Typewriter’s at the door to the garage, pulling it tight. He shoves a desk in front of it. It won’t do a fucking thing. My ears still ring. Maddie’s blood pools and I realize I’m naked and feel vulnerable and our exit strategy is fucked, the garage swarming with Chucks. We’re silent in the dark amidst the smell of gunpowder.
I say, I need to get spun.
We’re passing out the guns. I make sure Type, KK, and myself have ones with real bullets. Randy volunteers to carry the canvas laundry bag full of our lab. We don’t say much. Maddie’s blood covers the floor. Right before we start off into the corridor toward general population, Derrick breaks out a big hunk of splice. We load our rigs from the same spoon. We get spun.
One hurried shot turns into two.
Typewriter says he wants to go to an island, St. Thomas maybe.
I wonder how the fuck he even knows there’s a place called St. Thomas.
Randy says England would be good right about now.
KK pumps Buster.
I’m back to feeling and seeing auras. Each of ours is a dark cloud. I tell myself that no death is my fault.
We go single file, pressed up against the cinder-block wall on our left. We’re in some hallway or maybe it’s a corridor. Derrick leads, then me, KK, Randy, and Typewriter brings up the rear. We creep past block A. The dent has become a hole. Hands reach through. We keep going. It’s even darker. Shapes stop maybe two feet out from my face. I can’t hear anything but demonic laughs. They’re taunting us, damning us.
Derrick yells that it’s a hundred feet to a set of doors separating juvie from County, then another fifty to the mess hall doors.
One foot in front of the other.
KK holds on to the back of my jumpsuit.
We don’t have much time. The door leading to the stairs will give any second, if it hasn’t already. The only thing worse than walking straight into a locked room full of criminal Chucks would be getting flanked by them on both sides.
We reach the first set of doors. I press my ear to the cold metal. There’s no pounding, no giggling. Derrick fumbles around his key ring and he tries a key and says fuck and then another and I’m telling him to hurry up. Typewriter yells and it’s the same scream he made while being bitten trying to climb out of Cheng’s window and then Randy shouts, They’re coming, they’re fucking here!
The smell reaches me first and it’s pure death. Then their cries of war.
I yell at Derrick to open the door and I’m watching his
fumbling hands insert a key and then I’m looking into pure fucking darkness and KK’s nails dig into my back. I have no idea how close they are but the sound is growing louder and then the door opens, Derrick grabbing me, throwing me in, and KK tumbles on top of me and then Randy and Type and Derrick rushes inside, slamming the door shut. It’s not but two seconds later that the metal erupts into a fit of pounding.
We stare at the door, unsure if that really just happened.
Let’s go, Derrick says.
We start forward. We’re not in a line anymore. We’re close, touching, shuffling our feet, terrified with what’s all around us. Somebody’s crying. Maybe it’s me. There’s a strange calmness. Time standing still. Us wanting to. Derrick stops us. I squeeze the pistol, aiming it at blackness. He crouches down. I do too, not sure why. Then we all do.
See something?
He doesn’t respond. He takes out the Ziploc full of crank. I’m like, Are you fucking kidding me? He doesn’t respond, just dumps out a handful of chunks. He crushes one with his gun. He snorts it right off the floor. Mounds of it. I hear Typewriter say, Pass it, and I’m like there’s no fucking way we’re really doing this right now but I’m crushing dope too, snorting deep into my brain, and we all are because this is probably our last taste and because we want to feel invincible and then maybe we are, invincible that is, because I’ve just taken two teeners’ worth and I’m licking my hand, pressing it to the residue, licking it again.
We stand.
I kiss KK hard on the lips.
One foot in front of the other.
I am a warrior.
I am not a coward.
I am God.
We’re at the doors to the mess hall. There’s noise on the other side but it’s not as bad as block A. Maybe the metal is stronger inside the big-boy lockup? Maybe the Chucks are mostly still contained in cells? Maybe it’s not as bad as we thought.
All live ammo up front, Derrick says. He has a single key separated from the ring. He says, I open the door, and you fire. They’re right here. We unload and run.
I will lead us to the Promised Land.
Motherfuckers will talk about this for eternity.
