Careful Measurements

by Layne D. Hansen

  “And on that note, I add one more thing. I do not wish to be your leader. I only want to live in peace in my own home, with my wife, if she is still alive. This sad episode is now over—if those of you still loyal to the Governor will allow it to be over. The man you were loyal to is now gone. I plead with you—please don’t try to avenge his death. And please don’t try continue his government. If you try, you, and whoever might support you, will die. Worse, you will likely take some of your fellow citizens with you. Please accept what has happened and move on.

  “I am personally in touch with Insight Resources officials and local, state, and federal law enforcement officials. We are soon going to be flooded with sheriffs’ deputies, state cops, and FBI agents. They need to sort out the mess that happened here. I promise you, if you try to fight to keep David Asher’s legacy alive, you will end up just like him.

  “I can now say that the ugliness is over. I understand that many of you have become dependent on the government and those needs will continue to be met until we can get people on their feet. Despite what’s been said about me and my group, we do not want people to suffer or have needs that go unmet. My group will have to take control of the government for a short time. We’ll need to do a census and find out how many people are here and what their needs are. You will have the option to return to your homes and previous lives if you want. The government, while it still stands, will arrange for your travel.

  “The experiment is over and whatever legal obligations we had back then are now over. I will explain that in more depth in the very near future. I encourage you to stay and help put this community back together. So much damage has been done and so many lives and families have been lost, but I know that we can return to that original spirit that brought us here in the first place. I thank you for your time and hope to see you tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER

  34

  Once Patton was sure things were under their control, he decided it was time to find the answer to the question that he didn’t want, but needed to know—was Jennifer still there and was she still alive? He prayed silently to himself for a good result but prepared himself for the possibility that she was dead. Even if she were alive, Patton understood that she might be broken in a non-physical way. Undeterred, he left Asher’s office for the first time since entering it that morning.

  The sun was bright now and patches of blue sky could be seen all over. A cold breeze from the northwest blew past Patton, sending a chill through him. He raised his chin and closed his eyes and let the sun bask over his face, letting it recharge him. When he reopened his eyes he saw that a truck was approaching. It was Wildcat, who’d apparently commandeered someone’s vehicle.

  The two comrades hugged tightly.

  “Nice shooting man!” Patton said, delirious with joy.

  “Thanks. That little drone was a good shot in its own right,” Wildcat replied with a stupid grin. “Where’s Bao?”

  Patton shrugged and looked around for his young friend. Bao had sacrificed his work truck for their plan. As Wildcat drove past the carnage, they saw that Bao’s truck had smashed into one car and damaged two others in the process. There was no sight of their friend.

  “That little bastard did a nice job,” Wildcat said with a wry grin. “Remind me to tell him when I see him.”

  Patton nodded and said, “He’ll like that. You really scare the crap out of that kid, you know.”

  “Me?” Wildcat said innocently. “That’s crazy.”

  They shared a laugh and then Patton turned serious. The dread returned to his mind as he thought about what he might see when he reached the prison.

  Gravel crunched under the tires as the driver brought the truck to a stop. Wildcat slammed the truck into park and killed the engine.

  “You coming?” he asked Patton. Patton nodded and opened his door and climbed out.

  They entered together cautiously, with Patton following Wildcat. Both had pistols drawn and at the ready. They moved slowly and cautiously, making sure they didn’t run into an ambush. Patton was confident that they would meet no resistance, but he would much rather be safe than sorry. Halfway down the main hall another hallway intersected. They each searched in opposite directions, finding no one there. After a few more minutes of searching and clearing rooms, they returned to the main intersection of hallways.

  “Patton, I found the security office,” Wildcat said, heading back from the way he’d come. Patton followed him eagerly.

  Patton was led to a room that had a bank of monitors and a computer terminal. He sat down and shook the mouse to activate the computer. The monitor lit up and he began searching files.

  “Anything?” Wildcat asked.

  Patton tapped a couple keys.

  “No,” he said with a frown. “Nothing on any of the security cameras. Looks like a ghost town.”

  Patton clicked through files, hoping to find a list of prisoners. He found one folder marked ‘inmates’ and double clicked on it. The window opened almost immediately. There were four file folders marked ‘A block,’ ‘B block,’ ‘C block,’ ‘D block.’ He clicked on A and scrolled down, not sure exactly how the prisoners had been catalogued. The inmates were in alphabetical order according to their last name. There were names, dates, ages and some coding he didn’t understand.

  Block A seemed to be all males, as was B block. Both C and D blocks contained women but he didn’t see Jennifer’s name. His heart sank when he didn’t find her there and he was near his breaking point when he opened open a file called “D-shed.” He didn’t see her name. He didn’t see any names, in fact, just inmate numbers that didn’t correspond with anything he’d seen in the other files. He turned off the monitor and walked out to where his friend was standing guard, his frustration evident on his face.

  “She not in there?” Wildcat asked, placing an affectionate hand on Patton’s shoulder.

