The Loon

by Michaelbrent Collings

  "No," said Sandy. "Zip."

  "All right." Hip-Hop stood up and stretched quickly, then sat on the terminal in front of the monitors. Paul heard a metallic click and turned around in time to see Hales holding a lighter to a cigarette. It was against the rules to smoke while on The Loon premises, but Paul didn't have time to nit-pick that kind of thing right now. Hip-Hop was still speaking: "...we'll start a sweep of the staff facility before moving to the prison area. Me and Leann will stay on watch detail." He looked at the older woman, who had glanced at him when her name was spoken. "You keep on the front, Leann. All our people are inside, so anything opening the door is unfriendly. Shoot it if it moves. You got enough darts?"

  "Racked and stacked," replied Leann in a cold tone that Paul had to admire. Of all of them, she seemed the least agitated.

  "Good." Hip-Hop turned to Hales. "You stay here, Newbie. Watch the monitors with me, stay out of the way, and don't get dead."

  "I get overtime for this, right?" Hales asked weakly, blowing smoke nervously.

  Nobody laughed at his attempt to lighten the mood.

  "Anyone else in the facility?" asked Paul.

  "Nope," said Hip-Hop.

  "Nobody upstairs taking a nap?" he asked. He already knew the answer, but couldn't help but ask, as though five or ten or a hundred more guards might materialize if he just inquired long enough.

  Hip-Hop crossed his arms, clearly irritated with Paul. "Now didn't I just say no?"

  MOVEMENT

  Nobody noticed the monitor behind Hip-Hop: a shot of the courtyard, showing only snow.

  And then movement.

  NAKED

  Steiger was very cold. Very very cold. Perhaps even hypothermic.

  But he waited.

  Footsteps sounded nearby.

  And he waited.

  Finally, when there had been no sound but the wind for a very long time, and when the only vibrations he felt were those of the falling snow, he sat up.

  The layer of snow that had covered him in the courtyard fell away. Steiger immediately started shivering as the cold air hit his naked body. He forced himself to his feet, standing up from the shallow, grave-like pit he had quickly dug and then hidden himself in while the guards weren't watching.

  He had been patient. He had waited. But now it was not time to wait. It was time to run.

  He flitted over the snow, thankful he had thought to keep his shoes and socks on, the cold wind biting at his face and genitals as he ran.

  He got to the door inset in wall: the door that he knew led to the outer courtyard and freedom.

  He pulled a keycard from where he had hidden it: between his buttocks, where he knew that the homophobic guards would not check him carefully. They were all homophobic, he knew. Except for the two ladies on staff, Leann and Sandy. Leann was, he felt fairly certain, bisexual. That was as unacceptable as homophobia. And Sandy, he suspected, was gay, for she rebuffed his advances at every turn. Also unacceptable.

  He had not been surprised to find the keycard in his cell that morning. Nor had he been surprised to turn it over and find, written in pen that smudged when he touched it, a long string of numbers that he intuited was the code that belonged to this particular card. He had not been surprised, for he knew that he was watched. Protected. Invincible. No person could hurt him, no cell could hold him forever.

  Eventually, all servants of chaos found a way to break free. That was the nature of chaos, and it could not be contained. The universe tended toward entropy; toward the broken. Happiness was hollow, love fleeting. The only contentment that could be found was in surrendering oneself to the moment, to the chaos of a world hurtling through space at a thousand miles a minute.

  So few people understood that. So few of them understood that what he was doing was not to harm them, but to allow them the only true joy that could be found: the joy of feeling. Of feeling pain, of feeling abuse, of feeling themselves ripped open and exposed to the light of chaos.

  He was a servant of chaos.

  He was protected.

  He ran to the outer door of the courtyard. Slid the code-card that had been given him through the card reader by the small metal door inset in the huge metal gate of the wall. He began punching in the code. It was no longer written on the card – he had taken great joy in rubbing the code off with his thumb, rubbing it so hard the ink broke down and disintegrated into a smudge – but he had memorized it soon after receiving the gift.

