Storm Tide Rising: Blackout Volume 2 (44 page)

Without another word, Senator MacArthur turned and headed for the door. He half expected the President to call out and stop him, but there was only silence behind him as his footfalls on the black and white marble floor echoed in the domed chamber. At the doors, two of the guards stood and hesitated, looking over Senator MacArthur's head before opening to doors for him to leave.

Back in the hallway, the guards that had accompanied him on the way to the early dinner meeting waited. They formed a grid around him once more as he walked through the corridors and hallways. None of them spoke a word or even acknowledged his presence in their midst, other than going out of their way to avoid getting closer to him than a couple of steps.

As they walked, Senator MacArthur looked once more through the windows and out onto the National Mall. Even though he couldn't have been with the President for more than a half hour, the shadows on the broad open greenway had stretched nearly from side to side. Already cooking fires had been lit among the rows of tents that the President's army had worked hard to raise.

At one of the windows, Senator MacArthur paused for a moment. A steady flow of what appeared to be civilian refugees was trickling in from the side streets that opened onto the Mall, and they were being directed by men in blue and black uniforms to a large pavilion tent that stood at the corner of the Mall closest to the Capitol building. A line of ragged looking people stretched from that tent to the edge of the Mall, where it turned and ran out of sight under the trees. As Senator MacArthur watched, the people continued to come in alone or in small, huddled groups.

One of the guards with a few stripes of rank on his right shoulder stepped up to the Senator and looked out the window as well. After a moment, he nodded, turned to the Senator, and said with a cold smile, "Recruitment center."

Ch.74

To Pass The Time

Cage carefully watched the man and his son walk through the intersection. The man went first, checking both side streets, and then waited at the other corner while his son crossed. They carried rifles like they knew how to use them, but most people were doing the same thing these days. That didn't necessarily mean they were bad people, just that they'd done what they thought was necessary, or maybe warranted.

Either way, they were people, and they were worth talking to, so he stepped out onto the road behind them, his hands held high over his head. "Excuse me," Cage said as calmly as he could, "Would ya'll mind some company?"

The man spun instantly, his rifle coming halfway up as his head swiveled from side to side checking for any additional threats. He was tense, but controlled, like a coiled spring. His son was slower to turn, and he looked anxious.

"Are you alone?" the man asked, and he nodded. "Any weapons or anything I should know about?"

"I got a pack with a little skinnin knife in it," Cage said, "but it's not easy to get to and wouldn't do much but scratch you pretty good anyway."

The man looked at his son, who shrugged, then he turned back. "Okay, but you go when we tell you to go, got it?"

Cage nodded and stuck out a large, weathered hand. "They call me Cage," he said.

"I'm Joe," the man said, and he motioned to the young man. "This is my son, Eric. That your given name, Cage?"

Cage smiled and shook his head. "Nah, The name my momma gave me was Gauge," he said with a grin. "Everyone else called me Cage long as I can remember, but I don’t recollect why. Even momma started calling me that after a while, and it just stuck from there, I guess."

Joe frowned. "Where are you from, Cage?"

"I been here in Chatham all my life," Cage replied. "Moved around a bit when I was a boy. For the last thirty three years, though, I been a resident of the Chatham County Correctional Facility."

Joe stopped suddenly, and he fixed Cage with a hard stare. His hands didn't twitch and his rifle didn't move, but Cage was suddenly a lot more aware that he was holding it. The man had salt and pepper hair that looked like it was black not long ago, and he was strong despite the lines on his face.

Cage nodded. "Fair enough," he said, "I can't really blame you for that. You know, when I told you I wasn't sure why people called me Cage, I was only half truthful with you. I'm not sure why they started, but I heard it a lot of times that it was cause that's where everyone figured I'd end up living, was in a cage. Maybe people just made that up after, I don't know, but that's what I heard."

Cage shook his head sadly. "You know, you hear a thing enough times, you start believing it's true. Like it's something that you know you can't ever outrun or out last. Eventually you end up finding a way to make that thing come to pass, and make it happen cause you think it's got to or something."

