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

down in the dim light, trying to focus eyes that feel too big for my head.

My left wrist is handcuffed to a bed.

I look around in confusion, struggling to figure out what’s going on. There’s a dark shape against the wall to my right. I lean closer. It’s an old ECG machine. Unplugged. Dead.

I’m in the infirmary.

What…?

And then I remember. Wright. Tully. Fighting to get to them. Having my fingers around Tully’s neck. The COs coming for me, Evans using his stun gun…

I squeeze my eyes shut and let out a scream of frustration and rage. I had him. I had Tully in my hands and I let him get away.

I thrash around on the bed, pulling against the cuff, straining to get free. My vision swims. My head pulses with the effort, throbbing against my skull.

I drop back onto the bed, fighting down a surge of nausea. I take slow, deep breaths.

Keep calm. Don’t freak out…

My eyes slide closed. I drift for a while, fading in and out of consciousness. I dream that I’m standing in a river, the water lapping around my legs…

My eyes open again. I stare up at the old white roofing tiles.

I’m not dreaming. I really can hear a lapping sound.

I lean over the bed.

The floor is hidden beneath about two feet of water.

The room is flooding. For a moment, I’m puzzled, wondering if the toilets and showers have backed up. But then I realize. The hurricane…

“Hey!” I shout.

No answer.

I pull on the cuff again, hoping to break the metal frame it’s hooked around. I jam my feet against the bed and heave with everything I have. My vision swims with blackness. A wave of dizziness washes over me and I flop back onto the thin mattress.

I close my eyes again… just for a minute.

Just to stop everything from spinning…

… and then something cold wakes me up. Something… wet?

I look down. The water now laps gently over the bed, touching the back of my legs.

I tense my muscles and pull against the cuff. My tendons and veins stand out. My wrist pulses with sharp pain as the cuff cuts into my skin. The metal bars of the bed groan. I grit my teeth, putting every last ounce of strength into the effort.

The frame finally pops out of the join where it curves down to form the legs of the bed. I pause to take a few breaths, then slide the cuff over the end of the rail and drop into the water.

It’s surprisingly warm. Almost unpleasantly so. I wade to the door, try to push it open.

It doesn’t budge.

I peer through the wire-reinforced window. There’s a light coming from somewhere down the corridor, but all it reveals is an empty flooded passage.

I do a quick check of the room. There’s a metal drip stand in the corner. I grab it and try to wedge it between the door and the frame. It doesn’t work. The gap isn’t even wide enough to insert a knife.

I ram the bottom of the stand against the small window, but all I manage to do is bend the metal. The glass is way too thick.

I pause to catch my breath, fighting off waves of dizziness. I realize this isn’t just the aftereffects of the stun gun. I’m actually struggling to get air into my lungs. I glance up at the air vent. If the power is down, that means the ventilation system won’t be working, either. I’m just breathing my own recycled air.

I kick the door over and over. But it’s hopeless. It’s not like whoever designed the prison wanted the inmates to get out.

I slump back against the wall. Is this it? Is this how I go? Drowning in prison? Or slowly suffocating to death?

There’s a metallic clicking sound to my left. I turn in surprise just as the door opens, pulled slowly outward against the floodwater.

A woman moves hesitantly around the door and stands in the entrance. She’s holding a red fire ax in her hand. In the faint light from the passage, I can see she’s young. Still in her twenties. Tanned features, possibly Mediterranean. A delicate face and hazel eyes with crinkles underneath that make it look like she’s going to break into laughter. Amy had that. It was what first drew me to her.

We stare at each other for a long moment.

“Hey,” she says. It’s almost a challenge.

“Uh… hey.”

Another drawn-out silence.

“I saw you earlier today when you were brought here. One of the COs said you used to be a cop.” She says it accusingly.

“Yeah. I was.”

“They said you’re in here because you killed the guy who murdered your wife.”

“And my baby.”

“What?”

“My wife was pregnant. And I only killed one of them. Two got away.”

“Oh… okay. Um… serious question. You’re not, like… psycho, are you? I mean, you’re not a mass murderer or a rapist or anything like that.”

“No.”

“So… you’re not going to cut my throat? Or bash my head in?”

“The day’s young.”

Her eyes narrow.

“Sorry,” I say. “Bad joke.”

“Right. Great timing. Way to read a room.”

Her fingers curl and uncurl around the ax. She still looks like she’s trying to decide between ramming it into my head or running away.

“I’m Jack Constantine.”

“Keira Sawyer.” She pauses. “I’m new here. First day.”

“That’s… unfortunate. Mind telling me what’s going on here, Keira?”

“Nobody calls me Keira. It’s Sawyer.”

“Okay. Sawyer. I’ve been out since around two. Can you fill in the few gaps?”

She takes a deep breath. “Right. Strap yourself in. It’s around midnight now. Hurricanes Josephine and Hannah have joined up to form some kind of superstorm. You may have noticed that the infirmary is flooding, which doesn’t bode well for the rest of the prison. And the hurricane hasn’t even reached full strength yet.”

“Jesus…”

“Yeah, hold that thought. It gets worse. All the cell doors have been opened. Every single one in the prison. Which means all the inmates are free. I sincerely doubt that’s going to end well. So… to sum up. Inmates running around killing each other.