A. L. Kaplan

Tag: prison

  • AIN’T GOOD

    crow composit

    “Look at all them owls in that tree,” said Lowell. His jowls wobbled as he wiped sweat from his face with an already soaked and disgusting orange sleeve.

    Harvey wrinkled his nose. The putrid scent blowing down the hill wasn’t much worse than Lowell’s odor. If he didn’t still need the despicable little man, Harvey would have strangled him on sight.

    “They’re vultures,” said Harvey. “Owls ain’t up in daytime and don’t flock like that.”

    “Well they stink. I don’t wanna go this way.”

    “It’s this or rot in prison.”

    Lowell continued to whine. “You said you had a way out, a secret way.”

    “I do,” said Harvey, as he trudged to the top of the ridge and gazed at the vultures.

    Lowell joined him a moment later, gasping from the exertion, eyes closed. It was a full two minutes before Lowell opened his eyes and saw the partially decomposed bodies strewn under the tree. Their telltale orange jumpsuits marked them as prisoners. His meaty hands grasped Harvey’s arm.

    “Those are guys who supposedly escaped.” Lowell’s voice rose in pitch. “They’re dead! We’re gonna die!”

    “No, Lowell,” said Harvey. “WE ain’t gonna die.”

    Dozens of beady black eyes watched as Harvey cut Lowell’s throat and pushed him against the tree. Blood coated the bark, which began to glow.

    “Hurting little girls ain’t good, Lowell. Judge went too easy for what you did to my sister.”

    Harvey watch Lowell’s eyes widen as the birds descended then stepped through the portal.

  • TREASURE’S KEEP

    Treaure ChestTaranto surveyed the old warehouse and shook his head. Random letters, squiggles, and a cartoon mummy decorated its surface. Hard to believe he loaded trucks here as a kid thirty years ago. The entire neighborhood was abandoned and crumbling.  At least the warehouse hadn’t been bulldozed.

    If only he’d stayed strait. He and his friends missed one little camera on their last heist, an important detail that got them ten years in prison. Taranto learned to keep his mouth shut in there. The other guys mouthed off too many times. Now the entire treasure was his.

    Roaches and rats scurried around as he stepped inside the old building. A sudden ripping sound made Taranto’s skin prickle. He paused and looked around. Seeing no one, he resumed counting paces. Strange shuffling noises increased with each step.

    Eager to find the money and the odd gold medallion hidden there, Taranto pushed his growing panic away and ran the map through his mind. Forty two steps from the door. Turn left. Walk another twelves steps. Sweat dripped down his back as he pried up the concrete slab and dug the box out of the gravel. His fingers caressed the old Egyptian medallion.

    “It’s about time you came back.”

    Taranto spun around. His chest felt like it was going to explode. The painted mummy from outside stood right behind him, arms crossed. He stumbled away from the cloth wrapped monster and tripped over the shovel. With his backside stuck in the newly dug hole, all he could do was flail his arms and legs as the mummy advanced. A scream caught in his throat.

    “Don’t wet yourself,” said the mummy, as he grabbed Taranto’s swinging hand and pulled him to his feet.

    Taranto’s legs felt like rubber. “But…But you’re a mummy.”

    “Darn fairytales,” mumbled the mummy. “I’m not going to eat you like a genie. Those guys are evil, really bad news. Mummies are nice guys. You have the medallion, so congratulations. You get three wishes. Make them count.”

     

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  • S’SERPYC

    Shredded wood bobbles in the water near my oasis of dry land. Cousin Jack’s name blazes across what’s left of his johnboat. My heart sinks. He was supposed to meet me here, rescue me from that demented prison.

    “You didn’t really think this little prison break would work, did you, Bobby?” says Warden Carson. “We’ve had this place staked out all week.”

    I spin around. The warden drags Jack’s mangled body from behind the ancient cypress and dumps it on the ground. One of the warden’s hounds sits next to him, Jack’s severed arm clenched in its mouth. I’ve had first-hand experience with that hell hound and its friends. Scabs and old burns still decorate my body.

    Tears sting my eyes, but there’s no time to grieve. Turning a blind eye before got me sent away on trumped up charges. Carson had to be stopped. My bare feet press into the island’s soft mud. I was raised in this swamp, know things the warden doesn’t. I reach for the swamp’s pulse, the life that most people don’t notice. Energy surges. The hairs stand up on my arms.

    “Help,” I whisper. “I beseech you.”

    Carson laughs. “Ain’t no one here to help you now, Bobby.”

    But there is. The cypress groans, bends as if struck by a sharp wind. Two moss covered branches swoop down on the warden and his pet. A scream—then nothing. I fall to my knees. A mossy hand touches my bowed head, fills me with its power.

    “Thank you, mighty S’serpyc, spirit of the trees.”

    My new path lies back at the prison. This time there is no hesitation.

  • The Golden Castle

    “Get in there, English scum,” said the guard as he shoved John into the tiny stone cell of El Castillo de Oro, or as the inmates called it, The Place of Bones. “I don’t care how many prisons you’ve escaped from, you’re not leaving here until you’re rotted bones.”

