by Frank Martin
So then the prisoner kept on working on him, gradually getting the officer to do more and more small things for him, until eventually one day, the prisoner said to him, ‘Listen, motherfucker, you are going to bring an officer’s uniform in for me. I’m leaving this place at the shift change. If you don’t do exactly as I say, I will kill you. Besides, I’ve kept track of every rules violation you’ve made – even if I don’t kill you, you will definitely lose your job.’
From the officer’s point of view, this came out of nowhere, but actually, the prisoner had been setting this up for nearly a year. He had taken an inch at a time in order to get a mile.”
“Did you get the prisoner back?” Anton asked.
The Bear laughed. He continued the tour.
The guards stepped forward in tandem, and Anton hurried to catch up to The Bear. The next cell had even less light. With more confidence this time, Anton looked through the barred window.
An older man sat against the wall. He carried some extra weight, looking overweight but very strong. He wore a cheap brown jacket and two shirts underneath. His mouth seemed to have an unconscious twitch, constantly resetting itself like a fat bird that couldn’t get comfortable on its perch.
“This is some guy,” said The Bear with a voice that suggested amazement. “He murdered forty-six people! A mass murderer. He went undetected for years, killing people in his own apartment. It was mostly homeless people he killed, but eventually, when he killed his landlady, the police took an interest in him. I told her family I would never let him out of there. So far, I kept my word.”
Anton looked at the prisoner again. The prisoner breathed with difficulty and kept on moving slightly against the wall, looking as if he was dozing off and then being startled awake again. From one of his shirts, two cockroaches crawled out. Anton moved on.
The Bear spoke to Anton as they walked. “Don’t let them call you by your first name. In one hundred percent of the cases where prisoners have gotten the better of guards, the prisoner had been allowed to use the guard’s first name. It doesn’t sound like a big thing, but if you allow it to happen, it signals you are weak, and you can be worked on.
Here’s some real world psychology right here; if a prisoner breaks the rules even slightly, you need to be on it immediately. It’s all a test, you see. And the prisoner actually respects you for keeping him in line. Everyone feels safer that way.”
Anton glanced into one cell, curious to see its occupant, but this cell was empty.
When Anton caught up to The Bear, he saw that the large man had his teeth bared. He quite clearly did not like the occupant of the next cell. Anton felt a trickle of fear, unconsciously taking a step behind The Bear. He was glad he wasn’t the man inside the cell. The Bear gave the introduction.
“This motherfucker was involved in the Novgorod bombing. That’s right; he’s a fucking terrorist against the Russian people.”
Disgustedly, The Bear turned on his heel and stormed off.
Anton looked through the bars and saw a surprisingly young man there. The young man’s face was mostly blank but Anton saw something else … contempt? It was Anton who looked away first. He moved on with the tour.
The Bear had stopped before the next door. He hesitated. It was only a fraction of a second, and yet to Anton, it seemed a very long time. In that moment, Anton saw not fear, but a small doubt in The Bear’s mind, something that had pierced his confidence. It was the only time Anton had ever seen that. That slight pause also made Anton think just how much he depended on The Bear for his own safety.
The Bear said, “This man is someone very special.”
He left the words in the air. Anton felt no need to break the silence. Anton saw that there were numbers embedded on this steel door. Leaning closer, he could see that the prison door numbers were 64389000. Inside was a man sitting against the stone wall whose clothes were almost rags. His wild hair hung past his eyes and his head had fallen forward to his knees. Snaggles of hair grew from his beard, his hair black and full of dirt. His hands and feet were bandaged and covered in grime as if he was just finished a shift in the coal mines. The prisoner had no fat on him, but his build was wiry and it looked like he had once been very strong. There was no reaction at all from him when The Bear had spoken.
“They call him the Nightmare Man,” The Bear said with some satisfaction. “He’s the most fucking dangerous guy in here.”
Anton looked into the cell again, imagining for a split second that this prisoner would have somehow crossed the distance of the cell to snake out a hand between the bars and murder him. But the prisoner hadn’t moved. He seemed slumped and powerless, an empty vessel.
The Bear hadn’t taken his eyes off the prisoner. Somewhere in The Bear’s face, Anton saw … what? Admiration? It was probably a trick of the light, although later he would have reason to wonder.
“We let him out only when he needs medical attention. And occasionally for some sunlight. But even then, he has his hands and feet shackled and he is escorted by four guards. We don’t take any chances with that one.”
“That’s some name,” Anton said. The Bear turned his head quizzically.
“The Nightmare Man, I mean,” said Anton. “I guess he must have done something terrible to earn it.”
“You guess right, kid. This guy’s like something you’ve never even read about.”
“Is there anyone waiting for him outside? I mean, does he have family?”
“Only one family member left, apparently. His brother.”
The Bear suddenly grinned and slapped his hand against the cell door as if the prisoner couldn’t hear them and he was trying to get his attention. The Bear said to the prisoner, “You thought your brother was lost for a very fucking long time, didn’t you? Well guess what, your brother’s been found! He’s turned up and I know where he is. Isn’t that some good news for you?”
Very slowly, the Nightmare Man lifted his head. His expression was so sad that for a moment Anton forgot that he was seeing a psychopath, a man who was likely locked up in isolation for very good reason. The prisoner’s eyes were black, and Anton could see this man had been utterly destroyed. Whatever The Bear had done to him had annihilated what he was … and yet he wasn’t completely defeated, because Anton saw twin sparks of life in those eyes, distant, dormant, but still there. He made no other reaction.
“Come on, let’s go,” The Bear said to Anton. “We’ve got other prisoners to see.”
The Nightmare Man listened to them go. Their footfalls carried a very long way, mixed with chatter, and eventually, the heavy door at the end of the corridor slamming shut and being bolted. The noise was faint but final. He opened his hands and looked at them; they were weaker than they once were. But there was always potential.
He looked to the mangled blankets and straw that made up his bed. A steel bucket was in the corner of the cell for his waste. The window was high up on the wall, but reachable. He had not looked out through it in a long time, had not felt a need to. Now his eyes lifted to the light flooding in, as though it was something truly precious. Beside him was a steel plate with his meal. Moving very slowly, he began to eat. He would need to be strong.
That night, the Nightmare Man went back into training. He used the small brick pedestal in his room to perform sets of dips on and elevated push-ups. He struggled at first, shockingly weak, falling in a quivering heap on the floor after exercise, wet with perspiration and breathing raggedly. But gradually, over a number of weeks, his strength seemed to return so that he was doing push-ups on his fingertips. A few weeks later, he was doing handstand pushups, at first using the wall for support, eventually not even needing that. His legs grew stronger, becoming more toned, as he worked on one-legged squats, eventually adding in a jump to this movement.
He had heard that his brother was alive. It was all the reason the Nightmare Man needed to come to life again.
The Nightmare Man is available from Amazon here.
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