LIGHTS OUT
Nate Southard
Sinister Grin Press
MMXVI
Austin, Texas
Sinister Grin Press
Austin, TX
www.sinistergrinpress.com
July 2016
“Lights Out” © 2012 Nate Southard
Revised edition
This is a work of Fiction. All characters depicted in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without the publisher’s written consent, except for the purposes of review.
Cover Art by Matthew Revert
Book Design by Travis Tarpley
For my father, Ed. I wrote a book!
PROLOGUE
Randy didn’t want to die in the tunnel, but the dust attacking his lungs had other plans. The dirt was everywhere--up his nose, deep in his chest and crusted between his teeth. Tears spilled down his face. He fought the urge to wipe at them with his fingers, knowing it would only rub more dust into his stinging eyes.
“You okay?” Digger Dave, his voice almost playful, something between encouraging and annoying as all hell. The guy never stopped working at the end of the tunnel, not even as he reached back to give Randy a friendly pat on the shoulder. “You can go back up for a few. Just be quiet.”
“I’m fine.” But he wasn’t fine, not even close. Randy had wanted to get out of Burnham State, so he’d been quick to agree when Digger told him the plan. Hell, he’d been so desperate for freedom he hadn’t bothered to tell the man about his claustrophobia. Figured he could soldier through. Right. Well, it appeared some things were tougher than determination, even stronger than desperation. Things like darkness, heat and dirt.
He rolled onto his back as best he could, which in the tight tunnel wasn’t very good, and tried to slow his breathing. He was thankful for the total blackness that kept him from seeing how trapped he was, but he could still feel the narrow walls and oppressive ceiling squeezing at him.
Awful thoughts began to whirl through his mind, terrible dust devils of fear. Images of cave-ins and being buried alive--how hot and agonizing his final breaths would be as he fought Digger Dave for those last few precious gulps of air--looped before his eyes.
Thrashing his head from side to side, he tried to shake the terrible thoughts away, but they refused to retreat. A strange, high pitched mewling sound filled the tunnel, and realized the noise was coming from his own lips.
“Hey, man!” Digger’s whisper sounded both loud and far away. “Get a fucking grip! If you’re going to go pantywaist on me, I don’t want you here.”
Randy’s throat closed, and he clawed at it with dirty fingers. His elbows scraped along the tunnel walls. His whimper began to twist into something else, becoming a sob as he started to cry. They were going to die down here--slowly and painfully.
Something slammed into his shoulder, and even though Randy knew it was Digger’s fist, his panic took control. Screaming at the top of his lungs, he began to bat at what little air remained with his hands.
An angry voice said he would bring the tunnel down on them both. Randy ignored it, instead grabbing Digger’s leg and yanking it, pulling himself past the man. He had to get out, had to escape before the tunnel buried them both.
His breath came in sharp, frenzied bursts as he shot forward, howling when he slammed face first into the wall of dirt and stone that must be the tunnel’s end. He didn’t dare turn back. There wasn’t enough time.
Randy attacked the earth with his fingers, scrabbling and mauling the dirt. The wall crumbled away beneath his assault. His terror was so complete he didn’t feel the skin of his fingers split and rip away. Digger’s hands groped at his feet. He kicked backward, not stopping until he felt a satisfying crunch. The hands fell away.
As desperately as he moved, he couldn’t churn the dirt fast enough. He could almost hear the tunnel begin to collapse over the sound of his own screams, or maybe it was Digger yelling about how his hand might be broken. Either way, he didn’t care. All that mattered was escape.
Randy felt the bones of his fingers snap one by one, but still he kept digging. His lungs burned and begged for mercy. He denied them. His head began to feel heavy, and his thoughts moved as if through molasses. Even as he felt his limbs scream for mercy, he never stopped. Not until the dirt fell away completely and cold air blasted his face.
He collapsed, panting, and let the cool breeze tickle his cheek, clean the dust from his lungs. He sighed.
