JJ09 - Blood Moon

by Michael Lister

  They turned and began walking back the way they had come.

  When they reached the sanctuary doors, I raised up to see if they were leaving the building or checking the back hallway.

  At first they just stood there.

  After a little time had passed, they stepped toward the door, then stopped and started back this way, then stopped again.

  They were saying something I couldn’t make out.

  If they did go down the back hallway toward the kitchen, I’d have to move fast. I wish I knew which one had the gun. I’d need to attack him first. But there was no way for me to know.

  In another moment, they headed toward the front door and walked out of the building.

  Chapter Forty-four

  Back beneath the blood moon.

  Bat in one hand, Anna’s hand in the other.

  Moving quickly, but carefully, making a wide swing around the right side of the upper compound that brought us close to the perimeter fence.

  “What about the perimeter patrol?” she said.

  The prison was encircled by an asphalt road that was patrolled during each shift by an armed officer in a vehicle. If we stayed near the perimeter fence long enough, he’d eventually drive by.

  “I thought about trying to wait out here and get his attention earlier, but figured he’d be working with them. No way Randy Wayne wouldn’t have one of his guys out there.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe he doesn’t have any more guys. Maybe he thought he’d be able to take us out quickly and quietly in the chapel hours ago.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “We can risk it if you think we should.”

  “Might not have a choice eventually, then it’d be less of a risk.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  She was wearing a pair of sneakers I had in my office, under which were three pairs of thick socks. When I had returned to the kitchen with them, she was sitting on the floor, her back leaning against one of the cabinets, the front of her pants wet with blood.

  In that moment, the fact that none of the kitchen outlets had power became a secondary consideration.

  “I’m okay,” she said. “Feet much better. Still bleeding some, but can’t tell how much. Pain’s not too bad. Some in my abdomen. Mostly just achy. I can move faster if we need to.”

  Suddenly, something was there in front of me, and I tripped. Letting go of Anna’s hand so I didn’t pull her down with me, I hit the ground and rolled, coming up with the bat as soon as I stopped.

  “Chaplain, it’s me,” Cardigan said. “Don’t swing.”

  “Ronnie?”

  “Yeah.”

  I got to my feet and moved back over to Anna.

  “What’re you doing out here?”

  “This is where I’ve been the whole time. Thought I’d just lie out here in the dark and wait for daybreak and shift change or . . . I didn’t know what else to do.”

  Something Lao Tzu said popped into my head. In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous.

  I had listened to the Tao Te Ching audio book many, many times, and the voice in my head was that of the narrator.

  “There are worse plans,” I said.

  Finding him here made me realize that we were all staying on the right side of the upper compound, which was what Randy Wayne and the others had to expect. Perhaps we’d be safer and have a better chance on the opposite side––behind the Library, Education, PRIDE printing plant, and Food Services, but to get there meant we’d have to cross the road and an open area of some fifty yards where we could be more easily seen.

  “If I’m gonna die, it’s not gonna be in a cage, but out here under this magic moon.”

  I nodded, appreciating the sentiment, though I doubted he could see it.

  I had been so busy trying to survive and keep us alive, I hadn’t taken the time to prepare to die or consider how I wanted to if it came to that.

  God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

  If I died wasn’t ultimately up to me. How I died was.

  How do I want to die?

  Without fear. At peace. Trying to live, trying to protect Anna and preserve both our lives––but not in a thoughtless, panicked, frenzied way. In a Zen way, doing all I can, then stepping back and accepting what is. I wanted to die on my feet, attempting to do the right thing for the right reasons. I wanted to die honorably. I wanted to be able, though I wasn’t sure I could, to have compassion for my killer, to love and forgive with my final breath.

  That’s what I wanted. What of that I would actually be able to achieve I didn’t know, but if I wasn’t mindful about it, if I wasn’t prayerful and careful, I’d have little chance at all at having a good death.

  “Have you seen anyone?” I asked. “Inmates or officers going into and out of buildings? Anything you can tell us?”

  “Inmate went into Laundry a little while ago.”

  I turned and looked toward the laundry building. Through the fog and darkness I could see a faint light coming from a few of the small widows.

  “Looked like the one they call the Gainesville Grim Reaper. What’s his name? Cantor? He had a weapon too. Looked like the biggest fuckin’ carvin’ knife you ever seen.”

  “There’s no way you could’ve seen all that from out here,” I said.

  “I was closer earlier. Saw him when I was. He went in the chapel for a while. That’s when I moved out here. Saw him go in Laundry just a little while ago.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Thanks. You wanna go with us? Fare better if we work together.”

  “Think I’ll stay here. If you figure something out for us or need me, this is where I’ll be.”

  Chapter Forty-five

  “Where’re we headed?” Anna asked.

  “Laundry.”

  “Seriously? Like some run-toward-the-roar face-your-fears shit?”

