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

“I think I had that on my doormat,” says Felix.

Sawyer glances nervously between us. “So are we thinking Preacher is in there or not?”

I really hope not. Because we now only have minutes left before the eye of the storm passes over.

Twenty-Two6:10 a.m.

The entrance to ACU leads into a rounded corridor that curves away to the left and right. There’s an open door directly opposite us that leads us into a large octagonal room.

The room is lit by red emergency lights mounted in the ceiling. The octagon has doors on each wall—the entrances to the cells. There are four levels in the room, making thirty-two cells in total. The doors are all closed, but I don’t know if they’ve stayed locked the whole night or if someone has closed them again.

I turn in a slow circle, checking out the higher levels to make sure no one is up there watching us.

The place seems deserted.

“How big is this unit?” I whisper to Felix.

“No idea.”

“You’ve never been in here? No violent outbursts?”

“Shit, yeah. Lots of outbursts. Solitary confinement, though. I was never brought in here.”

The room is about fifty feet wide. There’s an open door opposite us leading into a dim corridor.

Curiosity overcomes me. I move to the closest cell and peer through the safety glass. It leads into a small sally port about the size of an elevator. I test the door. It opens. I enter the confined space beyond and peer through the window into the cell.

There’s blood everywhere. On the floor, smeared over the wall. There are even spatters on the ceiling. The cell is illuminated by a harsh white light recessed into the ceiling. It makes the blood look black.

There’s a man sitting on the bed staring intently at something in his cupped hands. He senses my presence, or maybe I make a noise or something, because he suddenly looks up.

His eyes are empty holes. Black, gaping wounds with tears of blood caking his face. He holds his hands up as if in offering. His eyes nestle together in his palms. I look away, feeling sick, and my gaze falls on the writing on the wall. It’s scrawled in blood.

And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.

Sawyer and Felix have joined me in the cramped sally port and we stare at the tableau for a long moment.

I’ve seen a lot of shit in my time. A lot of it objectively worse than this. But there’s something intensely disturbing about the scene in the cell. There’s no logic behind it. Not that there’s any logic in war, but this… this is sick. Demented. It’s almost like I’m staring at a piece of modern art.

We back out into the octagonal room. Nobody says a word. I move to the next cell, enter the sally port and look through the window.

Someone has been burned alive. A charred body lies curled up on the floor, black scorch marks haloing around him like wings. The ceiling is dark from the smoke, the recessed lighting dimmed with soot. I can just make out writing on the wall to the left.

Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

Preacher needs to get more material. He’s starting to repeat himself.

I rejoin the others. “Why wasn’t Preacher in the Mental Health Unit?” I ask. “He wasn’t, right? He was here? In ACU?”

“He was in Mental Health a while back,” says Felix. “But he did something like this before. They had to move him here. They figured the best way to deal with him was to lock him down twenty-three hours a day.”

“Looks like he’s making up for lost time.”

Felix nods. “He’s probably been taking notes on everyone in here. Now he’s free, he’s doing what he likes to do best.”

“Well… they do say to find a job you love.”

Sawyer throws me a disgusted look.

“Relax. It’s just a joke.”

“Not a good one. Are we going to stand around and stare at the dead people, or do you think we should actually get moving before the hurricane comes back?”

“The second one.”

“You sure? I mean, don’t let me stop you. If it’s your thing…”

I sigh and head toward the door. We move faster, driven by Sawyer’s words. She’s right. We have to get out of here.

The corridor beyond leads to another octagonal unit. We don’t pause in this one, heading straight through and into a staff reception area with a long counter along the far wall holding monitors and tower cases. Behind the counter is a staff bulletin board, flyers for various events happening in town, a few personal ads from COs looking for roommates or selling items.

The door behind the counter leads deeper into the wing, heading in the direction we need to go. We wade through the water and into the passage. It stretches ahead to a T-junction. Empty. Silent.

Maybe Preacher didn’t come back here after all. All the crap we’ve seen could have been done earlier in the day, when the cells were first opened.

We reach the T-junction. I’m trying to imagine the layout of the prison in my head, wondering which way gets us closer to Northside. I’m thinking right. Left will just take us toward the inmate corridor, and that’s all blocked off.

We turn right, moving past closed doors. We keep going, heading closer and closer to the opposite end of the unit, closer and closer to getting out of here, to getting to the Glasshouse.

I feel my spirits rising. We might just make it in time. It’s going to be tight, but—

We turn into the next passage and freeze. Up ahead is a slow-moving line of inmates. They’re walking away from us in single file, murmuring something as they go. They’re all armed. Shotguns and rifles mostly, but a few have M9 Berettas.

They turn the corner to the left and vanish from sight. We move slowly through the water and pause at