Executioner's Lament

by Justin Rishel

  Aubrey faced down the passageway toward the mess hall trying to determine if the faint voices bouncing off the walls around him were close by.

  “Something is wrong,” Rudolfo said behind him.

  Aubrey turned. Rudolfo ran the back of his left hand over a square panel next to the elevator. No lights flashed above the elevator or on the panel itself. Aubrey moved to the shiny steel doors and pressed his ear against them. No sounds came from behind them. Nothing could be seen or heard to indicate the elevator had been called.

  “Is it usually this quiet?” Aubrey asked Rudolfo.

  “No.” Rudolfo passed his hand over the panel again and again. He removed his glove and tried again, finally pressing his hand against the panel and scraping it across. Nothing happened.

  “It’s dead,” Aubrey said. “The lockdown killed it.”

  “No, the elevators are supposed to remain on during a lockdown.” Rudolfo looked down, apparently lost in thought. “Only one person could shut down the Members’ elevator.”

  “Jacobi?” Francesca answered the question for everyone else.

  Rudolfo nodded.

  “Fuck.” Aubrey spun to check the passageways. The voices were closer, he was sure of it. He could make out individual words now. “Options?”

  “Stairs,” Rudolfo replied. “Our only option.”

  The rest of the company followed Brother Rudolfo twenty feet further down the passageway toward the mess hall. Aubrey could hear footsteps and feet scuffling as they reached the locked door to the west stairwell. Once again, Rudolfo passed the back of his left hand across a square panel. This time, a loud clunk sounded from inside the door.

  Rudolfo swung the door open and Aubrey held it as Malina and Francesca filed past. As Rudolfo walked through, figures came into view down the passageway. The three inmates rounded the gentle curve of the hallway and saw Aubrey holding the door open.

  “What the fuck?” one of the inmates shouted. They ran.

  Aubrey pivoted. He rounded the door and pulled it shut just as the men came within spitting distance. They pounded the outside of the windowless door.

  “How the hell did he open it?” one voice shouted.

  Aubrey and the others climbed the stairs, carefully peering around each corner to the floor above. Malina’s tablet couldn’t pick up a signal inside the thick concrete and steel of the stairwell, so they were forced to take it slow. No one should have had access to the stairs except Members of the Order and prison guards, but they had no idea if any Members or guards had been compromised. They also heard unmistakable screams of pain from high above soon after entering the stairs. Someone else was using the stairs.

  “Does that chip require the hand to be attached to a living person?” Aubrey asked as they reached the twenty-ninth floor.

  “It does,” Rudolfo replied.

  “Good.”

  A moment later, Aubrey threw up a fist and the group halted behind him. A thud on the floor above. A door slamming shut. He looked back at the group. Francesca pointed her spear forward and began to creep ahead, but Aubrey stopped her, shaking his head. When no other sounds reached them, he let go and together they traversed the remaining stairs up to the thirtieth floor. They were alone. Indiscernible noises could be heard from far above them, but in the immediate vicinity, it was just the four of them.

  On they climbed, meeting no one else along the way. On the thirty-fourth floor, they encountered the first physical evidence that others had been there. An inmate lay on his stomach, head pointed down the stairs. The sides of his uniform top were soaked red and blood cascaded from his neck and torso, down the steps like a macabre waterfall.

  “The blood is only just starting to dry,” Francesca pointed out, touching the toe of her shoe to the edge of the mess. Sticky crimson tendrils stuck to the bottom of her sole, stretching as she pulled it away.

  A slam jerked Aubrey’s eyes from the corpse. He scanned the area but saw nothing.

  “Up there,” Malina said, pointing directly overhead.

  “That’s where we need to go,” Aubrey said, following her finger up. “You can still go hole up in one of the panic rooms and wait for the cavalry. You don’t need to come with us.”

  Her gaze fell for a moment, then she locked eyes with him. “No. I feel safer with … the group.”

  An awkward moment passed while he and Malina stared at one another.

  “We should move on.” Rudolfo broke the silence.

