by Dakota Chase
He arched an eyebrow. Seriously? What is this, like a convict’s version of the Boy Scout Handbook?
As it turned out, that was exactly what it was.
It described, in detail, every facet of the life a convict could expect to live while at Alcatraz. Every moment would be scheduled. Rising, eating, bathroom breaks, showers, and exercise would all be done according to the cellblock timetable.
Some of it was a little misleading, too, in his opinion. For example, he read that “Treatment Unit” was actually somewhere they would stick you and take away your privileges if you broke any of the other rules.
Other rules seemed stupid to him. If you loaned another inmate something of yours, say a bar of soap, it was considered a serious offense and you’d both get punished for it.
Everyone, he read, was required to work. There were lots of different jobs for the convicts—the Culinary Unit, which he figured meant working in the kitchen, and the Clothing Room, which might mean the laundry, and the Bathroom. He had a strong feeling that involved scrubbing out the toilets not located in cells, and there was no way in hell he wanted to do that.
Other jobs didn’t sound so bad, like the Library and Yard Detail. He could deal with books and plucking weeds.
After the long list of dos and don’ts came the actual schedule for Alcatraz. You were up at 7:00 a.m.—although you got a whole extra fifteen minutes of sleep on weekends and holidays. Seven twenty was the first headcount of the day. By seven thirty, you were in the dining hall having breakfast.
By eight o’clock, you should be ready to go to work. Another headcount would be taken when the prisoners left the main cellblock to walk over to the “industry” buildings and other outside work details. You worked at your job until eleven thirty-five, when you broke for yet another headcount. Then you took the short walk back to the cellblock dining hall for lunch at noon.
Guess what was next? Yup. Another headcount. Then back to whatever job you were doing. Work ended at four ten, except on Tuesdays when it ended a half hour earlier because—oh, joy of joys!—Tuesdays were shower days. Oh man, I can’t wait to experience that again. Not. Still, only one shower a week? And no such thing as deodorant? No wonder it stank inside Alcatraz. They had no concept of basic hygiene.
It went on like that, every minute of every day completed, plotted, and scheduled for every single man on the island. The only time the schedule might differ was when somebody got sick, and Ash was pretty sure a guy would have to be half-dead to get excused from work.
There was also a list of clothing items each convict would receive. He’d already been given his and glanced over at the meager stack on his shelf. You got to exchange your clothes for clean ones on Tuesdays and Saturdays, which meant you were wearing the same damn pair of underwear for three days straight.
Ew. Gross.
Oh, and there was one other thing that made Ash’s eyebrows hike up. Almost everyone on Alcatraz smoked. Everyone. They even issued all convicts two packs of cigarettes a week! He wondered if everyone was expected to suck on the cancer sticks, and if they’d be punished if they didn’t. If that was the case, he was going to be spending a lot of time in the Treatment Unit, because he, sure as shit floats, wasn’t going to screw up his lungs just because some asshat thought he should smoke.
And, of course, silence. Prisoners were not allowed to talk while waiting in line, moving from place to place in the cellblock, or from cell to cell. They could talk in the dining room only to ask for something to be passed, like the salt. The only place Ash could see where conversation was allowed was on the weekends when convicts got to go outside to the recreation yard and, surprisingly enough, in the shops.
He closed the booklet and tossed it back on the shelf. If he’d learned anything from reading it, it was that life on Alcatraz was going to suck big fat hairy monkey balls.
Yet here he was, locked in a cell. And then there was Grant, a guard, free to come and go at will. It wasn’t fair. He lay back on the creaky cot, tucked his arms under his head, and waited for sleep.
His shoulder ached fiercely, though, and sleep didn’t come for a long time. When it finally did, it brought a dream of him being thrown into a deep, suffocating black hole without light or sound.
THE NEXT time he woke, he was confused for a moment. What time was it? There were no windows on the block, no clocks, no way for him to know the time. He could hear snoring, so it was early enough for the rest of the convicts to still be asleep.
Something woke him up, though. Maybe he’d rolled over on his injured shoulder. The pain bit at him like a toothache, so it was totally possible. Then he heard it. A whisper.
