Arcadia (Book 1): Damn The Dead

by Phillip Tomasso

  She saw two sets of boots by the front spinning tire of her bike, and looked up.

  Lou Kilmer and Ben Forti.

  She never stopped pedaling, and actually pedaled faster.

  “We don’t usually let visitors on the floor. Ben’s different. He has two minutes. But you, McKinney, you keep working. Visitation is on the weekends. You’re new. This is a different situation. It’s the only reason I’m allowing it. Understood.”

  “Yes, boss.” She hated that, calling him boss. The hate only multiplied because she had to say it in front of Ben.

  Kilmer walked away.

  Ben stood with his hands in front of him. His fingers kept moving, like he was about to say something. No words came out.

  Behind the mask, Char rolled her eyes. “You make a delivery?”

  Ben smiled and looked relieved. “Yeah. Four new zombies.”

  “Infected,” she said.

  “What?”

  “I don’t like calling them zombies. It’s not what they are. They were people once, Ben. Real living people. They got sick. They changed. Because they were unlucky, they’re damned. Look around. We’ve damned the dead,” she said. “So I don’t call them zombies.”

  “Infected,” he said.

  “Why are you here?”

  “We just said, I brought new zo—infected.”

  “No. Why are you over here talking to me? I don’t need the attention. I’m trying to fit in. If I have the mayor’s kid schmoozing with me, how’s that going to look? When you get on that elevator and ride back up top, guess what? I’ll still be down here, only now I’m going to have to take shit from everyone for talking to you. I don’t appreciate that, Ben. I’d prefer if you didn’t come see me. Not on weekends, not ever again.”

  “Char—”

  “Get lost, Ben. Go on, get out of here.” She lowered her head. Her breath was fogging her mask. She closed her eyes, prayed he was walking away. After counting off sixty seconds in her head, she opened her eyes. Ben was gone.

  “What was that about?” Ross said.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said. She just wanted to pedal her bike, do her work. She just wanted to get the day over and go back to her cell. She just wanted to be left alone.

  “I feel like you’re mad at me.”

  He sounded like kids she knew at school. Ross’s feelings were hurt. That was too bad. She wasn’t some kid. This wasn’t school. “I have no respect for you as a man,” she said. There was no reason to hold it in. He wanted to know why she was giving him the cold shoulder, she’d tell him. This wasn’t a head game.

  Char expected Ross to whine. That would have fit perfectly with his hurt feelings.

  He didn’t, but instead went in the exact opposite direction. “You don’t respect me as a man? At least I didn’t kill people. At least I didn’t slaughter innocent people.”

  She stopped pedaling and sat up straight. “You son of a bitch.”

  “McKinney. McKinney!”

  She ignored Kilmer as she climbed off her bike. She pushed Ross off his. Walking around the front of the bike, she watched him scramble to his feet. “Gonna hit me, Ross.”

  Someone tackled her.

  She went down hard on her shoulder. Pain shot into her neck.

  People were shouting. It could have just been the guard yelling by her ear. She couldn’t differentiate sound. The hum. The static hiss. The spinning bicycle wheels. The infected were riled up, moaning and groaning liked they sensed the tension over the piece of dangling meat. It was pandemonium inside her head. She saw nothing but the color red. It tinted her vision. She closed her eyes as someone placed a knee on her back. She couldn’t tell how many guards were on her. She knew she was struggling, could tell that her legs were kicking, and arms flailing.

  Then they were off her.

  A volt of current burned through her body. The pain started in her ass. It passed like electricity down her legs and up her spine. Her hands twitched.

  She felt her eyeballs roll back as darkness enveloped her.

  # # #

  Char felt freaked out working through dinner alone. The infected walked on mills behind her. They were all around her. She knew they were watching her. She kept pedaling and tried to pretend she was alone and that she was appreciating the solitude.

  Kilmer sat behind his desk. He didn’t pretend not to stare at her. His ogling was blatant. He kicked his feet up, crossed his legs at the ankles and stared.

  She didn’t need a crystal ball.

  The look in his eyes, even though the fogged face plate, even from a distance, was clear.

  Part of her was surprised he wasn’t making his way toward her, throwing advances around. The others had been gone nearly thirty minutes. They’d be gone only a little longer, and maybe his thoughts hadn’t turned to assault until just now. She knew she was going to have to miss breakfast in the morning. If the evil thoughts weren’t fleeting, the morning might prove more dangerous.

  She shuddered and did the only thing she could do. She pedaled the bike and maintained thirteen miles an hour. She didn’t want to give Lou Kilmer, her boss, any excuses to harass her.

  Chapter 33

  “I have a problem.” Char was in the front corner of her cell, close to Ross. “Can you hear me?”

  “Are you talking to me?”

  “Don’t be an ass,” she said.

  “You attacked me,” he said.

  The lights went out in the prison an hour ago. There was no movement below on the first level.

  “Did I hurt you?”

  No response.

  “Did you get punished?”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “No harm, no foul,” she said.

  A silence fell between them. She was sure he wasn’t going to talk anymore. She turned to walk back to her bed when he said, “What’s the problem.”

