Hard Sentences: Crime Fiction Inspired by Alcatraz

by David James Keaton

  He tried to push higher with his free leg, but it was difficult to get any leverage on the slippery pipe. He could get about an inch of play before the metal strapping or screw or whatever it was down there bit back down into his ankle.

  He pushed as high as the pain would let him, slipping his knife in and trying to saw through the rope on his shoulder. He fashioned the backpack straps out of braided shoelaces that he’d spent the past two weeks bartering for in the yard. Everyone had thought he was getting ready to end it.

  “They’re takin’ us back to dry land. Whatcha wanna go hang yerself for anyway, ya scared o’water?” He muttered to himself as he worked, chanting everyone’s disparaging words like a mantra to fuel his fire. He let out a small yelp as the shiv poked into his shoulder, drawing blood.

  He repeated the phrase, scared of water. He wasn’t scared of water; he was scared of bullets from the guard towers, or sharks. Water was nothing. Water he could handle. He didn’t die when the Japs sank the Indianapolis, and he sure as hell wasn’t worried about a little swim across the Bay.

  The pipe beneath him emitted a sharp squeak, followed by a long, painful whine. He felt it vibrate, and assumed this is what happened whenever an inmate above flushed the john. The rattling moved the pipe enough that his ankle came free from whatever was stabbing it, but not far enough for his boot to scrape through to freedom.

  Pain subsiding, he focused on the shoulder strap. The first one broke so quickly that he barked his knuckles against the wall, dropping the shiv. He slapped for it as it rattled down into the abyss below.

  “You mind getting’ that for me?” He asked the rat. “Do somethin’, would ya? Instead of staring at me with those beady eyes. I knew you were trouble. I knew it.”

  The rat lowered its body, flattening out against the pipe. It stared, nose wriggling.

  He wouldn’t need to cut through the other strap. Freeing one arm meant he could shimmy his body sideways away from the pack. With a couple of careful contortions, he felt it give behind him. It slid away to his right, and he hooked it with his elbow. Even with his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he couldn’t figure out where to set it while he worked on the problem of his stuck foot.

  Leaning forward, he discovered he could put pressure on the pipe and open up a little more space. The first time he did it, his boot snagged on the pipe and started to come off. Couldn’t risk losing his shoes just yet. So he slowed down, exhaling, and pressed his toes into the pipe, inching his trapped leg higher, willing his boot to stay in place, ignoring the first two creaks that came from the pipe.

  Another noise, like a dying cow, rang through the enclosed space. At first Tucker thought it was the voice of God himself, thunderous in the little tunnel, a deep bass note that sounded like a warning:

  Nooooooooooooooooo.

  It was a death knell, a scream from metal that had been pushed beyond its limits.

  Two giant blasts of sound came next, and the world started to list sideways, making his mind race back to that night his boat went down in WWII.

  The pipe broke. Tucker felt his ankle break, as well, like he’d been shot, sending a pristine bolt of pain from his right big toe up into his left clavicle. The oddness of that new sensation took his mind off the fact that he was falling. What felt like minutes was probably seconds, and then more pain came.

  One pop, his bad foot landing on concrete. Two pops, his head bouncing off the wall, ricocheting into the now-broken pipe (pop number three) before slamming down onto the ground.

  He had enough time to register a sharp, hot stab in his right buttock before he began to drown.

  Cold, slimy water vomited from the broken pipe that was now face-level, splattering his eyes, his ears. His right hand flopped dumbly behind him to find the source of the pain, and he knew two seconds before his fingers found it that it would be the handle of his trusty shiv, now lodged in his backside. He pulled it free and tried to stand, slipping and falling again. His adrenaline kicked in, and he found a way to flop over, push himself to all fours, and stand. The deluge that had been assaulting his face now pumped against his knees, slowly subsiding. He felt the back end of the pipe, twisted and folded, poking at his knees. When he turned, the old, rusted metal bit deep into the tendons there, plucking them like cheap nylon guitar strings until one frayed.

  That singular note of agony was enough to bring the rest of senses back and make him realize what had happened. It was a small mercy that it was too dark to see, but the smell was unmistakable and overwhelming. It felt like the prison had been holding this in for all thirty of its years, that it had been constipated, and that maybe the guards were right, maybe it was shutting down. After all, didn’t your bowels release at death?