Behind him, Digger stopped cursing. His voice slipped from angry to wondrous. “What the hell? You feel that? Son of a bitch, do you feel that?”
Randy nodded, his mouth hanging open in a stupid grin. He didn’t realize Digger couldn’t see him. The thought never occurred to him until he heard the clicking of Digger’s lighter and its amber glow peeked through his eyelids.
“Holy shit,” Digger said. “It’s a cave or something. You broke through!”
Randy’s smile widened. They were safe now. They were free. Good for them.
He smelled it first. Rot seeped into his nostrils. An anxious scrabbling sound escaped the darkness. Randy stopped smiling. He heard a low, rumbling growl, and something reached out of the hole to grab him.
PART ONE
One
Hall could hear Webber yelling again. Nothing new, but it pissed him off anyway. The strung-out bastard was always hollering, keeping him and Jenkins awake well after lights out. Bullshit, man. It didn’t even help when the correctional officer would come down and bang his baton on the iron door, giving the asshole a hearty, “Shut the fuck up in there!” Shit, it usually made Webber scream louder, like maybe the hack would take pity on him or some shit.
Hall, head buried in his pillow, wished Webber was one of the Aryans. The skinhead fucks were real assholes, but at least they didn’t fuck around with H or crystal or the rest of it. If Webber had been one of the skinheads, he wouldn’t be singing his way through detox in solitary, and Hall could get some fucking sleep.
“Jesus, help me!” the homeboy screeched. “Get ‘im the fuck offa me!”
“Shut the fuck up, Webber!” Hall replied. “You don’t let me get some muthafuckin’ sleep, I’m gonna bust out this bitch just to stomp yo balls off!”
“Oh, fuck! Jesus, it fuckin’ hurts! Somebody help!”
At least the asshole was yelling actual words this time. Most nights, he made nonsense sounds. Maybe he was getting better. Hall listened as the junkie’s scream arced upward, cracking in the higher range, before breaking off all at once.
“Thank the fuckin’ Lord.” He shut his eyes, thankful for the quiet.
And then he heard a door slam shut.
His eyes snapped open. Somebody had left Webber’s cell. There was no mistaking the metallic clang of the heavy iron door. Maybe the hack on duty had gotten pissed off, decided to go in there and knock the crankhead on the cranium a few times. Hall would have to remember that, might give him some leverage in the future. Info got you all kinds of shit: booze, smokes, maybe a hit of coke. That shit didn’t pop up everyday when your ass was stuck in solitary.
Fuck, man, Hall thought. Four years of this shit.
He looked back though his memory, way back to the day he’d shanked the living shit out of some Aryan fuck named Manny. The cracker had been asking for it. Less than two days in, and he was already strutting around in the chow line, rolling up on niggas like Hitler done knighted him or some shit. Fronting had been bad enough, but when he’d rolled up on Diggs, going so far as to call his boy a spook--man, you didn’t pull shit like that, not if you didn’t want your ass handed to you on a plate. Diggs had given
Hall the look, and he’d thrown his boy back a nod. Next thing anybody knew, Hall was on the white boy like stink on green, jacking his piece into the kid’s gut. The boy had started screaming, and blood sprayed all over the goddamn place. It had taken four guards to drag Hall off of Manny, and the cracker hadn’t even made it to the hospital before breathing his last.
You just didn’t fuck with Diggs. Hall made sure of that shit.
He heard another sound, also heavy and metallic, but this time from next door. Jenkins’ cell. Jenkins was in the Brotherhood, another one of those Hitler-worshipping bitches. He was quiet though, so Hall didn’t have a problem with him once lights out arrived. Apparently the guard did, however. Why else would he be throwing open the man’s door?
Man, this was turning out to be some weird shit.
Hall sat up, pressing his ear to the cool concrete wall. He heard Jenkins on the other side, his voice groggy.
“The fuck, man? I didn’t do shit, okay? Let a man fuckin’ sleep!”
