by Jeremy Flagg
Now, housed within a prison containing some of the worst criminals in the Northeast, she wondered if that fleeting connection had been worth it. At least if she died now, it wouldn’t be at the hands of a man, least of all one who took out his own insecurities on the woman he claimed to love.
“I stabbed mine.”
The woman didn’t take the nonresponsive approach as a hint. Samantha admitted she could use a friend to talk with. “I shot mine in the heart.”
“Cold, bitch.”
It was anything but cold. As she held the gun from the lock box, she feared for her survival. The letter gave her the combination, and despite how she’d thought about it a dozen times before, the metal in her hand seemed distant. As he entered the doorway, a man she once loved with all of her heart, her finger pulled the trigger. She hoped she’d feel relieved and perhaps the pent-up anger she hid away would come rolling out, but she felt hollow inside. Her identity died with her abusive husband, tearing away from her body in the same way he tore at her blouse while she watched him die.
The irony of finally being free while locked in a prison was not lost on her.
“Samantha,” the inmate said nonchalantly.
“Twisty.” Samantha made the mistake of looking up and seeing the woman’s tongue contorted into a spiral shape. She officially knew too much about her fellow prisoner.
Her cell block only had another fifteen minutes before being ushered inside. Somebody in the government thought it was cruel to keep prisoners locked up for twenty-four hours a day, but found no fault in releasing them into a radioactive wasteland to fend for themselves. Some of the women in her quad served life sentences, drudges of society who’d waste away behind prison walls. Others, like herself, received a chance for some semblance of freedom, as long as they remained in the Outlands.
While the women clad in orange were a peculiar bunch, living in a society separated from the rest of mankind, it was the guards who frightened her. They straddled both worlds, partaking in the real one where school plays and piano lessons existed but having to work where women tried to kill one another over an extra container of milk. The mostly male staff treated them as less than human, cockroaches perhaps, something that needed exterminating.
Twisty leaned against the wall, hopefully admitting their friendship would stem from a silent connection. Samantha appreciated her proximity as one of the corrections officers stepped out of the door leading into the prison. The moment his eyes landed on her, she looked away, trying desperately to shrink. As she cowered from the man’s hungry glare, she wondered if she was scared because of his gun, or because he was simply a man.
The guard earned his reputation, a little too handsy with the prisoners and extorting them for drugs when the opportunity presented itself. Her cellmate had rattled off a list of officers to avoid at all costs, and this one made it to the top of the list. Nobody used the word “rape” in prison, but it had been more than hinted.
The door opened again and another officer joined him. She wondered if it was another of the delinquents allowed to run this maximum security facility. It didn’t escape her that the people running the prison were just as bad as its residents.
She sneaked another peek.
For all the horrible things she heard about the first corrections officer, the man stepping outside was his polar opposite. He carried himself like a guard, rigid back, eyes frequently darting back and forth scanning the yard for trouble. Samantha had yet to be assigned a designation due to a fistfight breaking out between several of the women during intake. He, Sims, got in the middle and broke up the fight.
She imagined he’d be a cop or a military man by the way he presented himself. Officer or not, he stood there, as much a prisoner as the killers and drug dealers. Killers, she thought to herself. The label now applied to her. It’d be a long time before she got used to that. But she would.
“Look at them bitches just parading around.”
Sims didn’t respond, obviously trying to not engage or perpetuate the dialogue. The women talked about Sims like he was meat. Even with a quick glance she understood—in the word of pent-up hormones, he was a dashing looking gentleman. He had to be in his mid-twenties, and of the frightening men watching their every move, he was easy on the eyes. She wanted to believe he had some semblance of respectability about him. Unlike her, she wanted to believe he didn’t belong housed in these walls.
“I can’t believe we’re releasing them into the wild. I wouldn’t mind hunting a few of them in the Outlands.”
The disturbed expression on Sims’s face confirmed the man was out of place.
“What’s your poison? Black women? Young? Old? No, let me guess.” The officer gave Sims the once over. “Asian chicks.”
“I’m married.”
“No shit, you don’t say.”
“High school sweetheart.”
“What the fuck brings you to a place like this?”
“I’m waiting for the civil service exam. Trying to see if I can get into the police academy.”
The other guard waved his hand. “They can go fuck themselves.”
Sims didn’t offer to continue the conversation. Samantha realized it didn’t matter if the young man responded; his arrogant counterpart would speak without prompting. She recognized the narcissism. His degrading attitude toward women gave away plenty. The guard showed off a thick upper chest from too much time at the gym, a sad attempt to compensate for his lack of true manliness. She wondered if women rejected him or if he had been picked on by older boys as a kid.
Sam stared at the sea of orange jumpers as she smiled. Weeks ago, she wouldn’t have had the ability to see through the man’s facade. It stung to be reminded, but there was a time when she thought she could change a man like that. Perhaps if she loved him enough he would come around, or if she tried to lead him down a brighter path. No, now she understood the man was an asshole.
“You know I was a cop?” he asked Sims.
“You don’t say?”
