Vicious Page 2

  I looked across the room at the mess of glass and ice that littered the floor and decided not to clean it. Let her pick up her own pieces. I was tired of being the caring, strong husband who took the abuse because she couldn’t hold it together.

  I flipped on the TV without really wanting to watch anything in particular. I just wanted something to distract me from my anger and hurt. Something to numb the stabbing sensation of the last few days. Something to keep me from storming into that room and yelling all my frustrations at her empty face.

  Unfortunately, the very first channel that came up was the local news station, and there we were. I was in front at the podium with all of those microphones pointed at me, and next to me was zombie Beth. I was holding her with one arm as a constant stream of tears poured from her eyes. The Evertons were just behind us both just as grief stricken and tear stained as we were. I must have caught the program in the middle because they had spoken at the podium before we had, even though we had said basically the same thing. I listened to my TV self speak.

  “Please if you have any information on the whereabouts of our daughter, please, please call us or the police. We love her and just want her home.”

  Hearing that felt disgusting and wrong. I vaguely remembered saying it. Everything had been such a blur. Everyone at the police station kept talking about forty-eight hours. The best chance of finding her would be in the first forty-eight hours. That’s why we had done the broadcast right away. But now it had been closer to ninety-six hours, and hope was thinning. We didn’t even know the exact time she’d disappeared, nor did we know an accurate location of where they might have been seen last. Everything was getting bleaker, and the bleaker things got, the more Beth seemed to blame me.

  I immediately stood up and made my way to the wet bar. I grabbed Beth’s precious bottle and downed what was left of the scotch in a few good swigs. It burned down my throat, but I was enraged. Where was my little girl, and who had her? What had they done to her? Was she even alive? I grabbed another bottle from the bar, ripped off the cap and threw back another couple of swigs of the scotch and let it burn my throat again.

  I looked back to the mess of glass and ice shards on the floor and became angrier still. How could I have known? Why did Beth blame me so? She was my daughter too, damn it.

  That last thought felt so right and true, I decided to say it out loud.

  “She is my daughter too!”

  I yelled this. I screamed this until I felt a raspy, strained sensation in the back of my throat. It felt good. Well, as good as anything could feel right now, but I liked allowing myself the anger. I felt like breaking down too. Screw being the strong one anymore. Why couldn’t I retreat into a zombie state? Why couldn’t I run away from the world?

  I walked over to the stack of posters that sat innocently enough on the kitchen table. I looked at them with new eyes. I saw her picture clear as day on the first page right underneath the all-too-real word MISSING. My little girl had her mother’s blue eyes and my blond hair, before my hair had turned grey. She looked so lovely in this photo. I remembered taking it of her out back in her favorite childhood rope swing.

  That swing had been a joint project. I had built it with the thickest rope I could find and a sturdy plank of wood for a seat. Beth had painted the wooden seat red with little green vines and yellow flowers and finished it with lacquer. She had carefully woven little flowers all throughout the rope with such a delicate hand. I told her that real flowers would just die, but she didn’t listen to me. Anything for our only girl. Sure enough, the flowers in the rope didn’t last much longer than a week, and I had nearly killed myself trying to hang that thing in the tree, but it had all been worth it when our little girl ran screaming with joy toward her new swing. She’d only been five years old then, but in this photograph, she was a young, beautiful woman of nineteen years of age. She still loved that swing even though the paint had faded significantly and all of the flowers had wilted and blown away years ago. She had insisted I take her picture while she sat on it.

  The sudden urge to cry softened me. I went back into the living room and slipped on my shoes, stuffed my wallet and keys into my pocket and returned to the kitchen once again. I picked up the posters and cradled them in my arms like I would a sleeping child. Maybe it was past forty-eight hours and things were beginning to get hopeless. I didn’t care. I would try anything to get my little girl back. The breakdown would have to come later. Right now, I had some posters to pin up around town.

  I walked back through the living room and passed the broken mess on the floor. I knew that I would clean it when I got back.

  Chapter Three

  Howard, three years later

  Work had been hell, and when I went to the store, it had been packed full of sluggish, idiot people. There were only two cashiers to work the eleven checkout stations, and they both seemed completely unaware that their slow and careless manner was only making their impossibly long lines even longer. When I finally reached the front of the line, the rather large girl scanning my groceries rolled her eyes in disgust every time she pulled fresh produce that required her to weigh it and key in a code. The price for buying fresh fruits and vegetables was the disdain of the youth who only wanted to scan everything with as little effort as possible. God forbid you pay them in large bills. The mere thought of figuring change was the bane of a young cashier’s existence.

  Despite all of my adolescent wishes about yelling at everyone around me, I found myself pushing a rickety shopping cart full of bagged groceries through the parking lot, murmuring grouchy profanities about the wasted youth of today. I had become that grumbling old man. The old man that complained about how things were done properly in his time and kids this day and age were completely inept and spoiled. I had become my father, and I winced at this realization as I reached my truck.