  Patton had to turn away to hide the tears that had just sprung up in his eyes.

  “No,” he said, nearly choking on the word.

  “That doesn’t mean anything, buddy. We’re gonna search every nook and cranny in this place.”

  Patton nodded and they made their way towards the back of the building.

  Patton put his hand on the door to D block and hesitated for a moment. The dread of knowing that she was gone was outweighing the need to know if she was. All of the training that he’d received, to instill in him the ability to fulfill the mission at any cost and then deal with the consequences, had been overcome by human emotion. Finally, he steeled himself and pulled the door open.

  The entryway was dark and the room was cold. Straight ahead of him was a receptionist’s window that guards must have used to check in visitors and administrators. Large, heavy metal doors were on either side of the window. The door to the right had a small black card reader. Patton reached into his pocket and retrieved a security card that he’d nabbed from the security office in the main building. There was a small red light, so he knew it must still be powered. He slid the card through the reader. The light turned green and Patton heard a click. He pulled it open and stepped through.

  He found himself in a long, wide hallway with bright tile floors that gleamed from a recent wax and buff job. There were cells on both sides of the hall—each one had a heavy metal door with a small rectangular window that allowed guards to view the inmates. Patton walked to the first window and looked in. It was empty. The only thing he could see was a neatly-folded blanket and set of sheets sitting at the foot of the bed. The second cell was also empty, but in the third cell, he could see a shape underneath a blanket. He tried the door handle but it was locked. He slammed his palm on the door. The shape stirred and rose to sit at the edge of the bed. She was small, probably in her forties, and was obviously shocked to see anyone but a guard pounding on her door.

  He hopelessly tried pulling the door open again and just wait
ed for the woman to approach the door.

  “It’s locked,” he said, fogging the glass with his breath. The woman gave him a “no duh” expression. He smacked his forehead with his palm and shook his head at his own stupidity.

  “There’s a lock in the guards’ room,” she said, pointing towards where he’d just come from.

  He walked back, retrieved the cardkey again, swiped it and entered the guards’ room. It took him a few minutes to find the control he was looking for, but he found it and unlocked all of the cells. He walked back to the woman’s cell and pulled the heavy door open for her. She took a couple of cautious steps into the hallway and then looked up at Patton. Recognition dawned on her face, but she was so dazed from being woken up that she couldn’t quite place him.

  “Hi,” Patton said dumbly, making sure to keep his pistol down by his hip.

  The woman pulled a lock of sweaty hair from her forehead and looked at him with ghostly eyes.

  “I’m Patton,” he said, extending his large hand towards her. She shook it and then seemed to come fully to her senses.

  “I know who you are!” she said, excited now. She looked away from him, maybe intimidated by the eye contact. “Can I get a drink of water?” she said, clearing her throat. “They turned the water off before they left.”

  “Who’s they?”

  She coughed and cleared her throat again.

  “The guards. They turned everything off before they left,” she repeated, maybe forgetting that she’d already told him that bit of news.

  Patton looked down at her, realizing that this is what he and his friends must have looked like when they encountered Ronald Harris for the first time. He activated his radio and told Wildcat to turn on the water to the building.

  “What are you going to do with us?” she asked, tears in her eyes. At first he was puzzled by the question and her almost-whimpering tone. However, he looked at her. She was in rough shape.

  Patton clenched his jaw. Any regret he’d had for killing Asher melted away. “Bastard,” he thought out loud but apparently she hadn’t heard him.

  “Ma’am,” he said, reaching out and grabbing her hands and holding them out between them. She looked at him in disbelief. Human contact, let alone a gesture of affection, had become foreign to her. “We’re not going to do anything with you. Today is the last day you’ll ever spend in this God-forsaken place. You’re leaving. Right now. Grab whatever you need and walk towards the front of the building. We’ll have clothes, food, and water for you.”

  She began to tremble and then her entire body began to convulse with sobs. She grasped at him weakly and tried to pull herself into him. Instead, she pulled herself into his chest and began heaving sobs into his shirt. And he let her do so until she was done—until she had it all out. She was just the first of many to seek comfort from him, their great hero.

  “Thank you,” she rasped. “Thank you.”

  She made a few tentative steps, found her feet, and walked out the door with Patton following.

  “Ma’am?” he said, lightly touching her shoulder.

  She turned. Her eyes were tired now, but not sad.

  “Yes?”

  He cleared his throat, almost not wanting to know the answer to his question.

  “Do you know Jennifer Larsen?”

  She slumped. Her body language told him that his worst fears were going to be realized.

  “She’s …” She gestured with her head and pointed. “She’s back there,” she said, a look of pain on her face.

  “Do you know her?”

  The woman nodded.

  “We were in ‘C’ together when she first got here. Then they brought her here before I came over here. She … she acted out and they put her into the ‘Box’.”

  Patton had a good idea of what the Box could be, but he wanted the woman to explain before he made his way out there.