  Far away in the darkness, Easton Tucker heard a squeak.

  “Rat!” He yelled. It was the only word he could find, the only syllable he could make, his sewage-spattered lips spraying his rage into the void. “Shit. House. Raaaaaat!”

  He could only imagine what he looked like now. He tried to pretend it was only mud, that it would help conceal him once he got out of this place. He sniffled, instantly regretting that choice as a thick, viscous plug of sewage rocketed up into his nose and then back out as he choked.

  If his momma could see him now. Easton Tucker had done a lot of things that wouldn’t make her proud, most notable among them stabbing his momma through the heart with a broken mop handle. She was probably laughing at him from somewhere in Hell.

  “I ain’t supposed to be here!” He screamed. He bent down and hammered the broken pipe with his hand, a hollow booming that rang throughout the tight quarters. If someone was still on the island, they’d have heard it.

  If.

  His ankle was on fire. Every beat of his heart registered like a shotgun blast beneath his boot. He spent the next five minutes debating whether it would be better to keep his lips closed, risking the taste of shitwater, or keep his mouth open and head tipped forward, which seemed reasonable until he felt the tickle of water running down his cheeks and toward his mouth. He couldn’t wipe at the muck with his encrusted hands, couldn’t find the backpack to use some of the pants there to clean himself.

  No two ways around it, Easton Tucker was going to have to eat shit today.

  This was it. He was a ghost. Less than a ghost. If he died down here in this tunnel, nobody would know. On paper, Easton Tucker was safe and accounted for somewhere in Kansas. He had to get out. Had to see his wife again, even if just to piss on her grave.

  He hobbled down the narrow crawlspace, pulling himself back up onto the remaining half of the pipe. If memory served, he’d only have about thirty feet to go before dropping down to an access panel that would let out somewhere just outside of the rec yard.

  His ankle had gone numb, either from shock or the cold water or both. He reached the end of the pipe, his good foot losing traction. He skidded forward again, jamming his good toes between the pipe and the wall and smacking his face against the cinder blocks.

  Behind him, the skittering of tiny rat feet.

  “You my accomplice now?” Tucker spat, the taste of rotten eggs and rusty copper sluicing across his lips.

  The rat said nothing.

  He reached the end of the road, a faint light cutting through the wall near the access panel. He pushed against it. It gave way slowly at first, then popped free and clattered to the floor, echoing like a 21-gun salute.

  Tucker pulled himself through the panel, leaving a large stain smeared across the tile floor. He rolled onto his back, wincing in pain. He’d tried. At least he’d tried. His ankle wouldn’t hold up to any serious running, and there was still a fence to scale and a dive to the water. A swim with no flotation device.

  “Fuck you, Darl and fuck you, John!” he shouted. “I’m here! I’m here, wherever the fuck this is!”

  Darl Parker was apprehended on some nearby rocks in the bay. Tucker had befriended him as he recovered, and over the days, Parker told him the greatest secret he
’d ever know.

  Always have a backup plan.

  Parker and Scott had gotten out using their Plan A, but Tucker learned that there was still an unused Plan B and C. They’d loosened some security bars here, opened some access panels there, and only Easton Tucker knew about them. This plan probably would have gone smoother with a partner, but loose lips sink ships. He worked for a few weeks to get the remaining necessities in place. He hadn’t accounted for the shit storm he’d just survived.

  Something about the thought of sinking ships coupled with the smell he’d brought into the space made him lose his supper. And something about slinking through a narrow path brought on a second wave of intense nausea, and he lost the breakfast that had preceded his lunch. But he’d kept his meals light as the big day approached, to be as skinny as possible so he could slither through the narrow path to freedom. Small blessings.

  He flopped away from his mess, pulling himself across the room until he came to a large steel table where he leveraged himself back to his feet.

  He was somewhere in the lower levels of Building 64. He didn’t know who’d designed the sewage systems for Alcatraz, but he thanked them for having a central access point to all of the island’s buildings. None of the doors here would be locked. He had, at this point, technically, crawled his way to freedom. He could stop now. It made sense to give up. Every step he took sent more pain up his leg, he could barely breathe because of the stench he’d brought with him, and his only means of escape had been destroyed.

