Arcadia (Book 1): Damn The Dead (23 page)

“That’s never stopped you,” Chris said.

“Didn’t say it did. Just nice to have a little privacy, is all.”

Char touched Ross’s wrist. He stopped as the others left the table.

“I just want to say thank you, and goodbye.”

“You’re still going to try this? It’s foolish, McKinney. Foolish and reckless. If you don’t get caught, you could die,” he said.

“I’ll remember you.”

Chapter 35

Kyle Newstead stood by the locker room doorway with Char, while another guard walked four men with wet hair back to their cells. A third guard was inside the locker room as the next four men cleaned up.

Char stood shoulder to shoulder with Kyle. She knew he was going to try to talk to her. She just wanted silence. A lot was on her mind. The time was essential to prepare mentally. She would need to move fast, every action flawless. Kyle had promised her a little extra time.

He had promised it to her because he knew that Kilmer had tried to rape her, because he felt guilty for not being there to protect her.

She started to cry.

The tears were real, but she wanted them. She didn’t think she needed to remind Kyle about the extra time to shower, but it couldn’t hurt to show him that she was still upset.

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, clearly uncomfortable. If they had been having drinks at the Bent Elbow, he’d console her. He had no idea how to interact with a woman in the Cog. He was a decent enough guy. She did not feel guilty taking advantage of that fact. He might get some static once her escape was realized, but she didn’t think anyone would be too harsh on him. Maybe she’d be doing him a favor, and he’d wind up with a new job up top. It’s hard to believe anyone would choose to work down here voluntarily, except for maybe George Hermann, the warden.

“Sounds like they’re using all of the hot water,” Kyle said.

Here comes the uncomfortable and awkward small talk. She didn’t reply, but sniffled and ran her forearm under her nose.

“It’s never really hot, though. You’re missing lukewarm water, at the most,” he said.

It seemed like time had stopped moving. She just wanted her turn in the locker room. “I feel so dirty. I just feel …”

More tears came. They were a little forced this time, a little fake. She didn’t want to over act this, but she wanted Kyle as sympathetic and understanding as possible before she was given her time in the locker room.

The next four men came out talking, their hair wet.

“Enough chit chat,” Kyle said, his tone of voice gruff and commanding. Char saw who this man was, and gruff and commanding was not any part of his true colors.

The guard came out next. “Clear in there,” he said.

Kyle nodded at the man, and turned to Char. “You’re up. A few extra minutes to get yourself together, okay? Don’t make me regret this.”

“Thank you,” she said.

#  #  #

Char McKinney entered the locker room, walking slow, knowing Kyle watched her every step with sympathetic eyes.

As soon as she rounded the corner, she changed gears. She ran to a shower stall and turned on the water. She went for the small cabinet, pulled herself up onto it, and used fingers on both hands to remove screws in the vent.

She set the vent cover down and crawled into the shaft. It was a tight fit. She wanted to try to replace the vent cover but would have had to back in. There would have been no room to turn around after, and she didn’t want to back her way out of the prison. She knew if the vent cover was replaced, they would still realize had happened. No one was going to think she simply vanished. So replacing the cover didn’t matter, and wouldn’t really buy her much extra time.

The galvanized steel around her was thin. She had to crawl forward slowly. Every time her booted toe tapped the sheet metal it sounded like thunder. Ross told her he wasn’t positive what was around below the air duct, but that he’d heard it was a large dry goods and weapons storage facility. If that was true, she hoped it was an unmanned facility. Otherwise, even with normal prison noise, a deaf man would know someone was scurrying around in the ducts.

She passed over mesh grill vents now and then. There was no light below. She figured she was over, or well past the storage area depending on how big it actually was. She knew she had maybe two, three more minutes before Kyle started yelling into the locker room for her to hurry up.

She hurried up all right. At this point, time was of the essence, and she felt like it was also her enemy, working against her.

She’d noticed the continued incline, though. It was slight, but it was apparent. That was a good thing.

Unnatural fears filled her. The duct was so dark. She couldn’t turn around and look, but felt like something was back there, closing in on her.

An infected?

Kilmer?

She could not gauge how far she’d have traveled inside the duct. It felt like miles and miles; it was more like yards and yards.

She couldn’t hear the shower running. It either meant she’d put some distance between herself and the locker room, or they’d discovered that she was missing.

She crawled faster. Her imagination now running her brain.

It was all irrational, but she was sure that the warden had set infected loose in the ducts.