  “Yeah,” Aubrey said, looking away. “Let’s get going.”

  They climbed four more flights and discovered six more dead inmates killed in a similar fashion as the first—knife wounds.

  “These weren’t your standard inmate-on-inmate kills.” Aubrey bent to inspect the body. He rolled the head of the last victim to view the slash across the man’s jugular. “This was a good, sharp blade and the cut was precise. Professionally done.” He pointed down the stairs. “But I think they were going down, not up. See the way the bodies fell?” He gestured to the corpse laying with its feet on the landing, torso and head on the stairs below. “Looks like we must have just missed them.”

  This seemed to give Rudolfo pause, who backed away and glared down the stairs, the way they’d come.

  “You think it’s her?” Malina asked Aubrey.

  He knew exactly who she meant. The woman who tried to kill him on the road back from the Jorgetsons’ home.

  “Why would she be here?” he asked, still kneeling beside the dead inmate. “How could she be here?”

  “I know we haven’t talked about it since the revelation about Zentransa and Sarazin and all that, but isn’t it obvious? He hired her to kill you because you were too close to the truth. He staged this riot somehow to cover up Wilcott Tapping the Ventana four. And now there is a professional killer roaming the halls of the Keep. That’s not a coincidence, Martin.”

  Aubrey cocked his head to the side. “The Keep is full of professional killers.”

  Malina threw her hands in the air. “Not assassins, Martin. Professional killers avoid getting caught. This has to be her.”

  Rudolfo inserted himself between them. “Who are you talking about? Did you see this person? Describe them to me.”

  Aubrey did so, quickly recounting the story of the ambush, what the woman looked like, how she acted, her style of movement. When he finished, all the blood seemed to leave Rudolfo’s face. His eyes were saucers and he stared into space.

  “You’re absolutely positive your description is accurate?” Rudolfo looked to be beside himself.

  “Yes. You don’t forget someone like her.”

  “No, I imagine not.” Rudolfo stepped away from the group, seemingly lost in thought.

  “Sir? What is it? Who is she?” Francesca asked.

  “I … I don’t know. Probably nothing.” He took a visibly deep breath and said, “we should …”

  A noise from below cut him off. To Aubrey, it sounded like rushing air mixed with quick popping noises. The smell of hot, burning metal also reached him. He knew what it was—someone was welding.

  “That’s how they’re getting inside the stairwell,” he said. “They have a welder or cutting torch.”

  “No.” Rudolfo bent down and rolled over the dead inmate Aubrey had been inspecting. “That is how.” He pointed to a backpack that had been partially hidden under the body. It was unzipped; long rectangular bars sticking out from inside it.

  Aubrey pulled out one of the bars. It felt like heavy clay, thin, and about a foot and a half long. A round plastic tab hung from one end connected to a thin wire that looked to be pressed into a seam in the bar.

  “What is it?” Aubrey asked.

  “Welding strips.” Rudolfo picked one up and held it out. “Made of highly combustible malleable material with a thin rod of magnesium alloy down its center. Pull the tab’s wire from top to bottom and a chemical agent is released that ignites the bar.” He placed the strip in the backpack and zipped it. “Maintenance crews use
them here quite a bit. Prisoners work on some of those crews, which is probably why a few know how to use them. Here,” he handed the bag to Aubrey, “take it. We may need them.”

  “Where are we now?” Malina asked.

  “We just passed thirty-eight,” Francesca answered.

  A loud boom echoed several floors below them.

  “We need to go. Up now. Let’s go.” Aubrey ushered the others up the stairs and pushed the small of Malina’s back urging her forward. “Hurry, we’re almost to the top.”

  Aubrey soon cursed himself for saying those words. On the forty-second floor, their ascent ended abruptly as a mountain of debris, from floor to ceiling, confronted them. The barricade was a mixture of metal desks, plastic chairs, wire, and sharpened sticks fashioned from broom and mop handles. It stretched from one corner of the landing to the other, completely blocking both the door to the forty-second floor and the staircase to the next level up.

  “Shit,” Malina said.