  But his momma didn’t raise a quitter, and that’s the same thing he told her after the first few jabs with that mop handle didn’t get the job done.

  He didn’t have anything waiting for him on the other side. Not a woman, not a job, not a safe place. But the sun was coming through the seam of the closed door to the room, and he had to know how it felt out there. He spied a mop leaning in the corner of the room and grabbed it, using it as a makeshift crutch. He hobbled forward, brazenly stepping through the door and out into the day, careless of who would see him.

  Nobody was there. There was no clatter from the rec yard, no boats coming in, none of the supply trucks moving gear across the island. They had been telling him the truth. He waddled down a dirt path until he reached the wharf. The wind cut through him like a knife. Freedom felt like hell. He stared at the city lights across the Bay, as the rat skittered across his feet.

  “What’s escape, anyway? Gettin’ away from the cops, right? Gettin’ away from jail? I mean . . . I did it, right? Sort of? I’m the only one here. So it’s sort of like I got away, right? Right?”

  The rat stood on its hind paws and looked up at him. It checked over its shoulder and then scampered away across the rocks.

  “I can’t swim it,” Tucker told the rat. “I can’t.”

  The rat turned to face him.

  “Die on the rocks or die in the water. You’re not supposed to be here, that’s the important thing,” the rat said. “They’re not coming back. They’re never coming back.”

  Tucker stared at the rat in disbelief, his jaw hanging open. He blinked, a strange feeling at his temples as his sludge-encrusted skin dried in the open air.

  “I’m covered in shit,” he told the rat.

  “You are,” the rat agreed.

  “Why didn’t you talk before?”

  “You’ve lost a lot of blood, Easton. You can’t see it because your pants are filthy. Take them off.”

  Tucker hesitated, then nodded and did as he was told. Once, in the Navy, he’d been involved in an acid spill, a few splatters that ripped across his forearm and burned like the devil. As his pants slid down, that feeling returned to him, amplified tenfold as the fabric of his filthy pants peeled away from the skin on his leg.

  He pawed at his right leg, massaging the back of his knee.

  The rat tutted. “You shouldn’t do that, your hands are disgusting.”

  Tucker ignored the rat, fingers probing at his leg. It felt distant and cold, made of rubber, but it was wet, even with the pants gone. The back of his knee hurt, and as he slid his hand up his thigh, his fingers probed the edges of a chasm that hadn’t been there when he woke this morning.

  He tried to test it, see how deep it went, but it stung, and he couldn’t tell if it was the wound or his shit-stained fingers, so he eased back, walking his hands up the rim of this new geological feature. It started near the back of his knee, curling around to his inner thigh before taking another hard turn towards his rump.

  “I really shanked myself, huh? God, that’s deep. I need a doctor.”

  “You need a priest,” the rat replied.

  “What am I supposed to do now?”

  “Confess? Sing. Sing your soul to me,” the rat said.

  Tucker swung a kick at the thing, but the strength went out of his leg and he collapsed in a heap. The side of his face bounced off the cement hard, and he felt his lips swell and his front teeth shift in a way that they hadn’t since his last bar fight.

  “I’m gonnn’ die? Like thiff?”

  He rolled onto his back and propped himself up on his elbows, looking at the ground. A perfect silhouette of his profile was painted in bile and blood. Swollen lips open in a silent scream, lines near the eye showing the grimace of pain.

  “That’s me!” Tucker said, jutting his chin at the ground.

  “That’s you. That’s your whole life, Easton. That’s everything you did and everything you’ll ever be. That’s as close to a memorial as you’ll get, and it’s more than you deserve.” The rat scampered to Easton’s feet and perched on its back paws, rubbing its forepaws together.

  Tucker squinted at the rat. “You’re not very nice.”

  “Neither were you.”

  “How can I make this right?”

  The sky slowly began to shift, from a faded robin’s egg blue to a brilliant white, then almost platinum. The world around Tucker went blurry.

  “Confess to him,” the rat said.

