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

Prison flooding. Category Five super hurricane hitting us… What else? Oh yeah. The COs are all gone and I don’t think anybody on the outside actually knows about us, so no help is coming.”

“Wait. What? Back up. What the hell are you talking about?”

“The National Guard was supposed to come and relieve the staff. Watch over you guys until the hurricane passed. They didn’t turn up. My guess is they’re dead. Montoya decided all the staff should leave when the Guard didn’t show. Now they’re dead too.”

I open my mouth to speak, but she cuts me off.

“I heard it on the radio. Trust me, they’re dead. So…” She shrugs. “We’re well and truly on our own. Or to put it another way—fucked.”

“So why are you still here?”

Sawyer looks embarrassed. “I… got lost. They left without me.” Her hand rises to touch her head. Her hair is matted at the back with what looks like blood. “One of the inmates hit me. I made it in here, locked the door with my keys. But I passed out. Only just woke up.”

“So… you haven’t been out into the prison again?”

“Not for a few hours.”

“How do we know anyone’s still alive?”

“We don’t.”

I glance away from her, my thoughts racing. Think about it logically, I tell myself. Take it step by step. Obviously the first thing to do is get out of the infirmary. The whole place is going to be underwater within an hour.

“You still got the keys?” I ask.

She shakes her hip slightly. Metal jingles and I see the keys attached to her jeans.

“Good. We need to get out of here.”

She looks at me like I just said the stupidest thing she has ever heard. “Good idea. Wish I’d thought of that.” Then she turns and starts wading through the water.

I follow after, letting her lead the way through the infirmary.

As we move away from the cells, drawing closer to the outside walls of the prison, the sound of the hurricane increases in volume until it gradually overwhelms everything. The thundering of the wind ratchets up so it seems like it’s slamming through the bricks themselves, enveloping us in an earsplitting scream.

And the rain… it smashes and hammers the roof, sounding like a million stones being thrown against metal.

How the hell do we survive this? The water is past my waist. If it carries on rising as fast as it is, then the whole of Ravenhill will most likely be underwater by dawn. We need to get to higher ground. Somewhere to hole up until the hurricane passes.

As we wade through the water, I find my thoughts returning over and over to the Glasshouse. I’m not sure if it’s because Wright and Tully are locked up there or because it’s the highest ground in the area, but either way, I come to realize it’s probably our best shot. It’s even shielded on one side by the bank of a hill. It’s old. Sturdy. And the authorities obviously thought it was strong enough if they were shipping inmates there.

Except… how the hell do we cross the open ground to even get to it? If the hurricane is as bad as this woman says it is, we’ll be ripped apart if we step outside.

We leave the corridor behind and enter an open ward. There are hospital beds all around the walls, just visible beneath the water. In the center of the room is a bank of ruined ECG and EEG monitors.

Sawyer stops moving, staring off to the left. I follow her gaze. There’s a large shape bobbing gently in the water. I move closer. It’s a body. The guy’s arm is pulled out to the side, still handcuffed to a bed that’s bolted to the floor. The figure is facedown, hospital gown hanging obscenely open at the back.

Sawyer hesitates, then tears her gaze away. There’s nothing we can do for the poor bastard, so we start moving again, heading through the door into the corridor beyond. Bandages and wound dressings, still sealed in their sterile bags, float past us. Sawyer grabs one and stuffs it down her shirt. I don’t ask why.

Sodden sheets blossom out across the surface of the water. Various machines line the corridor, their cables and attachments drifting around like the limbs of a jellyfish. Defibrillation paddles, blood pressure machines, oxygen masks.

As we draw closer to the end of the passage, the hurricane grows even louder, a horrific roaring and screaming that doesn’t let up. It pummels my senses until I can hardly think straight. I can actually feel the wind now. It barrels down the corridor, whipping the floodwater into miniature whitecaps. We struggle against it, pulling ourselves along the walls, fingers scrabbling for purchase on machines or door frames.

It gets worse the closer we get to the nurse’s station, until we finally emerge from the corridor into a scene of utter chaos.

The windows are gone. Empty, gaping maws that now spew floodwater into the infirmary. I try to shield my face from the worst of the storm, but it’s impossible. The screaming wind whips the water up into a stinging rain that lashes my skin like tiny needles. The wind batters us, shoving us sideways into the walls. It overwhelms everything, blocks out all rational thought.

We unconsciously grab hold of each other’s arms, wading forward against the storm, heading for the locked door that leads out of the infirmary and into the prison.

I try to shield Sawyer as she uses her keys in the door. When she finally manages to unlock it, we both pull on the handle, using all our weight. The force of the floodwater makes it difficult, but we heave it slowly toward us. Water surges past our legs and through the gap, frothing and pouring into the lit corridor beyond. Sawyer slips through the gap and I follow, letting the weight of the water slam the door shut behind us.

The noise of the hurricane dies down slightly. Not a lot, but enough that I can