  “Lou.”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s going to have me alone tomorrow morning, while you guys have breakfast.”

  “Alone?”

  “I have a bad feeling,” she said.

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah. Shit.” It was a no win situation. If he attacked her, and she defended herself, it wouldn’t even be a he said, she said situation. It would be his word against hers. He was a foreman and she was a convict sentenced to prison for murder. No one was going to believe her. “What do I do?”

  “Haven’t been any women down here before. Not as prisoners. You’re the first. I don’t have a clue,” he said.

  She let out a despairing sigh. “Should I tell Kyle in the morning?”

  “He seems to like you,” Ross said.

  “I’m not going to get raped. Not here. Not by him,” she said. She wasn’t talking to Ross. She was just speaking out loud.

  Something hit the bars of her cell.

  Char jumped.

  “What was that?” Ross said.

  “I have no idea,” she said. She worried they were being too loud. She didn’t want to wake a sleeping guard. Whatever struck the cell was on the walkway, just outside of her bars. She knelt and pressed her face against the bars. She saw what it was. She reached through the bars. The wrapper crinkled in her hand.

  “What is it?” Ross said.

  She looked toward his cell. His arm was sticking out from between the bars, and he held a small mirror in his hand. He was watching her.

  Char stood up and walked back over toward the wall she shared with Ross. “A granola bar.”

  Ross didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. They both knew the food came from Gonzales. “It’s better to have friends,” she said, speaking in a whisper. “You said it yourself. You are out of here in a month. Unless I find a way out of here, I’m looking at three long years. I can’t be afraid all the time. Turns out my biggest problem wasn’t going to be the scary gang down there.”

  She wanted to cry.

  “The river,” Ross said, “it isn’t a safe way out o
f here.”

  “Do you know of any other way?”

  “There isn’t. The elevator is the only thing I’ve seen. There are some other tunnels around here, but they could lead anywhere. They could be blocked off. I saw them bring wrought iron sections of fence down here a while back. Lots of it. I never saw it again. If I had to guess, they used it to block off tunnels,” Ross said.

  “That’s crazy. What if there is a collapse and they need to evacuate?”

  “There were door sections, too. Warden, Kilmer, they must have keys. Probably the guards too. There’s no way you’re getting your hand on those. It’s not like the old westerns where they left the giant key ring on a hook by the cells, and we string our belts together and knock them off and drag them to within reach,” he said.

  “Ross. Please, tell me about the river.”

  “It runs fast. It’s cold. It’s dangerous.”

  “I don’t belong down here. The people of Arcadia might think they’ve re-established democracy, but they haven’t. My trial was a joke. The public defender I was assigned, a joke. There are no appeals. The jurors are biased residents at best, because they sure as shit weren’t peers of mine. I just want to leave. I get out of here, I won’t look back. I’m not a danger to people. What I did was in self-defense,” she said, and told Ross about what had happened, how Broadhurst kidnapped and tortured her friends.

  “I’m sorry all of that happened.”

  “Ross, is the river accessible?”

  “When I first got here, I spent months trying to map an escape. I know I have no wife or job to go back to. The mayor will find me work, I suppose, but I won’t have anything as good as a janitor, if you can imagine that.”

  “And you found a way out?”

  Again, there was silence from Ross’ cell.

  “Ross?”

  “Yes. I’d found a way out.” He reached an arm out. “Take this. You’ll need it, but if things go south—”

  “I didn’t get it from you,” she said.

  # # #

  Char found it difficult to sleep. Her mind was filled with too many thoughts. They jumbled inside her brain making it hard to concentrate on any one idea. Ross had given her an out. It was not a complete escape plan, but the potential was there. She had no idea what would happen if she was caught. She supposed time would be added to her sentence. She’d only been down in this hell hole for a few days. That was already far too long. Weighing the idea of freedom against the risk of more years tacked on seemed worth it.

  If she had been in the wrong, she might respect the sentence. She’d do the time, whether she believed in this dystopian government or not. Her father was a dispatcher for 911. He had hung out with police officers and had been raised to respect the law. Given the situation of the world, she doubted he’d have been disappointed in her plan.

  She wished he were still alive. She’d give anything to talk to him. Not just about whether it was right to carry out an escape plan, but just to hear his voice. He knew how to comfort her, and she never felt safer than when she was with him. They had some of their best talks fishing. Cash hated fishing. He’d stay home with their mom. The two of them would get up early, and they’d stop for coffee and doughnuts and head down to Charlotte. They sat in those sports chairs, side-by-side and cast into the Genesee River along the pier at the beach. He’d told her the best part about fishing together was that she was not squeamish about hooking her own worm, or wrangling a fish off the hook. Sometimes they would sit for hours and just quietly fish. The silence between them was never awkward.

  “Got a boyfriend?” It was always one of his first questions. She always said no. She used to wonder how’d he react the time she said that she did. She would never know.

  “I miss you, daddy,” she said, and wiped tears from the corner of her eyes.