  Tucker followed the rat’s gaze to see a blurry shadow approaching. “Who’s that?”

  “Confess,” the rat whispered.

  Tucker tried to raise a hand to the shape. He’d never had much truck with angels or devils. Things were what they were and then they were done, but at this moment, he decided that it was probably best to make a good first impression.

  “The only monument to sin is the stench we’ve left behind, and even that will be gone soon enough,” the rat said.

  “I’m sorry,” Tucker said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Momma. I’m sorry. I’m sorry about everything. I didn’t even belong here. I never meant to—”

  Thunder filled the sky, ripped through the heavens so hard that the sky warped. A blink later, Tucker felt a jolt of lightning strike his head. His right eye went near-blind, and his left exploded from his temple, riding a wave of bone and blood and brain, spattering across the silhouette he’d created moments earlier.

  Was this death?

  He blinked, his vision resolving until there was only light and that dark blue monstrosity towering over him that resolved into familiar shapes: arms, legs, a service revolver, a badge on its chest shining brighter than the golden morning sun. Indistinct voices came to him in the light, from far away. Then more shadows joined the first one, and that chorus grew.

  Who are you?

  Easton felt his cheek growing cold in the shallow puddle of sewage and blood and bone he’d created, his monument, and though he could no longer speak, he finally knew the answer to that question.

  Xystocheir

  by Carrie Laben

  “Hey, I’m sorry about your dog, man.”

  Bob says it for the third time, not that Wyatt is trying to count. He’s decided to stop holding Bob’s weird tics and forced joviality against him at least for tonight. But the last thing he needs right now is reminders about Falcon, or the sons of bitches who’d killed her. That’s why he’s here. It’s not like he’s going to forget.

  “I really am, dude. I m
ean it. Whoever did that, shit, they deserve to get the same done to them. If it was me, I’d saw their heads right off slow. Dull knife.”

  There’s a real risk that a shoulder poke is coming next, a demand to be acknowledged, especially in the dark where Bob can’t tell if Wyatt is looking at him or not, whether he’s appreciating the bravado and shock value of the statement. A shoulder poke on another night would turn Wyatt around, make him tell Bob to get someone younger and dumber to help out with his big-shot schemes, get him back in his kayak. He couldn’t bear to trust his life to Bob’s half-assed navigation. Point his compass towards home where he could crack a beer and sit on the back steps, listening to the killdeers cry until dawn, with no one around but silent, straightforward Falcon. Not tonight. Never again.

  “This is the next spot,” he says quietly instead. Whole damn thing is Bob’s idea anyway. Maybe Bob could shut up and do some of the damn work. And then Wyatt thinks, no, you’re doing it again. Bob isn’t in front. Bob isn’t reading the map. But that’s because you’re the one who knows the island. Bob is lugging the paint cans. And Bob paid for the paint. Bob has paid for car repairs and flophouses and bail and an unending stream of mushroom pizzas for damn near everyone in the group. And Bob actually wants people to come together and do things, in a movement where the biggest heroes are men and . . . well, mostly men who wander off into the wilderness alone to nurse their cranky-bastard ways in the bits of forest or desert or mountain that have been spared. Which Wyatt himself would do, if he had his way.

  He’s not fancy enough to think of himself as a philosopher though—just an entomologist, and not even that with his ABD—so wandering off in the middle of a hundred-year environmental emergency would be self-indulgent. You don’t do that.

  Before Bob can start talking again, Wyatt gestures with the flashlight, kept low and invisible from a distance, at a rock that glitters with flecks of quartz. Bob pulls out his brush and daubs paint across the top. In the daylight, it’ll just look like a splash of guano from any distance. Wyatt pulls out the other light, the black light, and steps back to take the point of view of a stranger—maybe Beth, with the little limp that’s a legacy from her old man, or Eddie, who though he’ll never admit it gets spooky in the dark—and makes sure the glow of the paint will be easy to spot. Once the strike team lands, they’ll want to move quickly and efficiently to the “high-value targets.” Bob’s exact words. A fancy term for a bunch of old buildings full of mostly bad memories. Although it’ll be a shame that they’ll lose the graffiti that the Indians left behind.