  He had only punched in two numbers when the alarm sounded.

  OUTSIDE

  Hip-Hop was still parked on the desk in front of the monitors, giving out assignments. Paul didn't mind that: Hip-Hop was chief of security, so the job of assigning search teams and setting up a perimeter that would – hopefully – collapse in upon itself until someone found Steiger was his. The only thing that bothered Paul was the fact that any of this had happened in the first place.

  "...and Wade, I want you and Sandy back out on the wall," finished Hip-Hop.

  That irritated Paul a bit. That was how this mess had started in the first place. He couldn't resist saying something. "And try to actually watch this time."

  Wade glared daggers at him, Sandy looked dejected and downcast. And Hip-Hop looked clearly irritated that Paul had butted in on his domain. But the chief of security didn't say anything, just motioned for the guards to split up into their assigned details.

  They started to move, and Hip-Hop finally stood from his perch on the edge of the monitor control table. That was when Paul saw it.

  "Oh, crap."

  "What is it?"

  Paul wasn't sure who had said that; he was too focused on what he was watching: the small door that led to the outer courtyard, slowly opening.

  Steiger.

  "He's outside!" he screamed. "About to go through the inner door!"

  CHASE

  Sandy could barely stand to look at what was happening. Steiger was a killer. A mass murderer, a child molester, a serial rapist. If you could think of something awful, then Steiger had probably done it...as a warm-up.

  Now he was escaping. And it was her fault. Her and Wade's fault. If he hadn't spilled the coffee on her....

  The thought was pulled from her when Paul shouted, "He's outside! About to go through the inner door!"

  Sandy felt herself turn and start running instinctively. Wade was right behind her, she knew: she could hear him huffing along. She swiped her card through the door that led from the lobby to the courtyard, then punched in her code so hard and fast she felt like she had probably bruised her fingers.

  The door clicked open, and Sandy felt Wade's elbow dig into her ribs as he shoved past her. Apparently he was feeling even more guilty than she was. He already had his trank out, and was moving faster than Sandy had ever seen.

  She followed him out, pulling her own gun, wanting to hit Steiger, wanting to be the one who brought him back, but knowing it was too far for the trank: the dart would never fly straight in this wind. They had to get closer. Besides, Wade's fat form was blocking any kind of shot she might have had.

  Then Wade did something that surprised her: he stopped in his tracks.

  Steiger was pulling open the door.

  In a moment he'd be outside the prison proper.

  At the cars, she thought. Please, God, don't let him get to the cars.

  She didn't have time to think more than that, because she tried to veer around Wade. But instead of turning, her right foot slipped out from under her as it hit an icy patch, and she knocked into him. He cursed and she heard the sharp "Pptht" of a trank being fired. Then he cursed again as they both went down on the snow in a pile of arms and legs.

  Wade was first to his feet and – true to form – didn't bother to help her up. Just went barreling toward the door to the outer courtyard.

  The open door to the outer courtyard.

  The open, empty door.

  "Shit," she muttered. "Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit." Steiger was out.

  S
he got to her feet and ran after Wade. She could hear others right behind her, but somehow she and Wade were still in the lead. Adrenaline must have leant them greater speed than usual. Especially Wade, who was dashing at the open door. Sandy would have stared in shock had she not been so terrified of losing Steiger. The idea of Wade running anywhere, much less into the arms of danger, was almost impossible to contemplate.

  Yet it was most certainly happening.

  Wade was at the outer door.

  He stepped through.

  Then fell out of sight with a shout of terror.

  Steiger, thought Sandy.

  She put on an extra burst of speed, fearing for Wade. He was a pig, but he didn't deserve whatever Steiger might choose to do to him.

  She ran for the door...and fell with a shout similar to Wade's.

  Unlike Wade, though, who lay sprawled in front of her, Sandy managed to keep her feet under her. She looked at him.

