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

hear myself think again. There’s power out here, light.

I know we’re in my unit, A Wing, but it looks different. I glance around at surroundings that appear simultaneously familiar and alien. There are blood smears all over the walls. Some of the lights hang loose from the ceiling, dangling from red and blue wires.

A body lies a few feet away. It’s almost completely submerged in the water, arms floating up above its head. I check left, then right, but there’s no one else around.

I squat down and turn the corpse over. The guy is Puerto Rican. I’ve seen him around the yard, a member of the Ñetas. The guy’s stomach is a mass of puncture wounds. The numbers 031—the sign of the Bloods—have been carved into his chest with a knife.

I feel around under the body, checking for a weapon. Wishful thinking. A scream echoes in the distance. It’s the kind of scream you make when your life is being taken forcefully.

“We need a plan,” says Sawyer nervously.

“You think?”

There’s a second door to the right of the infirmary entrance. A freight entrance, where medicine gets delivered. I stand up and peer through the glass. There’s a short corridor beyond and an exit at the far end.

“Give me your keys,” I say.

“Why?”

“Just give them to me.”

“No!”

I snatch them from her belt, ignoring her angry protest, and turn back to the door, ramming each key into the lock until I find the one that works. I push the door open and hurry to the exit at the end of the passage.

“What the hell are you doing?” says Sawyer, trailing behind me. “Those keys are for internal doors only. You need a keycard to get out.”

I cup my hands against the glass, peering outside. At first I can’t see anything. Just utter darkness. But then a bolt of lightning arcs across the clouds, illuminating the outside of the prison.

It’s like looking into hell.

I thought it had been bad earlier in the day when we were in the bus. But looking outside now, I know instantly that a bus wouldn’t make it five feet before being plucked up by the hurricane.

Outside the door is a small staff parking lot. Most of it is under water, and all the cars have been blown and tossed into the retaining wall that was built into the side of the hill. In the brief flash of light, it looks like they’ve been sitting in a scrapyard for years. Twisted and destroyed, smashed up and ripped apart.

There’s another flash of lightning, and this time I see that a telephone pole has been thrown into the ground like a javelin. It’s cut right through the asphalt and buried itself about ten feet deep.

“They say the winds are going to push one ninety,” says Sawyer softly. “Maybe even two hundred.”

“Jesus…”

“Can I have my keys back?”

I hand them over wordlessly. Any hopes I had of reaching the Glasshouse, whether for safety or to get Wright and Tully, are gone.

“We need to get out of here,” says Sawyer.

“What’s the point?” I say softly, still staring out the window. “You think Ravenhill is going to survive this?”

“I’m not talking about Ravenhill. I’ve been thinking about this. I’m talking about the Glasshouse.”

“Are you blind? If we step outside, we’re dead. There’s no way we can get to the Glasshouse.”

“Not now. But in about five hours we can.”

I look at her in confusion.

“I was in the sheriff’s office. I saw the storm reports from the National Hurricane Center. The eye of the hurricane passes over the prison at five forty a.m.”

“The…” I glance sharply out the window. The eye of the hurricane. Of course. It will be totally calm outside. A hurricane this big, the eye will last at least half an hour before it passes over. Maybe even longer. “Shit… I didn’t even think of that.”

“Well, don’t beat yourself up too much. I hadn’t thought about it, either. Not until I saw the reports.” She fishes around in her jeans pocket and pulls out a keycard. “Plus, I can get us out the Northside staff entrance.”

I reach for the card, but she snatches her hand away and slips it back into her pocket. “Uh-uh. We stick together. You watch my back, I watch yours. Think about it. I’m a woman trapped in an all-male prison. You’re an ex-cop trapped in… well, prison. We need each other if we want to get through this in one piece.”

I briefly consider just taking the keys and card from her. Leaving her here to fend for herself. But the thought vanishes almost as fast as it comes. I couldn’t do that. To be honest, I’m surprised at this realization. I thought this place had killed any compassion I had left. I mean, there wasn’t much in there anyway, not after Amy died, but still… it’s nice to realize I’m still slightly human.

“That keycard, does it open any other exits?”

“I don’t think so. Martinez said it was for the Northside staff room door. That’s where I have my locker.”

She must have seen the look of disappointment on my face.

“What?”

“Well… here’s the thing. You said all the inmates are loose. That all the cell doors in this place are open?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I hate to break it to you, but there’s only one way to get to the Northside staff room. And that’s past seven prison units. Through about eight hundred pissed-off, blood-crazed inmates. I’m talking psychopaths, rapists, pedophiles, murderers, child-killers, wife-killers, bank robbers, animal-fuckers, cannibals, and serial killers.” I smile humorlessly. “Welcome to the Ravenhill Correctional Facility. Abandon hope, all who enter here. Bed and breakfast included.”

“Oh,” says Sawyer. Then, “Shit.”

“Shit indeed.”

Nine11:30 p.m.

The water in A Wing is just below my calves, but that’s definitely not from us opening the infirmary door just now. It’s getting in somewhere else, which means it’s going to keep rising. It’s not as bad as in the infirmary, but that’s like saying having a blowout where three tires explode is not as bad