  I laughed. “Not exactly, no. Well, maybe a little. But more to be unexpected. Switch things up some. Go on the offensive instead of staying on the defensive. How’re you feeling?”

  “Not so good. But it has less to do with the cuts in my feet and the bleeding coming from my belly than the fact that we’re running toward a psychotic serial killer.”

  She had not seen what Cantor had done to Emmitt, nor had I told her in any detail. If I had or if she had seen it, the fear and dread and nausea she felt now would pale to the point of nonexistence.

  “I’m sure it’d be easy to talk me out of,” I said.

  “I doubt that.”

  “It may be the worst idea I’ve ever had,” I said, “but it just seemed like Cardigan is lying over there waiting to die. I don’t want to do that. I can’t.”

  “I’m glad. I just––”

  Just then we were tackled from the side, taken to the ground with force, Anna letting out a painful shriek.

  I dropped the bat and it rolled too far away to reach.

  I grabbed for Anna, but was on the ground with someone on top of me before I could make any contact at all.

  I struggled with the figure on top of me, but only for a moment––only until his partner, who was still straddling Anna, reached over and pressed the barrel of his small handgun to my head.

  “See this,” he said, tapping me with it, “this will now be pointed at her head. Resist some more if you want to be single for a little while before you die.”

  I went perfectly still.

  They were the two officers from the chapel.

  The one on me pushed himself off and told me to stand slowly as the other helped Anna to her feet.

  The two men looked vaguely familiar. I had seen them at the prison before, but didn’t know their names and probably had never shared more than a passing greeting with them. Certainly not an entire conversation.

  The one who had been on top of me was smaller and younger, but both men looked to be in th
eir thirties.

  “You okay?” I asked Anna.

  “I landed on the baby. It was hard. I don’t feel right.”

  “Real soon all three of you won’t feel a thing,” the one with the gun said.

  He held the gun close to Anna’s head, and he was standing too far away for me to reach. I tried to think of our options, but couldn’t come up with any.

  “We takin’ them to the ripper or callin’ for someone to bring him to us?” the smaller guy asked.

  “Whatever way the boss wants, but Butler wanted a word with that one before we turn the ripper loose on ’em. Maybe all we have to do is turn them over to him and Pine and let them deal with him.”

  “You don’t want to watch him do it?”

  “No I sure as shit do not. Was bad enough seeing what he did to that poor prick in the chapel after the fact. That shit’s bad enough to not be able to unsee, but actually seein’ him do it . . . Might give me ideas for my old lady.”

  The smaller guy laughed at that. He did it in such a way as to convey his understanding of why, given his old lady, it would be a temptation.

  “Get ’em cuffed,” the one with the gun said, “and let’s ge–”

  Ronnie Cardigan jabbed his shank in the left side of the bigger officer’s neck and pulled it out, blood spurting as he did, then did it again.

  I lunged for the gun, grabbing it from him as he reached for the gush of blood at his neck.

  The smaller officer began to run, but Cardigan kicked at his boot and he tripped and fell.

  Before I could say or do anything, Ronnie had jumped on him and was stabbing him in the back, then sides and throat.

  I hugged and held Anna, watching Cardigan as I did.

  She rubbed her stomach, groaning softly, breathing erratically.

  In less than two minutes of jumping on the officer, Cardigan was climbing off.

  “You saved our lives,” I said. “Thank you.”

  “This is all so fucked up,” he said. “All of it. This whole place. All of this. The whole fucking world.”

  “I know.”

  He started wandering away, back the way he had come, both of the men he had attacked bleeding out.

  “Stay with us,” I said. “We can––”

  “I can’t. I can’t handle any more of this shit.”

  “We have a gun now,” I said. “That changes things, changes everything.”

  He didn’t slow or stop or say anything else, just kept walking away, as if any of this was something that could actually be walked away from.

  Chapter Forty-six

  We had a gun.

  It changed things.

  It changed everything.

  We were still outmanned. We were still outgunned. We were still facing the enormous machinery of a maximum security prison, a handful of desperate men, and a particularly vicious psychopathic killer. They still had the power. Only now they didn’t have all of it.

  The gun felt good in my hand.

  A pocket pistol designed for self-defense, it was extremely small. A black DoubleTap that held just two .9mm rounds. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make a difference.

  I thought about the role guns had played in my life, how many times they had saved me and others, how many times I had vowed never to use one again.

  I loathed the way part of our population fetishized guns, the paranoid, mostly powerless people who worshiped at an altar of blued and stainless steel, an altar upon which was the blood of millions of martyrs to a religion they weren’t even aware existed.

  I thought about the hardened, urban street thug and the easily manipulated rural loner, the intercity gang member and the backwoods militia member. Each turned to guns for the same reason––their actual or perceived powerlessness and the promise of immediate actual and perceived power a handgun held.