“It sucked, man. You spend all your time trying to keep the city safe, and it comes down to some little punk and his girlfriend getting you canned.”
“What happened?”
Samantha caught his face out of the corner of her eye. His cheeks turned red as he got mad thinking about the incident. Would he skip anger and move right into rage? Would he make it everybody’s fault but his own? Would he be the victim? For a moment she saw the ghost of her dead husband in the guard standing next to Sims, his shirt soaked through with blood. It should have made her shiver, or perhaps cower at the horrible atrocity she committed.
The sight of the dead man gave her hope.
“So I was working the streets, looking for this fucking mugger stealing purses, you know? A kid runs by, chasing this dude who stole his girl’s bag or something. I run into the alley and catch the dude screaming some crazy shit at the kid. I thought the guy flashed a weapon, I told him to lay it down. He rushed and I took the shot, pegged him just above the eye.”
“Damn.”
“You know the best part? I don’t get a thanks. He has the audacity to come over to me and start giving me a hard time. He threatens me. Some macho bullshit, I should have let him take care of it himself.”
“That got you fired?”
“Everything was fine. The bitch girlfriend sent my commanding officer a video that only showed part of the story. The bitch’s rich dad gave the video to the media. They told me I could either hand in my gun and shield or I could face Internal Affairs. I said they could fuck themselves. I wasn’t going to let some punk and his ugly ass girlfriend cost me my reputation.”
“Then welcome to this hell hole.”
The guard scrunched up his face in confusion at Sims. “You’ve got to be kidding me? You might be fresh meat here, but with looks like yours, you’ll do just fine. They’re like dogs in heat, they’ll want your shit, man.” He tried to grab Sims by the genitals. The man pulled back, avoiding the uncomfortable si
tuation.
“Just you wait. They’ll offer whatever you want to slide down your pole, man.”
Twisty leaned in close to Samantha. “Goddamn pervert is what he is.”
Samantha nodded in agreement. “I’ve known men like that.”
“We kill men like that,” Twisty elbowed her giving a slight laugh.
Samantha didn’t want to admit it, but statement was correct. “I guess we do.” How many women were in here for taking the only option given to them? Were they dealers, thieves, addicts, and killers because society refused to offer them another option? She didn’t know if she believed it, but she hoped there was a shred of humanity in the women basking in the last semblance of sunlight.
The speakers roared to life as a deep tone sounded three times. Nobody explained how prison life worked, but you studied hard and learned quick if you planned on surviving. The basketballs stopped bouncing and the yelling in the yard turned to a dull roar. A wave of orange proceeded to line up near a doorway thirty feet away.
Women who wanted to reach the showers fastest shoved their way to the front of the line. Fast shower, faster chow. A handful of women took up the rear, no effort being made to work through the blob of unclean orange jumpers. Most of these stragglers had somebody who saved them a place in line or grabbed food for them. She noted quickly that the women hanging back were generally the ones with the most influence. Rules didn’t apply to them and those unwilling to follow the social guidelines only did so because they could. Samantha feared women with nothing left to lose.
She basked in the warm light for what little time remained. The clear blue sky and mountains off in the distance made it difficult to remember the judicial system had caged her and sought to expel her into the Outlands. A soft breeze started just as she wondered how the day could get any more beautiful.
A sound cut through the breeze and she squinted as a jet landed just beyond the barbed wire fences and guard towers. In prison there is little to do except speculate, and the inmates started shouting to one another about what might be happening. Half of the vehicle was out of sight, making it impossible to identify who vacated it. Women shouted.
“I’m going to be pardoned.”
“Who’s going to the Outlands next?”
It’d only be a few minutes before the collective started the gossip mill and before long, monstrous tales would grow. Then they’d be accepted as fact. Samantha had no idea why they were there, but she recognized the craft as military. With black steely hide, it had once swooped overhead on the fourth of July, putting on a demonstration for the people of lower Manhattan. With the way they gossiped, she guessed it was abnormal for the military to visit.
Nearly a hundred women huddled around the doors, attempting to shove their way inside. The sight of the slick aircraft had them worked up, and Samantha saw the signs of an issue as the crowd grew agitated. An elbow landed on a woman’s face as the owner waved to her would-be-saviors. A shove followed. A fist. Screaming commenced.
In the few days she’d been a member of the prison, she witnessed small fights break out. In tight quarters where tensions ran high, it often took the smallest catalyst to cause violence. A missing toothbrush prompted the last rumble that spilled into the common area. By the time it was over, women who had no involvement with the original dispute were being thrown against the wall by guards in body armor. Two women lay dead on the floor, small holes made in their head by the peacekeepers.
Samantha backed away, trying to slide through women pushing forward to get a glimpse of the action. A hand reached through the sea of angry women and pulled at her arm. She slid along with the tug and on the other side found her newest acquaintance smiling down at her.
“Shit’s ‘bout to go down.”
Samantha agreed, if the fight continued, the guards sitting at their perches in the towers would begin firing into the neon crowd. At any moment, a voice would tear through the fighting and command them to lie down on the ground. Any woman resisting or still standing would be shot. Prison didn’t offer compromise.