  Aubrey looked back down the way they’d come, then back at the barricade. “There’s no getting past it anytime soon.” Below them, the sound of cutting stopped, quickly followed by an enormous slam of a metal slab falling to meet concrete. Cursing and cheers reached them—gruff, coarse voices celebrating the felled door.

  “Forty-one and then to the east stairwell. That’s our only chance,” Rudolfo said, already descending the stairs in that direction. “We must hurry.”

  The four of them leapt down the flight of stairs to forty-one. They paused only briefly to listen at the door before leaving the stairs. Below them, footsteps pounded the stairs accompanied by the loud chatter of dangerous sounding voices.

  “Go,” Aubrey said to Rudolfo who passed his left hand over a square panel. The door unlocked and they barreled through it.

  Aubrey slammed the door shut behind him and swung around toward the others.

  “The next stairwell.” Rudolfo pointed. “This way.”

  They raced after the Member of the Order past empty offices and bloodied corpses. Rudolfo was running past the central corridor when his head flew violently back and he crashed to the floor, flat on his back.

  Aubrey raised his axe and rushed past Malina and Francesca, who’d slid to a stop.

  “If there’s too many of them, just run. Get somewhere safe,” he shouted to them.

  He rounded the corner into the corridor and was faced with a half dozen inmates, all armed similarly to him—long sharp implements of death. A fat headed black man in the middle smiled wide, patting his palm with the shaft of a mean looking club. Aubrey stepped forward. He could hold them off while Francesca and Malina got to safety, he thought.

  A woman’s scream brought him up short. He doubled back into the passageway.

  Aubrey never saw what hit him. There was a swift blur across his vision, a hard impact against the back of his head, then he was lying on the ground.

  His vision began to fade, a dark circle collapsing. Before all went black, in the middle of the ever-receding sphere of light, a dark, puffy face came into view.

  “Look at this Hollywood lookin’ motherfucker.”

  28

  Barter

  Aubrey’s head pounded. Pain pulsed from the back of his skull and radiated down his neck and shoulders. He opened his eyes and blinked the world into focus. He was seated on the floor of a cell, hands bound behind him. He straightened his aching neck and relief flooded him when he saw Malina across from him. She too sat with her hands tied behind her. She leaned against the wall looking back at him from the opposite corner, looking relatively unharmed. Her gear sat in a pile on one of the lower beds.

  They were alone in the cell, but the door was open. Angry voices spoke outside.

  “I told you, motherfucker. She needs to be clean when we go to Rasta. Don’t fucking touch her.”

  “She’ll be clean, man. I won’t mess her up, I swear on my mama’s …”

  “You gonna swear on your mother’s life while you talking about force fucking a woman. Motherfucker, get the fuck out of my face. Go wait for Landers.”

  “Why’d you send Landers, man? That dude can’t talk for shit and he gonna negotiate for us?”

  “’Cause I needed somebody who won’t fuck me. Somebody who do what the fuck I say.”

  Mumbled protests came from the other inmate as his voice drifted down the hall away from the cell where Aubrey and Malina sat.

  “You okay?” Aubrey whispered.

  Half a smile creased Malina’s face. “Yeah, I’m fine. You?”

  “My head is killing me, but otherwise, I guess I’m okay. What happened to Rudolfo and Francesca?”

  “The gang out there herded them into a closet or something. They were all too afraid to touch them.” She looked suddenly at the open door. The fat headed man entered the cell and looked at Aubrey. He lingered for a moment then left.

  “Why didn’t they kill us?” Aubrey asked. “What’s going on?”

  “From what I can gather,” her voice faltered, barely audible in a harsh whisper tinged with what Aubrey could only think was fear, “they’re trying to make a trade with a larger gang. In exchange for protection.” Her chin quivered. “I guess they’re buying their way into some sort of alliance.” She shut her eyes tight, her shoulders shook.

  Aubrey didn’t ask what the gang outside their cell was going to trade in exchange for the other gang’s protection. It was clear. Malina was the item up for bid. And to some degree Aubrey was being bartered too, or he’d already be dead.