  “The Box?”

  She nodded. “It’s solitary. They … at least I heard this … they roughed her up pretty good, you being her husband and all.” She dropped her head and when she raised it, he was astonished. She was smiling. Tears were running down her face and she almost began to sob again.

  “She used to talk about you all the time,” the woman said dreamily. “She always used to say ‘Patton is going to come and get us all out of here’. She was right,” she said, beaming widely at him.

  It was dark in the hallway and she was over ten feet away so she couldn’t see him blush.

  “I just hope it’s not too late,” he said, his voice nearly breaking.

  The woman walked towards him and put her hand on his shoulder. Her touch was warm.

  “I saw her two or three days ago,” she rasped. “I could hear her yelling as they were taking her down the hall. She hasn’t been in there long.”

  Patton nodded and turned to look out the back door. He called and told Wildcat to remove the remaining prisoners.

  “Thank you,” he said, feeling a surge of confidence. He turned away again and walked towards the back door.

  Jennifer Larsen held the pose of a child who’d been sent to her room to await her punishment. She was on her bed, curled up, afraid of the commotion she’d been hearing since earlier that afternoon. She was shivering under her thin sheet and worn blanket. She wasn’t cold, necessarily, but she’d had such little water that she was almost completely dehydrated—barely able to produce enough saliva to swallow. Part of her just wanted it all to be over with. Some days she just wanted a guard to come out here and put a merciful bullet in her head.

  She actually laughed at that. After all this. All the beatings and everything else that had been done to her. Jennifer was a strong woman and she’d gotten used to the beatings and the long, useless interrogations. What bothered her most was the fact that she’d been pregnant when she was first arrested. That hadn’t lasted past the first beating. She was glad that she hadn’t told Patton. She wanted to make sure that she was going to get through the first couple of months—the period where most miscarriages occurred. She started bleeding that night and knew that the pregnancy was over. The worst part was that she wasn’t sure if she’d ever get the chance to have a child with Patton. She didn’t even know if her husband was alive.

  That had been one of the cruelest tricks the guards played on her. They would walk by her cell and talk about how Patton Larsen had finally been caught and shot in the town square. Part of her believed it, but her most hopeful and optimistic part hung on. She had to. If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t be here now. A lesser woman would have given in and begged to be killed.

  She heard a loud sound that sounded like a gunshot. ‘They’re shooting prisoners,’ she thought. She started to ask Theresa if she’d heard it too but then she remembered that they’d taken her out that morning. She pulled the ratty blanket up to her shoulders and shuddered again. Gunshots could mean two things—either there was a rescue going on and the guards were ordered to kill the prisoners, or a rescue was going on and the guards themselves were being killed. Either way, she was sure that Governor Asher would not let her survive any rescue attempt. She was certain a guard was tasked to come out here and kill her.

  And rather than be strong and face her executioner with a defiant pose, she would lie here instead, and accept her miserable fate.

  Patton took slow and measured steps towards the wooden shed. It looked to be well built. There were large U-shaped handles on both doors. A large chain was wrapped through both. A large, sturdy looking lock held the chain together. The crunch of gravel was loud in his ears. He felt like he was floating. The dread was intense.

  He forced himself to breathe. Whatever was behind this door, he would accept it. If she was dead, he would somehow get over it … someday, that is. If she was alive but broken mentally and physically, he would nurse her back to health, no matter how long it took. If she was alive and
still the strong, stubborn woman he had married, he would take her home and they could move on and build the life they’d wanted since they’d met.

  He took another deep breath and lifted the ten-pound sledge hammer over his shoulder.

  BOOM!

  The entire structure rattled around her. It felt like a mortar shell had landed just outside the Box. Jennifer shuddered and screamed, raising her hands to her face.

  BOOM!

  There was another boom and she started to claw at her hair and skin. ‘Stop! Just stop!’ she wanted to yell. The words just wouldn’t travel from her brain to her mouth. There was another boom, but this time she heard a piece of metal fall to the ground. There was a rattle of the chains and then the doors began to shake.

  ‘Finally,’ Patton thought, exasperated, breathing heavily now. Sweat was pouring down his face and he could feel the inside of his clothes getting damp. The handle he’d been banging on finally broke off and the chain went with it. He pulled at the handle but the door only came towards him a little bit. He looked up at the top and at the bottom and realized there were metal bolts that held the doors to the frame. He reached up and released both of the latches at the top and then did the same at the bottom. He pulled the door again and it swung open.

  There was the sound of metal scraping. She recognized it from when the guards would come to get her for a shower or for another “interrogation.” She pulled herself into the corner as far as she could, thinking the boogeyman would just go away if she could get small enough. Suddenly the door flew open. There was only a single silhouette in the doorway. It wasn’t a prison guard or soldier or policeman because he had none of the accoutrements that Asher’s men wore. Still, she had no reason to trust whoever this was … until she heard the voice.