Breakout by Paul Herron (notion reading list .txt) 📕

under her breath and uses the keycard to open the door leading into the staff corridor. She pauses briefly at the daunting sight of it stretching ahead of her. She knows she’s going to come to hate this corridor. She hates it already and she’s only used it once.

She sighs and sets off at a fast walk.

When Sawyer finally arrives in Admin, it’s completely deserted. All the desks in the open-plan office are empty.

Soft music comes from somewhere; a hidden radio tuned to a seventies station. “Well I don’t know why I came here tonight…”

You and me both, she thinks. She shivers, glancing around the empty bull pen. She feels odd, like she’s trespassing. Like she shouldn’t be here.

She picks one of the corridors leading out of the office space. She has no idea where she’s going, so one corridor is as good as another. It leads her deeper into the large building Martinez called Admin. She moves silently, her ears straining, but she doesn’t pick up any sounds other than those of the storm.

She’s about to turn back, intending to take another of the passages, when she spots an evacuation plan on the wall. She hurries over to inspect it, finds the “You are here” mark, then searches outward for the cafeteria.

There. Back through the bull pen and along a corridor to the left. She takes the map out of the Lucite frame and folds it up, placing it in her back pocket. She might need it if she gets lost again.

She retraces her steps to the passage indicated on the map. It doesn’t take long to find the cafeteria. It’s a large space with tables and benches bolted to the floor and a long food pass-through on the opposite side of the room. Off to the left there’s an open doorway leading into what she assumes is the kitchen.

The cafeteria is empty.

Sawyer feels a growing sense of alarm.

“Hello?”

She waits, but there’s no answer.

“Hello?” She shouts this time. Still, nothing.

She pulls out the map and unfolds it. She finds what she’s looking for—Sheriff Montoya’s office. She needs to find him. Find out what’s going on.

She heads through the cafeteria and into the kitchen. Both walls are lined with huge ovens and gas cooktops. She exits into a narrower corridor, then turns right, making her way along the hallway until she enters one of the main passages of Admin. It’s much wider than the others, easily ten feet across; according to the map, it travels from one side of the building to the other.

She counts the doors as she walks until she finds the sheriff’s office. She knocks, but there’s no answer.

She pushes the door open and peers inside. Empty.

She’s about to close the door again when her eyes are drawn to the desk. It’s covered with charts and printouts. Satellite imagery of the hurricane. She moves closer, glancing through the various pieces of paper. They’re all from the National Hurricane Center. The first page is dated three days ago, and each one is an update on the path and severity of the hurricane as it gathers strength and approaches land.

No… hurricanes. She reads the reports with growing horror. Josephine and Hannah. Coming together to form a superstorm.

She flicks back to the first page. It’s a projected timeline of the superstorm as it passes over Florida. The tail end of the hurricane is only going to pass them around midday tomorrow, but the projections are all saying Florida will be totally flooded by then.

One particular sentence catches her eye. It gives the projected time of the eye of the hurricane arriving over the Miami coastline, 5:05 a.m.

And scribbled next to it in red ink: 5:40–6:20.

That must be when the eye passes over the prison. The eye of the hurricane—an area of calm, usually about a mile wide.

She hears a door slamming shut somewhere farther up the corridor. She exits the office, searching for the origin of the sound. She’s starting to panic now. She has a growing suspicion about what’s happened, but she doesn’t want to admit it to herself. Because if it’s true, it means she’s in serious shit.

She spots something that pulls her up short.

A door stands wide open, a ring bristling with keys dangling in the lock.

She approaches cautiously and peers into the corridor beyond. According to her map, this corridor is a sally port that leads into the first of the prison units. Unit 1 of Gen Pop. There’s no one around. She pulls the keys from the lock and steps into the corridor.

“Hello?”

She follows the passage until she comes to another open door on her left. This one leads into a security control room. She steps inside. It’s empty, but there are monitors and computers everywhere, camera feeds showing various shots from the prison blocks.

Sawyer stops moving, her eyes wide with shock as she attempts to take in what’s happening on the screens.

There’s a riot going on in Unit 1. All the cell doors are standing wide open. Every single one.

The inmates are free.

Sawyer’s eyes flick among the security monitors. It’s just… it’s just people killing each other: inmates fighting, stabbing, breaking necks, mobs chasing down lone figures, throwing them to the ground and kicking the life out of them, stomping on faces and skulls.

She tries to look away, but every monitor holds something similar. Scenes of death, the floors and walls covered in blood.

Three of the monitors show an outside feed. She stares in shock as a bus passes the camera. Her eyes widen. It looks like the bus is filled with COs.

They’re leaving. Abandoning the inmates.

Abandoning her.

She turns to the desks. Five computer screens show electronic blueprints of the prison. All the cell doors that are supposed to be locked and marked red are currently green.

She pulls out a chair and sits down. She uses the mouse to pull back the view. It’s not just Unit 1. It’s the entire prison. Even the Mental Health and Administrative Control units—the two blocks where the