It was an oversight on Sennett’s part, and quite possibly his first mistake.
For that was what his men searched for.
They didn’t find any, because the cells (or apartments) were gun-free zones. But they didn’t know that.
Now, common sense would have dictated the men confiscate any knives they came across as well.
But former convicts aren’t exactly known for using their own heads.
All those years in prison they followed instructions.
“Cuff up, report to chow, clean your cell, go to the infirmary, shut your mouth, hang that up,” etc.
They get out of the habit of thinking for themselves.
And they get into the habit of following instructions to the letter.
Sometimes when told to do “A and B” they’ll skip “C” even if it’s apparent it needs to be done.
It’s part of the whole institutionalization of convicts.
It’s possible they never even raised Marty’s mattress and saw the knives.
It’s also possible they saw them and left them behind simply because Sennett didn’t specifically tell them to grab them.
In either case it was a major blunder.
Marty was left with a pearl handled Bowie knife, a cherry handled Bowie knife and a tactical knife, serrated on one side and razor sharp on the other.
It was perfectly weighted for throwing and the one Marty used to practice with.
He was a bit rusty now, but confident he could still sink it into someone’s chest from twenty feet if called upon to do so.
After Glenna got the kids calmed down she laid them upon her bunk and told them to relax.
“I know you’re too wound up to sleep, so I want you to go on quiet time,” she told them. “You’re not being punished, I promise. But I need you to be perfectly quiet while Daddy and I figure out what to do, okay?”
In the tiny room it was impossible to carry on a private conversation, even in hushed tones.
The children would hear every word they said to one another.
But that was okay. They were old enough now to understand that bad people sometimes do bad things to good people.
They also understood that it’s up to good people, doing sometimes extraordinary things, to right the wrongs.
And they trusted their mother and step-father explicitly.
“When they allow us to move about again I’m going to move down to Bill Brady’s old cell,” Marty told her.
“But why?”
“Because I plan to make a move on them as quickly as I can, before they decide to come through a second time collecting knives.
“If I fail, I don’t want them to know you and I are a couple. I don’t them to take any kind of retaliation out on you or the kids.
“Ruth Sears already has a target on her back and I don’t want a target on yours.”
“What do you mean, you’re going to move on them quickly? What are you going to do?”
“Well, the first thing I’m gonna do is smuggle out my knives. I’ll keep the tac knife and give the Bowies to Bob Ashton and Gary Cupp. They’re strong and able and I can trust them to stick to whatever plan we come up with.
“From Bill Brady’s cell I can communicate with Richard on the outside of the block. We can coordinate an attack that way.”
“Marty I don’t like this. Not at all.”
“Honey, I don’t like any of this. But you can help me.”
He looked over at the kids and said, “The chitlins can help too.”
It was an inside joke. Early on in their relationship Marty told them they behaved “pretty good for chitlins.”
The youngest, one, a girl of five, roared with laughter.
“We’re not chitlins. We’re children!”
Marty argued with her. In a mocking tone he said, “Don’t be silly! Children are something you eat that’s made from pig intestines. You guys are chitlins.”
It was a dumb conversation for sure, but it endeared the tiniest one of them to Marty for life and helped his acceptance into the family.
Glenna asked, “How can the kids help?”
“By pretending they don’t know me. Or at least by pretending I’m not their daddy. If I try something and fail I don’t want them to know we’re all together and take out their revenge on you.
“And you, honey, need to very discretely pass the word that I don’t want them to know we’re a family.
“I’m going to move into Bill’s old room until this thing is over.”
“Marty, are you sure you want to go in there?”
Bill Brady was the man who sent eight women who were desperate for shelter back out into the cold.
Seven of them perished while they tried to get to the nearest city twenty miles away.
Brady was so distraught he hung himself in his room, and no one had been in the room since.
But it was the only room with a gap in the wall. The only room with a means to discretely communicate with someone on the outside.
And for the time being it was Marty’s new room.
-30-
At that moment Sennett’s voice came over the intercom.
“Everybody out in the common area. Now!”
Glenna was so startled she jumped.
Seeing her mom jump caused the middle child to start sniffling.
Marty just mumbled, “Oh, geez. What now?”
He turned to Glenna and said, “Once we’re out there I’m going to separate and I’m going to stay away from you until this thing is over.”
“Marty, be careful.”
“I will, honey. You be tough for those little ones.”
He called over to the children and said, “You chitlins take good care of your mama.”
The little one snickered a bit and the tension was broken.
They walked into the common area, where Marty peeled away and made his way to the other side of the crowd.
“Is this everybody?” Sennett yelled.
“Yes,” came a voice from the back.
“Who’s in charge of your group?”
