non-rioting levels are to form special quick reaction teams. Together, they clear the levels in question one by one.” He pointed at the screens. “Every level is affected, so every guard will have holed up in their secure rooms if they weren’t already attacked or,” he turned toward the guard on the bed, “killed.”

  “Are we safe here?” Aubrey asked.

  Rudolfo didn’t respond, still gazing at the unconscious guard. After a moment, he said, “My quarters are somewhat secure, but I’d rather us be in a designated safe room.”

  “Okay, we’ll need to move then.” He gestured to the guard. “When he’s feeling a little better. Who is the quick reaction force if every guard on duty is holed up or otherwise unavailable?”

  “My guess is they’d call in off-duty officers. Which also means they’d start from the bottom of the prison and work their way up.”

  “Meaning, it’ll be a while?” Aubrey rested his hands on his hips. Malina turned to look at him with a worried look.

  “Yes,” Rudolfo said. “I just don’t understand how the rioting could have spread so fast. It’s as if it all started at the same time in different parts of the prison.”

  Aubrey shook his head. “It must have been orchestrated by these gangs. I don’t know what they were planning, but this took planning.”

  Francesca kept scrolling through the feeds. Large groups were congregating in the mess halls on each level. Guards that managed to survive
the initial violence were being corralled there.

  “Elevators?” Aubrey asked.

  “The Members’ elevator will still function,” Rudolfo replied. “The freight and inmate elevators will be locked down. Stairs too. Security barricades will be deployed momentarily I suspect, if not already.”

  “Barricades?” Malina asked.

  “Yes. They divide the wards into manageable sections, making securing each of them easier.”

  “That female inmate,” Aubrey said, “how did she get up here if the place is locked down?”

  “Must have arrived before the lockdown. Or …”

  “Or what?” Aubrey asked.

  “Or they’re using some other means of crossing between levels,” Francesca said.

  “Can you get us through the locked doors and the barricades?” Aubrey pointed to Rudolfo’s hand.

  “Yes.” Rudolfo tore his gaze away from the screens.

  “Okay. We need to work on a plan to get to the safe room. Where is the nearest …” Aubrey stopped speaking, his eyes fell on one of the screens. He was confused by something he saw on the video feed. He pointed at the strange image. “What is that?”

  As she scrolled through the prison’s camera feeds, Francesca had not been discriminant. Aubrey had asked her to get a general sense of the situation, so she scrolled fast. Apparently, when she saw the object, she felt it was strange enough to stop and take a closer look.

  The view was on the top of the prison. The camera’s fish-eye lens gave a full 180-degree view of the area surrounding the building. At the outer the edge of the panoramic scene, a white triangular shape stood in view. The object was on the roof. And it didn’t belong there. It hovered several feet off the ground and whatever held it aloft was out of frame.

  Rudolfo stood. “Check the opposite camera.”

  Francesca clicked the mouse a few times and the view changed. Now, they saw the other 180-degree view from the other side of the prison complex. On the right side of this screen sat the rest of the mysterious object. It was long and pointy with wheels below it and wings jutting from its sides.