She heard the sheet metal buckle and snap back into shape behind her.

They were coming.

Something was coming for her.

She was done being cautious, and moved on hands and knees. Her knees slid on the metal. Her palms gave her traction.

The one thing she noticed was that there had been no off chutes. Whoever was coming after her would never have to stop and wonder which way she had gone. There was just the one direction.

That brought up another concern.

There would only be one exit.

The duct continued to lead her upwards, only the incline was becoming more and more obvious. She worried that at some point she might just hit a forty-five or ninety degree angle and be royally screwed.

She crawled as fast possible. It wasn’t easy. The space was cramped. The darkness was terrifying. She moved her arms and legs, knowing that whoever was behind her was closing the gap. She felt like she couldn’t gain any momentum, that she did more slipping. The traction was terrible.

She breathed in nothing but sulfur. It was as if she was crawling over a spoiled egg storage area.

Char fell flat. A charlie-horse gripped her thigh. Dragging herself forward with her hands, and one leg, she cringed at the pain. She dropped her head, unable to continue. It was a great effort. She’d almost. . .

She heard it. Ahead of her. There was no mistaking the sound.

Behind her, the sheet metal banged.

The river was close.

She couldn’t give up. Not now. Not being this close.

Char lifted her head and got onto all fours. The muscle in her leg spasmed. She ignored it. She pushed forward. Forward. There was no stopping. Not now. No giving up. Not ever.

She wished she could see something, anything, but there was some kind of light.

It wasn’t far ahead.

She tried to ignore whoever was coming up behind her, tried to block out the fact they seemed to be getting closer, and closer.

The incline was steeper now, but the sound of the rushing water louder.

She braced her feet on the sides of the duct. It was an awkward angle, but it kept her from slipping backwards.

She scooted forward; climbing toward what she hoped was the end of the duct.

Escape was always the plan, but now that she felt so close actually to getting away, doubt filled her. She knew she needed to fight that. It could get her caught, or killed. Ignoring the doubt and remaining positive and confident was imperative.

Her boots lost their grip. She slid down the duct several feet. The thunder of wracking sheet metal was so close, she was afraid if she tried to see behind her that they would be almost on her.

She wanted to live.

She needed to get out of this place.

Char was not going to stop.  She dug in with the toe of her boots, and kept on moving.

Her hands hit something. Her fingers raked across a grate. The end of the duct? A vent cover?

It was a way out.

She punched at the cover. If the screws at this end were rusted, she might be trapped. She punched hard, using the heels of her hands. The vent didn’t seem to budge.

Time was running out.

She wasn’t about to get caught. Not now.

Not this close.

There wasn’t room enough to get much leverage. She wished she could turn around and kick the vent out. That wasn’t possible.

She struck the vent over and over.

Over and over.

Something gave.

They were almost directly behind her. She knew it now. The sound was louder, different.

She slammed her heel of her hand into the vent, over and over. A rage filled her. She thought of Kilmer trying to rape her, of Tony, of Sam. . .of Grace, alone and in a coma in a hospital bed. She thought of Cash and her father.

An anger filled her, coursed through her, and exploded from her fists in a strike that knocked the vent free of the screws that secured it in place.

She reached her hands forward, and pulled her upper torso out of the duct.

She felt blindly around for some kind of hand hold. There was nothing. Her eyes never adjusted to the darkness. There just wasn’t any light to assist.

She turned so she was sitting in the duct, and felt around for the top of the lip. She then pulled out her legs and dangled. She had no idea how far down the drop was. Looking down the duct she saw light. A flashlight beam played on the metal. They’d caught up to her.

She dropped. It felt like freefalling. Then her feet hit the ground. She relaxed her knees, fell, and shoulder rolled. Her left elbow crashed into something jagged, and sharp. Pain shot up her left arm. She cradled it as she struggled to get to her feet.

She thought the river would be right there, right in front of her. As best she could tell, it wasn’t.

She heard the trampling of feet on crushed rock.

They pursued her from inside the duct, and knowing where the duct exited, must have sent a team to retrieve her.

She was a fugitive.

She saw several flashlight beams run across the walls of the cave she was now in. Their shadows danced across the walls as big as giants.

More light came from above, from the duct she’d just jumped out of.

She heard the river to her right.

There were no options left. She walked as carefully and as fast as she could toward the water.

She didn’t want to look back. She didn’t need to know how close they were.