Mayor Al stepped forward.
“That would be me. I’m the mayor of Eden.”
“What’s your name, fat man?”
“Al.”
“Okay, Al. I’ve decided on my rules for you and your people. You will personally be responsible for making sure my rules are followed.
“If people start breaking my rules, I will decide you aren’t up to the task.
“I will shoot you dead and select someone else to replace you. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“I hope you do. Because your life depends on it.
“Now then… I have nothing against you people and I don’t mind letting you live. Although it would certainly be easier for me and my men to just kill you all, I am a reasonable man.
“I will let you live as long as you accept that things have changed. I am now in charge. My men and I now own this place. You are nothing but living, breathing wastes of my space.
“Break my rules and your mayor will die. His blood will be on your hands. Not mine. Yours. Let that sink in for a bit, for those of you who think you want to challenge me.”
He looked at the faces in the crowd.
He expected to see a look of fear on the faces of the women and children, and a look of defiance on the men’s faces.
Instead he saw mostly blank stares.
These men had been through a lot.
During the first freeze they had no shelter. They lived for seven long years trekking from one abandoned tractor trailer to the next in dreadfully heavy snow.
They’d eaten rats and family pets and anything else they could find.
They tore down the houses their neighbors left behind after they committed suicide.
Not because they wanted to. But because they had to.
They had to have a fire burning twenty four hours a day for every day of the freeze.
To let their fire burn
out was to risk dying, for there was no guarantee they’d get it started again.
Fire was key to their survival.
It was required to cook their food; to melt and boil the snow for drinking water.
It was required to keep them from giving up and following their neighbor’s lead.
And it took an awful lot of fuel to keep a fire burning all the time.
That was what the survivors of Eden endured during the first freeze.
It broke many of them.
It made many others tougher.
-31-
When Sennett looked out at the sea of faces before him expecting to see anguish, anger and panic he was surprised.
For he saw none of that.
What he saw instead were faces that had been through so much already that nothing else would faze them.
Nothing else would make them afraid.
Nothing else would make them panic or freak out.
They’d just take this as best they could, just as they’d taken everything else for over ten years now.
Most of them would do what they were told, he was sure of it.
At least until someone else came along who gave them a better option.
“Rule number one,” Sennett announced with great flourish, “is that none of you approach the platform without permission.
“We will have weapons aimed at you at all times. If you want to talk to us for any reason you will stop ten feet short of the platform and ask permission to proceed.
“If you come closer than ten feet without permission my men have orders to shoot you dead.”
He looked from face to face to see whether he’d awakened the apparent zombies before him.
They were still stoic.
“Rule number two: You may come out in the morning and may move about freely.
“At nine p.m. each night we will send you to bed. You will stay in your cells until you’re told you can come out the next morning.
“If you need to use the restroom I suggest you do it before nine p.m. or hold it.
“Or, as I told that little wench earlier, take a can to bed with you.
“Between nine p.m. and the time we let you out in the morning anyone who opens their door will be immediately shot.
“As will everyone in your room. Parents, I suggest that if one of your little brats sleepwalks you tie him to his bed.
“Otherwise he will get you all killed.
“That’s it. Two rules. That’s all.
“If I were you I’d memorize them and follow them to the letter.
“Because I’ll be honest with you, I don’t give a diddly damn about any of you. I’d just as soon just shoot you all and save myself a lot of trouble.
“In fact, I still might.”
Marty, in the midst of the crowd, was only half-listening to Sennett’s words.
Half-listening just in case Sennett gave away any intel. Such as whether or not they had additional people outside the prison’s walls.
Or what their end-goal might be.
Whether they planned to let their new hostages live out the freeze with them; to trade their very lives for compliance.
Or whether they planned to kill their hostages to extend the food supplies, as those animals did at the orphanage down the highway a piece.
At the same time Marty was scheming.
Trying to come up with some type of plan to overtake Sennett and his men.
Marty was old school.
He grew up in an age where men took great pride in being men.
They loved being able to fend for themselves, and to provide for the people they loved.
They considered themselves tough. They held their own; they never backed down from a fight.
And they damned sure never wore pink.
Marty sidled over to a friend, Mike, to ask him for a favor.
Now, Mike was a great guy. Very capable, very reliable.
But he wore a pink shirt.
And maybe, just maybe, Marty was a bit too biased. A bit too unreasonable.
In any case, he decided at the last moment to pass Mike by, to go instead to another friend.
Chuck was a year older than Marty. A lot more seasoned than Mike. He’d been in the Army.
And he was wearing a plaid shirt with an old Army fatigue jacket over the top.
“Hey Chuck, would you do me a favor?”
