by Perrin Briar
Her lunch belched out of her and onto the floor, splattering the other women’s shoes.
“Thanks a lot!” the woman with a spider web tattoo said.
Micro Skirt heaved again, this time bringing up mostly water. Tears ran down her gaunt face. Except they weren’t tears. They made red tracks. Blood. The others backed away.
“She’s got something wrong with her,” Spider Web Tattoo said. “Back up. Give her some room.”
“Everybody line up along the walls,” the officer on duty said. “Hurry up!”
The women did, none of them taking their eyes off Micro Skirt in the middle of the room. She fell forward, onto her hands and knees.
The officer on duty spoke into her radio, calling for backup.
“We’ve got a spillage here in the lady cells, over,” she said.
Micro Skirt heaved again. Her hair was plastered to her face, making a curtain around her features. Her breath sawed in and out of her throat. She hacked and hawed, rasping and ugly. A deep guttural sound in the back of her throat.
It almost sounded like laughter.
The other inmates shared a look, trepidation on their faces. What was going on? The officer’s backup arrived in the form of a dozen officers in full riot gear. They took position at the front of the cell.
Micro Skirt rose to her feet, unsteady, and stumbled forward. The other inmates shied back. Micro Skirt caught herself. The room was silent. The women around the edges, including Dana, stood staring, watching this single unimposing figure.
A wheeze squeezed from Micro Skirt’s throat and set Dana’s hair on end. Micro Skirt looked up.
Dana’s breath caught in her throat.
The woman’s complexion was pale as newly fallen snow, her skin shiny with moisture, eyes white, as if they’d been blinded. She peered at them all, her head moving side to side. She lurched forward, toward the cluster of women on the opposite wall to Dana.
The women screamed and moved to avoid her, like a termite in the nest. The inmates moved round the holding cell’s walls, crowding around one another, pushing and shoving, a game of tag.
Micro Skirt lumbered forward. It was only a matter of time before she caught someone. Her arms were held out prostrate, unyielding and reaching and grabbing, clawing.
“No!” someone screamed. “Get off me! Get off!”
It was Spider Web Tattoo girl. Her eyes were securely fastened on Micro Skirt, who had gripped her tight by the arm. Spider Web Tattoo screamed and beat against Micro Skirt, prying at her hands, but she was making a mistake. She wasn’t taking notice of the snapping jaws making a beeline for her skin.
Then she noticed, too late, as Micro Skirt’s teeth sunk into her flesh with a crunch, audible even over the screaming, baying women.
They were reactive mammals, Dana thought, running from danger and toward safety. If they’d used their brains and worked together to hold Micro Skirt back, they could have all been safe. But they were in a panic. There was no speaking to them.
Micro Skirt’s head reared back and snapped forward, like a striking snake. Claret splattered over the floor and wall in a spray. The tattooed woman reached out a hand for the rest of the women standing in one corner. For help. Dana felt guilty, disgusted with herself. This didn’t need to happen.
But it had happened.
“Oh my God,” the officer on duty said.
There was the jangling of keys as the officer on duty sorted through them to find the one she needed. Her hands were shaking uncontrollably.
The hysterical woman who had been standing at the bars was knocked to the floor. She was trampled in the ensuing stampede. She dragged herself along the floor. A wounded animal. She was going to be next for sure.
Micro Skirt seemed to notice her then, and let the lifeless limbs of the tattooed woman drop to the floor. She approached the injured woman.
Dana turned to look at the riot police, still waiting for the officer on duty to find the right key. They weren’t going to get in in time to save the injured woman. Before Dana knew what she was doing, she dashed forward.
She pulled at the injured woman’s arm. The woman looked up. Relief flooded her face, followed by renewed determination. She gripped Dana’s arm and used it to pull herself up onto her feet. She limped across the floor.
Dana cast a look over the fallen woman’s shoulder at Micro Skirt, who had blood smothered to the wrists like she was wearing gloves. With her white eyes set in her blood-smeared face she looked like a ghoul risen from hell.
Dana did the unthinkable and turned her back on the creature, so she might move faster with the injured woman. The inmates crowded on the other side of the cell parted, letting Dana and the injured woman into their ranks.
They stood a little taller now, with a little more confidence, but it was easily broken as Micro Skirt lumbered forward, shuffling their feet nervously. Soon they were once again darting left and right, out of reach of the monster’s grasping claws.
In her panic, the officer on duty dropped the keys. She picked them up, her hands shaking, the screams of the woman in the holding cell making her jump out of her skin. One of the riot police walked over to a computer terminal, lifted a plastic cover, and hit a bright red button. The cell door began to slide open.
The inmates ran to the empty corners. Some rushed to the bars, crying out for help. Dana backed herself and the injured woman into the corner, relying on the sudden movement of all the other inmates to distract Micro Skirt.
It worked. Micro Skirt’s head flicked from one woman to another in an attempt to identify her next target.
The riot police roared as they entered the cell. The inmates ran toward them for protection. But the riot police weren’t there for protection. They were there to maintain order, to quell the masses and curtail their hysteria. They swung their truncheons and beat the women back.
