by Hakok, R. A.
‘It’s loaded, so you know. And not with the bullets I left Starkly with.’
I nod in the direction of my backpack where the ammo box lies on its side, a dozen cartridges scattered in the dust around it. His eyes dip to it and then return to stare at me.
‘Fair enough. Just remember I walked in with my arms raised. Don’t know why I’d have done that, if I planned to hurt you.’
I don’t have a good explanation for that, but I see no upside in dropping my guard just yet, either.
‘How’d you track me here?’
He shakes his head.
‘Didn’t have to. You weren’t carrying a pack when we picked you up. A person wouldn’t get very far without supplies, not out here. I reckoned you must have stashed it somewhere after you picked up our trail. Seemed like a good bet you’d come back for it. I figured I’d just retrace the route Goldie and me took earlier, see if I got lucky.’
He looks around the room. His gaze settles on the remains of my MRE, sitting by the fire.
‘Don’t suppose you’d be done with that?’
I wasn’t, actually, but the dark eyes that flick back to me are filled with so much hunger I tell him he can have it. He holds my gaze a moment longer, then grabs the pouch as though he expects me to change my mind at any moment. I watch as he pulls off his mittens and sets to, using his fingers to scoop what was left there into his mouth. It doesn’t take long. When he’s got the last of it he runs one finger round the inside and licks it clean. Then he reaches for the carton it came in and upends it. The various packets inside tip out. He seizes on the HOOAH! and looks at me for approval. I nod, watching as he tears the wrapper open. The candy bar disappears in a couple of bites. He talks as he sifts through the remainder of the carton’s contents.
‘I’m here to give you a warning. You and whoever else you’re traveling with.’
I start to deny it, but he just shakes his head.
‘You might have done enough to fool that bonehead Goldie, but not me, and certainly not Finch.’ He finds a ketchup and tears the corner, squirting it straight into his mouth. His eyes close for a moment, and then his tongue darts out to lick the corner of his chapped lips.
‘Alright; have it your own way. Probably best I don’t know anyway.’ He nods at the fire. ‘You can sit if you want. Ain’t nobody else coming, leastways not tonight.’
I think on that for a while. It sounds like he’s telling the truth, but I shake my head at the invitation anyway.
‘Suit yourself.’
‘How many of you did Finch send after me?’
‘Six. We split up when we hit the interstate. Goldie took the rest of them off after the tracks you laid down. He’ll follow them till they run out, just like I expect you intended.’
He checks the last of the packets, grunts at nothing in particular, then breaks out the little plastic toothpick that comes with each meal. He sets to work with it on a row of chipped yellow teeth.
‘Why does the warden care where I go?’
He stops what he’s doing and looks up at me slowly, like he doesn’t understand. Then his eyes crease with humor. I watch as a slow smile spreads across his face.
‘Garland Finch? The warden?’ He gives a snort, like what I’ve said amuses him. ‘What gave you that fool idea?’
‘He said he was.’
‘You sure about that?’
I open my mouth to tell him I am, but now that I think back I can’t recall him ever saying as much, at least not specifically. I guess I just assumed from the way he talked, his suit, the shoes, the bunch of keys he carried.
He gives a shake of his head, goes back to work with the toothpick.
‘I doubt it. Hard to know what rules a man like that lives by, but I ain’t ever heard him tell no lie. He considers it the height of bad manners.’
I run back through our conversations in my head, trying to find any other evidence for my assumption.
‘He said he released you all.’
He worries at something with the pick a moment longer, then runs his tongue over the front of his teeth.
‘Well, that he did.’ When he looks up at me again his mouth is doing something that might be a smile, but this time it doesn’t stretch to his eyes; those have darkened considerably. ‘Eventually.’
‘So who was he, then?’
He picks up the empty MRE box and turns it over in his hands like he means to check inside it one more time. His eyes stay there a moment longer, then he looks up at me.
‘Only the most dangerous man ever to set foot through the gates of Starkly prison.’
