The Inmate Extraction: Conclusion

Part One, Part Two, Part Three

A wedge of light spills into the hallway, and they all tumble into the cell, a clunking mass of leather and plastic. All I can see is the ankle of one man, shuffling around at the entrance of the cell, black, cocked on the toe like a sprinter in the blocks.

“Roberts! You--” Jason shouts, that that’s when I hear it, a BANG, this huge, tinny noise that sounds somehow like a person dropping a giant cookie sheet inside the jail cell. A man screams, and I hear the battering sounds of riot shields impacting flesh, and a guttural, caveman grunt.

“...uuuuuuuhhh! UHHHHH! UHHHH!...” I hear a wet smack, and now, a howling shriek pours unrestrained from E-107.

“What the FUCK is going on down there? What the fuck is that noise?” The supervisor at the end of the hall screams through the mesh of his bubble. He can’t leave it under any circumstance, unless relieved of duty, or an “abandon ship” riot order comes over the phones. All I can see is his frightened head, bobbing around within the safety of his enclosure.

I’m still pressed against the wall, and so help me, now there is smoke coming out of the cell.

“Lock it down! Lock it DOWN!” I shout at him, and the supervisor needs no further encouragement. The door to the Block booms shut, and I hear the deadbolts lock inside the heavy steel. Nobody is getting off this floor.

Back in the cell, Ankle Guy is down, I can see his leg kicking around on the floor outside the entrance, and that’s when I see the hand, a hand glistening sweat-slick in the light from the cell, it grabs the doorframe and vaults its owner overtop Ankle Guy. Bare feet slap on the floor, and I see his face. It’s Roberts, shirtless, wearing only his green pants, and he charges down the hall for me, his mouth torn open in a lunatic grin.

I have no time to think, no time to come up with a John Wayne way of handling the situation. I come off the wall, and my leg flies from the ground to hit Roberts square in his crotch.

“Huuunnnhhh,” he groans, and he skids to his knees in front of me. His hands reach out like a drowning man, and my leg bounces from the floor again, and this time, my black wingtip impacts him directly on his nose. I hear a Rice Crispies crackle of snapping bones, and he shrieks, blood soaking his chest hair in a sudden fountain I was unaware a human nose could produce.

And then I’m on autopilot. I leap on his chest, and pin his shoulders to the floor. Roberts is smaller, one of those deeply-tanned, beef jerky looking guys you see sitting around at construction sites wearing dirty wife-beater t-shirts. I can smell the slippery, armpit reek of him, a smell so sharp I breathe through my mouth. I punch him in the face, and blood sprays again. Roberts is fighting beneath me, and suddenly I can imagine the victims he must have raped. I think of the pictures of beaten women, welfare-skinny and trailer-trash blonde with cuts down their cheeks who won't look at the camera. I remember photos of happy, smiling babies with brain damage and without genitals that won’t leave my dreams, dismemberments, mutilations, bodies, multiple horrific images that slideshow through my mind in an instant, and then my control is gone. I’m punching him in the face, splat, splat, splat, my hand is breaking on the bones of his forehead and cheeks, and I don’t feel a thing, pushing his flailing arms out of my way, punching him until my arm is dripping red, punching from a well of loathing and fury I never knew I had, and this time I know the caveman grunts are all from me.

I would have punched his face until exhaustion had Jason not pulled me from the body.

“Stop it, man! Stop! You got him! Stop. Stop. You got him,” Jason shouts. He’s yelling in my ear, and I’m on my feet again, and Jason is bear-hugging me against the wall. I smell the smoke again, and the copper stench of Robert’s blood, and all I think is, not human. He’s not human. My hands, scarlet claws before my eyes, drop, spent, to my sides.

“Shhh,” Jason says. He hugs me hard, and feeling me relax at last, lets me go. It’s gone. I begin to gasp for air, coming up again from the depths.

On the floor, another guard, I think it's Ankle Guy, has chained Roberts at the wrists and ankles. He’s unconscious anyway, but prisons are all about redundant controls. He’s flipped on his face, and the blood from his face is smeared on the polished granite of the cellblock floor. I’m suddenly paralyzed with fear that he has AIDS or hepatitis. I’m covered in gore, and I realize I can’t feel my hand at all. My thumb doesn’t work. I broke it somewhere on Roberts’ face.

Another guard emerges from his cell, holding his cheek. He’s bleeding. “Look,” he says. He’s holding out something in his hand. “He made a bomb…it was a little bomb. Jesus Christ,” he says. It's a tuna can - blown wide and charred black to Elmer Fudd perfection.

Jason takes the shredded can, and dumps the contents on the floor. They’re the ashy remnants of matchheads, and a scorched wire flaps from the bottom of the can. A matchhead bomb. Pack a pipe or a can with matchheads, plant a wire inside it, wrap up the mess in a roll of duct tape, touch the wire to a battery, and you’ve got a homemade grenade.

“Shit,” Jason says. He wipes his forehead and laughs. “Well, this is what we came for, right? Fucking shit.” He slides his baton back into his belt.

I step into the sunshine pouring out of Roberts' cell, looking at my hand in the light that's shining through the eastern-facing window. Examining it in the clinical glare, I’m hoping like hell I don’t get in trouble for this.

The last thing I see are Roberts' feet, dragging through the puddle of blood he left behind, smearing a trail into the darkness we’ll have to mop up before we leave.