Slimy Green Piles
With every breath in, the pain of what he had done cut into his ribs. Jack lay on his cold hard prison bed listening to the sound of his own breath thinking about the awful thing he had done to get himself locked up. He normally couldn’t hear anything over the collective noise of the other prisoners. He was alone tonight. His cellmate Rick had been taken to the clinic early in the evening. Rick had some sort of skin infection, large pieces of it slid off in slimy green piles. Rick had started to smell, like a musty basement and rotting meat. His eyes glazed over and would no longer speak even when spoken to, just make low grunts. Jack heard the guards arguing in whispers as they dragged his cellmate away.
“It’s all over the news, mass murders and destruction.”
“We can’t just leave!”
“What about your wife, your two little girls? Don’t you want to be home to protect them?”
“Shit I don’t know what to do. What about the prisoners? We can’t just leave them here.”
“Forget these degenerates! The rest of us are leaving. You better figure it out soon.”
Jack had drifted off to a troubled sleep but around 2 or 3am was startled awake by the sound of gun fire. He waited for the escaped prisoner alarm to sound but all he heard was screaming and what sounded like animals tearing through bone. The other prisoners were on their feet pressed against their bars to see what was going on. Jack was at the end of the cell block and could only make out the white haze of light at the guard station. He heard metal scraping against concrete. The prison was in a panic. All of their outstretched arms sprang back behind the bars. Jack pressed his face against the bars trying to see beyond his cell. He spotted a guard walking down the cell block dragging one leg slowly behind the other. The guard’s left ankle was broken and his foot was turned up, the sole of boot pointing up towards his kneecap.
“Are you okay?” Jack called out.
He sees that the guard’s mouth is full of blood. The guard growled and moaned, blood spraying through his teeth. He lunged at Jack’s cell. Jack falls back. The guard thrust a bloody hand through the bars. His skin looked like Jack’s cell mate, Rick’s, falling off in green slimy piles that splashed onto the floor. The guard thrashed against the bars both arms reaching for him. Jack crammed himself between the toilet and the corner. He could no longer hear the wailing of the other prisoners over the beastly howls of the prison guard.
Copyright © 2009-2010 Katherine Montalto