The Loon

by Michaelbrent Collings

  The thing hurled itself at the bars again, its mass shifting and pulsating as it tried to reach through the bars. Sparks once more as the highly electrified bars reacted to the thing's presence. Another howl.

  "Ah, ah, ah," said Crane.

  The howl quieted. The thing moved back into the darkness, and it seemed almost reptilian now, reminding Crane of a snake in the reptile house of a zoo.

  It whimpered.

  Crane smiled.

  "Good boy."

  TOWER

  Being one of the two guards on tower duty was a shitty detail at the best of times. And now was definitely not the best of times. With the storm coming, and the wind chill factor, temperatures were rapidly dropping. Sandra Dickerson shivered and pulled the heavy parka closer to her, but it didn't do any good. The wind still blew, her nose was still on the verge of falling off, and worst of all...Wade Shickler was up here with her.

  As if reading her thoughts, the fat fifty-year old said, "Sucks being us."

  Sandy glared at him. She agreed with him on this particular point, but there was no way she was going to let Wade know she agreed. The man was a pig. Foul-mouthed, misogynist – the man still thought "Princess" was a valid way to address any female younger and more attractive than he was. Which was nearly everyone.

  Again, Wade exercised his new mind-reading skill. "Sucks being us, Princess."

  Sandy sighed. Sometimes she wanted to haul off and start screaming at the man, asking him in her shrillest voice what decade he thought he was living in and pointing out that speaking like a film noir detective from the nineteen thirties was no longer considered cool or even appropriate. And this time she seriously considered it: getting into a fight with Wade was never fun, but at least it tended to raise her body temp, which would be a welcome relief out here.

  But no. Not worth it. So she settled for her usual: "Shut up, Wade."

  "Screw you," he replied.

  "Your dreams and my nightmares," she said back. She glanced down into the inner courtyard. Leann and Jeff were making rounds, so only Jeff could be seen right now, but that was fine. She did a quick count of the inmates who were walking around aimlessly in the snow. Fourteen. And there was Steiger, still making snow angels.

  Fifteen, she thought. Then, on top of that thought: How can he lay in the snow like that? Steiger continued to amaze her...with a large dose of freaking her out added in for good measure. She shivered, and it wasn't the cold.

  She looked down at the checkerboard. Wade, she had discovered to her delight a few months ago, made considerably less noise when occupied by a board game. Ever since then, she had made it a point never to do tower detail without a pocket checker board shoved in her jacket. Never knew when she'd be marooned up here with Wade. If it had been Darryl up here...she sighed, thinking of the guard's large biceps and solid, sincere face. No need for checkers, then.

  But now...

  She jumped two of Wade's three remaining checkers. "King me," she said smugly.

  Wade glared at her. But he didn't call her "Princess." Success.

  He kinged her checker.

  A hot thermos of coffee sat on the small stool they were using as a table for the checkerboard. They had placed it next to the stairwell exit which doubled as the supply closet and bunker on top of the tower – this small floating island above the prison – in order to shelter the board from the wind as much as possible. The coffee and the checkers were the only things that made this job bearable.

  Wade glanced over into the courtyard, and she saw him making the same calculations she had done: two guards, Leann and Jeff; fourteen crazies, all of them sedated; and Steiger, who was also crazy and sedated but who rarely showed any signs the sedation had any more effect on him than a piece of Pez candy.

  Wade looked back at the board, then moved his last piece haltingly.

  Sandy grinned widely. She hopped one of her kings over the last checker.

  "Shit," muttered Wade. He glanced into the courtyard again, showing an unusual level of dedication to his job. Usually she didn't see him look at the courtyard more than once every half hour when they were on guard duty together. Maybe it was because they were sitting down, so he couldn't ogle her behind as easily as he enjoyed when they weren't playing.

  Thank you, God, for sending us checkers, she thought.

  Then Wade did something that genuinely surprised Sandy. Just when she had completely written him off as an utter cad, he smiled at her and said, without a trace of irony or sarcasm, "Good game." Her surprise meter red-lined then, when he followed it up with, "Coffee?" and held out the thermos in a way that bordered on gentlemanly. She had an urge to grab his face and see if she could pull it off to reveal Darryl underneath, since this gallantry was more the wrestler's style. But there was no way Darryl could cram his six foot-plus frame into Wade's chubby body.