KK’s eyes are closed and her mouth moves and Typewriter’s chewing his face off. I have two shots and that’s it and my mind fills with music, with “Bullet in the Head,” and it’s building, the music, just about at the point when shit gets real and vocals scream and Derrick says, Ready? I nod and make sure I’m slightly in front of KK and I will not let her down and I will not let down the rest of them and I will not let down mankind or my parents and Derrick puts the key in the door and yanks it open.
A Chuck spills into the doorway and I am the first to fire—a shot through his gaping mouth.
Then it’s three rapid shots, lightning striking trees.
Three more drop and Derrick holds up his fist like he’s some Semper Fi motherfucker. We stop and there’s ringing in my ears but no giggles. He motions forward. I hold on to
KK. We’re not running like the plan. There isn’t a need. The room’s empty. That it? Four of them? All that fear for that? I whisper to Derrick if he knows where the fuck he’s going and he tells me no.
I’m putting my trust in something greater than myself, just like they told me to do in AA. God. A higher power. I follow the hulking shape of Derrick.
I can sense there’s a wall coming up. Derrick feels around for a door. Behind me there’s a flick of orange. I spin around but it’s Typewriter holding his lighter. This is his absolute worst nightmare—venturing into the dark, battling the monsters his mother insisted weren’t real.
Derrick walks up to the wall and finds a door. He tests the handle. It’s locked. I’m looking at the gray door—everything in jail either gray or white—and it doesn’t have one dent. Not one fucking fist or head smashed from the other side. How the hell did the few Chucks get in? There’s got to be some other entrance, maybe through the kitchen and I say this to Derrick and he says, Who the fuck cares? I nod, but something seems wrong. He’s got the master key out ready to open the door when I tell him to stop.
What?
Maybe it’s a trap.
What?
Yeah, like being quiet and wanting us to go through there.
They can’t think.
He puts the key in the door. He turns it.
I’m expecting an ambush and I’m expecting shit to get
heavy but there’s nothing, not a single laugh, not the rank stench of decay.
KK squeezes my hand. She says, Keep your shit together.
I’m trying to put it all together. The mess hall. The walking dead in there. The utter silence. My mind projects a map of County and it’s in blueprint form and I’m picturing us in a hallway and maybe the mess hall is between cell blocks and this would make the most sense, not having inmates walk past other blocks to eat, so the kitchen is in the middle. I reach into my pocket and take out my lighter and flick it and it doesn’t catch so I do it again and again. Finally there’s light.
The fuck you doing? Derrick asks.
Mate, maybe the light isn’t the best idea, Randy says.
I’m thinking that all I want is to be able to see. That’s it. Life would be perfect if I could fucking see.
Baby, KK says.
I take my wallet out from the breast pocket of my jumpsuit and I take out all the paper—Subway punch cards, numbers to junkies wanting to buy scante—and I light them on fire. Derrick says, The hell you doing? I watch the paper catch. I hold flames in my hand and I am Hephaestus, god of fucking fire, and then I tell KK to give me anything she has—her jumpsuit she has tied around her waist—and Typewriter is like, Bro, let’s move.
Fire.
Will you calm him the fuck down? Derrick says.
The fire alarm. It won’t be on the main power grid. A generator. Get lights so we can actually see.
He’s got a point, Randy says.
The burning paper starts to scorch my hand. I drop it.
Give him the suit, Derrick says.
KK unwraps the juvie uniform and I take its sleeve, holding it to the small pile of flames. I’m praying for it to catch. I just want light. Finally the sleeve catches. The flames leak up the stitches. More, I say. KK hands me what can only be described as a training bra. Randy gives me his socks. We need more. Derrick cusses and takes off his windbreaker and that shit catches right away. It’s getting smoky and the flame is maybe a foot high. I’m waving the smoke upward toward the ceiling. I think I see something farther down the hall. I shout for more. Typewriter tosses me his T-shirt. I light it and ball it up and throw it down the hallway we’ve just stepped into.
The ball of fire lands on the floor and it’s eyes, pairs and pairs of them, just like that fucking Rockwell nursery. They bob to uneven footsteps.
Oh, my, fucking, God, go, go, go, Randy yells.