*
HE SHAKES THE CARTON one last time to be sure, then shoves it onto the fire. The flames grow brighter for a second as they consume the card, then die down again.
‘How old are you, anyway?’
I tell him seventeen. Truth is I’m not quite there yet, but I figure an extra year goes a lot better with the pistol.
‘So you was what, when it all ended? Six? Seven? I guess you would hardly have been outta diapers when they caught him.’
‘Caught him? You mean he’s just a prisoner?’
I don’t mean no offense by it, words just have a habit of coming out of me that way. Mac’s mouth hardens at the comparison. He rakes the embers with the side of his boot; sparks rise in a shudder and die in the blackness overhead. He leans toward me, and when he speaks again there’s an edge to his voice that wasn’t there before.
‘Don’t let the cane and that gimp leg fool you, kid. Garland Finch, he ain’t like nobody else.’
‘What…what was he in for?’
‘Murder.’ He pauses while he goes to work with the pick again. ‘Not that that’d distinguish a man in a place like Starkly; ain’t nobody ever been sent there on wino time.’ He shakes his head. ‘No, what set Garland Finch apart was the manner of his crimes. They reckon he was responsible for more than a hunnerd deaths, all told. Nobody’s exactly sure how many, of course. They never did find a single body.’ He smacks his lips like he’s finally dislodged whatever he was hunting for. ‘Probably because he ate ’em.’
At first I’m not sure I’ve heard him right, and for a few seconds my brain does that thing where it replays the words, trying to work out an alternative meaning that more closely fits with what I know of reality. Mac mustn’t notice, or maybe he doesn’t care, because he keeps talking.
‘Starkly was a mean place to do time, maybe the meanest, so I guess it made sense they’d send him to us. The warden,’ he looks over at me as he says it, ‘was a prime asshole by the name of Stokes. Prided himself on being a real hardcase. But even Stokes was smart enough to know what he was dealing with, with a man like Garland Finch. He didn’t take no chances. Soon as he arrived he emptied out HCON. All those who’d been down there – the snitches, the punks, the chesters, anyone who’d earned himself a stretch in solitary, even those on death row – he transferred back into the general population, so Finch would have the place to himself. Said it was for his own protection.’ He gives a short, humorless laugh at that. ‘First five years he was with us no one even laid eyes on him.’
‘So how did he come to be in charge?’
Outside the wind moans, rattling the door in its frame, then settles down again. For a long moment Mac just stares into the fire, like he’s considering whether he wants to tell me the next part. When he speaks again his voice has lowered.
‘Whole world got turned on its head, is how.’ He goes quiet, for longer this time. I begin to wonder if that’s as much explanation as I’ll get when without warning he hitches in a breath and starts talking again.
‘You wind up in a place like Starkly, you try not to think too much about the world outside. How it’s going on without you. Ain’t much comfort to be had in that. There was the TV, of course, least for the hour each day Stokes allowed it. We knew from the news reports that things had taken a turn for the bad, but we figured it’d pass. The President had been on. The scientists were working on a cur
e, she said; wouldn’t be long till they had it sorted.’
‘The warden, he’s a cautious man, though. He sticks the entire prison on lockdown. No one in or out; no visits, no furlough; hell, we weren’t even allowed into the exercise yard. Can’t say anyone cared much for that; more time in your cell’s not something a con wishes for. Stokes, he says it’s temporary; just till it all blows over.’
He prods the embers with the toe of one boot, sending another rush of sparks swirling up into the darkness.
‘’Cept things didn’t seem to be getting no better, on the outside. Wasn’t long before we’re beginning to feel it, too. Starts with a few of the COs not showing up for their shifts. The screws were a mean bunch, so that didn’t seem no bad thing, least not at first. It gets worse, though. Soon the warden’s saying he doesn’t have enough men to watch us at mealtimes, so we’ll be taking our food in our cells, for the foreseeable.’
He leans forward, holding his hands a little closer to the dying fire.
