LIFERS Chapter Seven

At around 02:00am the stationroom door opened and both girls looked to see a woman walk over to Robertson who immediately stood on seeing her. She had a medium build with long, blonde, unkempt hair, her face was lined, putting her possibly in her fifties, although Jill got the impression she might be older.

She wore a dirty-grey, short-sleeved non-discript dress that reached just above her ankles and boots that looked even too big for the man she stood next to.

Jill thought the woman would perhaps sympathise with their situation and maybe talk the cop into releasing them, she hoped she could appeal to her feminine side. But that went wrong the second Jill saw her eyes, they were the same as Robertson’s; dark, deep-red, and cold.

‘Where’s young Billy at?’ she said.

‘Gettin’ rid of some stuff for me. Anythin’ I can do?’

‘No, Billy’s the one I want. I wanna know how the hell he got out,’ she said, pointing in the direction of the other cell.

Still seated, Jill and Vicky looked at each other and then back at the woman as she started to make her way over. Once there, she sniffed at them.

‘She’s clean,’ she said, inclining her head to Vicky. ‘Her we can use. ’

The woman moved around the side of the cell to take a closer look at the one they could use, and then her expression changed to one of rage before she thundered back to the desk.

Vicky shouted, ‘What the fuck was that supposed to mean? Hey you … bitch.’

But the woman didn’t respond, instead, she stood nose to nose with Robertson and struck him across his scarred right cheek. ‘What good will they be if you keep fuckin’ them up?’ she shouted.

Vicky moved to the front of the cell. ‘What the fuck is wrong with you people?’

Jill joined her. ‘Let us out of here, you freaks.’

‘Hey, you, fuck face.’ Vicky spat at the woman but missed.

She turned to look at them. ‘You two need to quieten down some, ya hear?.’

‘No,’ said Jill. ‘What we need is for you to open this fucking cage and let us the fuck out of here,’

‘S’too late for that, y’already seen too much,’ she said, and then looked in the adjoining cell. ‘How long before he restores?’

Robertson looked at the clock. ‘Thirty minutes, give or take a─’

‘Okay, get him strapped to the floor and open the hatch. It’s gonna rain soon, and this time,’ she said, nearing her face to his. ‘I don’t want any fuck-ups. You got that, Hal?’

Hal nodded. ‘Yes, Ella.’

‘When you’re done, get yourself up to the town hall, we’ll wait out the storm and clean up this whole mess come mornin’.’

‘Hey, why the fuck won’t you listen to us?’ Jill shouted.

Ella turned again to look at them. ‘The blonde’ll be very useful to us,’ she said. ‘So you better see to it she comes to no more harm. Or trust me on this; you’ll be next for the shackles.’

‘And what about the other one?’ Hal said.

Ella looked Jill over. ‘Take her to Chambers and hook her up with the rest of ‘em; she’ll still be alive come mornin’. And if it rains before you get done, don’t stay here, use the tunnels.’ Again she turned to leave. ‘And remember,’ she said, pointing to Vicky. ‘Hands off that one, or else.’ Then she left.

As the shouting had gotten them nowhere, Jill tried another tactic. ‘Gee, Hal; boss lady sure slapped your ass.’

Hal closed the door before sitting back at his desk, he said nothing in reply as he turned the shoe box over and emptied out the remaining contents. A fuel receipt, a road map of North Carolina, and a pair of worn sneakers, all of which he scooped into the waste bin.

Vicky joined in the abuse. ‘Hey, Hal, was that yo’ mamma? Ma’an she’s almost as ugly as you are.’

But still there was no reply from Hal.

Another click came from the cell next to theirs and both girls looked round. They stared at the body, watching as it twitched, first one leg then the other. Each time the clicking and cracking of bone returning to its natural state echoed in the small room.

The girls backed up.

‘Hey, Vicky,’ Jill said. ‘Those legs were all broken, right? I mean they were, weren’t they?’