Jenkins’ voice changed.
“Who the hell...Oh shit, man. Hey, I didn’t mean anything. Just let me--Hey! Get the fuck away from me! Get the--”
The Aryan’s scream was louder than Webber’s, more terrified and primal. Like the junkie’s, it also died abruptly, leaving the solitary wing bathed in silence.
Hall pulled his ear away from the wall, suddenly more frightened than he had been since his first day at Burnham Maximum Security Penitentiary. His fingers grew cold and stiff, and a chill raced up his spine.
“The fuck?” He couldn’t think of anything else worth saying.
Jenkins’ cell door slammed shut.
Hall held a hand to his chest and felt his heart hammering away like he’d snorted up six lines of quality blow. His breath came in sharp bursts, and cold beads of sweat popped on his forehead. He eyed the door to his cell, trying to decide what he’d do if it began to unlock. An instant later, he realized he didn’t have the slightest fucking idea.
He let out a small scream when the viewing window in his cell door snapped open. Scrambling out of his bunk, he pressed himself against the far wall.
“The fuck you think you are?” he yelled. He heard the quiver of fear in his own voice, hoped his visitor had not. “You know who I am, muthafucka? Huh? I roll with Diggs; you piece a’ shit! You try to do somethin’ to me, an’ Diggs gonna tear you a new asshole just so he can have his boys take turns fuckin’ it!”
He stared at the viewing window. It was empty, the only scenery the hallway beyond, lit by the dull lights that spotted the ceiling. Somebody was fucking with him.
“I ain’t jokin’!” Hall curled his hands into fists, but he didn’t know what the fuck good they would do. Whoever was outside had probably killed two men, had done it nice and fast. Maybe they had a gun, some cool piece of hardware with a silencer. Fists weren’t gonna mean dick against something like that.
“Last chance, asshole! Turn around before I hand you yo ass!”
A face appeared in the window, partially cloaked in shadow. It was bald, skin waxy and drawn tight against its skull. Pale, but smeared with dirt. Hall squinted and got a better look at the man. He saw the blood that coated its chin, the small, yellowed eyes that remained flat under the fluorescent lights. The thing’s lips peeled back into an awful smile full of long, jagged teeth, and he smelled its breath as it fell over him, the terrible stench of dirt, decay, and blood.
Hall pulled a small, whining breath into his lungs. His jaw hung limp, useless. The thing looking in at him wasn’t a man. It might look like one in some small way, but it sure as fuck wasn’t human.
The creature let out a slow hiss, and the reek of its breath grew stronger. Something squealed over the metal, a sound like a braking train. Hall tried to turn his head away, but the muscles of his neck and shoulders refused to obey. He tried to close his eyes, but the lids refused to drop, leaving him helpless to do anything but stare as the thing in the tiny window peered in at him, smiling its horrific smile.
They watched each other for a painfully long moment, the creature snarling and Hall trying to bite down on the scream he felt welling up in his chest. No way around it, he was going to die. This thing was going to kill him the same as it had Webber and Jenkins. He wouldn’t die screaming, though. If he had to go out, it would be like a man and not some bitch.
Suddenly, the creature fell silent. Its lips closed over its teeth, and it appeared to frown at Hall. A hand decorated with five long, skeletal fingers reached up and slammed the viewing window shut.
Hall watched the door, listening for the sound of the bolt being drawn back. It never came.
Eventually, he let himself scream.
Two
Father Darren Albright wished he had time for a smoke, but he was late enough already. He hurried down the concrete corridor, his footsteps echoing. They had tried to make this area of the prison more hospitable, painting the walls an annoying shade of off-white, but the effort only served to remind the chaplain that he had been assigned to this hellhole instead of some place--any place--resembling the real world. It was false serenity, like the hallways of the burn ward in a hospital. The soothing corner of hell.
He rounded the corner and raced to the steel door that stood on the right. It was painted a dark brown. A small brass sign on it read RONALD TIMMS, WARDEN.