“Hey, you. Get up. You hear me?”
Ash sat up and swung his legs over the side of the cot. He peered into the dim light shining in the corridor—a nightlight, the only source of light available at night aside from the powerful flashlights the guards used when they did overnight headcounts.
A guard was squatting down in front of the cell, almost at eye level with Ash. His face looked like it was carved from granite. “Oh, good. Sleeping Beauty is awake. Listen up. I got a message for you from Officer Hocks. Anybody asks, you say you fell and hurt your shoulder. Got it? You say anything else, and you’ll have a broken arm to go with your sore shoulder. Maybe a broken neck. Understood?”
Hocks? Oh, the asshole who was trying to hit Capone. Great. He wasn’t in the prison for a full day and his list of mortal enemies had already grown to two. He was on a roll. “Um, yeah. Sure. I understand.”
“Good. Go back to sleep. Or don’t—I don’t care. Morning bell is in half an hour anyway.” The guard stood up and strode away, swinging his blackjack in a circle at his hip.
Jeez. It’s like being in a bad gangster movie from the thirties. Something with James Cagney in it, maybe, or that other guy, George Raft. Grandpa used to love those old black-and-white flicks. Ash remembered watching them with his grandfather every Sunday afternoon on the television at the nursing home. Wonder what he’d think if he knew his grandson was an inmate at freaking Alcatraz, friends with Al Capone and enemies with a guard?
Ash smiled. He’d probably ask me to get Al Capone’s autograph.
“Hey, kid.”
Speak of the devil and he shall whisper to you from the next cell over. “Hey, Al.”
“Never you mind that gavoon, Hocks. Stick with me, kid, and nobody’ll touch you.”
“Thanks, Al.”
“Hey, no problem. You can trust me. Like I always say, in this life all that I have is my word and my balls, and I do not break them for nobody. Now, go on, get a few more winks. The friggin’ bell will be ringing in a couple of minutes.”
Ash lay back down on the cot, favoring his shoulder, but he couldn’t sleep. So now, his only friend in prison was Public Enemy Number One. Great. He stared at the battered and cracked concrete ceiling, barely visible in the dim light, wondering what was going to happen next, how he was supposed to get the locket when he couldn’t get into Capone’s cell, and most of all, where the hell was Grant?
Chapter Six
GRANT WANTED nothing more than food, a shower, and a bed, not necessarily in that order, but the chances of him getting any of the three were ranging from slim to none. He had more important things to worry about, like getting to Ash, getting the locket, and getting home, definitely in that order.
Obviously finding Ash was the priority. He looked around the medical unit but didn’t see anyone in uniform. Hustling outside, he ran down the stairs to the cellblock and stopped the first guard he saw.
“There was a prisoner in the medical unit earlier. Do you know where he went?” He tried not to sound as anxious as he felt.
“Yeah, he was sent back to his cell. You gotta be careful with the new fish. They think they can always pull one over on us, say they’re sick and get out of work.”
“I’ll try to keep that in mind.” Grant turned away and walked quickly in the opposite direction. Ash hadn’t been faking, h
e was sure of it. He would be more surprised if Hocks hadn’t broken any of Ash’s bones with the blow he’d delivered. If Ash hadn’t intercepted the blow, Capone’s head would have, and the result wouldn’t have been pretty.
He knew Ash’s cell was on Broadway and headed in that direction. If he was stopped by another guard, he would say he was lost. He was new—they would believe him. He hoped. If not, at worst he’d be escorted out of the building and would have to try to get in again later, right?
Unfortunately, he didn’t count on the first person he saw being Officer Hocks. When Grant saw Hocks striding toward him down the corridor, he was tempted to run the other direction. Running would only raise suspicion, and if Hocks gave chase, it would only make things worse. He would have to explain why he was on the cellblock in the first place, and why he was running away from Hocks in the second. Since he didn’t have a good lie for either, he preferred not to be caught in that situation. He straightened his spine and continued on his path, hoping Hocks would not question where he was going.