“Go get that guy Sennett, shove my fist down his throat and pull out his heart? Sure. I’d love to.”
“No, actually this is a little easier.”
“Anything that’ll help the situation. Just name it.”
Marty said, “I’m going to work my way over to the common areas. The kitchens, the laundry room, the storage rooms and the private viewing rooms.”
“Okay…”
“I’m going to turn off all the lights in them.”
“Okay. What do you want me to do?”
“Get the word out. Make sure everyone is on the same sheet of music.
“I want them to leave those lights out as much as possible until we get ourselves out of this situation.
“If Sennett or any of his men ask, they are to say that we try to conserve electricity as much as we can to keep the generators from working any harder than they have to.
“The harder the generators have to run the more diesel fuel they use.
“And the more fuel they use the sooner it’ll run out.
“This next part is important. Tell everybody to tell Sennett and his men that for the same reason, we dim the lights in the common areas at night when most of them go to bed.”
Chuck had a puzzled look on his face, wondering why in the world Marty was asking such a favor of him.
Suddenly he figured it out, and the puzzled look turned into an excited smile.
“Well I’ll be darned. You’ve already got a plan in the works, don’t you?”
-32-
“Well, only half a plan, actually. I’ve got to finish the rest of it, and coordinate with Richard in case he’s got a plan of his own.”
“How are you gonna coordinate with Richard? Didn’t he get stuck outside?”
“Where there’s a will there’s a way, my big friend.”
Truth was, Marty already had a means of communicating with Richard on the outside.
But as much as he liked and trusted Chuck, he wasn’t going to share all his secrets.
The military has a saying which has dated back to the First World War: “Loose lips sink ships.”
The more information Chuck knew, the more chance he’d let something slip out.
As far as Marty was concerned his communications capability to the outside was on a “need to know” basis.
Chuck didn’t need to know, therefore he wouldn’t.
Chuck was eager to help.
“What else?”
“Have several of the people wear coats anytime they’re in the common area.”
“Some of us do already. It’s kinda drafty in here.”
“I want Sennett and his men to get used to seeing people in coats. So if we assault them and walk into the common area with heavy coats to hide weapons beneath them we aren't conspicuous.
“I want us to blend in with everybody else.”
“Anything else?”
“No. Please spread the word but be inconspicuous. Do you think you can get word to everyone within an hour or two?”
“No problem. Consider it done.”
Marty worked his way over to the corner of the crowd to his friend Bob Ashton.
Bob was his given name, but few people called him that.
Most people called him “Ace,” but Marty didn’t.
“How come everybody calls you Ace?” he asked one day. “What kind of nickname is Ace? Do you play a lot of cards? Because I’ve played a lot of gin with you and you ain’t that good at it.
“No offense, my big friend.”
“None taken.”
“Is it because you think you’re bett
er than everyone else? Maybe the ‘Ace’ is because you think you’re number one or something?”
Ashton laughed.
“Nope. That’s not it.”
“You’re not gonna tell me, are you?”
“Probably not. I never tell anybody the story behind my nickname.”
“But we’re great friends, Bob. You can trust me.”
“Nope. It’s not that I can’t trust you, Marty. And we are indeed great friends. It’s just that… well, the story behind my nickname is something personal. That’s all.”
“Ha! I’ll bet it’s something dirty. I’ll bet if I asked your wife she’d tell me.”
“No she won’t.”
“Does she know?”
“Yes. But I swore her to secrecy.”
“Yeah, just as I suspected. It’s something dirty.”
“Believe what you wish.”
“Well, I refuse to call you by a nickname unless I know the reason why. I don’t care if everybody else calls you Ace. I’ll call you Bob until you tell me.”
Ace shrugged his shoulders and said, “Do as you wish. I won’t stop being your friend, even when you act like a spoiled child.
Despite the impasse, the two were the best of friends.
Moreover, Marty knew that Bob was as dependable and capable a man as any others at the prison.
He could be counted on to help out.
Bob studied Marty’s face for a moment and saw something there.
Instead of the downtrodden despair everyone else was feeling, he saw a spark in Marty’s eyes.
A spark of hope.
“Well, I’ll be,” Bob said. “You’ve got a plan, don’t you?”
“Yes. But I want you to meet me up at Bill Brady’s cell. Cell 236.”
“Sure. You go first. I’ll wait five minutes and join you.”
-33-
Room 236, Brady’s old cell, had a certain eeriness about it.
It wasn’t that anyone thought it was haunted necessarily.
But it was a death room. The site of the first suicide at the converted prison.
So it was natural that no one wanted to go in there.
That would change in the months ahead. Eventually the memories of Brady would fade, as would the sad circumstances which led him to take his own life.
Rest in Peace Page 10