"Anyway, that's where I wound up, in a cage," the man said with a deep breath. "I ain't gonna say I didn't deserve it, cause I did. I earned every bit of it. I resigned myself to that a long time ago when I found Jesus and let the Lord into my life. Forgiveness don't mean you come out the other side like it didn't happen. You carry some shit with you, and you can't help that. Even Paul had his baggage he couldn't put down."

Cage's voice got quiet, and despite the warm afternoon sunshine, Joe thought it seemed awful cold. "I always knew I was gonna die in there; I just figured it was gonna be somewhere down the road. I'd get sick and go out slow and painful, or I'd get weak and go out quick and painful. Either way, I figured I had at least a while...."

Cage trailed off, and his eyes had a haunted look to them as he was silent for a moment.

"When the lights went out, the doors all locked down on their own," he said with an eerie detachment. "I'd seen it happen before in riots and lockdowns. They'd cut the power to the building so the inmates couldn't start fires, or electrocute people. Stuff like that. Whenever that power was cut the magnetic relays flipped and all the locks hit at once. They called it a hard lockdown."

"The worst one I was ever in lasted four days back in the mid eighties," Cage said, "but that was nothing compared to this. It just went on and on and on without ever stoppin. Pretty soon our water tower was running low. The food that didn't spoil started running out too, and we were eating more rice, beans, and potatoes than anything."

"Then one day they didn't serve dinner," Cage said, his face locked in a stony mask. "The next day we didn't get breakfast. Half the guards left that night and just never came back. When the water ran out two days later, the other half left too. One morning I woke up and looked out in the hall. The gates closing off the block were open, the keys still in them, but every single cell was shut."

Even the birds seemed to have fallen silent around them as Cage told his tale. The sun, bright and golden, was low on the western horizon behind Joe's left shoulder.

"I was in the security wing," Cage said. "Not quite The Row, but close. We was all lifers and knew it, so there won't any playin around. You either kept quiet and to yourself, or you went around crazy attackin anything that moved. We had some of both on our block. Some real bad, mean, nasty men and some men who had just made a terrible mistake and done a terrible thing."

Cage paused and tried to blink away the sudden blurriness in his eyes.

"I knew it then," he said. "We was all gonna die. Some of the guys went nuts, throwing themselves at the bars and yelling and screamin. Some just broke down and cried and couldn't stop. A few hung themselves the first night the guards weren't there. The darkness just got the better of them, and we could hear them up and down the block, coughing, and kicking their last breath. I made a decision right then and there that I won't gonna go out that way. If this was God's plan for me, how I was supposed to meet my end, then so be it. But I won't gonna give up."

"It got tough, though," Cage said, shaking his head. "People started dying of thirst, begging for a drink, for their mommas, wheezing. It's the most horrible sound, a man dying of thirst. Only a few made it that long, the rest of them wrapped the bed sheets round their necks and that was that. There were a handful of us old timers that had some supplies set aside. We knew what riots was like and we put aside water and sports drinks, a few toaster pastries, things like that. Things we could drink and eat without power."

"A few of the guards came around before they all left and passed out waters and candy bars," Cage said. "Most of the guys treated it like it was Christmas or something, but a few of us knew better. The way the guards couldn't meet our eyes, and they didn't say a word. Not one word. We knew it was bad, and we put everything we could away."

"One by one I heard the old lifers go as what little bit they had ran out, and the thirst got them. I knew it was gonna be me too," Cage said with a small shrug of his shoulders. "I drank the last few drops of my water one day and I remember actually thinking that would be it. I started a mental countdown for how long I could make it before I just didn't wake up."

"A little less than four days later, I was stretched out on my bed, and a thunderstorm rolled through. It was a heavy one too, with wind howling so hard it even echoed up and down the block. That was the only sound I could hear in the stagnant stink of rotten death. I was okay in the near complete darkness that set in, at least at first, and I started whispering the twenty third Psalm over and over."

