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

as a weapon. There’s nothing close. My foot slams up against something beneath the water. I trip, manage to right myself against the tractor, and turn just as Veitch is aiming the wrench for my head. I grab his hand. I’m face-to-face with the guy. My gritted teeth are only inches away from his face. We stagger backward, locked together, Veitch trying to pull away, me trying my hardest to hold on.

We bump up against one of the workbenches. I have my back against it, Veitch using my weight to try to force me off balance.

I crane my head around and see it’s the bench where Henry had been sharpening the mower blades from the tractor. The long, curved blade just sits there, the newly sharpened edges winking in the light.

Veitch’s face is right in front of me. I can smell the guy’s bad breath. See the black staining between his teeth from too much smoking.

I push back, forcing him to strain even harder against my weight.

Then I spin aside and shove him as hard as I can, slamming his head downward.

He hits the mower blade face-first. Blood sprays upward in a wet spurt and his whole body stiffens. Then he sags against the workbench, blood pooling into the grooves of the blade.

I turn. Cassidy is on his feet, moving toward me as fast as his injured leg will allow.

My face hardens. I’m sick of this shit now. Sick of all of it.

I run at him.

His eyes widen in surprise as he sees me coming, but neither of us slows as we head toward each other.

Cassidy arrives next to one of the pulley chains used to lift the engine blocks. I grab one side of the chain, leap in the air and swing around him, then drop down to the ground and whip the chain around his neck, looping it twice. Then I grab the other side of the chain and haul hard on it, yanking it down and lifting him into the air.

He drops his metal pipe, fingers scrabbling at the chain around his neck. I keep pulling until he is halfway to the ceiling, his stupid thick face turning blue, eyes bulging in their sockets.

His legs spasm. His body rocks and arches wildly, swinging from side to side. He pisses his pants as his struggles become weaker and weaker before finally stopping.

I leave him dangling there and wearily climb the three steps into the office. Sawyer throws a terrified look in my direction, but she relaxes when she sees it’s me and turns back to the radio.

“Please pass it on,” she says. “I bet there are over a hundred of us here. Maybe a lot more.”

She releases the mic and a burst of static comes from the speaker, followed a moment later by a male voice. “Roger that. We’ll make sure someone gets to you as soon as the hurricane passes.”

“Thank you…” Her voice almost cracks as she says it. She drops the mic on the workbench and sits back in the chair, glancing up at me as she does so.

“I talked to four different people. They said they’d pass on word.”

Before I can answer, the sound of a throat being cleared issues from the internal PA system of the prison.

“Hello? This thing on?”

It’s Felix’s voice.

“Yeah, so… we kinda got a sort of tunnel system going on beneath this dump that might actually be waterproof. No promises, ’cause it’s Leo who says it’s there and you all know what he’s like…”

There’s the sound of scuffling; then another voice speaks. Leo.

“There are tunnels leading into a floodwater drainage system beneath the prison. My advice is to make your way to the office corridor in the Transitional Care Unit.”

More scuffling sounds. Then Felix speaks again.

“We’re not hanging around for any of you, though. Just get your fucking asses to the basement door. If you’re not there, we’re not waiting. I’m serious. We’re going down to the tunnels and sealing them off, because as soon as the eye of the hurricane passes, this prison is going down.”

Even as he says this, the lights flicker and dim. In the distance the sound of a terrific rumbling crash sets the ground vibrating beneath my feet.

“You see?” says Felix over the intercom. “You feel that? Now get your ass to Mars—or in our case to the basement. Probably the same thing in the end. No air, dying slowly from asphyxiation, but you know how it is. A snowball’s chance in hell is still a chance.”

There’s a click and then silence.

Sawyer and I exchange weary glances; then Sawyer heaves herself up off the seat.

“Let’s go,” she says.

Twenty5:20 a.m.

Sawyer and I eventually arrive back at the basement to find a long line of inmates helping Felix and Leo clear the rubble from the corridor leading to the basement.

Felix grins when he sees us approaching through the flickering lights.

“Hey, man, you’re still not dead.”

“Nope. Sorry.” I squint along the dim corridor. “Looks like you got some help.”

“Yeah. Who’d’ve thought? The specter of approaching death is actually enough to get people to put aside their grudges and work together.”

He’s right about putting aside grudges. I see Bloods, Crips, Woods, Ñetas… All the gangs who were trying, often successfully, to kill each other only a couple of hours ago are now working together in an assembly line to shift the fallen rubble from the basement passage. It’s not a total surprise. Inmates were already giving up fighting to look for shelter or protection after we left the gym. By now everyone must be realizing that things aren’t looking too promising for the Ravenhill Correctional Facility.

Sawyer peers through the doorway. “How’s it going?”

“Nearly through,” says Leo, wiping sweat from his brow. “Looks like the whole roof caved in. Pipes and shit came down too.”

“And a geyser,” says Felix. “Thing was still full of water. Had to borrow a gun from one of our fellow inmates to shoot it a couple times, let the water out.”

“Because what we