by Sean Shake
Maybe they hadn’t. Maybe those monsters had eaten them.
“Okay,” I said. “We’re going to go for your car and get the hell out of here.”
The nurse stared blankly at me. “He didn’t kill you.”
“Hey.” I shook her. “Focus. Do you remember where your car is parked?”
“Of course.”
“Good. You got your keys in that purse?”
She stared blankly, then nodded.
Delayed response—she must be in shock. Or I really had concussed her.
She unzipped the purse and dug through it. A second later she pulled out her keys.
“Okay good. Put them back and keep it zipped up. Don’t want anything important falling out.”
She nodded and did as I asked. “How are we going to get outside? We can’t go that way.” She gestured at the stairwell door. “The— That thing will get us.”
“The warden’s office,” I said, the idea coming to me suddenly.
I had only been in there once, but remembered seeing a window, and it had stuck with me, because there were no bars on it. I had thought about how easy it would be to just crawl out to freedom.
Of course, there were still the forty-foot concrete walls and razor wire to contend with, not to mention the armed guards in the towers.
“He has a window, doesn’t he? Leading to the outside.”
She shook her head and shrugged. “I have no idea. I’ve never been in the warden’s office. I’ve never even met the warden. No, that’s not true. When I first got hired I did. Dr Marden is my boss, not the warden. I go from my car, to the infirmary, and back. Rarely do I take a detour. So I couldn’t say if there is a window in there or not.”
“Let’s go find out, then.”
The door to the warden’s office was, unsurprisingly, locked.
I looked at the nurse. “Don’t suppose you have a key to this.”
She thought for a moment, then shook her head.
“Right.” I took a deep breath. This was going to hurt.
I lifted my bare foot, wishing for heavy boots, felt the wound on my thigh stretch, then kicked the door where the latch met the strike plate.
The door bulged, but didn’t give.
“You shouldn’t be exerting yourself,” the nurse said. “You’re injured.” She still sounded shocked or concussed, as though she were reciting lines from a script.
“We need to get in there, and you’re not gonna be able to kick it down.”
“I did judo.” She pushed me out of the way and positioned herself in front of the door.
“You’re gonna hurt yourself,” I said, trying to keep the pain from my voice. Though I’d only kicked the door once, my side and back were already paying for it.
The running hadn’t hurt them, but apparently I didn’t have enough adrenaline pumping through me to mask the pain from this latest abuse.
She kicked the door once, and it flew open with a bang, a screw from the strike plate flying loose and hitting me on the cheek.
“Holy shit!” I said. Now I was the one in shock.
That door flew open like a battering ram had hit it.
She shrugged. “You weakened it for me.” Then she grinned.
Well, at least she didn’t sound like a robot anymore, even if she kicked like one. Maybe taking action, doing something useful, had snapped her out of it.
Action, not reaction, I heard the old man say in my mind.
I scanned the warden’s office. Finding it empty of any monsters, I motioned the nurse in, then closed, but couldn’t lock, the door she had just busted open, so I dragged a big chair from one side of the warden’s desk and propped it against the door handle.
I gestured at the window. The unbarred window. “Hallelujah.” I headed to it, and pulled it open.
It opened without protest, and there wasn’t even a screen to block our egress.
What there was, however, was about a thirty-foot drop to the ground.
There was no ledge below us, nothing to hop onto to shorten the drop. “Fuck.”
I poked my head out and looked to either side.
A sheer wall greeted me. Not even a stucco one, but smooth concrete. Absolutely nothing to grip onto.
It might not have been a problem for Spider-Man, but anyone else was screwed.
I pulled my head back in. “Look for something to make a rope with,” I told her.
We searched the office, but other than a spare suit shirt and a hat rack, there was nothing to aid our escape.
“There has got to be stuff in the other offices,” she said.
I nodded, and headed for the door.
She darted in front of me, putting a hand on my chest to stop me. “No. You need to stop moving around. You haven’t healed yet. You’ll reinjure yourself. You’re no good to me dead. Stay here.”
“But—”
“Don’t worry. I’ll come running back if I need your help.”
I glared at her.
She rolled her eyes, another sign the shock had worn off. I was just glad I hadn’t given her a concussion, though she still had dried blood on her face. “Fine, you search the office across the hall, I’ll look in the others. But don’t exert yourself too much. I don’t even have any medical supplies to treat you with.”
“I’m surprised you care so much about a felon.”
“You’re not a felon to me.”
“What am I then?”
She was silent for a moment, and I thought she might have reverted back to her robot ways. Then she said, “You’re my patient. My responsibility. And I’m not about to let one of my patients die. I’ve never had one die on me, and I don’t plan on ever having one die on me. That’s a life goal.”
“So I guess you don’t plan on ever taking care of the elderly then.”
5
I looked down the hall at the door to the stairwell. I didn’t see the eyeless guard, and I got the impression he wasn’t the kind of person—the kind of thing—to lie in wait.