    John held out his hands. “My good man, you seem to have forgotten to remove my shackles.”

    “You want them off so bad, start chewing.” The guard slammed the door shut and left.

    Unfazed, John smiled at the man across the hall. “Greetings. To whom have I the pleasure of addressing?”

    “Only the gentleman pirate, John Deane, talks like that. Paul’s me name. You done gotten in too deep this time, Mr. Deane. There’s no escapin’ this place.”

    “Don’t be so sure, Paul.”

    John knew the history of this prison and the English translation. There was far more to the Golden Castle’s name than the stones, which shimmered gold in the setting sun. He extracted a pencil sized cylinder from its hiding place and gave it a few twists. Off popped the shackles, then the door lock clicked open. Casually, he stepped into the hallway and walked deeper into the prison. At each cell he released prisoners by pointing the cylinder.

    “You’re going the wrong way,” said Paul.

    “You can continue to the traditional exit and die,” said John. “Or you may come with me and walk away with as much Spanish gold as you can carry.”

    Paul glanced at the prisoners who ran for the exit, then back at John. “Gold?”

    John knew the lure of gold would do its trick. He smiled as Paul and a few others followed him into the bowels of El Castillo de Oro. Escaping the prison and finding the gold was easy. Convincing his new crew to go through the portal would be the challenge.

  • Freedom’s Landing

    Still propelled from his cliff leap, Ramone smacked face down onto a snowdrift only to look up into a maelstrom of flakes. Nothing but swirling white met his eyes. The sweat on his body froze into an icy sheen that fell in crackling shards as he moved. Ramone’s belly twisted. At least in that dreadful island prison he hadn’t frozen. Fifteen years, wasted, imprisoned for opening a portal into the wrong world. All he wanted was to go home.

    Beneath him the ground lurched, tossing Ramone into the air before dumping him back into the snow. Earthquakes and freezing cold. What hellish world had he landed in this time? He brushed away as many flakes as he could and trudged forward. There were no more spell components, but he’d come too far to give up now. Eyes down and half closed against the biting wind, he continued moving. It was all he could do. All he had left was hope.

    Something hard smacked his forehead, nearly knocking him over. Ramone looked up, his brow wrinkled in confusion. Behind him the storm raged, but in front, a bright open space. There was no rock, no wall, only an invisible barrier. He pushed against the smooth surface, moving along its length while his heart galloped. Step by step he broke trail through the snow drifts, stopping only when he reached a set of prints identical to his own. Tears streamed down his face, freezing as they fell. A rat, caught in a crystal cage.

  • Freedom Jump

    “Quae me domum ad locum regione viarum.”

    Ramone spoke the words of the spell as he ran, praying that the improvised components he had collected would work. Powdered rat liver just wasn’t the same as that from a hippogriff. Same went for the cockroach legs he had substituted for locust. But it was all he had.

    Vines tangled his feet, sending him crashing into the hard packed dirt and rock. He muttered curses as the spell slipped from his grasp. Ignoring the lancing pain in his knees, he scrambled to his feet and continued to run. Only once had he seen the outside of the island prison, fifteen years ago when they had shipped him here, but he had heard plenty of stories through the years about the snake infested jungle and deadly cliff that sandwiched the place.

    That same cliff loomed ahead. The other inmates called it the leap to freedom. Ramone had no more desire to die than he wished to rot in a dark stone cell. He wanted true freedom. It had taken years to dig a tunnel under the walls. Now his only hope lay in a handful of junk and a half remembered spell. Behind him the hounds closed in, close enough to hear their panting.

    Grasping the last of the components, Ramone repeated the spell.  This was his last chance.

    “Quae me domum ad locum regione viarum.”

    He leaped from the cliff’s edge just as the portal opened and disappeared into the void.

  • Greener Pastures

    Swallows flitted across the meadow on the far side of the fence. Henrietta leaned her head on the barrier and watched them soar. It was so much greener over there. Of course everything else looks greener when you’re stuck in prison. Gertrude and Mildred didn’t care. They were too dumb to notice, but Henrietta noticed. Ever since the night those strange creatures flew down from the stars and poked at her, Henrietta had begun to look at her life in ways she never even considered. It was as if a door had opened in her mind.

    Most of the other cows thought only of chewing their cud, content to be herded to the machine that stole milk meant for their children. They didn’t even realize they were in a prison camp. All the other cows saw was limitless food. No matter that their children were taken away. Even Henrietta had forgotten about her calf until the strangers helped remind her.

    And when the cows stop producing milk, what then? There was no happy retirement for their lifetime of slave labor. Dried up cows got trucked away, never to be seen again.

    Well, Henrietta wasn’t going to wait to be taken to the slaughterhouse. She was going to escape and fly free like the swallows, maybe even find her calf. The plan was ready. Her rabbit friends had loosened the fence post. All she needed to do now was convince the bear to yank it down. Shouldn’t be hard at all.