Heslip…come slamming up againmmi/p›
And in that grim instant, before he was yanked away, Parks saw that Heslip was drenched red like somebody had dipped him in red ink and his body…broken and contorted, his face a bleeding husk, entirely fleshless like somebody had carved the meat away with a knife.
Then Heslip was yanked back and away.
Parks’ flashlight was jumping in his hand, the light creating leaping night-shapes and it was impossible to say what was happening in there. And although he didn’t know it, it had been less than ten seconds since he’d approached #75. But everything was pulled out like taffy, becoming nightmarish and surreal. All those cons raging in their chorus of dementia and Parks hearing slobbering, hungry sounds from inside the cell and the clattering resonation of things like teeth on bones and nails clicking and scraping. Crazy, insane shit. His bobbing flashlight was showing him blood and motion and anger, something slashing around in there, writhing and shrieking. A glistening, whipping helix of gas and flesh and pulsating ropes, pissing steam and gray jelly.
And then Parks heard something that slapped him back into reality: the clicking of the cell lock. The door began to slide back and Parks, crying out with everything he had into the walkie-talkie said, “Close that fucking door! Close that fucking door you goddamn asshole close it!”
The door stopped and began shutting now.
It had only made it maybe three feet, but it was enough. Enough for something to slink out, a mass of pink translucent tentacles like things that might belong to a jellyfish. They coiled out like blind worms, searching, feeling their way along and then Parks did scream. They got within three feet of his left boot and then the door closed on them, trapping them there and finally severing them in a spray of inky fluid that stank like rotting fish. In the cell, that abomination let go with a keening, reverberating squeal like a dozen teakettles whistling simultaneously. The severed tentacles looped obscenely like worms in direct sunlight and Parks dropped his light and was screaming into his walkie-talkie for them to turn on the lights, turn on the main fucking lights, and the cons all around him were bellowing out prayers to Jesus and Mother Mary and then those lights came on. Exploded with a brilliance that made Parks squeeze his eyes shut.
And the thing in there began wailing as if it had been doused with acid as the light found it. There was smoke and fog and a mist of blood and that thing shrieking with rage and hatred, then a grinding/groaning sound of metal ripping and bolts snapping off. By the time Parks could get a good look, he saw that whatever it was, was gone. It had peeled the cover off the radiator vent and slir v might bpped into the ventilation system.
Sergeant Warres was there then, wanting to know what in Christ was going on, what the hell had happened this time. But then he saw the slaughterhouse in #75, the bones and meat and blood and he turned away.
“What the hell was it?” he put to Parks.
And Parks just shook his head, eyes bulging and drool hanging from his mouth. “It…it was pissed off,” he managed.
19
Warden Linnard put Palmquist down in solitary for his own protection. The cons had made the connection between what had happened at Brickhaven and what was happening here and now at Shaddock Valley. And that morning, after the slayings of Heslip and Burgon, about twenty cons half out of their mind with terror jumped the kid in the mess hall and beat him senseless before the guards put the whole thing down. As it was, Palmquist needed thirty stitches and his left arm had to be put in a sling.
“Listen,” Linnard told him. “I don’t like this shit that’s coming down here. These men want to kill you and they will, given the chance, so I’m placing you under protective custody. Not in the PC cells, but down in the hole. It’s the most secure environment we have and, pending a state investigation, that’s where you’re going to stay.”
The warden told Palmquist that he didn’t know if he was responsible for any of that shit or not and he honestly couldn’t see how he could have been, but into the hole he was going. For safekeeping. The warden had trouble like he’d never seen before. The cons were out of their heads and jailhouse lawyers were writing up writs and lawsuits against the Department of Correction. And the DOC was all over Linnard’s ass and the state had ruled that the Shaddock Valley complex was to be off-limits to the press until further notice.
And in the prison, tensions seethed and boiled and slowly came to a head, feeding off long-standing gripes and unanswered complaints about treatment and living conditions.
Romero knew what was coming.
They all knew what was coming. Except maybe Linnard. If he had sensed what was about to happen, he would have placed the entire prison in lock-down.
The warden chose Romero to bring Palmquist his meals, thought maybe the sight of his cellmate would make the kid feel less like he was being punished and more like he was being given special treatment. Romero didn’t want to pull that bit, but he knew if he refused, the warden would get on the hacks and the hacks would get on him.
So he brought Palmquist his supper-greasy green bean casserole and a few wedges of rye bread that were more rye than bread-and the hack let him in, let him sit in there with the kid for a few moments, even shut the door behind him.
Palmquist didn’t look so good, what with the contusions and the stitches and the cast on his arm. But it was more than just the beating he took. His face was moon-white and his eyes were ponds of black, simmering liquid sunken into red-rimmed sockets. To Romero he looked like a guy coming off heroin, like his soul had been milked dry.
He didn’t say anything at first, so Romero said, “Tell me about it, Cherry. Tell me all about it.”
But the kid did not lift his head. “I…can you get me some speed, Romero? Some Dexedrine or uppers? Caffeine pills even? Anything like that? Something that’ll keep me awake, I don’t care what it is.”
“Probably,” Romero told him. “If I can get it past the hog out there.”
“If you can’t do that, get me a fucking razor.”
Romero just watched him. Suicidal now. He had sunken that low. Romero knew, of course, what had happened to Heslip and Burgon. He’d heard all about it that morning. But unlike the affair with Weems, Romero had slept through it…with a little help from some sedatives. “You think that’s the answer, Cherry? Pills and razors?”
“I can’t go to sleep,” Palmquist said in a cool, lifeless voice. “Maybe not ever again, but sure as hell not tonight.”
“Why is that?”
“You know why.”
Romero figured he did. “I heard it,” he said, sighing. “I heard it the night it got Weems. I heard something up there with you and you know what, Cherry? It scared the piss right out of me. I heard that business up in your bunk, but I didn’t have the balls to go and look.”
“I’m glad you didn’t, he…”
“Yes?”
Palmquist just shook his head. “I hated Weems and Gordo, those other two…”
“Nothing but trash, Cherry. Human trash.”
“…yeah, sure, but ah,-us' heigyou gotta believe me, Romero, I never meant for them to…oh Jesus, this has gone way too far and I’m to blame. All those cons, they fucking hate me and they want me dead. I wish they’d killed me this morning.” He said it and he meant it, too, you could hear the pain in his voice. “Funny, ain’t it? All day long I been wishing they’d killed me. It’s the only thing that sounds good to me right now.”
Romero thought about it long and hard. He lit a cigarette, blew the smoke out through his nostrils. “Tell me something, Cherry. Whatever’s going on with you, it’s happened before, hasn’t it? I mean, c’mon, this…whatever in the fuck it is…it can’t be a new thing.”
“It’s not.”
“It targets your enemies, doesn’t it?”
“Anything it thinks is a threat to me.”
Romero put a hand on his arm, said, “C’mon, kid, what the hell is this about?”