I also got the impression that there was something else more important he had to do. Something that involved going down, not up.
I shook my head.
Keep it together, Gage, I told myself. Don’t go thinking you can read an alien’s mind.
The office across from the warden’s was similarly empty. Except it didn’t even have a chair on the other side of its solitary desk.
I did find an unopened bottle of water and several candy bars in one of the drawers. I lifted the front of my hospital gown and dropped the water and candy there, creating a makeshift kangaroo pouch.
Exiting the office, my search of it coming up with nothing but the candy and water, I saw the nurse approaching, holding a bundle of towels in her arms.
She stopped when she saw me, looked me up and down, then walked into the warden’s office.
I followed her.
She dropped the towels she was carrying onto the floor beside the window.
“Where’d you get all those?” I asked, setting the water bottle and candy bars down on the desk.
She bent over and picked one up, shaking it out, then holding it up so I could see it.
On the front was a line of colorful text.
It took me a second to realize it was upside down. I tilted my head to the side, trying to make sense of it, which caused her to spin the towel around and look.
She grunted, flipped it around, and held it right-side up for me.
“Finley Prison?” I read. “Are you kidding me? They had prison towels made?”
She shook her head. “Probably some advertising company sent them. They do that all time. Pens and T-shirts usually. Coffee mugs. I’ve seen towels. Mostly hand towels, a couple beach towels. Never seen towels like this though. Not sure what they hope to accomplish by it. But their loss is our gain. They were sitting in a box in—” She stopped, staring blankly at me. “—in Mary’s closet. Mary and I are friends. We go drinking sometimes. Not really drinking, but to a restaurant
where we get drinks and appetizers. Anyway, she’s head of advertising.”
“Prisons have advertising departments?”
“Not advertising departments, just people. At least ours does.”
I shook my head. “Whatever. It’s good timing.”
I propped the chair against the door again and we worked together to tie all the towels end to end.
When we were done, I looked down at our work. “This might not be enough.”
“It’ll have to be,” she said.
I looked up at her, and found myself smiling. “You know, I think I like you.”
“Good. If you don’t die on me, maybe I’ll like you too.”
“You’ve got a deal.”
We pushed the warden’s desk next to the window, and tied one end of the makeshift rope to it, then tossed the other outside.
It wasn’t quite long enough to reach the ground, going only about twenty feet down.
“I don’t know about this,” she said. “You’re still injured. A drop like that could really hurt you. So could climbing.”
“Staying here could really hurt me.”
“That’s another thing. You’re technically breaking out of prison. And I’m helping you. I’m not supposed to do that.”
“No, we’re running away from monsters. No one’s going to care. I think that’s well within reason. If there was a flood, would I be escaping if I tried to not drown?”
“Yes.”
I shook my head. “Come on, put that water bottle and candy bars in your purse, and let’s go.”
“Fine,” she said, snatching the bottle and candy from the desk and stuffing them in her purse. “But I’m going down first.”
I shook my head. “No way. I—”
“I’m your doctor now. Medical provider, anyway. I’m going down first. If nothing else, I can catch you if you fall.”
“Darling, there’s no way you could catch me.” My mind flashed back to her kicking in the door.
Or maybe she could.
“Well, you better not fall then.”
With a grin, I watched her shimmy down the towels.
She reached the bottom and dangled by her hands, then dropped to the ground, landing in a crouch to absorb the shock.
She looked up at me and gave me a thumbs up. “Don’t fall.”
“I don’t aim to.”
But as soon as my weight was on my arms, I almost did fall, even with the knots in the towels to hold on to.
The agony in my sides and back was constant as I slowly made my way down the rope, letting gravity do most of the work.
My hospital gown rode up, and my dick started getting towel burn. “Son of a—” I muttered, trying to adjust myself without letting go and falling.
Miraculously, I made it all the way down.
Being taller than her, I had even less distance to drop, but even still, I let out a grunt at the sharp pain as I landed.
She shook her head. “You’re gonna hurt yourself.”
“Which way’s your car?” I asked, gritting my teeth in pain.
She pointed to the main gate.
Of course, that was the only way out.
“Let’s hope they left the guard shack or gate unlocked, so I don’t have to climb anything else.”
6
We’d made it halfway across the courtyard to the main gate, when the monster ambushed us.
A hideous elephant-like creature came bursting out from the rec yard, plowing through the fence that separated it from the rest of the prison grounds.
Behind it, back in the yard, lying dead on the ground, were several of those hellish creatures I’d seen earlier when we’d almost stumbled on them in A-wing.
The thing that charged us stood on two legs, and its tusks were longer, sharper, and more sinister than a normal elephant’s.
And instead of those bright peaceful eyes elephants had, these were sharp, slitted, and filled with malice.
It raised its trunk and let out a trumpeting roar as it charged us.
