“Currently serving life without the possibility of parole, because your offense was judged a hate crime.”
“That’s right. I confessed everything already. I don’t feel the need to do it again,” Hauser said. She turned and stared at the warden. “You want me for this detail or what? I was planning on offing myself anyway looking for a chance. This sounds even better than hanging myself in my cell while seven colored bitches look on and cheer. Let’s get it fucking on.”
Malvern reached down and grabbed the woman’s cheekbones. “You’ll do as I say in all things?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then hush, child, and receive the gift,” Malvern said.
Clara could only stand and watch in horror as the grotesque vignette was repeated again—poison, convulsions, Hauser taken away in a coffin. The other two volunteers went down without any more hesitation than Forbin or Hauser.
In a prison as big as SCI-Marcy how many women would be suicidal? How many were looking at futures without hope, without prospects? These four had volunteered even after seeing Malvern, after seeing what an old and decrepit vampire looked like. They were willing, like the warden, to take the curse even if it meant rotting away forever. It was still better than what they had now. Tomorrow night, Clara knew, there would be more volunteers for option three. When the prisoners saw what brand-new, freshly made vampires looked like—there might be a lot more.
When it was done the warden reached across the desk to pick up the bottle of poison. Malvern snatched it out of her grasp.
“You’re still useful as a mortal,” Malvern explained. “As a human face, should any curious fellows come to the door asking what has happened here.”
The warden nodded, though she didn’t look happy. “Soon,” she said. “You promised me it could happen soon.”
“When faced with eternity in a more perfect form, is not a little time of waiting acceptable? Yes, Augusta. It will come soon enough.”
22.
Laura Caxton was completely lost.
It didn’t surprise her. She’d never seen a map of the prison—prisoners weren’t typically allowed that kind of information. Every time she’d moved around the facility the COs had been there to guide her. She knew in a general way that she was on the western side of the prison. She knew that the main gate was on the eastern side.
There had to be other gates, though. Other ways out.
Her big plan, so far, was to escape. To get out of the prison and find someone in authority and tell them what was going on. If they wanted her to go back and hunt down Malvern, with proper weapons and backup, then fine. If they wanted to return her to custody and take care of the problem themselves, she wouldn’t put up a fight.
The trick, of course, would be breaking out of a maximum-security prison. With no good tools, no guards she could bribe. And in the dark. Malvern had shut off most of the prison’s lights. Maybe she just wanted to conserve electricity—or maybe she knew that Caxton was loose, and wanted to make things difficult for her. Here and there an emergency lighting unit was still blazing away, but Caxton knew those would only last an hour or so before their batteries died. And then she would be trapped in complete darkness, without so much as a window to let in starlight.
“I knew I could count on you, Caxton. I just knew when I saw you, we were going to be buds. I’m your road bitch now, right? The one you get together with even when we’re out of here,” Gert said. “I mean, I guess I have to be, because we’re going to break out together, right? You’re going to need me out there. And I’m going to be so useful to you. This is my big chance. If I can get out now, I’ll still be young enough to have more babies of my own. I knew I could count on you.”
Caxton nodded but didn’t say anything. She wasn’t sure who was listening. She knew exactly who was watching. There were video cameras everywhere in the prison, watching every corner, every hallway, every reinforced door. She had no doubt they had night-vision capability. She knew she had to move quickly, that if she lingered too long in one place it would be easy for Malvern to get a squad of half-deads together and send them her way.
So far she’d been lucky. Beyond the door of the SHU had been a long, featureless corridor that led to a hub area, a place where three hallways crossed each other. It was the perfect place to put a guard detail, and in fact the prison’s designers had built a defensive post in the middle of the hub, a guard post with narrow windows and gun ports and thick cinder-block walls. It had been empty when Caxton arrived. Maybe, she thought, Malvern just didn’t have enough half-deads to cover the entire prison.
She’d learned a long time ago that hoping for anything like that, anything that would make her life easier, was a trap. You had to expect the absolute worst, and capitalize on what little bits of luck you found, but never depend on them.
Of the three hallways she could explore, two had been sealed off with barred gates. The gates could be opened remotely or with an actual key. Harelip hadn’t possessed such a key, she knew—she’d searched the dead CO’s body—and the remote controls were, she was certain, heavily guarded. She’d tried the third hallway. There was a big fire door at the end of that one, but it opened easily when she pushed on it.
“This feels bad,” Caxton said, out loud, when she looked at the empty corridor that lay beyond. It was lined with doors, normal doors with doorknobs and everything. No one was guarding that hallway. There weren’t any guard posts watching the place where the hall turned a corner. “There is one door that’s open, and it’s completely unguarded. It feels like a trap.”
“Don’t be such a pussy,” Gert said, pushing past Caxton to head down the darkened hallway. “I thought you were the big tough vampire killer, who never waited for backup, who went into vampire lairs with guns blazing —”
“That’s when I had decent guns,” Caxton explained. “You know, assault rifles with cross-point bullets. One stupid move right now and both of us are dead. And you might have just made a stupid move.”
Gert looked down at her feet as if expecting to find the floor littered with bear traps. “Nope, don’t look like it.” She marched over to the nearest door and, before Caxton could stop her, turned the knob and stepped through.
“Wait, just—” Caxton called.
“This one’s clear,” Gert said. “Just a bunch of boxes and shit.”
Caxton stepped over to the door and brought up her shotgun. She stepped inside and swung the weapon from side to side, daring any half-dead to come jumping out of its hiding place. When that didn’t happen she went over to the pile of boxes and tore one open. It was full of cans of peaches in heavy syrup.
“This must be a storage area,” Caxton said. She went to the next door down the hall and repeated her drill of sweeping the room with her shotgun before approaching the boxes inside. She broke open several of them and studied the contents. Powdered milk. Sliced beets. Sweet peas. The next room down was full of plastic-wrapped pallets of the plastic trays the cafeteria used.
“We must be close to the kitchens—you store food near where you’re going to prepare it,” Caxton announced.
Gert used her hunting knife to cut open a can of pineapple. She slurped a couple slices into her mouth and chewed noisily. “This is good stuff. How do they take good stuff like this and turn it into that shit they serve us at mealtimes?” Gert asked.
“Maybe—maybe this is a positive thing,” Caxton went on, ignoring her celly “If this is a storage area, then there has to be a way for people to bring boxes in and out. They must off-load delivery trucks close to here—there might be a loading dock right here. Maybe that’s a way out.”
