THUGLIT Issue Six

by Kieran Shea

  The rogues were loose.

  Guards screamed for backup as the inmates howled with bloodlust. Hard thumps accompanied the wet cracks of hand-to-hand violence as shouts of rage, pain and fear echoed throughout the dungeon. I made no move until Bragg scurried off to help the others with Snake Jones. It sounded like a troop of boy scouts trying to subdue a bear.

  I heard Father Bird pleading with his fellow inmates to show mercy and ask forgiveness, but his begging was cut short by an unceremonious snap. When the shouting had finally ceased, I peered into the dark and saw a mound of limp figures laying at the feet of a giant shadow. Several other shapes moved in the dustclouds, adding more bodies to the pile. All of the cells hung open and empty, all except Cell Zero, which remained stoic and impassive at the end of the hall, utterly indifferent to our jailbreak.

  Luther let out a whistle as he staggered out of his cell. "They sure did fuck up."

  I walked over to the pile. "Did you leave anyone alive? Anyone who can still talk?"

  "Bout all this one can do is talk," Dodge said as he heaved another body on the pile.

  Snake reached down and plucked him up by the throat. "Tell them to open that damn gate," he growled. "Open that gate, or I'm gonna twist yer neck shut." The guard cried out that he couldn't do that and desperately began to explain why, but Snake snapped his neck and tossed him aside. "Get me another one!" he hollered.

  "Wait!" I shouted. "Don't kill them yet."

  Snake dropped the next contestant back on the pile. "Why not?"

  "Daniels can still open the gate manually," I explained. "But he won't if you kill all the hostages. Let me do the talking; just back me up."

  "Back you up?" grunted Snake. "Who the hell do you—"

  "Do you want to just kill a few more guards before you begin the rest of your life sentence, or do you want to get out of here?" I yelled at him, holding eye contact as I bit back mortal fear. "Trust me, I'm the smartest guy in the room here. Move the live ones to cells Seven and Eight. There's only two armed guards plus Daniels. He's weak and scared shitless. He will do as I say." Snake and Dodge looked at each other for a moment, then shrugged and got to work doing exactly as they were told.

  "Now what, Einstein?" Snake asked when they finished.

  "Tell Daniels to open the gate," I said. "Be unfriendly."

  "DANIELS!" Snake's gravelly bass bellowed down the hall of Cellblock Thirteen. "Best open that gate!"

  Of course Daniels said he couldn't, and Snake threatened to kill every last man in there until he did, starting with Officer Bragg. He said he would break him in half. Daniels again said he couldn't, and Snake did just as he promised, right over his knee. He flung the folded officer out into the corridor, right in front of the checkpoint station.

  "Tell him to let us out now or you'll turn all his friends into origami," I whispered.

  "Orgy what now?" asked Snake.

  "Never mind. Just tell him you'll fold up every last one of his friends unless he opens that gate." He did, but Daniels continued to insist he could not do so without power. Snake grabbed another wounded officer.

  "Easy!" I hissed. "Let me reason with him."

  "Right," he snorted. "He's gonna listen to you."

  "He will," I said, "because he's not afraid of me. Yet."

  I shouted down the hall to Daniels. "Come now, Officer! You're required to have a manual override for that gate by law, so that we may evacuate in case of an emergency. Your friend Officer Velasquez is on his knees here begging for mercy, and I don't think Snake has any left. Trust me, Daniels. This is an emergency."

  "I…I don't know what you're talking about, Isaac," Daniels stammered.

  I nodded to Dodge, who hauled Velasquez to his knees. "Do something terrible," I instructed Snake.

  "How terrible?"

  "Make sure Daniels can hear how much it hurts."

  Snake nodded, lifted one massive foot and stomped it clean through the officer's leg. There was a loud crack, followed by Velasquez screaming for Jesus—Mami—anybody as he fell over and flopped like a salmon in a puddle of his own blood. White bone shone through the soaking red gash in his trousers. I had to give Snake credit; it was very effective. As soon as I threatened to do that to his other leg, Velasquez burst into tears, crying no, no, no…and Daniels cracked. I let Snake do it anyway and Daniels' resolve was shattered by his buddy's scream. He begged us to stop; he would open the gate. I heard him rummaging through the equipment locker, then the door slamming as he rushed to the gate.

  The other two guards tried to argue with him, so I offered these words of encouragement: "Hand over the weapons, boys, or Velasquez's hands are next. After that, Snake gets creative."

  There was a pause, followed by the clatter of two shotguns and three service revolvers hitting the floor. A blunt clang sounded as the manual lever locked into place, followed by the ponderous turning of the mechanism, and finally the satisfying grunt of the lock opening. Dodge scooped up one of the shotguns and put a rubber bullet in each of the guards' heads. Out of the shadows darted a tall and skeletal white man, stark naked and dripping with blood. He screamed a wild streak of gibberish as he bolted out of the gate, balls flapping in the wind as he disappeared down the corridor.

  "Shouldn't we stop him?" asked Snake. "He's gonna give us all away."

  "It's just Psychoman," I said. "He's off to do something crazy, and while they're all busy chasing him, we take the mess hall."

  "Ain't hungry," muttered Dodge as he loaded rubber slugs into the shotgun.

  At least three different alarms were going full blast, covering any noise we might have made on our way to the mess hall filled with pissed-off convicts eating bad food. The breakfast crowd needed only the scent of blood and the slightest push to blow into a full-scale riot.