  She held out her coffee mug. Maybe Wade was just doing some really late New Year's resolution thing. If so, best to encourage it. "Thanks," she said.

  The next moment, she was on her feet, screaming as hot coffee soaked her crotch. "Sorry," said Wade. "Princess," he added after a moment. Sandy cursed herself for a fool. Of course he wasn't being nice. Wade being nice would be like a frog learning how to tap-dance. He was pissed about the game, and so had reacted in his typical juvenile fashion and poured coffee over her.

  "Asshole," she muttered. She didn't like to curse as a rule, but sometimes Wade brought out the absolute worst in her.

  "Only in my dreams," Wade leered. Sandy wanted to gag.

  She quashed the urge, though, and stomped to the stairwell door. There was a small microwave inside, a tiny refrigerator, and some paper towels. She grabbed a handful of the towels and blotted herself dry as best she could. But her lap was still damp five minutes later, and she had a feeling she was going to end up going inside to change because the wet clothing would probably freeze stiff in this weather. Going inside was – like everything else – a pain when you were on tower duty. Call inside to get a temp guard up top. Wait for the guard. Double check him in. Fill out a form explaining why the shift change. Use her card to get through the stairs. Call the guards in the courtyard to alert them she was coming down so they didn't accidentally shoot her with a trank dart. Go to the inner door. Call the lobby guard to alert him so he didn't shoot her. Go inside. More forms. Then reverse the process to come back up.

  "Crap," she muttered, chucking the wadded up paper towels into a small trash can. "Crap, crap, crap."

  She was still muttering under her breath when she walked back out. Too angry to even look at Wade, she glanced down into the courtyard again. Jeff and Leann. Fourteen sedated crazies. And...

  Her brow furrowed. It was forty feet down, another seventy or eighty feet away at ground level, so it was hard to see. She could make out the jumpsuit easily in the snow: bright orange showed up like a flare against the perfect white of the frozen prison courtyard. But Steiger didn't seem to be moving. Just laying there.

  That wasn't like him. Steiger did a lot of weird things, but she could never recall him simply laying there. She counted to ten to herself, waiting silently to see if the man would move.

  "Whatcha lookin' at, Princess?" asked Wade. "Darryl down there?"

  She could hear the smirk in his voice but ignored him. "Hey, Steiger," she shouted. She was dismayed at how fast the wind stole her voice, whipping it away from her like some tangible object, a paper doll blown away in the storm. But still, Steiger should have heard it.

  She felt rather than saw Wade stand up, lugging his ponderous body off his chair, then walking over to stand next to her.

  "What're you hawkin' about now?" he said. He leaned over and looked into the courtyard. Sandy glanced at him. Wade was a turd, but he was turd with excellent vision. His eyes narrowed as he tried to see what was below. Then his face changed. "Kee-rist," he muttered.

  "What?" asked Sandy.

  Wade was already turning. Fast. He knocked over the still-open coffee, and Sandy h
ad a split second to see the spilled liquid freeze over almost instantly on the frozen floor of the tower. Then Wade spoke, and all thoughts of coffee fled.

  "Steiger," he said.

  "Why's he laying there?" asked Sandy. "What did you see?"

  "He's not laying there."

  "What?"

  She hustled after Wade, who was already through the door into the stairwell and punching in his code on the stairwell door.

  "He's not laying there," Wade repeated, throwing the door open, hustling down the stairs. His voice floated over his shoulder. "Steiger's gone."

  PRISON

  Paul watched Jacky Hales' face as they entered the prison – The Loon's most awesome and frightening feature. It was always the same with new guards: shock, awe, discomfort. Sometimes Paul tried to remember what it had felt like when he was the new guy, walking in for the first time.

  Two guards greeted them. Always two. The "companion" model that Hip-Hop had based the security system around. One of them, Marty Furtak, was tall and thin and about as happy-looking as an enema administered through a sharp stick. He constituted the third member of what Paul sometimes thought of as Vincent Marcuzzi's "gang of three." Marty, along with Vincent and Donald, could usually be found together in off-hours, sharing a Playboy back and forth and talking about their "big plans" for life.