To them, behind their helmets, all the women looked wild and crazy. The screams emitted from their throats, a cacophony of noise, only added to the confusion. They must have been able to hear the rasping caw underneath it all, a low groan of sadness, but they could not identify from whose throat it had emitted, and so they swung indiscriminately, at every bobbing head they saw.
“On the floor!” a muffled voice shouted from behind his visor. “Everyone on the floor now! Hands where we can see them!”
“You must be having a laugh!” a woman with a square jaw said as she bustled forward and knocked into the wall of plastic shields.
The riot police brought their truncheons down on her head, knocking her to the floor. They beat her until she no longer moved, unconscious. They stepped over her and moved their perimeter forward a yard and beat at the next row of women prisoners.
“I said down on the ground!” one of the riot police shouted.
The riot police were forcing the remaining inmates into a smaller and smaller area. Soon they would be face to face with Micro Skirt. Between the crazy woman and the swinging truncheons, Dana had to make a choice. Micro Skirt, who would attempt to kill her, or the truncheons, which would attempt only to knock her unconscious?
It was a no-brainer.
Dana ran toward the riot police, her cuffed hands dragging the injured woman behind her. There was resistance, but once Dana started moving, the woman relented and followed her.
The riot police raised their truncheons to swing. Dana threw herself to the floor. She slid to a stop at the riot police’s booted feet. They brought their truncheons down on Dana, not to harm, but to knock into unconsciousness. She would wake up, a little sore, with a pounding headache, but it was better than no head, or another gaping gash wound.
The injured woman’s form fell to the floor beside Dana. At least they would get through this, whereas the other women, desperately trying to avoid the truncheons, as well as Micro Skirt, unable to make a defined decision one way or the other, were risking their lives.
Their screams filled Dana’s ears as the final few truncheon blows made her body limp, sweeping a cloak of
darkness over her, removing all concerns from her mind.
Chapter Nine
“OKAY,” a riot officer said, pulling off his helmet. “Let’s get the injured out of here.”
He lay a hand on his sweaty forehead and ran it through his tussled hair, making it stick up on end.
Dana’s head throbbed like someone was beating at it. She supposed that was essentially what had happened to her. She lay with a body on either side of her, forming a long row, as if they were being lined up to be buried. Each still had their hands cuffed behind their backs. As if they were going to revolt after what they’d all seen.
Micro Skirt was nowhere to be seen, though there was a second large pool of blood in a corner, dwarfing the first victim’s meager spray. An officer was rinsing the cell with a high-pressure hose. The blood ran along the floor and down the holes.
“What about the others?” a young officer said. “Shall we uncuff them?”
“No,” the Messy Haired officer said. “They’ll only cause more trouble. Leave their cuffs on.”
“What if another one of them turns into one of those… things?” the young officer said.
“Then God have mercy on us all,” the Messy Haired officer said.
He said it in all seriousness, with not a hint of humor.
Wow, Dana thought. Melodrama alert.
A sharp suit and high heels strutted into the room on the other side of the holding cell’s bars. She looked over the wasteland of broken inmates and took off her glasses.
“What in God’s name is going on here?” she said.
“An elocution lesson,” the Messy Haired officer said.
The lawyer’s expression wasn’t fazed at the sass.
“We had some trouble with one of the inmates,” the Messy Haired officer said, relenting. “She attacked some of the others.”
“My word,” the lawyer said, taking in the full extent of the scene.
“The word is ‘crazy’,” the Messy Haired officer said. “People are acting like it all over the country. All over the world.”
“They’re calling it the End of Days,” the lawyer said.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” the Messy Haired officer said. “It’s just some bad sorts getting a little uppity. They need a few hours in a cell somewhere to cool down. That’ll sort them out.”
The lawyer turned to the TV. It showed images of hundreds of running figures clashing against civilians and armed military units.
“Looks like the End of Days to me,” she said.
The inmate beside Dana drew herself up into a sitting position, then into a crouch, until finally she was standing. She approached the bars and leaned as close to the lawyer as she could.
“Hey,” the inmate said. “Glad you could make it. Shame you couldn’t have gotten me out of here before the shit hit the fan.”
“I came as quickly as I could,” the lawyer said. “You wouldn’t believe the traffic.”
“Forget what’s happening out there,” the inmate said. “Get me out of here! It’s full of crazies and whack jobs.”
“Hey!” one of the other inmates said, taking offence.
No one paid her any attention.
“Did you read my testimony?” the inmate said. “Did you read what they’re accusing me of? They think I killed him! They think I killed Sandy. I didn’t! I swear! He just kept coming at me. I had no choice.”
“I read your statement,” the lawyer said through pursed lips.
The rest of their conversation was lost in conspiratorial whispers as Dana rolled over and leaned against the wall, using it to right herself. Some of the others were still unconscious, lying there like felled logs. Others were awake, staring ahead at nothing, or the wall, or the TV screen. Only a single pair of inmates were in any kind of conscious state.
One was the injured woman Dana had helped rescue earlier. She had a dirty footprint across her neck where one of the riot police must have stepped on her. She nodded to Dana, who took it as a greeting.
Dana headed over and sat at a wooden bench that ran perpendicular to the one the other two women were sat on.