  Once the chairs and trays started flying, Luther and I set fire to chapel to create further chaos and also to wreck the visibility for the snipers waiting to gun us down on our way to the exit.

  Dodge climbed one of the towers with a shiv between his teeth, and not long after, six single shots signaled the end of the snipers. He continued to pick off guards as we made our way toward the gate—the number of people he managed to kill with the non-lethal ordnance was nothing short of astonishing. The mess hall exploded, belching flames and broken glass from its barred windows before the roof collapsed.

  "Was that you?" I asked Luther.

  "My own family recipe," the old man wheezed. "Serves a whole congregation."

  Snake barreled through everything the remaining guards could throw at him. Rubber bullets and tasers seemed to only infuriate him further as he smashed and pummeled his way forward. I handed him a blunt object and we simply followed in the wake of his mayhem.

  Luther tripped and fell over a severed head rolling by. As I helped him to his feet, I glanced back and saw a whirlwind of bloodstained metal shredding all who approached us, and when it squealed with glee, I was certain Psychoman was covering our backs. He might've been insane, but he still knew I was his best shot at continuing his murder spree outside of Sanchez.

  By the time we reached the gatehouse, all the guards were dead or fleeing back toward the mess hall. I ripped open a control panel and quickly hotwired our freedom. The gates yawned wide and all the surviving monsters streamed back into the world at large.

  Let me tell you something—it was magnificent. I wished Father could see me now. He would be so proud of all my accomplishments. The world was returning to its natural state.

  AUTHOR BIOS

  Since 2006, JESSICA ADAMS has been living on a sailboat and traveling the world. She's currently in the Dominican Republic. A lot of things happened leading up to that, but especially Hurricane Katrina, which turned her into an exile. Writing fiction is way more fun than copyediting textbooks, which is what she does for a living these days.

  SCOTT ADLERBERG lives in New York City. His Martinique-set crime novel, Spiders and Flies, is available now from Harvard Square editions. He blog
s about books, movies, and writing at Scott Adlerberg's Mysterious Island. Each summer he co-hosts the Word for Word Reel Talks film commentary series at the HBO Bryant Park Summer Film Festival in Manhattan.

  T. FOX DUNHAM resides outside of Philadelphia PA. An author and historian, he’s been published in nearly 200 international journals and anthologies. His first novel, The Street Martyr will be published by Out of the Gutter Books, followed up by Searching for Andy Kaufman from PMMP in 2014. He’s a cancer survivor. Being his totem animal, his friends call him "Fox", and his motto is: "Wrecking civilization one story at a time."

  Blog: http://tfoxdunham.blogspot.com/

  http://www.facebook.com/tfoxdunham

  Twitter: @TFoxDunham

  AARON FOX-LERNER was born in Los Angeles and currently lives in Beijing. He writes things, mostly short fiction.

  HUGH LESSIG is a newspaper reporter who lives and works in southeastern Virginia and writes about the military. His short fiction has been published in Plots With Guns, Thrilling Detective, Needle and Thuglit. He is currently at work on a novel.

  RENA ROBINETT started telling stories when she started talking, and wrote them down as soon as she could write. She has had an adventurous life and recently traveled around the world for over a year. She has a degree in English and has been published in minor journals and won a few writing awards. She is currently working on a collection of stories.

  KIERAN SHEA Kieran Shea's debut novel Koko Takes a Holiday is forthcoming from Titan Books. He lives outside of Annapolis, MD.

  BH SHEPHERD hails from Texas, where he was born and raised. He writes a monthly column at LitReactor.com and you can check out his blog at: www.docawesome.tumblr.com. His first novel, Sweet Benny and the Sanchez Penitentiary Band, is available on Amazon.

  TODD ROBINSON (Editor) is the creator and Chief Editor of Thuglit. His writing has appeared in Blood & Tacos, Plots With Guns, Needle Magazine, Shotgun Honey, Strange, Weird, and Wonderful, Out of the Gutter, Pulp Pusher, Grift, Demolition Magazine, CrimeFactory and the anthologies Lost Children: Protectors, and Danger City. He has been nominated three times for the Derringer Award, short-listed for Best American Mystery Stories, selected for Writers Digest's Year's Best Writing 2003 and won the inaugural Bullet Award in June 2011. The first collection of his short stories, Dirty Words is now available and his debut novel The Hard Bounce is available from Tyrus Books.

  ALLISON GLASGOW (Editor) WILL bust a cap in yo ass.

  JULIE MCCARRON (Editor) is a celebrity ghostwriter with three New York Times bestsellers to her credit. Her books have appeared on every major entertainment and television talk show; they have been featured in Publishers Weekly and excerpted in numerous magazines including People. Prior to collaborating on celebrity bios, Julie was a book editor for many years. Julie started her career writing press releases and worked in the motion picture publicity department of Paramount Pictures and for Chasen & Company in Los Angeles. She also worked at General Publishing Group in Santa Monica and for the Dijkstra Literary Agency in Del Mar before turning to editing/writing full-time. She lives in Southern California.

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  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  A Message from Big Daddy Thug

  PIN by Hugh Lessig

  Wheels by Rena Robinett

  Come On Home by Scott Adlerberg

  Having Chiqui by Kieran Shea

  Soul Collection by T Fox Dunham

  Sweet Caroline by Jessica Adams

  The Ghost Wife by Aaron Fox-Lerner

  Rogues Gallery by BH Shepherd

  Author Bios