  The other guard, Jorge de los Santos, was a gleefully sarcastic type with a whip-fast wit that Paul usually enjoyed. Jorge was one of his favorite guards, in fact, and along with Darryl was one of the few guards who actually made an attempt to befriend Paul when he had arrived.

  "How's things?" Paul asked the guards.

  "Could be worse, could be better," said Marty morosely.

  "The Montana motto," chimed in Jorge. Then he nodded at Hales. "Newbie?" he asked Paul.

  Paul nodded, then turned to look at Hales. The man was looking around slowly, trying to drink it all in. Paul knew it was impossible to take in everything – there was simply too much to take in all at once – but he also knew it was equally impossible not to try. Like her inmates, The Loon demanded attention and more than a small dose of fear.

  The prison facility was three stories of cells and iron catwalks. Each cell was in reality two cells in one: a set of bars on the outside, with another cell set inside it. The inner cell was standard-looking for any asylum: white, with a slot on the bottom, another in the middle, and a porthole on top.

  Flashes of movement could be seen through several of the portholes as the occupants flitted by, always just out of the corner of one's eye, giving visitors and newcomers the disturbing sensation of being in a prison that held only ghosts and phantoms.

  But the strangest and most discomfiting thing about The Loon's prison was her silence. The inner prison cells were all soundproofed, so the inmates couldn't goad each other into beyond-usual levels of insanity. It resulted in an even greater sense of detachment and strangeness. Prisons, Paul knew, were supposed to be noisy and almost garish, visitors surrounded on all sides by catcalls and derisive comments.

  Not here, though. Not in The Loon. All was silent, here. All was deep and silent and alone. Alone in a full prison: if anything could describe The Loon in a single phrase, that was it.

  An unaccustomed sound broke through the silence, shattering it with its suddenness and making Paul, Marty, Jorge, and (especially) Hales jump.

  Storm's getting worse, thought Paul.

  The sound had been the wind, wailing its banshee call through the walls. Banshees, Paul knew, were harbingers of death in the tales where they appeared. Paul prayed that would not be the case here. Not here, not today.

  "Wind," Paul reassured Hales. Or rather, he tried to reassure the new man. But Hales still looked a bit freaked.

  Jorge must have seen Hales' look as well, because he laughed in an obviously reassuring way. "Welcome to the Twilight Zone, Newbie," he said graciously, and Paul again thanked Jorge in his mind for being one of the few people whose time at The Loon hadn't turned them cynical and/or morose. Jorge was a genuinely good guy. Good enough that Paul had even told him...

  (about Sammy...)

  ...about his past.

  Paul pursed his lips. That had been an unbidden and unwelcome thought, reminding him again what today was: the anniversary of the day he had killed his own son.

  Again, Jorge came to the rescue. He was talking to Hales, but Paul grabbed the words as well, holding onto Jorge's voice like a rescue ring in a choppy ocean. "Hey, Newbie, c'mere and check this out," said the chirpy guard. Paul knew more than a little about Jorge, too, about how he and his sister Raquel had been abused as children by their uncle before coming to Montana, and for the millionth time he marveled at the man's happiness. If anyone had as difficult a past as Paul did, it was Jorge de los Santos. But still the man remained happy.

  Paul didn't know how he did it.

  "What's your name, Newbie?" asked Jorge as Hales walked over to where the other guard was standing: a bank of monitors similar to the one in the lobby.

  "Jackson – Jacky – Hales," said the new guard.

  "Nice to meet you Jackson-Jacky-Hales," said Jorge. "Me Jorge. That," he said, pointing to Marty, "Tarzan. Together we make big love."

  "Jorge," said Marty in a warning tone.

  Jorge laughed. "Just yankin' your chain, man." He turned back to Hales. "Nice to meetcha, Jacky. I'm Jorge and this ball of fun is Marty. And I guess you already know The Chief."