  Having this small weapon and its two rounds didn’t tip the balance of power in our direction, but it did give us a measure of the immediate power those who perceive themselves to be powerless loved so much about guns. I would use the weapon to protect Anna, and I was grateful for it and the ability to do just that, but I couldn’t love guns, couldn’t worship them. But because of the work I did, the life I led, I also hadn’t been able to give them up completely either.

  Since I had yet to be able to follow Jesus’s teachings regarding going out into the world unarmed, not resisting evil, and turning the other cheek when attacked, I did my best to follow Lao Tzu and remember that Weapons are the tools of fear; a decent man will avoid them except in the direst necessity and, if compelled, will use them only with the utmost restraint.

  Of course, Jesus’s instructions were for facing down an oppressive empire while Lao Tzu’s were for personal day-to-day application, but I took both seriously, both as sacred instruction and an ideal I aspired to.

  I was in the direst of situations, but only wanted to use the utmost of restraint, and be nothing less than a decent man.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked Anna.

  We were easing our way over toward the laundry building, slowly, steadily.

  “I must be in shock. That was so . . . I feel so conflicted. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, but I was glad it happened to them.”

  “Welcome to my world.”

  “It is, isn’t it? I don’t see how you do it, how you handle it so well.”

  “I don’t think I do.”

  “You absolutely do. It’d be so easy to be at either extreme, but you . . . you’re the most gentle man I’ve ever known, yet you are capable of violence––but always with great restraint.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “you’re in shock.”

  “Does having the gun change our plans any?” she asked.

  “It only holds two rounds. It won’t be much help. So . . . no. Not really.”

  “Are you really going to attack Cantor?” she asked. “Will you just shoot him?”

  “My goal is to subdue him,” I said. “I’d like to take him off the board if I can.”

  “Promise me you’ll shoot him if you have to, that you won’t get yourself hurt or killed because you’re trying too hard not to kill anyone else.”

  “Promise.”

  “Holdin’ you to it.”

  As we neared Laundry, Cantor, carrying his knife, walked out.

  We froze.

  I now had the bat in one hand, the small gun in the other, and I readied myself.

  He headed left, toward Food Services, without ever even looking in our direction.

  “You can go up behind him and shoot him in the head,” Anna whispered. “Won’t get a better opportunity than this.”

  “I was going to try to knock him out with the bat,” I said. “Never intended to shoot him and certainly not in the back.”

  She nodded without saying anything.

  I was really hoping not to shoot anyone––especially in the back. It wasn’t something I thought I could do. Of course, I could do it to save Anna, but there was no way to know until it was too late that doing that would save her. If I could be sure it was the only way, I’d do it. I’d do it without hesitation and with no regret––like breaking Cardigan out to trade for her. But could I do it without knowing I had to? Could I do it just on the chance it would save her?

  And it wasn’t just the issue of back-shooting a man, a psychopathic killer, but it was the consideration that it would alert the others to our whereabouts––particularly if I did it out in the open where he was now. It would use one or both of our only rounds and take away the surprise element of us having a weapon.

  But it was mostly not wanting to back-shoot a man in cold blood.

  “So what now?” she asked.

  “Looks like he left the door open,” I said. “We go in, charge the phone, and use it.”

  “Okay.”

  “You think I should go shoot Cantor in the back of the head, don’t you?” I said.

  “I just hope you don’t regret not doing it later.”

 
Chapter Forty-seven

  Confirming Cantor had left the door to Laundry open, we ducked inside and closed it.

  To our left were enormous industrial, round, stainless steel washing machines, a complex series of large white PVC pipes running into and out of them from above and behind. On the back wall was a bank of huge battleship-gray industrial dryers. On the right side of the room were pressing machines and large folding tables. In front of, in between, and around everything were some fifty rolling canvas laundry carts on wood frames and casters filled with inmate uniforms, bedding, blankets, and towels.

  “Before we do anything else, I’d like you to lie down on some of these blankets,” I said. “We could hide you in the back behind the dryers or even inside one of the carts beneath some laundry. So no matter what happens next, you’ll be able keep your feet up and take pressure off the baby.”

  “I don’t want to be alone.”

  “As in you don’t want me to leave the building or don’t even want me across the room?”

  “Don’t want you leaving the building.”

  “Okay.”

  “Had you planned to?” she asked.

  “I thought I might look around a little while you rested.”

  “’Cause you can move quicker and be more stealthy without a pregnant woman in tow?”

  “You’re very stealthy,” I said. “I just––doesn’t matter. I’m not going anywhere. Let’s plug in the phone and get you situated.”

  Which was what we did next, piling blankets in the back corner behind a row of carts and beneath a folding table and easing her onto them. Her feet up and phone plugged in beside her, I left her there to rest while I began to look around the building.

  I had only taken a few steps when the power went off.

  A couple of dim emergency backup lights flickered on.

  “Shit,” Anna said.

  “They must be cutting it off building by building after they’ve been searched.”

  “That or they know we’re in here,” she said.

  I was already making my way toward the door to take a look outside, but her comment made me wonder if instead I should go help her up and get her out of here.