Do you know what I found sealed in an old wall crevice behind the main sink? A jar of rat poison from the 40s, back when there was no such thing as work place safety, health regulations or anything to do with toxic chemicals. The glorious rat poison from the 40s was created with a single purpose. To kill rats. And it didn’t make a difference whether they were the four-legged ot two-legged varieties. The jar was almost half full with the lethal liquid, used to pour over grains which the rodents would then ingest.
I knew from a school project that I did back in high school, that old-style rat poison was banned because of some of the lethal chemicals they held, Thallium one such product. And do you know how nasty Thallium is? It’s bad; really bad.
All I needed was to find a way to administer the poison into Frank and let it do all the work. The question was how? But it wasn’t a problem for long as I remembered what my job was. Not only was I the billet in this fine establishment, but I was also the contraband smuggler, the person responsible for shipping any goods back to the unit.
Chapter 6
1.
I sometimes wonder whether things could have worked out another way, one that didn’t have to involve so much killing. But the answer was never far away in this place. The daily assaults continuing the prison over. I don’t talk about those much because of the sheer frequency of them. If I did, you’d still be back in the first few chapters of this story.
Prison is a violent place, a lifestyle for those unable to live in a peaceful society, abiding by the rules and laws of the land. And the only way to survive in a place like this is to defend yourself, at whatever cost it took. Frank Crudinski was one such man, unable to live by rules. He needed to make his own and thus created a society based on misery, fear and greed.
But Frank had a weakness, one that I was about to take full advantage of. He had a taste for red wine, the kind often sold in restaurants by the bottle, not the glass. It was his one regular delivery, a single bottle delivered to his cell once a month.
I was no wine connoisseur but his Pinot Noir delivery looked expensive. It was always delivered inside a pillow for added protection and that is exactly how I delivered it to him, because Frank had a doctor’s certificate that entitled him to a fresh pillow each month due to a delicate neck condition. This month’s shipment was guaranteed to fix his neck problem for good.
2.
His latest drink arrived just as it always did, hidden amongst the weekly bedding delivery. I separated it, helped sort the rest of the packages into their respective shelves and took his pillow to the backroom, just as usual. There, I hid it until the appropriate time.
During that day’s mopping safari, I once again spoke at length with Nick, the man looking better after his dice with the Cruds. His bad eye was slowly opening again and it didn’t feel so painful to watch him speak. I told him about my plan and he disagreed with it at first.
“I want the rest of his crew to watch him suffer. To know that we struck him and made him scream in agony like a wounded swine.”
“Oh, he will suffer, of that I assure you. This shit will turn his insides into an amusement park, the rollercoaster tearing him up, one organ at a time. But I can’t be seen as the assassin. I need to keep clean for the others.” He looked unconvinced at first, shaking his head as his lips pursed, turning white. But it didn’t take much for him to hop aboard.
“I get it, Dylan. Just let me know when it’s done.” I nodded, already hearing the clip-clop of shoes walking towards us. I grabbed my mop and pushed the bucket back out into the hallway.
3.
As soon as I had the chance, I returned to my laundry room, left the dirty mop bucket up on the sink and went to the hidden crevice, removing the ancient poison from the darkness. The small jar felt like a true prize as I brought it out into the light.
There was already another tool hidden beside the jar, a syringe that I had managed to steal from one of the nursing trolleys, briefly left unattended while the nurse tended to Nick himself. I’d hoped the needle was long enough for what I needed it for and as I removed it from its hiding hole, saw that it was perfect.
I carefully opened the jar, removed the tip from the syringe and gingerly inserted the needle into the deadly fluid. Poisoning could occur from touching the stuff, so I was careful enough to keep the shit as far from me as possible. I pulled back the plunger, emptied it once to make sure no air was caught inside, then pulled back an entire load of the poison, watching with excited intrigue as the clear liquid filled the syringe.
Footsteps suddenly interrupted my concentration, someone walking down the hall towards my location. The feet sounded light and agile and I guessed they were nurse’s shoes instead of a heavy screw. I held my breath as the steps grew closer, then almost jumped as one of the toilet doors whished open and slammed closed, the person taking a detour into the facilities instead.
I didn’t waste time, setting the syringe down, screwing the cap back on the jar and returned it back into its hidden chamber. I honestly felt like a cold
