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

There’s a huge map on the wall showing the path of the Cross-Florida Barge Canal project.

“This is the old bridging room between the bosses upstairs and the workers downstairs,” says Leo. He nods to a door on the far wall. It looks normal. Metal, but not like the prison doors upstairs.

The room is rapidly filling up with inmates, pushing and jostling each other. Those still in the corridor beyond are shouting out, asking why no one is moving.

The door is unlocked. Leo opens it. I lean in and turn on the lights. They’re not strip lights this time. They’re big, old-fashioned globes hanging from cloth-covered wire insulation, metal lampshades casting wide shadows up to the ceiling. The room is filled with metal bunk beds, all of them without mattresses or pillows.

“Is this place really an army barracks?” asks Felix, moving past us to sit on one of the beds. The springs squeal in protest and he quickly stands up again.

“Yeah. Engineers, grunts for the manual labor. Officers. Eventually military prisoners who were put to work digging the tunnels for the storm drains. That’s how I got involved. We didn’t all sleep in here, though. We were kept above ground in Admin. Although it wasn’t Admin back then.”

We move through the room into another tunnel. This one is about ten feet wide and slopes downward at a steep angle. The same hanging globes light the way, but only about a third of them work. Even that surprises me. You’d think that after so long, none of them would light up. But I guess they built things to last longer back in the day.

The water is still pouring down behind us from the prison. Some of the inmates are pushed off their feet by the force of it, sliding down the decline, only to be caught by other prisoners and helped back up again. The sounds of the rushing water echo loudly in the confined space.

The tunnel levels off after we’ve descended—by my estimate—around thirty feet or so. It takes a sharp right and disappears into the distance.

“This is the last tunnel,” says Leo. “It opens into a room that the Glasshouse tunnels connect to as well. From there it’s down fifty feet into the flood drainage system.”

“That’s pretty deep,” says Felix. He looks around uneasily. “Am I the only one here feeling a bit… claustrophobic? If anything happens down here, we’re never getting out.”

“Relax. I know what I’m talking about. We just need to get out of these tunnels. Everything beyond that room is sealed off. Watertight.”

“And if the drainage system is actually open? Won’t it be flooded by now?”

“It was never finished. We didn’t even link up the flood tanks to the surface. Nothing’s getting in. Trust me.”

“So what’s your actual escape plan?” I ask. “You’ve been muttering about tunnels for as long as anyone can remember. How did you plan on getting out?”

“I was going to use the aqueducts that drain the water out into the ocean. Just walk my way to the sea.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. Nice and simple. Why complicate it?”

We keep walking through the tunnel. Sawyer catches up with me and touches my arm.

“You see this?” She gestures over her shoulder.

I follow her gaze and am shocked to see that the number of inmates has grown by a lot. There must be at least two hundred now. Sawyer the Samaritan looks happy. I suppose she has a right to. If we pull this off, it will be something to be proud of. That isn’t a feeling I’ve had in a long time. But doing this feels right. It feels good.

“You see Kincaid anywhere?” asks Felix.

I shake my head.

“You not worried about that?”

“About him not being here? No. I’m pretty fucking ecstatic, actually.”

“Yeah, but… it’s Kincaid. He’s not just gonna sit this out, is he? He’s not just gonna hang around up there till the roof falls in on him.”

“We’ve got guns.”

“So does he.”

“There’s nothing we can do about it.” I walk on, then glance back. “But just keep your eyes open, yeah? Tell me if you see him.”

“Nah. I was thinking of keeping that to myself.”

After about five hundred and fifty yards or so, the end of the tunnel appears, a solid brick wall with a thick rust-colored metal door blocking the way. It looks like it’s about ten feet high by ten feet wide. I knock on it. It gives off a dull metallic thud. No echo at all.

“That’s a pretty solid door right there,” says Felix, knocking on it hard with his own knuckles. “I’ve seen thinner doors in bank vaults.”

A silence has fallen behind us. I glance back and can almost feel the whispered murmurings passing back through the inmates. This is it. Salvation. I’m sure they think it means freedom too. I think most of them believe they’ll be able to run once the hurricane has passed. So did I a couple of hours ago. Although how we all plan on moving around in a flooded county with FEMA and cops and firefighters conducting salvage operations is another matter entirely.

I turn back, push down on the heavy handle, and give the door a shove.

It doesn’t budge.

I push harder, then try pulling, even bracing my foot against the wall, but the door is closed tight.

“It’s locked.” I look at Leo. “Leo. It’s fucking locked.”

Leo’s face shows confusion. “But… it can’t be. It wasn’t locked before…”

“Fifty years ago maybe! But it sure as shit is locked now!”

Leo gestures helplessly. “There’s not even a lock on it, though.”

I look. He’s right. No keyhole. Nothing.

“It must be locked from the other side,” he says.

I try my best to restrain my anger, but it’s sure as hell getting hard. “There’s no keyhole, Leo.”

“Maybe there’s a bar across it or something? I don’t know!”

Jesus suffering fuck! Why did I believe a word this senile old goat said?

I fight down the rising panic. There’s still time. I still have time. I turn around and set off back the way we