Sims and his despicable coworker trailed behind, giving the group of women plenty of room. “Ladies, calm down,” Sims shouted. The other guard did nothing to break up the fight, no shouting, no threats, just waiting with a sick grin on his face. Did he find it amusing? Did he care? She had no doubt he wouldn’t put himself in harm’s way to protect the inmates.
Twisty let go of her wrist and backed away from the crowd until she was about to bump into the guard. The man didn’t say anything, too focused on the rumble, laughing as the women fought amongst themselves. Samantha saw Twisty reach into her waistband, sliding something long and metal out of the elastic of her pants. Befuddled by her newfound friend’s odd movements, Samantha didn’t realize the woman had a shank until Twisty shoved the blade into the asshole’s side.
Samantha screamed.
Nobody heard her, drowned out by the chanting of the brawling women. Twisty pulled the weapon out and jabbed it in again, this time trying for the man’s armpit. He resisted, attempting to push away from her, equally confused by what was happening. She pulled at his arm, the makeshift knife disappearing between the space where his body armor didn’t cover. The sharped blade sank deeply until it found a home wedged inside the man.
The guard clutched his side, trying to find the object. He stumbled backward and after a couple steps fell on his ass. Sims knelt beside him, pushing the button on his chest. “Man down in the outdoor courtyard.” He hovered over his coworker, looking for the cause of the accident.
Even as her throat found itself dry, hoarse from continuous screaming, she heard it. A bang and then a sound like a mallet tenderizing a steak. The meaty thwap cause all the women to freeze in place. Mid-punch, or with a hand still containing a fistful of hair, not a single woman moved.
“Twisty,” Samantha said in a hushed whisper.
The large woman, her only friend in the recreational area, turned her head slowly. Samantha gasped at the red stain cutting through the bright neon orange of the woman’s jumper. She wanted to reach out for Twisty and find out if she’d be alright, but her feet didn’t move. Even a step forward, closing the distance between her and her friend, would mean another shot, this one most likely aimed at her.
“I got him,” Twisty laughed. “One less douchebag for us to deal with.”
Only fifteen minutes ago, she had mentioned killing him. Samantha hadn’t thought she was serious. Sam watched as the woman realized blood coated her clothes. Twisty eyed the blood stain and touched it with her hand, assessing the damage. Seconds seemed to drag on as other women stared at her. “Oh, damn.”
Twisty fell to the ground.
The loudspeaker roared to life. The siren sounded, its high pitched tone causing everybody to grab at their ears. They all knew the drill, even Samantha. She got to her knees and lay down, her hands went on top of her head, her cheek pressed against the asphalt.
None of them resisted. Each held a similar pose, lying face down. If the guards in the tower suspected anybody resisted the order, they would shoot. Samantha had no doubt, with the death of their own, the officers would be looking for reasons to eliminate the scum that killed their brother in arms.
Sims searched for a pulse on his fallen comrade. The defeat, the complete and utter despair clinging to the corners of his eyes told her everything. Twisty had killed the guard. Two people lay dead as the doors burst open and guards came rushing out.
Guards began grabbing at the women, one at a time, ushering them through the door. With so many prisoners sprawled along the ground, it’d be a while before they reached her and dragged her into the building. She didn’t look forward to the tension, the rampant abuse that would follow. She reminded herself, just keep focused on your own feet, you only need to survive one moment at a time.
On the other side of the yard, the entrance to the recreational area burst open. An older man in a dark green suit entered the fenced-in area with men flanking him. The meda
ls on his chest alone marked him as somebody of importance. She had no idea what all the decorations meant, but the men on either side of him followed each footstep, keeping an exact distance. His green didn’t belong in a neon orange world.
The soldiers were more familiar, their camouflage pattern giving away their military affiliation. A glint of light shone off their hands. As they approach she realized at least one arm on each was entirely metal. She had read about the customization of the military, wounded soldiers being given artificial limbs so they could continue fighting. She never imagined she’d see one of these cyborgs.
A third man walked in between the soldiers, neatly tucked away in the shadow of his leader. Samantha didn’t dare move her head to follow him. From her vantage point, she could see the feet of the closest subordinate and little else. The men paid no heed to the women of the prison, ignoring them to the point where it was unsettling how confidant they were.
“Corrections Officer Sims?”
“Huh?”
The man in charge made no condolences for the dead man, did not offer an apology or even an acknowledgement. He must have seen more dead men than she could imagine; it was the only way he could speak over a corpse and not even address it. “Are you Corrections Officer Sims?”
“Yes I am, sir.” Sims, on the other hand, his voice cracked easily. He wasn’t crying, but it sounded as if panic had seeped in as the guard’s blood seeped out.
“It’s your lucky day, soldier.”
“My co-worker just got shivved, sir. I need a medical team.”
“Bryant, is there need for a medical team?”
A short pause in their dialogue let a woman’s cursing cut through the air. They were still dragging in the women one at a time. The prisoners would be in lockdown for the night, no dinner, no shower, just angry women confined to their small cells.