  Then looked at Steiger, who was asleep under Wade, a bright red plume sticking out of his naked buttock and steam rising from his nude body.

  She stifled a laugh that was half comical, half relieved hysteria. Wade had hit Steiger. At that range, in that wind, he had managed to take the madman down with a trank.

  She uttered a silent prayer of thanks to whatever cadre of guardian angels must have been watching over them, then looked back at Wade. He was still struggling to get up, but each time he posted his hands in the snow they would slip out from under him, landing him on top of Steiger again and again.

  "Maybe I should let you two be alone," she chortled.

  "Shut up," said Wade. "Help me up."

  "You sure?" she asked, laughter finally escaping her. "I mean, looks like you and Steiger are getting awful frisky." She made a cat "mrow" and hissed in mock sexiness.

  "Shut up," insisted Wade. "Just get me the hell off him."

  Sandy did, but couldn't help laughing.

  She kept on laughing, too, until she heard the stomp of footsteps behind her.

  It was Dr. Wiseman, who looked quickly at her and Wade before going to Steiger.

  He pried something out of Steiger's grasp. A code card.

  "How did he get this?" asked Paul.

  How indeed? thought Sandy.

  A chill that had nothing to do with the wind bit through her.

  How indeed?

  HOW?

  Jacky watched as Wade and Sandy dragged the unconscious man through the lobby area, past Hip-Hop, Leann, and Dr. Wiseman. He noted that no one had bothered to put the man's clothing back on, but they had shackled him from head to toe with no fewer than six sets of handcuffs and leg irons.

  "That's the mean one?" he said.

  He couldn't help but ask. The man being dragged in appeared even less imposing now than he had when Jacky first saw him in the courtyard earlier that day...and he hadn't seemed very imposing then.

  "Yeah," said Dr. Wiseman. "He's the mean one, all right."

  Wade, the guard who was now getting accolades from the other guards for downing Steiger when the man literally had one foot out the front door, swiped his card through the reader that led to the staff area and then, beyond that, to the prison. Jacky thought for a moment that the setup for entering the prison was odd, since it meant inmates would be tramping through within feet of the staff quarters every day, but then he realized that the layout was just one more line of defense: putting the guards in harm's way by putting them between the prisoners and any chance of escape meant that breakouts would be more difficult and the guard staff were more likely to be extremely careful with security protocols.

  So how had this Steiger guy gotten out?

  HACKER

  Dr. Wiseman turned to Wade as he and Sandy dragged Steiger through the hall. "Put him in his cell and then go to my office." The chief of staff turned to Hip-Hop. "You, too. Five minutes." Jacky saw expressions darken all around. Some serious ass-chewing was apparently in the making. "Where's everybody at right now?" continued Dr. Wiseman.

  Hip-Hop checked the monitor screens, but he was already reciting positions before he even looked. "Marty and Jorge are still in the prison. I put Jeff, Vincent, and Donald on the tower. Mitchell's upstairs with Darryl getting the cots ready for tonight, and Wade and Sandy are in the tunnel with Steiger. Leann's here with us. So's the newbie."

  "All right," said Paul. "Let me know if anything else happens. And don't forget to come to my office in five." Paul motioned to Jacky to follow him through the still-open door to the staff area. He stopped suddenly, though, almost causing Jacky to run into him. "And have Darryl and Mitchell start looking for God. The cots can wait."

  "He's probably just in his office and you just missed seeing him," insisted Hip-Hop.

  Dr. Wiseman waved him off. "If they don't find him in fifteen minutes, we have a problem." Then he turned and motioned again for Jacky to follow him. "You come with me," he said, and tramped through the open door.

  Jacky followed him into the hall, and finally blurted, "That was the 'really mean' guy?"