The back of her neck became suddenly hot. She clapped a hand over the area. It almost felt like her skin was on fire under her clothing.

It was the tattoo. The burning feeling was circular.

She lost her footing.

She couldn’t see a thing, and braced her arms out in front of her.

Her hands splashed through water. Her body followed. She was submerged in an icy river.

She fought to get back to the top. She’d swallowed water and choked on her way up, taking in more. Her head broke through the surface. She was all turned around in the darkness. She knew she was moving, and that the water was swift, but she felt lost and weightless. Her leg struck something under the water, and she went under with barely time to catch her breath . . .

Chapter 36

The knock at the door was insistent. Vincent Forti pulled his pillow out from under his head and stuffed it over his face.

“Coming!” No one could hear him. He was upstairs in his bedroom.

He threw off his blankets and slid his legs out of bed. His feet slid into slippers, he stood up and stretched while letting out a big, loud yawn. “This better be important.”

He reached for his bathrobe on the back of his door and tied the belt around his waist as he shuffled down the short hallway to the staircase.

The knocking persisted.

Moonlight came in through the windows on either side of the door.

“Coming!” He took the stairs carefully, a hand on the railing. “Better be a fucking emergency.”

He unfastened the chain, and disengaged the deadbolt. Arcadia might be pretty safe, but Vincent was never one to take unnecessary chances, and safety was a top priority, regardless.

He opened the door. “What is it?”

George Hermann’s hair was unkempt. He shook his head. “We’ve got a problem.”

#  #  #

She kept her hands up, and they scraped against low rock ceilings, but helped her keep from smacking her head. Her legs were out in front of her. She was trying to float with the current. Water splashed inside her mouth, up her nostrils. She gasped and coughed.

The river sounded like a locomotive. It picked up speed. She worried there might be a waterfall ahead. That’s what she always recalled in any movie where someone used a river to get away. A treacherous waterfall.

The water was so cold, but did nothing to relieve the burning on the back of her neck. Rebecca Bowman had done something to her. She knew the sensation was somehow related to the powers the mystical woman had spoken of. What else could that woman do? What else did she know?

Then the ceiling disappeared above her hands.

She didn’t lower her arms. She might just be in a. . .

Above was light.

Bright.

She saw the moon. Stars.

She was out of the mountain.

She put her legs behind her, swam with the current but angled for the bank. The water carried her quickly to it. She kept expecting to have her body slammed into a partially submerged boulder.

#  #  #

George Hermann was seated at Vincent’s kitchen table when he came down the stairs fully dressed.

“Okay, so what do we have in place?” Vincent said.

“Team of guards went for the river, where the vent lets out.”

“She hits the water and she’ll be beyond our borders.”

“True.”

“Will they get her?” Vincent said.

“She’s crawling through an air duct. They’re running—it’s a roundabout way to get there, but yeah, they should get to her before she gets to the end of the duct.”

Vincent pursed his lips. A prison escape was the last thing he needed right now. Gary Priestly would exploit the hell out of this. Despite Vincent not having anything to do with a prison break, anything that happened in Arcadia, good or bad, reflected on him.

He wished he could think of a way to keep all of this secret. “So, what, only people in the Cog are aware of this?”

“So far, yes. You’re the first person I came to tell when I found out.” Hermann had his glasses in his hands. He used a paper napkin to wipe his lenses. “What do you want to do?”

“Your men can keep this quiet for now?”

Hermann shrugged. “They do what I tell them.”

“Let’s head back to the Cog. See if they’ve caught her. If they did, I don’t want anyone outside of that place learning about the attempted escape,” Vincent said. That was best case scenario. He mentally crossed his fingers.

“And on the off chance that she got away?”

“You said they would nab her where the duct exits.”

“I said we should be able to get her. We are supposing though. Suppose they didn’t catch her.”

“I know a guy, someone I trust to find her and bring her back.”

“If she’s gone, there’s no threat to Arcadia’s people. Banishment is just as harsh as punishment during times like this, if you ask me.” He fit his glasses back onto his face. The lenses made his eyeballs pop through the glass.

“We have three years to find her.” Vincent Forti said. He’d win an election against Priestly without giving a race much pause, unless word of the escape went public. If he won another election, it would be essential in three years to have McKinney exit the Cog rehabilitated, and a free woman. “Come one, let’s get a damage assessment, prepare for a debriefing, and see how confined we can keep this news.”

Hermann got up from the table. “You’re the boss.”

I am, Vincent thought, but for how much longer?