  “It would be different if you were here, baby,” I said to the empty passenger seat of my truck.

  I finished loading the grocery bags in the back of the old Ford and pulled myself into the driver’s seat.

  “You never were goofy or stupid though, were you, Anna? You could make change if you had to. I remember when you got a cashier job at this very grocery store. You were so proud of your very first paycheck. You had wanted to frame it, but I explained that you wouldn’t get the money if we didn’t cash the check with the bank. So I took your picture holding it up.”

  I smiled to myself for a moment as I turned the ignition key. When I looked back over to the empty passenger seat, the smile faded and my shoulders slumped. She wasn’t there. She was never there, but I talked to her anyway. The seat in my truck was a bench seat, and I remembered when Anna was a little girl she loved to lie down across the seat and sleep with her head in my lap while we drove around. She would watch me shift gears with her big blue eyes until the gentle rumbling of the engine lulled her to sleep. I had had that old truck for so long because it worked and I liked it better than the newer models. Now I kept it mainly because of those memories of my daughter sleeping across that bench seat with her little hand on my knee, her tiny mouth breathing a gentle cadence of air into the truck’s cab.

  “If you were still here, I wouldn’t be this grumpy and sentimental,” I said with one more glance at the empty seat as I pulled out of the parking lot and started for home.

  The road was bumpy and it hurt my aching back. All of the sadness of time lost filled me, and I thought I might cry right there. I swallowed hard and shook my head.

  “If only you were here. I could endure such things if you were here to tell me how old and silly I was.”

  I made my way home in silence without speaking anymore to the phantom of my lost daughter. I drove slowly, not wanting to get home any sooner than I had to. I knew what would be waiting for me at home, and I avoided it like a child dragging their feet on the way to school for fear of a math test.

  The door swung open and I stumbled inside, heavily laden with groceries bags. There sat Bet
h, still in her sleep clothes, watching television on the sofa. She did not offer to help me with the groceries, nor did she ask if there were more in the car. She barely registered my presence with a glance in my direction.

  I sighed. Would it always be this way? The answer was yes. Yes, it would. It had not changed much in three years, nor would it ever again. She was dead. I thought she might eventually pull herself out of it a little and mourn the way I mourned, but it was no use. She only resurfaced to reality to follow the latest anonymous tip or to print the newest set of flyers.

  My wife was dead and my daughter was gone.

  “Did you get any writing done today, honey?”

  Silence.

  Only the slight shake of her head told me what I already knew. Of course she hadn’t. She had not written a word in three years.

  The pretty woman on the television was giving a report about the booming population growth. So many theorists paraded on the news nowadays toting the global-warming and overpopulation line that it was hard to keep them all straight. The message was all the same. We as a species were making too many of ourselves, and with new medicines coming out all the time, people were not dying off like they used to. Soon, the earth would no longer be able to sustain all of us. It was all gloom and doom. None of it mattered too much to me. I had been around for the Cuban missile crisis. I knew what mass panic felt like, especially when it was media generated.

  I tuned in to what the reporter said when she began to talk about how this overpopulation phenomenon was affecting the prison system.

  “It seems that the recent booming population has also begun to affect our already overcrowded prison system. Many prisons are so packed that they have been forced to release some criminals who were charged with nonviolent crimes early, but even then, the prisons in most cases are filled to double what their maximum occupancy should be.

  Riots are at an all-time high. Most experts say this is a direct result of having too many people in a small space without a sufficient amount of guards to keep order. Several states have been petitioning for funds to build more facilities and begin training more specialized personnel to deal with these violent demonstrations.

  In the midst of this chaos, it seems that one prison is setting an example. Just outside the remote town of St. Martinsville, Louisiana there sits the Coteau Holmes Correctional Facility. Coteau Holmes boasts zero riots and escapes in three years, and they have not released any prisoners before their allotted time. They admit that their prison is overcrowded just like any other, but due to diligence and some special programs that are unique to their facility, they’ve managed to adequately handle their burden where most other prisons are failing.”

  Beth nodded in agreement. “That prison deserves a medal.”

  That was the most she had said all week, and I agreed right along with her. We might as well have some solidarity in this house about something.

  Chapter Four

  Emery

  The rickety old bus stopped just short of the giant chain-link fence that surrounded Coteau Holmes Prison with a loud squeal. The other prisoners groaned with disapproval because we had reached our final destination. I didn’t care as much. What was another three years to me? My lawyer got me off easy. Three years for armed robbery was a cake walk, and the funny thing was that I would’ve pegged that judge for a hard-ass. He had had that look about him, and I should know. I’d been in and out of prison since I was seventeen.

  The others groaned because it meant this was the last bit of free air they would breathe for a while, but I knew that time inside was all in how you looked at it, and three years wasn’t so bad.