‘The future’s something a con in a place like Starkly dwells on even less than what’s going on outside. Mostly you teach yourself not to think on it. But by now the wise blood’s starting to wonder how much longer our room service is going to hold out.’
He looks up at me.
‘Well, the answer to that question was: not much. Starts with just a meal here and there being skipped, but before long getting fed’s proving to be the exception rather than the rule. Never thought I’d miss a single one of those assholes, but that first morning no guard shows up to walk the block I knew it: we were screwed. The TVs in the main block are on, day and night now - I guess whoever was last out the door didn’t bother to turn them off - but the coverage is getting pretty sketchy. Most of the channels have shut down and the ones that are still broadcasting are showing the same bulletins, over and over. It was pretty clear: the world outside had fallen apart. Wasn’t nobody goin’ to care much about a bunch of prisoners, stuck in some Godforsaken place out in the middle of nowhere.’
He takes a breath, lets it out slow.
‘Once that realization sinks in all hell breaks loose. Cons start banging on the bars, hollerin’ for the warden, the guards, Jesus; anyone they thought might listen. It stays like that for a couple of days, then all of a sudden it turns eerily quiet, ’cept for the few TVs that were still on, just pumping out static now.’ He points a finger at nothing in particular, as though remembering. ‘That was strange. Starkly hadn’t ever been a peaceful place, even at night.’
He pauses, and for a while he just stares into the flames. Outside the wind gusts, rattling the door on its hinges, and he returns from wherever he’s been.
‘I’d been stashing food for a while; anyone with any sense had. What little I’d managed to squirrel away didn’t last long, though. After that it was just a matter of taking to your cot, to wait for the end. Days passed like that; I can’t say how many, so don’t ask; by then they were just blending into each other. Then one night all sorts of weird shit starts happening. Outside the skies go white, like it’s the middle of the day, only brighter. I was pretty sure I was trippin’, you know, on account of not having eaten for so long. It stays like that for a while, the light comin’ and going’ in waves, like fireworks. Some of those that had found religion start hollering like it’s Rapture. Then just as sudden as it lit up everything dies: lights, TV, the works. Starkly gets its final curfew.’
He goes quiet again, for longer this time. I realize I’ve let the pistol drop to my lap. I look down at it, then over at him. I don’t reckon he means me any harm, so I ease the hammer back down.
‘So how did you get out?’
‘It was like Finch said. He let us out.’
‘But how did he escape?’
‘He was being held separate, remember, over in HCON.’ He looks up. ‘You must have seen it, when he was givin’ you the tour? I bet he showed you that thing he keeps down there, too, didn’t he?’
He grunts, like he doesn’t much care for Finch’s pet fury.
‘It was the only modern part of the whole compound. They built it when the state designated Starkly a supermax. The cells had those fancy electronic locks, magnetic.’ He wiggles his fingers in the air as he says it, as though as far as he was concerned they might have worked on magic rather than electricity. ‘So when that weird shit happens in the sky and everything with a circuit gets fried, those locks, they just give up. The doors down in HCON spring open and Garland Finch he walks right out, free as a bird.’
‘And he released you.’
Mac nods, only this time he doesn’t say anything, just takes to staring into fire again. When at last he speaks his voice is little more than a whisper.
‘That he did, eventually. First he walked the block, though, up and down with that leg of his, setting it out in terms he thought we’d understand. The world was a changed place, he said. Lean times were upon us. There were truths to be faced, hard ones. There wasn’t going to be enough to feed everyone, and something had to be done about that, starting right then. So he’d come to a decision. He’d only let one man out of each cell, and only when there was nothing left of the other.’
*
I HEAR THE WORDS but my brain chooses not to accept them. I look over at Mac, hoping he’s going to offer some alternative explanation for what I’ve just learned. Any other explanation.
‘Yeah, at first we didn’t think he was serious, either. But once you’ve known Garland Finch a while you realize that’s not his style. You learn to take him very seriously.’ He shakes his head slowly. ‘He was every bit as good as his word, too. There were upwards of four hundred cons in the main block of Starkly, most of us two to a cell. When the last of those doors were opened what was left counted for not much more than a hunnerd-fifty. Weren’t no cell where more than one man crawled out.’