We start running down the hallway in the opposite direction, but I know this is just as bad because there’s another cell block down this way, meaning more Chucks and us being just as fucked. We need to get to the kitchen, the middle point, some place away from general population. An ear-piercing wail fills the concrete hallway and white strobe lights erupt in epileptic bursts. Sprinklers cover us in pre-come. Ahead, there’s a wall of shuffling motherfuckers.
Randy’s leading the way. He trips while trying to change directions. Every second there’s a flash of light and we see eyes and open mouths and missing skin, the discotheque version of
Randy being torn apart. His cries are drowned by laughter. We turn once again, just needing to get back to the mess hall. I lead the way and KK’s hand is my life preserver and I know it will be close, us getting to the mess hall door before the Chucks do, maybe three feet for us, five for them, but I get there first, throwing my shoulder against the door. It’s still unlocked and somebody fires a shot and we tumble in and Typewriter slams the door.
He pushes against it and it’s trembling from the Chucks bashing into it. He yells for Derrick to lock the fucking door. I slam my shoulder into it and so does KK. Derrick turns the key in the hole and yells that it’s locked but I’m too scared to quit bracing.
Typewriter pulls at my arm, tells me, Let’s go, it’ll hold.
I hear KK’s muffled cries. I could pick them out of any lineup, the way each one builds on the other, none of them allowed to escape the cavern of her mouth.
Derrick says, Door’s secure. He has his massive hand around my bicep.
We need to go, KK says.
I ease up on the door and KK puts her arm around my waist. I press my forehead against hers. Our noses touch. She says, You need to keep your motherfucking mind.
We can see a hell of a lot better with the emergency lighting. We cross the mess hall. Derrick reaches back and places
something in my hand. It’s a nub of dope. I eat it. The taste is crushed pills and ammonia. My teeth feel like they’re coated in wool sweaters.
We are four.
Derrick and I push through the swinging doors into the kitchen. There’s got to be another door leading out from here. My gun’s eye level. The alarm shrieks. My breath is all sorts of heavy. My right arm is completely extended, my left bent, both holding the pistol.
I am Lara Croft. I am Spetsnaz. I am Chase Daniels.
The kitchen’s a lot bigger than the one in juvie. We creep past metal prep stations and walk-in refrigerators and stove after stove and everything’s the mix of pitch blackness and exploded stars. I have one shot left.
One foot in front of the other.
I’m hearing giggles matching the techno shrill of the alarm and Derrick says, Twelve o’clock. I wait, ready to dole out death with the flick of my finger. Shadows become forms, forms become shapes, shapes become bodies, bodies become tattered orange jumpsuits and exposed bones and open mouths.
I shoot.
Derrick shoots.
Type shoots.
I’m still aiming the gun when I realize I’m out of fucking ammo. I jam the pistol into my waistband. I search for a weapon, anything. I think about going back and getting Randy’s rubber slug shotgun, but those bullets didn’t do shit anyway. Typewriter must understand what I’m doing because
he’s rifling through drawers, and then KK says, Take the shotgun. I won’t do this to her, leave her defenseless.
Here, Derrick says. He reaches down to his leg, slides something out. He hands me a six-inch blade.
I tell him thanks and wonder why the fuck he hadn’t given it to one of us before. Would Randy have been able to fend them off with this knife? I realize it’s just another example of motherfuckers looking out for their own survival.
One of the bodies we dropped giggles from the floor. I’m about to step over his head when he makes a feeble attempt at clawing my leg. I bend over. He’s white, maybe midtwenties. Gold teeth flash in the strobe light. I plunge the blade into his throat. I’m thinking of Mesh Cap. I pull out the knife and it’s a small geyser of thick blood. I step over his body.
We make our way to the back of the kitchen to a single door, half caved, the two top hinges ripped from the wall. We have no idea where it’ll lead but we walk through. Then we’re in a tight hallway, not the double-wides from earlier. It only goes one way. We start walking, then we’re jogging, and it’s primal instinct, antelope fleeing a watering hole, one starts running, and they all run. The narrow concrete starts shaking with laughter and I’m fucking terrified and they’re in my skull and behind my eyes playing bass on my retinas and I’m not sure what’s real and what’s an echo. We go maybe a hundred feet and come to a door along the wall. The hallway keeps going. Derrick’s like, What do we do?