And of course, he just wasn’t that lucky.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” Hocks stopped in his tracks and directed a hard glare at Grant. His hand drifted to the blackjack at his side.
“I, uh….” He suddenly seemed to possess a vocabulary of zero words. He just stared back at Hocks, his mouth hanging open while his mind spun wildly, trying to come up with a lie that might sound even vaguely like the truth.
“I asked you a question, boy.” Hocks’s hand slipped the blackjack free of its loop. He gripped the handle in a tight, white-knuckled fist. “I ask a new fish a question, I expect an answer. Now, I’ll give you one more chance to answer before I beat it out of you. What are you doing on the block?”
When the words came, they were not only the wrong ones, they streamed out of Grant’s mouth like water from a burst dam. “You’re the one who hit Ash!” His lip curled in a snarl and he took a half step toward Hocks.
Hocks seemed startled by Grant’s sudden show of aggression and took a step backward even though he held a weapon. “What? Who?”
“The convict you bashed with that blackjack. You could’ve killed him!”
“What the hell do you care? What’s one con more or less around here? Besides, it was his own damn fault. He got in my way. Because of him, I got my ass blistered by the captain, and got put on fucking night patrol. And Capone got to mouth off and didn’t even get a slap on the wrist for it. You think that’s fair?” Hocks looked like he was working himself up into a fine fury. Red mottled his neck and crept up into his cheeks, his voice growing louder and more abrasive with every word. “Aw, I ought to knock your fucking block off.”
His backbone suddenly made an appearance. “I’m not one of those convicts. You even think about swinging at me, and I’ll go straight to the warden. Your ass will be on the next boat off Alcatraz.”
“You little prick!” Hocks spat the words out as if they tasted poisonous, but he shoved the nightstick back into its loop on his belt. “Get off my cellblock.”
“Gladly.” Grant scowled at Hocks as he brushed past. He stalked down Broadway and didn’t look back, although it was a struggle not to keep checking to make sure Hocks wasn’t following him. The hardest part was not glancing into Ash’s cell, but he absolutely couldn’t risk Hocks seeing him.
Only when he rounded the far corner did he allow himself to stop and catch his breath. He was shaking; Hocks could’ve really done a lot of damage with that blackjack. Grant knew he was extremely lucky he’d gotten away with his bluff about going to the warden. He couldn’t really go to the administration, not when he wasn’t sure how well the credentials Merlin’s magic put in place would hold up under any scrutiny. Thankfully, Hocks didn’t know it, though. The threat was enough to make Hocks rethink bashing Grant’s brains in.
However, a guy like Hocks wouldn’t be happy about backing down. He’d blame Grant for it, for making him feel weak. Bullies usually did. Hocks would have Grant in his crosshairs from here on out, and it would only be a matter of time before Hocks tried to get revenge. Grant sorely wanted to be out of Alcatraz and back home before that happened.
He counted to five, then risked a peek around the corner to see if Hocks was still there. The corridor was empty—Hocks had moved on, no doubt confident Grant was running as fast as he could to get as far from him as quickly as possible. Bullies were like that too. Sure of themselves and everyone else’s fear of them. Grant smirked to himself. You are afraid of him, so he’s got that part right.
Hocks could be back at any moment, so he hurried to Ash’s cell. He pulled his flashlight free from the loop it hung from on his belt and flicked it on, shining it into the cell. The bright light cut through the dark cell, flicking over the walls until it illuminated a figure lying on the cot, covered with a single thin blanket.
“Ash? Ash, can you hear me?”
“Ugh.” The figure shifted a bit but didn’t rise.
“Ash, it’s me. It’s Grant. Wake up.” He was whispering, but knew he was close enough to Ash’s head for Ash to hear him.
“Leave me alone. Wanna sleep.”
“I know, buddy, but we have to talk, and I don’t know when we’ll the get the opportunity again. Come on, man, get up.” He directed the flashlight beam into Ash’s face, hoping the bright light would help rouse him.
It did, although Ash wasn’t exactly happy about it.
“You shit. Get the light out of my eyes.”