  Now it was Paul's turn to put on his warning tone. "Jorge," he repeated, and was dismayed at how much he sounded like Marty.

  Is that what I've become? thought Paul to himself. I hope not.

  Jorge put up his hands. "Kidding, jefe." And then Jorge focused on Hales again. "Check this out, Jacky." He pulled Hales over to his station, pointing at the monitors and their controls. "Cool, huh? Each monitor can show any of the cells." Jorge let go of Hales so he could fiddle with the controls, flipping rapidly through about a dozen different viewpoints in as many seconds.

  In most of the cells, the inmates slept. Several of them shuffled quietly back and forth in their cells. The one he stopped on, though, did neither.

  "Check this guy out," said Jorge.

  "Who is he?" asked Hales.

  "Name's Ronny Reagan, if you can believe that," said Jorge. "But we call him Bloodhound."

  Bloodhound was in a straightjacket. Paul frowned when he saw that the vicious-looking inmate – covered in scars and tattoos, the most prominent one being a large dog tattooed on the front of his neck – was ramming himself against the walls with manic ferocity.

  "Why didn't he get his meds today?" asked Paul, pulling out a notepad from his pockets. The notepad contained a single half-page set of notes on every inmate present at The Loon and served as his Cliff's Notes for what was occurring daily in these very troubled waters.

  "He did," responded Marty. Paul thought for a moment that the man sounded like Eeyore from the Disney cartoon; half expected the man to add "Thanks for noticing" in a long, low voice. But that, like so many other things today, brought up thoughts of Sammy.

  Paul quickly looked at his book. Bloodhound was on a potent combination of anti-psychotics and tranquilizers. Indeed, of everyone in The Loon, only Steiger was more heavily medicated. And yet, here was Bloodhound, who should have been fairly quiet, running forcibly into wall after wall.

  "How long's this been going on?" asked Paul.

  "Five minutes," said Jorge. "We woulda paged you, but we knew that the Newbie was here and figured you'd be along shortly."

  "Well, let's increase his dos –" Paul began, then changed his voice in mid-stream to shout "DON'T TOUCH THAT!"

  Hales, the object of his shout, jumped backward in surprise, tripping into Marty, the two men falling into Marty's chair, Hales on top and looking like some ridiculously huge kid getting ready to tell Marty what he wanted for Christmas.

  Marty straightened up quickly, almost dumping Hales. Paul reached out and caught him. Helped him to h
is feet. "Sorry," said Paul to the confused young man. He showed Hales a blue button on the control unit in front of the monitor display. The button was covered with a semi-transparent flip-top, so Paul could see Hales was confused.

  "You probably couldn't have triggered it accidentally," said Paul. He glanced at Marty and Jorge and saw that both the guards had, like him, erupted in sudden sweat. "But you would not have wanted to touch that button."

  "Why?" asked Hales. "What does it do?"

  EMPTY

  Sandy was helping Jeff and Leann push the fourteen inmates against the wall. All of them were in chains already, Jeff and Leann reacting with lightning speed when Wade had burst out of the stairwell into the courtyard area.

  Now, Sandy glanced over her shoulder. Wade was approaching Steiger – was it Steiger? – slowly and carefully, his trank drawn. He was about twenty feet away from the bright orange splotch in the snow.

  Then ten.

  Moving more slowly now. Carefully.

  "The hell's going on?" asked Jeff.

  Sandy shrugged. Wade hadn't said anything on the way down. Just huffed and puffed like a locomotive with a burst gasket as he ran down the stairs from the tower, taking some of them three or four at a time.

  She saw Wade close in.

  Five feet.

  Two.

  Then....

  "SHIT!" screamed Wade.

  "What is it?" hollered Sandy and Leann in unison.

  "It's empty! It's friggin' empty!" yelled Wade. Sandy turned around again in time to see Wade waving the uniform around in the air.

  Steiger was gone.

  CODE

  "Well?" Jacky repeated. He didn't feel like Alice falling down the rabbit hole anymore. Instead he felt like the rabbit hole had been nuked and he was traveling through a mutated Wonderland...a Wonderland much more strange and dangerous than Mr. Carroll's invention had ever been. "What does the button do?"