Apocalypse Island (4 page)

“It’s not a case of need, Kaleigh. There’s shit in my head, pure and simple. I don’t know how it got there and I can’t seem to get it out.”

Kaleigh smiled. “You need a fixer.”

“Don’t start.”

“Yeah, okay, I get the picture. You ain’t interested.”

“It’s not that. It’s just—”

“Stop!” Kaleigh said. “I don’t want to hear this. Let me have my fantasies. Besides, soon you’ll no longer be my problem.”

Wolf gave the guard a sidelong glance. “Why do you say that?”

“Word is, they’re gonna’ spring you.”

Wolf chuckled. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”

“Well, I’ve got a funny feeling this time it might be true,” said Jarvis. “There’s rumors around prison.”

“How come I haven’t heard them?”

“You don’t talk to people.”

“More like they don’t talk to me.”

“Same difference.”

When they reached the warden’s door, Jarvis looked both ways up and down the corridor before getting up on her tip toes and kissing Wolf tenderly on the mouth. Wolf did not pull away even as Jarvis’ tongue intruded and her lips lingered longer than they should have. “Good knowing you, Danny boy,” she said, pulling away, tasting her lips with her tongue. “I’m really gonna miss you.”

“Yeah, me too,” Wolf said and meant it.

“Maybe we could get together sometime on the outside,” Jarvis said. “You know, for coffee or something.” She stood back, a slight flush covering her face.

“I’d like that,” Wolf replied. “But I still think you’re being overly optimistic.”

“I told you, I’ve got this feeling.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“We’ll see, won’t we? So, here you go. Break a leg. And, Danny,” Jarvis whispered in a small, conspiratorial voice.

“Yeah?”

“Watch your attitude, okay? The warden’s an asshole, everybody knows it. If you have any illusions about actually getting out of this hellhole, humor him.” Jarvis turned and walked away.

Chapter 6

Wolf rapped lightly on the door. A guard from within opened it and stood aside.

“Come in, Wolf,” said the man behind the desk, flashing a fake smile. His name was Starkey and Wolf wasn’t the only inmate in Warren who’d dreamed of taking him apart. “Sit down, Wolf. Do you remember Dr. Hardwick?”

Wolf scrutinized the other man in the room. The suit was tailored, the fingernails manicured. He looked to be late middle-age, maybe sixty, solid but of medium build with a full head of wavy gray hair. His blue eyes were hard and unforgiving but filled with an inquiry that seemed more than just casual. He wore his small square-rimmed glasses down on his nose. Finally Wolf shook his head. “Nope, don’t believe I do.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yup.”

“He testified at your trial, Mr. Wolf.”

“I have a practice in Portland,” Hardwick added.

Wolf continued to stare at the man. Then he did remember. Hardwick had been bought by the prosecution, paid to spin ambiguities into warped truths. It happened all the time, should be illegal but wasn’t. There had been no real relevance to his testimony as far as Wolf was concerned; it was only vaguely general. Hardwick had no actual evidence of Wolf’s guilt or innocence, but he’d spewed just enough shrink psychobabble to cluster fuck the jury into a guilty verdict.

“Right,” Wolf said. “So, what’s the asshole want with me?”

“Dr. Hardwick is a psychiatrist,” the warden explained, his fake smile turning bland.

“Yeah, so?”

Starkey cleared his throat. “He has done some fine work here at the prison and for reasons that are beyond my comprehension he has taken an interest in your case.”

“Oh?” Wolf said.

“How much have you told Mr. Wolf?” the psychiatrist asked.

“I’ve told him nothing,” Starkey replied, “only because I do not wish to get his hopes up.” He looked dubiously at Wolf. “The doctor here thinks he has a solution to all our problems.”

“Oh, I see,” said Wolf. “What problems might those be?”

“Don’t play coy with me, Wolf.”

Wolf shrugged.

“Your little...psychotic episodes,” Starkey said.

“They’re not psychotic episodes,” Wolf replied.

“What are they then?”

“Bad dreams.”

The warden made a face. The kind someone makes when they have indigestion. “That’s not what your discipline reports suggest.”