“Nice to meet you,” the injured woman said. “I would shake your hand but I’m slightly incapacitated. Although…”
She turned around so her back was to Dana, who smiled and copied the action so they could shake fingertips, if not hands. They sat back down.
“That’s the way to survive,” the injured woman said. “Thinking outside the box and coming up with creative solutions to problems.”
“We haven’t met,” the second woman said.
She had large front teeth like a buck rabbit, a long thin face, with hairs that stuck out of a large mole on either side of her nose. She looked all the world like a weasel to Dana.
“I would shake your hand,” the weasel woman said, “but I’m not quite as dexterous as you two. My name’s Janice.”
She gestured to the injured woman.
“This is Sharon,” she said.
“Dana.”
“Nice to meet you Dana,” Sharon said. “I don’t know what would have happened to me if you hadn’t rescued me.”
“I didn’t rescue you,” Dana said. “I just leant a hand.”
“More than some people did,” Sharon said with a pointed glare out the corner of her eye at Janice.
Janice shrugged her shoulders in an expression that, had her hands been free, would have communicated how she felt guiltless.
“I couldn’t get past the others,” she said.
“A likely story,” Sharon said. “You didn’t want to get past them, more like. Tell it to the jury.”
“What’s the point?” Janice said. “Nobody in a court ever believed a word I said anyway.”
“Look at them,” Sharon said with a nod to the lawyer and her client. “Carrying on like what’s happening outside and across the world is a minor inconvenience.”
“It might be,” Janice said with a shrug.
“Pull the other one,” Sharon said. “Their problem is they trust the system, whether they’re beneath its heel, or a cog in it. They believe everything is going to carry on the way it always has, that all the stuff we see on TV is going to make no difference, that everyone will forget about it in the days and weeks to come. They don’t recognize a real problem when they see one.”
“That’s true enough,” Janice said. “I suppose that was how we were brought up, to always expect an egghead somewhere to come up with a solution.”
“But one day there will be no solution,” Sharon said. “It might not be today. It might be years or generations away, but one day it will happen. I just hope I’m not around to see it when it does.”
“Thanks for the confidence boost,” Janice said with a shake of her head.
“What are you in for?” Sharon said to Dana.
“I, uh,” Dana said.
The two women looked at her expectantly. What should she say? Was it better to make herself look more dangerous in their eyes and say she killed someone in cold blood, or play down her crime?
“It’s okay, honey,” Janice said. “There’s no need to be shy. Ain’t nobody who’s done no wrong in their life. Take Sharon here. She looks all sweetness and light, but don’t let that fool you. She’s one of the sharpest loan sharks in the city.”
“Say it a bit louder, why don’t you?” Sharon said. “I don’t think the pig over there heard you.”
“They all know she’s guilty,” Janice said.
“That’s for the judge to decide,” Sharon said.
“Twice you’ve got away with it,” Janice said. “Third time’s a charm.”
“So I thought about my third marriage,” Sharon said. “Bang goes your theory. And let me dispel any inclination you might have of thinking Janice to be a beacon of holy shining light. She was in hospital and thought it would be a good idea to assault some of the staff there.”
“Disturbing the peace, they call it,” Janice said. “That’s a laugh. There ain’t one
day where there’s peace in Seattle General.”
“Not when you go there, there’s not,” Sharon said. “So Dana, spill the beans. What’d you do?”
“I… beat my boyfriend to a bloody pulp,” Dana said. “I caught him in bed with another woman.”
“And they put you in here for that?” Sharon said. “You’re a hero. You should get a medal, not get locked up in here with this lot of vagabonds.”
“Laid him up in hospital?” Janice said. “Shame you didn’t let me know. I could have cracked him upside the head while I was at it. That’ll make him think twice next time!”
“He’s dead,” Dana said.
The women’s amused expressions froze.
“You killed him?” Janice said. She shook her head. “You can’t do that, dear. The justice system frowns on murder.”
“Can get a lot of time over it,” Sharon said. “No matter how much he deserved it.”
“It wasn’t just that he was cheating on me,” Dana said, feeling she had to defend herself. “That was the least of it. After he got off her, he came at me. He attacked me. I’d never seen him like that before. There was rage in his eyes, a lifelessness. It was a bit like the crazy woman in here earlier. He kept coming at me, tried to hurt me. I managed to kill him before he killed me. Now, they’re going to lock me away for it.”
“Then you shouldn’t have anything to worry about,” Sharon said. “If he was trying to kill you, it should get classed as self defense.”
“Except I have a file about an inch thick already,” Dana said. “This might be the end of my life, and it’s not even something I’m really guilty of.”
“You might get lucky,” Janice said. “There are some good lawyers in this town. Get a good one and he’ll take care of you. It’s a shame your boyfriend didn’t leave a mark on you. Evidence like that plays out well to a judge and jury.”
“He did hurt me,” Dana said. “She lifted her arm and showed the bandage. He bit me. Right on my arm. It still hurts when I move it.”
“You got bit?” Janice said with a frown. “How long ago?”
“I don’t know,” Dana said. “About twelve hours, I guess.”
