The Rains - A novel - cont

Sean sat up suddenly, startling Kurt.

"What's up? You look as if you seen a ghost."

"I've just realized something. I haven't seen any guards."

"What do you mean?"

Sean looked at Kurt and said, "Just that, I haven't seen any guards in a while."

"Maybe they're just late checking cells."

"I don't think so. Especially since what's happened in the past week. Usually they've come by at least twice by now."

Kurt sat up then, straining to hear any sounds of footsteps.

Nothing. An eerie silence had descended on the cell block. The other cons were even quiet. Nothing was stirring at all.

"Do you hear that?" asked Kurt.

"No. I don't hear anything."

"That's what I mean. Nothing. I think you're right. Something's wrong."

For a prison, it was definitely too quiet. Usually in any cell block there was something going on. Snoring, sex games by the bitches, something. But there was no noise at all. Not even the slow monotonous tapping on the bars that was the cons signal system, which drove Kurt bonkers at times, was making its rhythmic strumming along the halls.

"Now that you mention it, there's nothing going on. What do you think?"

"I don't know. But I didn't think starving in here was the guards way of getting rid of all of us."

Kurt gulped, remembering what Sean had said about them being killed.

"We've got to find out what's going on."

"How?"

"Let's get their attention."

This should be interesting, thought Kurt.

Sean then threw a blazing piece of paper out of the cell.

"Fire! Fire!"

Kurt joined in, "Fire! Fire! Help!"

After a few moments, others on the block took up the cry. The sound created by the yelling was like echoes bouncing off the walls of the Grand Canyon. For nearly thirty minutes, the only noise was the sound of screams.

It did no good. No guards came to see about the cons.

After nearly screaming themselves hoarse, Sean and Kurt could come to only one conclusion: The guards were gone, and the inmates were on their own to die.

Starvation was definitely not the way to go.

After almost three hours, Sean and Kurt knew they had to do something. Neither one of them liked the situation as it was developing.

"Well, It looks like we better try and get out of here," said Sean.

"And how are we gonna do that?"

"Simple, we're gonna use the blanket."

"Huh!"

Sean had a little secret he'd kept from Kurt. For a year or more, he'd been thinking about getting out of prison, and not by the legal way of parole. Now was his time to show him what he meant.

5 - - -

When Sean and Kurt slipped out of their cell, they heard the first shots echo down the halls. Men started screaming and begging for their lives. It didn't take a genius for Kurt to realize Sean had been right. The guards, whoever had shown up, were killing the convicts in their cells.

"Dear God."

"Yep, that's one way to look at it," said Sean. "Let's get out of here quick."

Both men ran towards the Sergeant's office on the cell block. Each of them knew they had to have the master set of keys to get out of the complex itself. Keys, per se, was a mis-nomer, they had to have a key card to do it.

As they ran, they both ignored the cries from the other cons, they just couldn't afford the time it would take to help anyone else.

Kurt was breathing in rough gasps as they reached the office. The door was locked. Sean moved Kurt out of his way, and gave it a well placed kick below the knob. It popped open like a pop can blowing its top.

Inside, it was deserted. The desk in the middle of the room was in shambles. It had been ransacked. Drawers were thrown on the floor, and papers were strewn all over.

"Shit!" said Sean, "Someone's gone through here like a tornado."

Both men searched through the mess. But nothing was found. The key card wasn't there.

"Now what?"

"Follow me, only one other place to try." answered Sean.

Sean and Kurt leaped out of the room, running like the devil was on their asses. Down a short hallway to their left was another door marked lockers. Sean hit it at a full run, shoulder pounding into the wood. It flew open, spewing Sean head first into a set of lockers.

As he came up, holding the side of his head, Sean shouted to Kurt, "Look for the damn card! It's gotta be here. This is the last place we can go without it."

"Sean, old buddy, I think we caught our first break."

"What," said Sean confused, looking at Kurt through blurry eyes.

Kurt pointed to a wall just to Sean's left, at a white card hanging from a string tacked to a bulletin board. Underneath, written on a piece of tape, was: security doors - a, b, and c.

The fires of hell were ablaze in the cell blocks with the screams of the unlucky inmates being butchered by the guards. It was like watching a shooting gallery of ducks in a barrel. Sean and Kurt both thought if they didn't get out soon, they'd be next. In a cell or not.

Both the men looked into the yard, watching guards walk the twenty foot high wall. On each end of the yard, approximately 200 yards long and fifty wide, there stood a tower. On each tower, on any normal day, there would be two guards, one on the inside watching the monitors, the other on the outside, watching the convicts with a high powered snipers rifle. But on this occasion, there was only one, walking around with the same high powered rifle all right, but not with the same amount of strut to his arrogant superior walk. He seemed to be more nervous, trying to look everywhere at once. Chicken Little doing his twitchy dance of excitement of the sky falling. Pathetic and damn dangerous at the same time.

"Damn!" said Sean. "I was hoping for no guards on the Gray Cop."

The 'Gray Cop' was the cons name for the wall around the whole prison. It was the only cop the cons could depend on to never change it's attitude about what it was doing there. The others were only hired muscle, put in positions of authority to make the life's of the inmates as miserable as possible. Like they didn't have enough just being in there.

"No shit!" responded Kurt. "Now what do we do."

"Simple. We get us some weapons from somewhere and get the hell out of theis death trap."

"Sure. Simple. Why didn't I think of that?"

"Don't be a smart ass. Listen for a moment, Okay? And think for a sec. "

Kurt stiffened.

Sean lowered his head in apology. "Sorry. But why do you think there's only five or six guards in the whole prison taking care of the cons? Wouldn't you think there'd be a battalion doing the deed?"

Kurt's mouth fell open in astonishment. "You're right. But how do you know there's only six or so doing it? Sounds like a hundred with the screams and the shots echoing down the halls."

Sean only smiled at him. "Trust me. There's only six or so, including the ones on the Gray Cop."