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fiction: serial fiction
faraway: chapter twelve
In the deepest pits of Faraway, Jonesy walked up to Collins, somewhat at a loss for what to do. Collins was bandaging a young woman's ankle after she'd taken a tumble, over-enthusiastically frolicking with some of the male prisoners. Sadly, this was the best medic duty Collins could pull, since triage methods would have clearly addressed more injured people, still being brought back from higher up in the prison.
"Can I help?" Jonesy asked quietly.
Collins looked up and smiled. "I'm surprised that you're not with ... what was her name, Nosalira?"
"Her mom was a nurse practitioner," Jonesy shrugged. "She remembers a lot, so they put her to work patching people up."
"You didn't want to stand guard?" Collins asked lightly, patting the young woman's calf to indicate she was ready to go.
Jonesy sighed and replied, "Harata sent back word that I was supposed to stay 'rear echelon,' so I'd be able to hook up something and talk to the outside when we get some juice. I'm kinda useless, I guess."
Collins stood up and waved a hand absently. "Not to me!" the older man exclaimed. "You can boil water, to help us try and keep some kind of cleanliness down here, for wounds and dressings."
Jonesy shrugged. "Yeah, I can do that." After a moment, he asked, "what do you think's going on ... up there?"
Collins' smile evaporated like dew in midday sun. "To be honest, Paul, I'm trying not to think about it," he said. "Whatever happens, somebody will come down and tell us about it sooner or later. I'm just trying to stay focused on right now, you know?"
Jonesy nodded. "Okay, so water?"
Collins nodded with a sly smile. "Not drinking water, alas. We're ... uh, we're kind of sifting through refuse water and reclaiming it for, uh, non-ingestive purposes."
Jonesy frowned. "You want me to sift sh*t out of piss, and then boil the piss."
Collins shrugged and said, "Well, it would help ..."
Jonesy paused and said, "I shoulda just kind of hid out somewhere, huh?"
"I can pretend I never saw you," Collins offered with a smile.
"Naw ..." Jonesy frowned. "Just, uh, keep this between you and me, okay?"
Collins mimicked zipping his lips shut, twisting a key and then tossing the key away. He then pointed off in a direction where a number of other blue and red jumpsuited prisoners were milling around some open fires.
Jonesy nodded and wandered off towards the sewage pumps.
• • •
Damu pursed his lips as he listened to the scout relay the news from other squads -- heavy casualties, Simpson and some very dangerous guards headed down. All around them, men reloaded and checked themselves over, waiting in the horrible moments before something happens, the air thick with dust and wrath.
"How many?" Damu asked thoughtfully.
"We've already counted ten groups of about sixteen each," the man Grant said. Grant was a wiry older Black man, in his fifties but still very fit, with skin the shade of a paper bag. His thinning hair was going gray in patches, and would probably be a lot grayer after today. "They're moving towards the burned out mattress frames, and heading for the cells."
Damu's lips pulled tight to a single thin line. "All right," he said slowly. "I was hoping we wouldn't have to do it this way. Teaches me to try to play by somebody else's rules." He pulled himself up to his full six-foot three inches of height and breathed deeply. "I need whoever is the fastest person here to run back down to that last position we have before the cell block. Munoz should be there, he's a kind of stocky Latin brother who can't talk, his tongue was cut out." Damu stopped and took another breath before saying, "Tell him 'Zulu' and 'Dominic Petros' -- and get yourself back into the cell block, it's gonna get ugly up here."
Grant swallowed visibly, and nodded. "I'll go myself." Turning quickly, the man sprinted off.
"Can anybody tell me where Tony Harata is?" Damu shouted.
A voice shouted back from somewhere Damu couldn't see, "His group is over by the old armory!"
"Tell him ... tell everybody. Into the walls," Damu said. "Everybody out of the corridors. It's time to make this ugly."
Without another word, everyone started to find their way, hopefully, out of harm's way, climbing through irregularly shaped holes behind wall panels.
• • •
"Naw!" Jackson shouted down at the burly Latina Juanita standing so defiantly in front of him as men all around laughed. "It just ain't gonna happen. You ain't goin' in with us!"
Jackson stood six foot ten inches tall, and weighed an even three hundred pounds. In his huge afro and black jumpsuit, he was an imposing figure very used to getting his way.
So to have this ... woman standing in front of him, hands on her hip, a bandana tied around her thick maple-colored hair, and a scowl on her face as grim as his own, determined to join in on "The Zulu Manuever" (as Damu was calling it) ... he just wasn't having it.