“They happen when I sleep. I don’t know why. I’ve never hurt anyone—”

“So you say, but I figure it’s only because you’ve been locked up alone in your cell. If not for that, someone would surely have been injured by your hand before now.”

Wolf’s eyes flamed. “Bullshit,” he said through clenched teeth. “You don’t know anything about me! I have some kind of sickness, that’s all. I hear things. Sometimes I see things—”

“Oh, I see,” said Starkey. “This supposed sickness turns you into a mad man. Is that it? It causes you to move objects with your mind and make the electricity go on and off?”

Wolf jumped to his feet. “I have never maliciously hurt anyone,” he said.

The warden’s eyes shone with both fear and dull hate. “And I suppose this little jaunt in Warren is just a vacation. You’re in here for manslaughter, Wolf. You killed another human being.”

Wolf frowned. “I hit the guy. I never denied that. But I didn’t kill him. I was set up.” Wolf stopped, knowing it was a lame and overused defense. He hadn’t been believed at the trial, and of course he wouldn’t be believed now, maybe never. Just the same, the knowledge of his innocence and its subsequent denials were the only things left in his life that held any meaning. Everything else, including his dignity, had been stolen from him.

“Yes, Mr. Wolf, that’s what all the inmates here say. What about the little floozy you claimed witnessed the event. The one whose testimony you claimed could clear you. What do you suppose happened to her?”

“I don’t know.”

“It seems she disappeared from the face of the earth.”

“You’re insinuating I had something to do with that? You know something? You’re full of shit! You’re all full of shit!” Wolf took an angry step toward the warden. The guard who had been standing quietly by the door took a couple of tentative steps toward Wolf, his hand moving toward the wand on his belt.

Starkey held up his hand to stop the guard’s advance. “Sit down, Wolf,” he said, “or I’ll have you hauled out of here in irons.”

The psychiatrist cleared his throat in an attempt to silence the banter. “Please,” he said. “If I may?” The warden’s hate-filled eyes shifted from Wolf to Hardwick.

Wolf backed up and sat down stiffly. “I never hurt anyone,” he said again.

“Mr. Wolf,” Hardwick said. “Truth is you were convicted of a violent crime. And you have shown a propensity for violence while here at Warren. It’s all here in your discipline reports: fights in the prison yard, threats against other inmates—”

“They all deserved it—”

“Yes, Mr. Wolf, I’ve heard all that before. It is part of the reason you were moved to an isolation cell. It is probably why you are still here at Warren. But the most intriguing part of it is the violent behavior in the middle of the night that seems to be directed at no one in particular. Can you explain these episodes?”

“No.”

“No matter. The only way for you to get an early parole is if you agree to psychiatric counseling.”

“You know nothing about me.”

“Irrelevant,” said the warden.

“I know some, Mr. Wolf,” the psychiatrist said. “I have gone back and reviewed the events leading up to your arrest, the trial transcripts and your subsequent sentencing, as well as your record while here at Warren. And the truth is, I’m quite baffled by it all.”

“Oh, I get it,” Wolf said. “You want to dissect me, find out what makes me tick.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” the warden said.

“I want to get to the bottom of your pathos, Mr. Wolf,” the psychiatrist said, ignoring the warden’s comment. “And that is the truth. Now, I have talked to the correctional board here at Warren and to the judge who sentenced you, and together they have agreed to an accelerated release date provided you agree to certain...conditions.”

“Conditions?”

“Correct,” interrupted the warden. “You’ll stay out of trouble. The first hint of a violent act and you’re back in here. Got it? You’ll find a job, you’ll see a parole officer on a regular basis, and you’ll see the shrink—ah, I mean Dr. Hardwick, once a week.” Starkey shot the psychiatrist a petulant little smirk.

  Hardwick went back to Wolf’s file. “Let’s see, do you have any siblings, Mr. Wolf?”

Wolf stared at the Doctor. “No.”

“No?”

“At least none that I know of. I never knew who my real parents were. I was raised in a Catholic orphanage until I was about eight years old. But I have no memory of that time.”

“None at all?”

“Nope.”

“Interesting,” said the doctor. “Tell me, how do you know you were in an orphanage?”

Wolf shrugged. “I don’t know. Someone from my past told me. Maybe it was one of my asshole foster parents. Listen, I don’t really give a shit.”