"When the lightning started, though, that's when I got scared. The flashes would come through the narrow slit windows at the very top of my cell, and they'd light up the hall outside through the skylights. Sometimes my eyes played tricks on me, and I thought I saw shadows moving in the hall. I felt real fear then, the same kind I had when I was a kid and a big boomer storm would come through. Sometimes I would sit and shake like a leaf."

Cage chuckled and shook his head. "Imagine, a grown ass man scared of lightning, but there it was. Well, the storm kept getting stronger and stronger, the lighting was coming faster through the windows. I grabbed my Bible in one of the flashes, and held it tight against my chest as my heart was just a poundin. I thought for certain the stress would kill me if the lightning didn't."

"And then, there was a pop that hit so close and so loud that the light and sound hit at the same time. For just a split second, the lights in the place sparked, and in that pause right after the shock of that clap of thunder, there was a loud click."

"I'd heard that sound a million times before," Cage said after a brief silence, "but I wasn't sure if I was really hearing it then. It seemed too good to be true, too perfect, but there it was. The sound of the locks in the doors disengaging. Right about that time two transformers outside blew up, sparks and metal flying all over the place. And my door swung open just a touch."

"That was all the nudge I needed," Cage said with a wry smile. "I grabbed my bible and my pillow and ran out that door and down the hall all the way to the transfer gate. Every door was open, and I ran right out into the pouring rain. I stood there for a moment in the storm, my face turned up to the sky, drinking the rain as fast as it ran into my mouth, weeping harder than I ever had before. The lightning and thunder flashed all around me, but I didn't care. If God wanted to take me on my feet in the free wind, I took it as a bargain."

"I waited there for a long time, waiting to see if anyone else would come out, but no one did. There was a single rain poncho in the gate house at the transfer gate, and I took it and wrapped it around my pillow and Bible. Everything else I left in that prison, along with the name Gauge. Gauge was the old me, and that man died that night in the Prison. Cage walked out the open gates and I been walking ever since."

"How long ago was that, Mr.?"  Eric asked hesitantly.

Cage frowned and thought about it. "I guess about three weeks ago, maybe a little less. The days got fuzzy toward the end when I got real bad off thirsty. I been walking for around three weeks, though. I figure I spent my last day and night in doors. The good Lord seen fit to let me out that night, and I don't plan to put nothing between me and the sky and stars and all of it ever again. So, best way to do that is just to keep walkin."

"That's a heck of a story," Joe said softly after a long moment, his face and voice unreadable.

Cage chuckled again. "Ain't it, though."

Joe nodded slowly. "Well, you're good to come with us as far as you want, Cage. It's good to meet you."

With that, and a nod to his son, Joe turned and started walking back down the road, watching the woods on either side.

"Don't you want to know what I did to get locked up?"  Cage asked, confused. Everyone wanted to know that, right off and more than half had simply walked away as soon as he'd told them. Not their fault, though, not really. It's just how things were.

Joe shook his head. "Don't matter much to me," he called back over his shoulder. "Whatever debt you owed, apparently you paid it. We've got a long way to go, though, so if you're coming you'd better keep up."

Cage followed the two men, carefully pacing his long strides to keep up with theirs. For a while, Cage just walked with the other two, enjoying the sunset and the fact that for now he wasn't alone.

Ch.75

Just a Rental

Mike stretched as far as he could, but his left side was already tight from a painful stitch. Finally, exhausted, Mike leaned his back to the wall and slid down to the tile floor. He was sweating and out of breath despite the chill air inside the admin building. For a moment, he simply sat and absorbed the cool of the floor, but soon Arthur was tugging on his elbow to get him back to his feet.

"If you plop down like that," Arthur said with a frown, "you'll get stiff and sore. You've got to walk around and cool down."

Mike shook his head. "Walking is what got me out of breath in the first place."

"C'mon, Mike, you know I'm right," Arthur said again, pulling on Mike's sleeve.