"Look papi," she returned loudly, "I'm going in because I'm as big and strong as half these putos you got here, and all you need to do is make a wave of people."
Shaking his head, Jackson kept protesting. "Khari and Ishmael said I was in charge on this hallway, and ain't no way in hell some woman is gonna be in there with us, rushin' down the halls and gettin' killed and stompin' people to death."
Juanita sucked her teeth and said, "Can I talk to you, privately, for just a second?"
Jackson looked around at the large number of men looking at him with hands over their mouths and laughter in their eyes. "Aight," he growled. She walked a few feet off, closer to the doors they would all soon pour through, and Jackson followed her. "What?" he asked angrily.
She turned to make sure her back was to everyone else and said, "We both know I'm not going back, papi. Now, in about ten seconds, I'm either gonna jump up and kiss you, or take a swing and hit you really hard, somewhere I haven't picked yet. Which one happens is up to you." She looked him up and down. "I'd rather kiss you, even though I ain't really into guys, but I'm gonna beat down somebody today, and if it ain't them cabron, it might as well be you." She drew closer to him, grabbing the lapel of his jump suit. "I need this, let me do it!"
Jackson stared into her amber eyes, admired her smooth mocha-shaded skin, and realized that, outside of some quick fun on the yard, it had been more than six years since he'd been this close to a woman, and definitely not without some hint of menace on his part. He grabbed her by the back of her head and kissed her, her tongue finding his, as catcalls and whoops came from behind her. They embraced for about a minute, and when the kiss broke, he whispered, "This might be the last good thing that ever happens to us!"
Juanita smiled, pretty even with one of her front teeth chipped almost in two from some long-past fight. "Wouldn't have it any other way," she said breathily, kissing him again with a ferocity that made him wish he had more time.
As she pulled away, he yelled, "Aight, she comes with us!" A cheer rose from the assembled crowd, knowing that similarly ... enthusiastic women were joining the charge in some of the other hallways too.
"Spearheads, you know what to do!" Jackson yelled after wiping his mouth. "Everybody find somebody to follow! Every inch, every hall, we fill it up! Faraway belongs to us!"
Another roar, as the door opened, their signal to get ready to run. Jackson leaned down, preparing himself, and spared a glance over at Juanita, who winked and smiled.
With a deep breath, he nodded, hesitated ... and ran.
• • •
Simpson was laughing, and it was an unpleasant sound.
He pulled his nightstick free from the shattered chest of a blue-jumpsuited corpse as two of his men, Farrell and Duncan, stood behind him laughing. The rest of his personal Tyr 7 squad were spread out along the hallway, almost having a festive mood as they finished off another of the laughable "squads" of prisoners.
"How many we confirmed?" Simpson bellowed mirthfully.
Duncan, an Asian man of average height and above average musculature, stared at the ceiling as he concentrated. "I think that one makes thirty two, boss. We've got ..."
An unusual rumbling sound, like distant thunder, cut off the last part of Duncan's comment, as the very floors themselves started to vibrate.
"What the hell is that?" Simpson yelled. Just then, all the walkie talkies erupted with screams and panicked cries for help. Simpson clicked through, yelling, "Calm down, calm down, what's your 20?"
"The prisoners!" a voice returned, surrounded by a furor. "There's thousands of 'em, just ... uh, ah, they're running through the halls! We don't have enough guns to ... aaaagh!"
Farrell took off his helmet, his bright red hair a swirl atop his freckled head, and said, "Commander?"
Spaulding's voice cut through the com chatter on the walkie talkie. "Simpson!" the old man yelled. "What's going on down there?"
Simpson was at a loss, as he saw the first wave of rampaging prisoners, running as fast as they can. Hundreds of them, filling every square inch of the hallway with angry men, rushing.
Rushing right towards Simpson and his men.
"FALL BACK!" Simpson yelled, already firing past his men at the crowd, "FALL THE F**K BACK! RETREAT TO THE STAGING AREAS! BETTER FIELDS OF FIRE THERE!" It was hard for Simpson to be heard over the din. They were running so fast, the ones in front were often pushed down by the ones behind, who just kept on running, trampling the ones who fell underfoot. A mass of flailing arms and yelling and pounding legs and fury and motion, bearing down on Simpson like nothing he'd ever imagined.