I pushed the nurse behind me, despite her protests that I was the one who needed defending.
It was coming from our right side, so it wasn’t between us and the gate in front of us; a gate that seemed unmanned by any guard.
This gave me an idea.
“Come on.” I grabbed the nurse and started running toward the gate. “Get ready to drop when I tell you.”
“What?”
“Just do it when I say.”
We ran until we reached the gate, then stopped and turned.
The elephant man was right behind us.
“You’re insane,” she said simply, though this fact didn’t seem to bother her much.
It charged us, but we stood our ground, waiting.
To my surprise, she didn’t try to pull away.
Braver than I would have expected.
It went down to all fours and lowered its head, preparing to skewer us with its tusks.
“Now!” I shouted and pushed her to the ground, falling atop her.
Though, it wasn’t as though my body could protect her from a creature that weighed thousands of pounds.
I felt like we were between the wheels of a semi-truck or lying on the tracks while a massive train roared overhead as the beast stampeded above us, its legs crashing down around us, kicking up clods of grass and dirt.
Then there was a crashing from above and behind as the alien elephant collided with and burst through the gate.
I pushed up off of the nurse and surveyed the damage.
The elephant creature had broken through the gate, completely detaching it from the concrete wall. It was now stuck on its head. It tried lamely to push it off with its hoof hands.
It was almost comical.
I looked at the nurse, lying facedown on the ground. “Come on.”
For a heart-stopping moment, I thought the elephant might’ve crushed her somehow, even though she was beneath me. But then she lifted her head up, spat dirt from her mouth, looked me in the eye and said, “I think I hate you.”
7
We weren’t out of the woods yet, however.
The elephant was preoccupied with the gate for now, but that wouldn’t distract it forever.
Besides, it wasn’t the only monster in the area.
Luckily it had stampeded a hundred feet or so into the parking lot before tumbling to a stop against a car, so it wasn’t blocking our way out.
“How far is your car from here? Please tell me it’s not that one,” I said, pointing at the car the elephant had half-crushed.
“No, it’s far. I like to get exercise in before and after work.”
“So you park your car far away? Are you joking? You’re a nurse, you’re on your feet all day.”
“Not all day. Approximately six out of ten hours on average.”
“You’re really weird.” I shook my head. “Is it in the parking lot at least?”
“Of course.”
“Go on then, I’ll follow you.”
We headed out through where the gate once was and into the parking lot.
I saw no other monsters in the area.
I even looked up to the sky.
I didn’t really expect anything to be there, but we had just almost been crushed by a bipedal evil elephant alien, so I wasn’t ruling anything out.
“Pick up the pace,” I urged, and she started jogging.
I grimaced in pain as I followed.
Though the pain seemed to be getting less. Either that, or I was becoming numb to it.
Twenty seconds later, we reached the very edge of the parking lot—as far away as you could possibly park—and stopped by a bulbous blue vehicle.
I glanced back and saw the elephant still struggling with the gate stuck to its head.
“This is your car?”
“What’s wrong with my car?” she asked, opening the driver’s door.
I shook my head at the plastic-looking vehicle and its puny tires. “It’s the
end of the world, and we’re going to be driving a Prius. Does this thing even take gas?”
“Yes, that’s the whole point. It’s a hybrid.”
I shook my head again and got in the passenger side.
She sat in the driver’s seat, looking at the keys in her hand.
“Come—” I began, but then she started the car, shifted into gear, and we drove—eerily silently on battery power—out of the parking lot, staying well clear of the elephant creature that was still struggling to get the fence off its head.
“Where are we going to?” she asked.
I thought for a moment. Where could we go?
I got the feeling that the world I was entering into was not at all the same one that I had left nearly two years ago.
“Where do you live?” I asked.
“In town. Well, on the outskirts of town.”
“You live alone?”
She glanced over at me. “That’s not the best question for a convicted felon to be asking a young single lady.”
“So you’re single.”
She rolled her eyes and looked back at the road. “I live with my roommate.”
“Is she going to be there now?”
“Why do you assume it’s a she?”
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
I grinned at her angry face. Better than the blank looks she had been giving me.
Plus, she was cute when she was angry.
She was cute all the time, but especially cute when she was mad. “So will she be there?”
“She works from home, so probably. I don’t know, I haven’t been there in twenty-six hours. I recall I was texting her before I went to take a shower. I remember thinking she was home, but I didn’t ask.”
“You know anything else about what’s going on? I mean other than what we saw on the news.”
“Not really. There are some conspiracy theories on YouTube, but nothing on the TV.”
“What were the conspiracy theories?”
“Apparently the same thing there are always conspiracies about. Aliens, the apocalypse, lizard people. The Illuminati. Some especially imaginative people found ways to combine all those things into one. Just the same old end-of-the-world conspiracy theory as always.”
“I don’t know if it’s a conspiracy,” I said, “but it’s not just a theory anymore.”