“I see,” said the doctor. “Do you remember why you left the orphanage?”

Wolf frowned. “I don’t even remember being there, so I sure as shit don’t remember why I left.”

“So after the orphanage you ended up in the State foster care system.”

“Yeah, a real enlightening experience.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“It sucked. No one really wanted me. I went from home to home until I was old enough to escape.”

Expressionless, Hardwick wrote something on his notepad and made no reply.

“What’s this got to do with anything?” Wolf said.

“Information I’ll need when we start our sessions, Mr. Wolf.  We will be going deep into the recesses of your psyche. We’ll fish around and see what we can pull to the surface. Do you like to fish, Mr. Wolf?”

“No,” Wolf replied.

“No matter,” Hardwick said. “Fishing is my job and I’m quite good at it. I’ve landed some lunkers in my day.” He smiled at his own lame analogy. “I’ll need to know a lot about your life.”

Wolf smirked. “Good luck.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“There’s not much to know.”

“Oh, I think you are wrong about that, Mr, Wolf. I think there’s much more to your life than meets the eye.”

Wolf glared at the doctor for a long moment. “How often did you say I’d be required to see you?” he asked.

“Once a week for a year,” answered Starkey.

Wolf didn’t offer the warden the courtesy of another glance. “Is that it?” he asked, his gaze still fixed on the psychiatrist.

“Pardon?” said Hardwick.

“I mean, will there be any other limitations?”

“You’ll be required to see a parole officer, of course,” said the doctor, giving the warden an uncertain glance. “And I assume that you’ll be randomly tested for illegal substances. As far as I know there’ll be nothing else.”

“After six months you’ll be reevaluated,” added the warden. “Bear in mind that when you are through with the psychiatric counseling you’ll still have three years of probation left to serve. If you screw up even once you’re back in here and your ass is mine. Understood?”

“When can I get out?”

The warden shaped a tedious smile. “The arrangements are being made as we speak,” he said. “I think by the start of the weekend—barring any unforeseen obstacles—you’ll be a reasonably free man.”

Chapter 7

The night before Danny Wolf left Warren State Prison he dreamed he came awake in his cell not as a man but as a monster. He was nearly twice his normal size and his body was completely covered in thick dark hair. He was angry and he could not speak. He needed someone to see and understand the injustice of what he’d become so he got up and began shaking the bars of his cell. When no one came to his rescue he began to roar with anger. Still no one came so he easily ripped the bars from the wall and stepped out of his cell, thundering down the cell block, shaking the bars of his fellow inmate’s cells.
Look what I’ve become,
he thought with indignity, trying to speak the words, but he could not form them on his tongue and they came out as a series of grunts and groans.
Can’t somebody help me?
All he received were stares of indifference from his fellow prisoners. Could they not see what he’d become? Was this some sort of joke? Out of frustration he began laying waste to everything in sight, ripping down cell doors, turning over bunks and throwing personal possessions about. When men tried to stop him he pulled them apart like so much raw meat.

Eventually the guards came, beat him to the floor, put him in shackles and took him away. Starkey was there, and he said,
See, Wolf, I knew you were dangerous. I knew you’d fuck everything up and end up spending the rest of your life in this shit hole.
The warden laughed gleefully. Dr. Hardwick stood beside him, his glasses down on his nose staring reprovingly at Wolf.

“No,” Wolf said, looking from one man to the next. “It wasn’t me. It was someone else.”

Don’t be stupid, Wolf,
Starkey said.
You killed people. We have a hundred witnesses.

“But it wasn’t me, I tell you.”

Who then?

“Someone who lives inside me.”

What the hell are you talking about, Wolf?

“I don’t know. I can’t explain it.”

Tell it to the judge,
Starkey said.

“No,” Wolf cried again. “It wasn’t me, I swear, I didn’t do it,” and he realized he was awake in his bed,  sweat-soaked and out of breath, staring up at the dark ceiling.

He lay awake for the rest of that long night, thinking about the large, hairy beast that lived inside him, not daring to sleep, afraid he might dream again and the dream would become real. He was still awake when the first stirrings of a gloomy and wretched dawn began to spill into his cell announcing his first day of freedom in nearly five years.  

Chapter 8