  When the lights came on inside the prison, she climbed out of bed. She put on her Carhartt and retrieved her mask and gloves off the shelf over the toilet. She needed to be prepared, but without looking anxious. There was no way anyone, other than Ross, would suspect a thing. She was too new for them to know her personality. Part of her suspected no one cared about how she behaved. If the guards and the warden kept a close eye on anyone, it would be Gonzales and his men. They looked the dangerous part. The issue she face was that eyes were on her because she was the only female. It made her different. Different could be as unwanted as looking dangerous.

  The routine was already stale.

  She listened for Kyle, and heard him climbing the staircase. He walked so heavy. His boots fell hard on the metal walk. She didn’t think he’d be able to sneak up on someone if he tried. She heard Ross’s cell swing open. The hinge whined as it moved.

  “We’re going to have to get some oil on that thing,” Kyle said.

  “It’s the moisture down here. Everything will rust up eventually.”

  Kyle appeared in front of her cell. He did not say good morning, or a single word as he opened her cell. She stepped onto the walk, and out of the way so he could close and lock it back up.

  “You will not be joining the others for breakfast this morning,” he said. “Follow MacNeil down the stairs, but not to the picnic tables. Understood?”

  She nodded. “Sir?”

  “What?”

  “Can I have permission to use the restroom before we go down?”

  “Use it. Wait for me outside the door when you finish. We clear?”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you.”

  Kyle Newstead walked away. Char wanted to see if Ross was staring at her. It took mental strength not to move. She kept her eyes on the guard, anxiously waiting for the signal. The thought that she could be an hour from escaping filled her. The energy from the thoughts made her limbs tingle.

  Following Ross down the stairs, he went toward the picnic tables. She went toward the locker room.

  Her heart beat so fast that she felt it bang into her ribcage.

  She breathed in. Breathed out. In. Out.

  The temptation to look back and see if anyone watched her felt strong. She didn’t. She stepped through the doorway. She ran to the air vent she’d seen the other day and she climbed onto the cabinet. She removed a screwdriver from her Carhartt. She had no idea where Ross got it from, but was thankful he had it.

  Four screws secured the grill over the vent. It would be a tight fit, and she wasn’t sure how she’d be able to move swiftly once inside, but didn’t care. As long as she was making strides away from the Cog, she didn’t care.

  The first screw came loose easily. The second did as well. The third took some time.

  “Let’s go, McKinney!”

  It sounded like Kyle was standing behind her. She almost dropped the screwdriver.

  The fourth screw was tight. Rusted. She pushed the screwdriver in tight and tried twisting it loose. It was stubborn and it wouldn’t budge.

  “McKinney! We’ll add extra time to end of shift if you don’t step it up!”

  She held the handle in both hands and pushed using all of her weight.

  “McKinney, don’t make me come in there for you! McKinney?”

  “I’m just about done!”

  That might buy her a minute or two. She needed to hurry. If he came in here, if he caught her, the plan to escape wouldn’t just be thwarted, it would be crushed forever. She’d never get out.

  Chapter 34

  “McKinney! McKinney!” Kyle Newstead said.

  Char emerged from the locker room. “It’s my stomach. I’m sorry,” she said.

  She caught Ross’ eye. He stared at her from the picnic table. Everyone was staring at her.

  The screwdriver was in her pocket, the screws were mostly secured back in the vent cover, finger tight. She’d just managed to loosen the fourth one. She had run out of time. She’d never have gotten all four screws out, climbed into the vent, replaced it, and wiggled her way out the other end. Never. It was best not to rush an escape, but to wait for the best time.

  Kyle n
odded, thumbs jammed into his jeans pockets. “Come on. We’ve wasted enough time.”

  Char walked ahead of the guard. They reached the elevator shaft that would lower them to the work floor. It was nearly impossible not to feel depressed about failing. There was no point in masking the emotions. Newstead could assume she was depressed about being in prison, or missing breakfast, or on the rag. It didn’t matter.

  “I want to say something.” She waited until she was alone with Newstead. “I have a bad feeling about Kilmer. I know saying this could put a target on my back with all of you, but the way he was looking at me, I don’t trust him.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, McKinney.”

  “So you believe me?”

  Newstead laughed. “Fuck, no. Lou’s good people. He comes to work every day. He stays late. He puts in six, sometimes seven days a week here making sure things run correctly. You guys, you come down and work until nine at night, but guess what? Kilmer don’t go home at nine. He’s even got a room down there. Sleeps here a lot of the time; the other foremen, they don’t have his kind of dedication. You’ve been here all of what? Three or four days and you’re going to throw around accusations because someone was looking at you funny? You’re a girl. Don’t tell me people haven’t stared at you because of it in the past. This is prison, McKinney. Who started a fight yesterday? Was it Kilmer? No, it was you.”

  The lecture lasted until the elevator car stopped.

  Kyle opened the gate. Char stepped off.

  “Don’t make waves, McKinney. Just go work. No one’s going to bother you.”

  She put on her mask and turned away.

  She hoped he was right. She might just feel apprehensive about Kilmer because of the life changes that are constantly thrust at her. A guy fantasizing about a woman was not uncommon, she knew. It was likely, actually, that all he had been doing was fantasizing. She might have been overreacting. In a way, she now wished she’d never said anything to Kyle. Kyle would always have that in the back of his head.