  * * *

  Francesca felt around the dark space, looking for something, anything she could use to get them out of the situation.

  “It’s a maintenance closet,” Rudolfo’s voice came from the dark, somewhere nearby. “There is nothing in here but mops and cleaning chemicals.”

  “How do you know where we are? When did you wake up?” She’d had to drag him into the closet while he was unconscious. The inmates had threatened to do unspeakable things to Malina and Martin if she didn’t comply.

  “I was half awake as you dragged me in here. In addition, the smell is fairly recognizable.”

  She continued searching with her hands. She felt metal shelves holding plastic bottles of various sizes, further down a rack on the wall holding wooden handled mops and brooms. A deep sink basin. Buckets full of unknown substances on the floor. A low, four-wheeled cart. A chest-high plastic barrel with a tube and pump protruding from a hole in its lid.

  A sliver of light shined from under the door. Shadows passed it and she could hear footsteps outside.

  “They’re going to kill them,” she said. “We have to do something.”

  “What did you have in mind? We can unlock the door with my chip, but it is barricaded from outside with a large object of some kind. It is probably quite heavy.”

  “It’s a giant plastic barrel filled with some kind of cleaning fluid. I watched them pull it out before they made us come in here.” She stopped her search of the small space and stood in front of the door. “Please unlock the door.”

  She heard his feet shuffling, something fell over on the floor. Some movement by the door, then a soft beep and an accompanying thunk. She imagined where the door handle might be, and kicked it.

  The door didn’t budge. A deep thrum came from the other side.

  “That would be the barrel,” Rudolfo said.

  * * *

  “Looks like we have a deal,” said the fat-headed inmate as he entered the cell. “On your feet, motherfucker. Let’s go.” He grabbed Aubrey under the arm and dragged him upright.

  “Martin,” Malina said, struggling against the two men lifting her. “Martin?”

  * * *

  Francesca kicked the door again. Three more cycles of Rudolfo unlocking the door and her kicking it with no results. The door hadn’t moved a millimeter.

  “The barrel must be exceedingly heavy,” Rudolfo said.

  “It took three of them to drag it out of here.” Francesca beg
an a new search of the closet. A woman’s scream from outside the door made her freeze. “Malina.”

  Sounds of a struggle, a man’s painful grunts, and more cries from Malina, then they were gone.

  Francesca began her search more frantically now. How could they open the door and move the barrel? Her hands shoved objects out of the way, threw things to the floor, hoping that she’d feel something that might be of use. She had no idea what it might be, what she was looking for; she’d know it once she found it.

  “Francesca.”

  Her hands flew in the darkness, touching everything, finding nothing. Handles, bottles, shelving, hoses, rags. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

  “Francesca.”

  There must be something, she thought. She refused to believe the situation was hopeless. Refused to believe there was nothing, amongst all the objects and materials in the closet, that she couldn’t find something to extricate herself from this closet and help Martin and Malina.

  “Francesca.”

  “What?” she shouted, surprising herself with the curt reply.

  “The barrel is too heavy to move.”

  “I realize that, sir. But there is nothing in here to get enough leverage …”

  “It’s too heavy. So … make it lighter.”

  “Make it …”

  “Lighter.”

  She slapped her forehead, cursing herself for not thinking of it on her own. Feeling her way back to the corner with the rack of mop handles, she searched for a moment, then found what she was looking for. Removing the mop handle from the rack, she then wedged it between the floor and the first shelf. She wrenched it upward, snapping the metal cradle of the mophead. It left a short, sharp point.

  On her knees, she forced the pointed end of the mop handle under the door, through the narrow gap. She pushed on it, twisted it. The metal point barely made it through the gap. She moved the handle back and forth trying to get a feel for metal hitting plastic. After several attempts, she realized it wasn’t going to work. The sharp tip was too short.

  “Not what I had in mind,” Rudolfo said behind her. He placed one hand on her shoulder; the other placed something in her palm—a small, glass vial. “This … will melt plastic.”