“Aw, does it burnses, Golem?” Grant’s lips twitched into a smile. He knew the Lord of the Rings reference wouldn’t be lost on Ash—the trilogy was one of Ash’s favorites.
“Ass.”
The familiar insult was their favorite to throw at each other, and Ash’s use of it relieved Grant somewhat. Ash couldn’t be hurt too badly if he was up to throwing shade.
As if confirming Grant’s thoughts, Ash sat up and swung his legs over the side of the cot. He cradled his right arm with his left. “Where the fuck have you been?”
“Trying to blend in. This is the first chance I’ve had to talk to you alone. I’m not scheduled to be on this block at all. They’ve got me going up in the Gun Gallery, so I had to sneak in here.”
“Speaking of which, how come you get to be a guard and I have to be a prisoner?”
“How should I know? Who knows why Merlin does anything Merlin does?”
“Yeah, well, it’s not fair.”
Grant couldn’t argue with that. If anything, he agreed Ash got the short end of the stick on this trip.
“Well, what are you waiting for? Let me out of here!”
“What are you talking about? I can’t let you out. Where would we go? How would we get home? We have to play our parts in order to get the locket and get home. You know that, Ash.”
Ash fell silent, but Grant knew he was angry. He didn’t blame Ash—he’d be angry too if he was stuck on the other side of the bars. He decided to change the subject. “How’s your arm?”
Ash grunted and gingerly moved his fingers, his expression strained by pain. “Hurts like a bitch.”
Grant eyed the arm. “Is it broken?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“Didn’t they take X-rays?”
Ash snorted. “I’m lucky they didn’t try to bleed me with leeches. The medical unit here isn’t exactly the ER at Johns Hopkins, you know.” He shrugged his uninjured shoulder. “The doctor said if the bones were all still on the inside of my skin, then I’d live, and he sent me back here.”
“Jeez. Man, I’m sorry, Ash. I should’ve done something, like knocked Hocks right out of his freaking boots.”
“Yeah, except he’s three times bigger than you. Besides, even if you got a clean shot in, you would’ve been put on the next boat out of here, and then how the hell would we ever get home? Naw, it was better the way it played out.”
Grant thought he heard footsteps and froze. He put a finger to his lips and then looked up and do
wn the corridor. When no one appeared, he turned back to Ash. He spoke even more softly than before. “Have you seen it yet?”
“What? The locket?”
“No, the Loch Ness Monster. Of course, the locket, you lunkhead. Have you spotted it?”
Ash shook his head but jerked his thumb toward Capone’s cell, reminding Grant that, if awake, Capone could probably hear everything they said. He lowered his voice to a barely audible whisper. “Al’s been really nice to me since I kept Hocks from bashing his brains in. Next time we talk, I’ll ask him about it. Find out where he keeps it.”
Grant nodded. He felt utterly frustrated knowing the locket was probably no more than ten feet away from where he stood, yet he couldn’t get his hands on it. “Okay. I gotta go before Hocks comes back. Listen, try not to get beaten to death between now and tomorrow night, okay?”
“Yeah, go get some sleep. Wherever they’ve got you, it has to be better than this.” Ash gestured around the tiny, dank cell.
“Yeah, it is, but not by much. Got a dorm room with three other guys, and it smells like feet and elephant ass.”
Ash snorted. “Had your nose up many elephants’ rear ends?”
“Shut up. It’s hyperbole. We learned about it in English class.”
“You learned about it. I was playing Angry Birds on my phone.”
“Which is why you are totally destined for a fine career in the fast-food industry.”
“Stick it up your hyperbole, Einstein.”
Grant smiled weakly and flicked off his flashlight. “Get some sleep, Ash. Maybe your arm will feel better in the morning.”
“Morning? You mean in fifteen minutes when they start waking us up? I hear they’re real keen on early rising here.”
“Yeah, I heard that too. Night, Ash.”
“Night, Grant.”
Grant hurried back the way he’d come, practically holding his breath and hoping he didn’t run into Hocks again. The last thing he wanted was another argument, particularly since he was sure if he and Hocks were alone he’d have the imprint of Hocks’s nightstick on the side of his head.