The truth of what’s he’s told me finally sinks in. I stagger to my feet and take a step backwards.
‘You ate your cell mates?’
I can hear the revulsion in my voice even as I say it. Mac looks at me over the fire, fixing me with a stare that makes me wonder if I should have kept the pistol cocked after all. He keeps his voice low, but there’s a hardness to it now that reminds me why a man like him might have ended up in Starkly in the first place.
‘You’d do well to keep that tone from your voice, boy. You prob’ly think you understand hunger ’cuz you had to skip a meal every now and then. You ever tried to eat the ticking out of your mattress? You ever spend your days praying for a roach to wander by your cell so you can slap your boot on it, maybe wash it down with a handful of water from the toilet bowl? You try that for a week or two, we’ll see just what you would and would not do.’
He glares at me for a long moment, the embers from the fire burning red in his eyes. I tighten my grip on the pistol, reaching my thumb down to cover the hammer.
‘Whatever shit I done, you think I deserved that? You think any of us did? Hell, I didn’t even have that long. My time was short.’
‘You were about to be released?’
He shakes his head.
‘I wasn’t ever going to see the outside of Starkly’s walls. I had my ticket for the Big Bitch. The Stainless Steel Ride.’
I stare at him blankly; I have no idea what he’s talking about.
‘I was due to be executed. It was okay, though; I’d made my peace with it. When the time came the state was going to pay up for some expensive pharmaceuticals to take me over the line.’
He prods the fire with the toe of his boot again.
‘I didn’t sign up for any of it.’
His voice trails off and for a long while neither of us speak. My mind’s still baulking at what I’ve just heard. I gaze into the fire, trying to make sense of it.
‘But why would he do something like that? If he was worried about food he could just have released a bunch of you, forced you to leave, let you take your chances outside.’
Mac shakes his head.
<
br /> ‘I thought about that a lot, after. What Finch done, it wasn’t just about thinning our numbers, see. I think he figured he could give us a taste for it.’
He shakes his head, quick, like he’s denying it.
‘He sends us out, looking for supplies, but we never bring back enough. I guess the city had been picked over long before we got to it.
I’m not sure why he’s telling me this, but all of a sudden I get a feeling, deep in the pit of my stomach. He keeps talking, but now it’s like whatever he’s about to tell me I’m not sure I want to hear it. It’s too late for that, though. There’s a part of my brain that’s already racing ahead, working it out.
He said Finch released a hundred and fifty of them from their cells. There was only thirty-seven when we sat for dinner.
‘And then there’s the winters, when we can’t hardly go out at all.’
As I had passed the kitchens, something gray, back in the shadows, dangling from an old hook.
‘So when it gets tight we have ourselves a lottery. Supposed to be the same odds for everyone, but I doubt you’ll ever see Tully or Knox’s name get drawn. Nobody thinks it’s going to be them. Until it is.’
I feel the blood draining from my face as I realize what he’s telling me.
‘The soup…’
He nods.
‘Best not to think too hard ’bout what ends up in Blatch’s cookpot.’
I stagger backwards but I don’t make it as far as the door. Next thing I know I’m on my knees, still clutching the pistol, as what’s left of the beef ravioli I had earlier comes flying out of my mouth. I continue to retch long after my stomach’s expelled the last trace of it. When I think I’m finally done I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and return to the fire.
Mac’s still sitting, staring into the flames. He looks over at me as I take a seat. Whatever anger was there earlier has gone.
‘I’m sorry, kid. I shouldn’t have laid that on you. No reason for you to have to carry that around.’
I set the pistol down beside me. If I don’t learn one more thing about Starkly for as long as I live I reckon it’ll still be too soon. We sit in silence for a while, then Mac picks up the toothpick again. He digs around for a while till he finds something, holds it out to examine it, then goes back to work. One by one the embers wink out, until there’s only a handful left, nestling among the ashes.