Simpson's team likewise ran at top speed, somewhat hindered by the heavy body armor they wore. The slowest ones were pulled down from behind by angry arms, and no one stopped to beat them or berate them -- the guards just fell under hundreds of feet at a time, crushed beyond recognition. Simpson ran unabashedly, never looking back until finally he saw it was just him, being chased. Desperate, he made a couple of turns, only to hear similar rushes of men coming from other directions. With a few seconds to think, he somehow found himself in front of the still-open hatch that Idelson, Martin, Hinton and Faireborn were guarding, what felt like a hundred years before. Without a thought, Simpson jumped inside, booby traps be damned, and pulled the hatch shut behind him. He looked up to see several trip wires, connected to god-knew-what, surrounding the ladder-like rungs above. Before he could form another thought, he heard the horrible sound of literally thousands of men running past the wall, shaking Simpson to his core. He curled into a ball, shaking, and waited for it to be over.
• • •
Spaulding lost radio contact with the Tyr 7 teams just as the last chopper flights took off. Cursing at the horror of it all, he switched off his walkie talkie and clipped it on his belt, walking over to Ellis, who was organizing fire teams to prepare for what looked like an onslaught.
"Major," Spaudling said quietly. "A word?"
Ellis did a double take at Spaulding, and nodded, passing his clipboard to a subordinate that Spaulding, for the first time in months, couldn't remember the name of at all. I must be tired, Spaudling thought to himself, after being certain it was indeed a member of the staff and not a camoflauged prisoner, if my prized memory is starting to fail me.
Ellis walked over to the now-empty transport helicopter pad with Spaudling, watching bunks get set up all around them under the rapidly darkening sky. "Yes, sir?" Ellis asked, hands resting on his assault rifle.
"We may have ... company coming," Spaulding said ruefully. "As I feared, our enemies have studied history as well. You wouldn't happen to be familiar with the Boer War in South Africa, would you, Ellis?"
Ellis visibly shuddered, and replied, "My mother was actually Afrikaans. Aside from the one on the Apache, we don't have any gating guns."
Spaulding smiled sadly. "I suddenly wish we'd have had a chance to work more closely together, Major," the old man said thoughtfully. "Do you have any thoughts?"
"Well, I'd hope that you can run the weapons array on the chopper, because I don't want you on the ground ..."
"Not an option, Major," Spaudling said firmly. "These people, no matter what happens, are my responsibility."
"I would hate to think about you being captured, sir," Ellis intoned. "I wouldn't wish that kind of fate on any one."
Spaulding shrugged. "Once, a doctor in Kuala Lampur inserted bamboo shoots underneath each of my toe and finger nails for six hours straight. I'm not very worried."
Ellis returned the shrug. "Well, in any case, we can't let them get the Apache. I've got to get it to the forward observer position. If we didn't have so many noncoms up here, I'd let the prisoners just come and use it for fire support, turn that egress point into a kill zone."
Spaulding considered that. "That would be useful ... who do you have on the guns?"
"Probably Davis," Ellis offered. "My marksmanship scores are higher, but we rate about even on airborne weaponry. Plus he's gimpy and I need to be on the ground."
"Let's look at that as a possible scenario," Spaudling decided, "seeing how many people we can get on the 'safe' side of the roof here, and ..."
A huge explosion rocked the roof and cut off Spaulding's planning. Ellis' head began spinning around, looking for air attacks, while Spalding began looking at the clusters of civilians. Another loud "BOOM!" rocked the roof, and another, until finally Spaulding saw the cloud of smoke coming from the one door that led out to the roof.
"They're cutting us off!" he yelled, but it was too late. Through the rapidly crumbling accessway, Spaulding could see guards rushing for daylight and not making it, and the few remaining civilians down there looking horrified. After the dust floated down to earth once more, the entryway was ruined and Spaulding and his people were divided and trapped.
Ellis stood, looking gape jawed at the wreckage. "Wow," he said. "I ... wow. Well. I guess they're not after the chopper after all."
"Think like a strategist, Ellis," Spaulding grunted. "They might have more of those secret ways up here, while that was our only way down there. They just cut off god knows how many people, who are all certainly going to die. They've got our number, Ellis."
Ellis frowned, clearly not liking the sound of that.
"Get two last noncoms, preferrably children, in that Apache with Davis and a pilot," Spaudling said in a clipped tone. "Get it out of here now. We've lost all we're going to lose to them today. Also, get me a head count on how many people we have left."
"Yes, sir," Ellis returned, jogging off to get the chopper airborne.
