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

We looked for him, but… eventually I just pushed the door open…” She glances away, her face clouding. “I saw my dad first, lying on the bed next to my mom. She was dead. My dad was just… crying. Silently. Her hand was on his cheek. I don’t know if he put it there or if it was her last act. I remember thinking how weird it looked. The pale white of my mom’s dead skin against his face. When he saw us watching, he freaked out. Started screaming and shouting for us to get out. To shut our eyes.”

“He didn’t want you seeing your mother like that.”

“That’s what I thought at first. But when I got older, I got to thinking he didn’t want us seeing him like that. Showing emotion. First time we’d ever seen him cry. He wasn’t big on hugs and kisses, you know?”

I nod.

“After that, it was never the same between us. He would never look us in the eyes. It’s like he was ashamed.”

“Your dad’s old man, your grandfather. Was he one of those old-school tough guys?”

“Yeah. Spare the rod, spoil the child. He beat our gran too. I found that out later, at my dad’s funeral. His sister told us. Kind of made me understand my dad a bit better.”

“He ever hit you?”

“No. He was never like that.”

“That’s how it goes. You either become your parents or you push so far away from what they were, you become the total opposite.” I pause. “Most people just become them. It’s easier.”

Sawyer nods.

“What about your brother? How did he turn out?”

She hesitates. “I… had to pretty much raise him myself. Our dad didn’t have a great job, so he couldn’t afford babysitters or anything. I did the best I could, but he fell in with a bad crowd. They got him involved in crime. Delivering parcels on his bike when he was still a kid. Then dealing drugs.”

“Where is he now?”

“Bellevue. Possession and dealing.”

“Shit, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s not your fault, though. You did your best, right?”

“Yeah,” she says softly. “I did my best.”

We trail off into an awkward silence. Sawyer winces and rolls her shoulder. Then she takes out the sealed wound dressing she picked up in the infirmary.

“Can you help me with this?” she asks.

She hands me the dressing and pulls her shirt down over her shoulder to expose a deep cut.

“Try and pull the lips together and make sure the seal is tight,” she says.

I open up the packet and take out a square dressing. I peel off the backing, exposing the adhesive around the edges, and carefully place it over her shoulder, making sure it sticks all the way around.

I have to force myself to smooth the dressing down. It’s the first time I’ve touched a woman’s skin in three years. First time I’ve touched a woman other than Amy in ten. It feels like I’m cheating, which is stupid. How do you cheat on a ghost?

I crumple up the packaging and drop it into the water. “Done.”

“Thanks.” She pulls her shirt up again. “We need to plan our route,” she says, taking something out of her pocket. She unfolds it on her lap and I see it’s an evacuation plan—a map of the prison.

I lean forward, glad to be distracted from thoughts of Amy. I point to the large rectangular block at the bottom of the map. “We’re somewhere in here. The admin building.”

“Right.” Sawyer points to the very top of the map. “And that’s the Northside staff room. Where we need to get to. I think we should try for the staff corridor.”

She points to the long corridor traveling up along the right side of the prison map, heading directly to the block at the north end of the prison. I’ve never been to that side. Like she says, it’s staff only.

“It’s a straight path, see?”

“Sure, except for the fact that there are eight hundred inmates somewhere between us and the exit. It could be overrun already.”

“Could be… The other option is the inmate corridor.” She points to the corridor on the left side of the map. It exactly mirrors the staff corridor, with all the prison units, 1 to 4, then Transitional, Mental Health, and Administrative Control all nestled between the two passages.

“Either one could be blocked.”

“We won’t know till we check.”

“I suppose.” She’s right. We need to get to the north end of the prison as fast as possible. Which means we try the direct route first.

“Okay. Staff corridor it is.”

We get up. The keys are still hanging in the door. “What’s with those keys?” I ask. “Is there one for every lock in the prison?”

“Nah. They’re the sheriff’s keys. See?” She shows me the name tag hanging from the key ring. “I think he has universal keys for the storerooms, staff rooms, the doors between the different prison units.” She turns the key in the lock, then pulls it out and clips the ring back onto her belt. “If there was a separate key for every door, this thing would weigh a hundred pounds.”

She cracks the door slightly. We wait, listening. I can hear noises in the distance. Shouting. Screaming. Laughing. It sounds like an asylum.

No noises come from the corridor directly outside the storeroom, though. Sawyer opens the door wider and I peer out, checking both ways.

“Clear.”

We slip outside and move quickly along the passage, splashing through the ankle-deep water. There’s a lot of noise coming from up ahead. I’m nervous every time we reach the end of a corridor or turn into a new passage. We need to avoid confrontations as much as possible. Sure, Sawyer still has her ax—she looped it down through her belt when we were in the library—but I don’t have any weapons. I don’t rate my chances against knives and metal poles or whatever the hell else the inmates are arming themselves with.

We have to duck into hiding around ten times as we make our way to the staff corridor, pausing