  The guards came around and shuffled us into a single file line, and I exited the bus the best I could with shackles binding my hands and feet. I had figured a way to sort of swagger with the shackles in an attempt to come across menacing a long time ago. The more guys pegged you as a badass, the fewer problems you had later. The key was keeping your mouth shut, walking like you had nothing to prove and never looking anyone in the face unless they talked to you first. I didn’t know Coteau Holmes, but the basic rules seemed to apply everywhere I went. Surely this place was no different.

  We were lined up single file outside the gate as the guards began to read off the names, and I immediately noticed a difference here. We were in swamp country, and even though the area for the prison had been cleared, there were tall droopy trees everywhere practically sweating Spanish moss. It was hot and sticky with humidity. Just walking out of your front door would make you feel dirty. However, it was not the heat that made this place seem eerie, it was the silence.

  Normally, when new blood arrived at a prison, the other inmates gathered to see what was coming their way. Gangs would scout new members. Tough guys picked out possible allies and enemies. Some placed bets as to who would crack the first week. It was like our version of the NFL draft and the most entertainment we ever got. But at Coteau Holmes not one prisoner stood in the yard waiting for us, and in a strange way, the silence was deafening. In fact, there were hardly any sounds at all. There didn’t even seem to be any birds or animals nearby to break up the quiet. The constant cacophony of crickets and frogs that usually accompanied a swampy setting such as this was non-existent. All you could hear was the even whooshing of the wind through the trees. Nothing else dared to make a whisper. What was this place?

  “Emery Thornton?”

  The sudden sound of the guard calling my name made me jump a little. The break in the unsettling silence felt awkward and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

  “Present, sir.”

  He continued down the row, but I tuned him out. This place had me completely off my game. I was now glad that the other inmates were not out here observing. They probably would have pegged me as an easy target with the way I was jumping at things.

  When role was finished, they walked us past the chain-link gate with the barbed wire around the top and through the gated yard. We passed inspection at the outside stone wall and proceeded inside. Once inside, it was routine as usual. We were deloused and given our new uniforms, bed linens and pillows. I looked at the rather tall inmate who handed me the pile of bright orange jumpsuits and said with disgust, “Really? They go with the bright shit here, don’t they?”

  His eyes met mine with a look that I didn’t understand, and then he quickly glanced at the guard positioned about fifteen feet behind me. His eyes looked back to me frightened and wary.

  “They are very comfortable,” he replied in a serious tone. I suddenly noticed how thin this man looked, and I began to wonder how bad the food must be here to warrant such a gaunt-looking figure.

  That was all he said, and I moved on confused. Did the guards really have that much pull over these guys? Sure, I had been to places where the guards were given more free rein than others, but I had never seen another inmate be so afraid to joke about a uniform. I could tell that he had chosen his words very carefully before he spoke them to me. What had I gotten myself into? What had that judge said when he sentenced me? He had been willing to reduce my sentence even though I had been a repeat offender on the condition that I agreed to do my time here. At the time, I had thought nothing of it. Who cares what prison it is? I’d considered it a break to get such a reduced sentence, but now I was thinking that judge knew what he was doing. This place was different.

  We put on our uniforms, and they lined us up again with our linens in hand in front of some large double doors. I looked down at my ugly new uniform and cringed at the thought of wearing it for three years. When they opened the doors, I knew what was next. This was where they walked you down the main stretch of hallway and assigned you your cell, but it was also where all the other inmates got a real good look at you. I was used to the taunts. They would try to make us crack by threatening us with various physical and sexual attacks. This was the walk down Broadway, so I prepared myself and took a deep breath with my emotionless mask held firmly on my face.

&
nbsp; However, when we walked out into the bright lights of Broadway, we were neither greeted with taunts nor lewd remarks. The silence that had begun outside continued in here.

  I squinted into the lights to see if there were any prisoners inside the closed cells. Once my eyes had adjusted, I saw that there were. The cells seem to go down the hall forever and were stacked in four stories. They all stood or squatted in threes and fours against their cell bars just looking at us in silence. Each one mirrored the same look of worry and concern as they watched us walk down the long hallway. No, it was more than worry. It was a look of defeat like a herd of cattle watching the rancher lead off a select few for the slaughter. What was this place, and would I even last the three years here?

  The hall was ending, and I saw that we were headed towards another set of double doors that had a strange ominous feel about them. It was like they had no earthly business being placed in any building where people might live. They belonged in a horror film or a slaughter house. Something felt terribly wrong about going through those doors, and my heart skipped a beat and then began beating again rapidly. Panic seemed to fill me, and even though I had no reason to fear these doors, something about them frightened me to no end.

  One unusually thin fellow on the second floor shook violently at the sight of us, and I looked up to meet his gaze against my better judgment. As soon as I did, his shaking began to get worse despite the fact that two other guys in his cell were trying to hold him down and calm him. He tried to scream something but was muffled by his comrades’ bony hands covering his mouth. The silencing in the cell started to become more of a wrestling match, and the guards stopped us at once while one ran up a nearby staircase to the cell where the skirmish was taking place. Four other guards were coming from other areas to meet him there. The man pulled free of his companions just before the guards reached him, and he began to scream at us.