  Dr. Wiseman nodded. "Maurice J. Steiger. Also known as The Hacker. He killed his mother and father when he was twelve. Then went on a spree and took out half his little hometown before they caught him. Spent twenty-two years undergoing psychiatric treatment, was finally released, and killed six people that same week. That's when we got him." Dr. Wiseman stopped walking for a moment, then whispered, almost as though he were speaking to himself instead of to Jacky, "Four of the six were little girls." Paul started walking as he spoke, his voice cold and emotionless as a machine. Jacky realized that he must be witnessing a defense mechanism: something about what Steiger did so unnerved The Loon's chief of staff and head psychiatrist that he could only speak about it in a clinical, detached manner. "And he didn't hurt them right away. He kept them with him for several days, was apparently very nice to them...then he raped and murdered them."

  Jacky felt queasy. He had been in corrections for over seven right now, but he'd never before heard of such a person, such an embodiment of evil. "He seemed so...normal," he finally managed.

  Dr. Wiseman reached the metal staircase that led both up to the second level and down to the basement; started climbing. Darryl, the wrestler; and Mitchell, the man big enough to eat entire horses whole and come back for seconds, were both coming down the ladder at that moment. Jacky had to squeeze as far over as he could to let the two bear-like men pass, and suddenly knew what a pro quarterback probably felt like when getting blitzed by the entire opposing team.

  "Yeah, seems is right," Dr. Wiseman finally said when the two juggernauts passed. "It's just an act. He'll keep it up until he's pronounced sane." The psychiatrist kept walking for a long moment, then finished, "And then he'll kill again."

  They reached the upstairs hall and started walking toward Dr. Wiseman's office.

  "How does he test?" asked Jacky, his professional curiosity piqued.

  "Normal," said Dr. Wiseman. They reached the door to his office, and the psychiatrist swiped his card through and entered his code so they could enter. Dr. Wiseman sat behind his desk, motioning for Jacky to sit as well before he began rummaging through some papers in one of the desk drawers.

  "How can you keep him here, then?" asked Jacky. "I mean, if he tests out, and he's been here a while..."

  "He tests too normal," responded Dr. Wiseman. "He's been through the system enough that he knows all the right answers to give."

  "Still –" began Jacky before Dr. Wiseman cut him off.

  "Besides, while the psych profiles show us a nice, extremely misjudged man, there are physiological abnormalities severe enough to get him a place in medical history under the 'Real Sick-os' category and an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Psychopathic Role." Paul pulled something out of his desk. Looked like a thick booklet or manual of some kind. "Don't ever make the mistake of speaking to him," Dr. Wiseman said. "You do that, you start thinking of him as your pal. He's very likable. One guard smuggled cigarettes to him, and Steige
r killed him in an escape attempt a few weeks later." The psychiatrist paused again, and once more his voice took on that chillingly clinical demeanor. "Actually, that's not quite right. Steiger broke the guy's skull, all his ribs, and both legs. But the man didn't actually die until three very painful days later."

  FOUND

  Rachel pulled on the wheel, trying to keep a modicum of control over the car that seemed to slither like a snake over the white road. Like an unbroken horse, the car refused to go where she wanted it to without her practically forcing it. At least she no longer had to worry about ice on the road, which was the good news. The bad news was that the ice was gone because it had been buried under several inches of new powder. Snow was still falling, not hard enough to clog her wipers, but hard enough to make seeing difficult and headlights next to useless in the pre-night gloom.

  Becky sat behind her, looking out the window at the formless white. Rachel had tried to talk to her a few times, but the little girl wasn't responding to her at all. And right now, Rachel couldn't spare the brain space necessary to talk: all her attention had to be on her driving, or they risked a wreck of huge proportions.

  Flip-flop, flip-flop. The wipers went back and forth with numbing force, slamming snow out of the way with such power that the end of each arc was punctuated by a little slam as they changed direction. It was almost mesmerizing, and Rachel felt herself being lulled by the hypnotic sameness of the movement.

  Flip-flop.

  She felt her eyes droop. Just for a second; a second during which her body momentarily surrendered to the serenity of the snow, to the fatigue that her final battle with her husband had caused.