Darren checked his watch. Five minutes late.
Damn it.
He twisted the knob and opened the door.
The Warden’s assistant, a young redhead named Heather, waved him through. “They’ve already started,” she said
“I was afraid of that.”
“You’re more than welcome to stay out here with me.”
“Oh, please don’t make the offer. I’m supposed to avoid temptation.”
“Then why do you keep coming back, Father?”
He leaned over her desk, giving her a wink. “Because I think you’d look hot in a habit.”
She laughed, and he threw her a grin before pushing open the next door and entering the warden’s inner office.
“Glad you could join us, Father.”
Great. Ronald only pulled out “Father” for special circumstances, like when he was good and pissed off. Must be one of those days.
“You know me,” he said, “Any chance to make an entrance.”
Warden Timms gave Darren a nod, and the chaplain snuck into a far corner of the office, back by a bookshelf stuffed with old law volumes. He watched the warden. Ronald Timms was a tall, wiry man, his hair still dark brown well into his fifties. His features were sharp, almost severe. The man could have made a career as a dentist or high school principle with those features. Prison warden was just the next step down. Darren silently thanked his family’s genetics for his own soft features, looks wasted on a life of celibacy. Oh, well. If being a priest was easy, everybody would do it.
“Keep telling yourself that,” he whispered.
Timms leaned over his desk, massaging his temples with thin fingers. A frown cast shadows over his face as he glowered at the office’s other occupants, a selection of corrections staff and unit managers.
“I don’t need to tell you all how much this pisses me off, right? This is a goddamn prison! If this shit happens in here, what’s the point?”
Darren raised a hand.
“Excuse me, Warden.” Calling his friend Ron was the best choice right now. “What’s happened exactly?”
“What, Father? You didn’t get the memo? We had one C.O. and two solitary prisoners get killed last night. And to top it all off, we got two other prisoners who up and went missing.”
“Missing?”
“Yeah. They’re not around anymore.”
“Aw, shit.”
“Shit’s the right word, all right. We got a great big bucket of the stuff, and we’re all sitting around with spoons pretending it’s soup.”
Missing prisoners were never good. They could be escapees, but just as often they showed up elsewhere
, usually hanging from a rafter or cut in a hundred different ways. A time-honored tradition among Burnham’s various factions.
“The prisoners--the victims specifically--what were their affiliations?”
“Varied,” said Ray Morrow, the senior correctional officer. He was a big man, his hair short and black with a few wisps of gray. Darren knew him as tough but fair, good at keeping things under control for both prisoners and guards.
“We got Tony Jenkins, was Brotherhood to the bone. Second was David Webber, a crankboy with no connections. He was always too jacked up on crystal to play nice and make friends.
“Only survivor is Deon Hall, makes his bed with Diggs and the bangers.”
“So, who can we expect to make a play for retribution?” The question came from Toby Kinnett, unit manager for Cell Block B.
“Hell,” Timms said. “I’d expect it from both sides. The Brotherhood will think Diggs was behind the whole thing, and Diggs will want to get in the first shot. The bangers and Aryans are always looking for an excuse to fuck up each other.”
“So what do you plan to do while the investigation takes place?” Darren asked.
“Lockdown.”
Darren rolled his eyes.
“I’d advise against it,” Morrow said. “Letting these assholes stew in their own juices is just gonna put more steam in the pressure cooker. Let ‘em think business is going on as usual, and I’ll keep the boys watching. We’ll put anything down before it comes up. Who knows? Maybe somebody’ll slip up, give us something we can use to catch this bastard.”
The warden nodded. “Works for me. I don’t want any more violence, though. Got me? We are at less than zero tolerance right now.”
“Maybe I can help?” Darren said. “I can get the faction leaders together; tell them we’re working on it. If they know we’re trying to solve this, maybe they’ll give us the time we need.”
Lights Out Page 1