Spaulding sighed and looked at the mound of rubble where once a stairway existed. I'm not going to win this, he thought to himself.
• • •
I'm actually going to win this, Damu thought to himself, trying not to get too close.
In a strange irony, he was pressed up against another prisoner in the tight, irregular wall passages, much like Simpson was several hundred yards away. The noise of four thousand angry prisoners stomping through the halls had been going on for about thirty minutes now, filling every space with a person, crushing any sign of the opposition, and the shaking of the explosions closing off the roof were about five minutes into that, so everything was pretty much going according to plan. This is the longest day of my life, Damu thought, but I certainly can't complain about how it's going.
Damu tried to think about how many people would have died today, on his word. He then thought about the thousands of people below, who he'd protected. The trade was brutal, but apparently fair. Dad told me I'd think about things like this, and I should remember the greater good. Damu thought about what else was along the path he and his father had so meticulously planned, sitting at that card table, so many years ago, and suppressed a sigh.
Harata was a few feet behind, managing to reconnect with Damu's group before the stampede, and said, "Hey, Ish, can we get out of here yet?" His breathing was labored, and these close quarters were not doing well for him.
Damu winced, remembering Harata's claustrophobia and said, "The noise sounds like it's starting to die down. When it gets quiet for a while, we'll go on out."
Harata said nothing else, his eyes closed, trying not to focus on his terror at being so trapped.
As the rush of people outside the walls continued, somebody way in back said, "So ... anybody seen any good movies lately?"
Everyone laughed, and Damu doubled over, like it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard in his life.
"Damn, it wasn't that funny," a voice said from behind him.
Damu stopped laughing and managed, "You guys have no idea how long I've waited to get back at these people ..."
Somebody patted him on the shoulder. "We're all with you, man" somebody said from farther back.
Damu smiled in the darkness, seeing the finish line for the first time in his entire life.
• • •
With the Apache receding into the distance, Ellis stood, wringing his hands, as Spaudling read the report.
"More than sixty six hundred presumed dead," Spaulding said grimly, looking at the hastily written notes. "Mostly non-combatants."
Ellis simply nodded.
Spaudling looked up. "Somewhere in the neighborhood of fourteen hundred left, of which eleven hundred are noncoms, all of us huddled together up here on the roof. Together. Stranded."
"I'm afraid that's all accurate, sir," Ellis agreed. "Of the approximately three hundred active duty troops left available, a third are too injured to serve. We're also dangerously low on ammunition and supplies all around."
Spaudling nodded, rubbing his eyes. "Suggestions, Major?"
"I'm afraid I have no encouraging ideas, sir," Ellis replied. "At best, we could find a way to get everybody to the ground, turn off the defenses, and try to access the motor pool. We might be able to make a run for it."
Spaudling looked out into the night. "With no idea what's out there ..." he said quietly. "That's what we have to do, then. The motor pool locks, even without power, are too much for any of the explosives any of us have here, and only I can open the combinations. Well ... in a moment, only you."
"Sir?" Ellis wondered.
"You're about to start making preps to get as many people as possible down to the ground," Spaulding said with a thin smile. "I'm going to write down a series of combinations that you'll need to get the vehicles. Take everything. Leave nothing. You're taking half the viable troops and all of the noncoms you can jam into there. It'll take at least two trips, and the ground defenses will be completely turned off, so you'll have to protect yourselves."
Ellis looked puzzedly at Spaulding. "Where ... where are we going sir?"
Spaudling chuckled. "You're going to follow the Secretary of Corrections, and hopefully find some safe haven away from here. The troops who will remain -- and I will ask for volunteers -- will hold the fort as long as we can."
"A suicide mission," Ellis realized. "I can't let you do that, sir. Your strategic value is considerably greater than mine ..."
"... and your tactical value is considerably greater than mine right now, Major," Spaulding interrupted. "You're the best chance these few remaining patriots have at staying alive. I owe them the best shot they can get, and that's you. I do not charge you with this responsibility lightly, and yes, I'm aware of what's going to happen to me."
Ellis nodded. "I'd already started looking at how to ferry wounded and pallets down, I'll get right to that."
"Ellis?"
The man looked into Spaulding's steely eyes and said, "Yes, sir?"
"Thank you," Spaudling said simply, "and god speed."
Ellis had no reply, saluted, and walked off to make preparations.
Spaudling sat back in one of the folding field chairs, staring into the somber, silent night sky. In every direction, darkness reigned and there was nothing to see. Nothing to see at all.
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