‘What the fuck’s going on, Jill?’

She shook her head. ‘Some real weird shit. That guy was dead.’

Hal picked up the keys from off the desk and opened the other cell door. ‘It’ll take more than what you two did to kill a Lifer,’ he said.

Jill frowned. ‘A Lifer? You mean he really is an escaped convict?’

‘No, he’s just some snoopin’ investigator who shoved his iddy-biddy nose in where it didn’t belong, and now he’s one of us. Mind you, that won’t be for much longer once the rain comes.’

The girls looked on as Hal pulled the leather jacket from off the man’s back and then his white T-shirt. He spread-eagled him on the floor and closed and locked the four shackles around his wrists and ankles.

‘What are you doing to him?’ Jill asked.

‘It’s time this fucker was cleansed.’

‘Cleansed?’ she said. ‘He’s alive. He needs a doctor not an exorcism.’

‘He ain't no more alive than the rest of us around here.’

When Hal finished shackling the man to the floor he reached up to unfasten the bolts holding the hatch shut, and, for a few long seconds, stared up at the clouds.

‘What’s that for?’

‘You’ll see,’ he said, leaving the cell and locking it.

Jill looked again at the man fastened down, he wasn’t conscious, but he was alive, even though she knew he shouldn’t be.

Vicky moved to the cell door. ‘Hey, crater-face, what did that bitch mean when she said, “Her we can use”?’

Hal sat with his elbows on the desk and his broad square chin resting on closed fists. ‘Well, little lady,’ he began. ‘Seein’ as you’re still pure, you’re just what we need right now. We’re a dying breed see, and we need pristine pretty little ladies just like you to get our balls rollin’ again. Fresh meat you might say.’

Vicky looked at Jill. ‘I was saving myself,’ she told her.

‘But you said... Okay, what about you and Danny Brochstein at my eighteenth?’

‘He couldn’t manage it, neither of us could. We were both too scared to do it, but we agreed to tell ... well, you know the rest.’ To Hal she said, ‘And how do you know that, anyway?’

‘Can smell it all over you,’ he said, and then looked at Jill. ‘You smell different mind, kinda loose, if ya don’t mind me sayin’?’

‘Fuck you,’ she told him.

‘I won’t let any of you near me,’ Vicky said.

Hal smiled. ‘Is that right? And you’re gonna do what? Say no?’

‘No, I’ll−’

‘Vicky,’ Jill whispered. ‘Hold on a minute. Do you remember what you said earlier, about not coming out of this alive?’

She nodded.

‘You may be right.’

‘What?’

‘After hearing that Ella woman, and listening to what he just said, if we don’t do something to get out of here soon we might never get out. Which means you won’t stay a virgin for much longer and I find out what getting “hooked-up” means.’

‘I’m all for getting the fuck out of here, Jill. But what do we do, ask him for the key?’

‘No, we have to get him in here.’

‘No way. You said as long as these bars are betwee─’

‘Yes, I know what I said, but right now we don’t have a choice.’

Vicky sighed, looked at Hal, looked at Jill. ‘Okay, say we get him in here, then what?’

As they whispered, Jill looked to see Hal regarding them with an air of suspicion, a frown creasing his forehead, and then she saw his gun lying on the desk.

‘One of us will have to distract him when he's in here,’ she said. ‘Keep him occupied while the other runs out and gets his gun.’

‘Then what, we shoot the fucker? Oooh, I like that.’

‘No, we don’t shoot him, someone might hear the gun and we’ll get them all in here. We threaten him with it, lock him up, take his car, and get the fuck away.’

‘I like that too, but how do we get him in here in the first place?’

‘Remember what that bitch said just before she left?’

‘Yeah, something about a tunnel.’

‘No, not that, she said … “See to it she comes to no more harm.” Meaning you.’

‘Yeah, I remember.’

‘Well then, here’s what we do…’

After hearing raised voices, Hal looked to see his two prisoners rolling around the cell floor and pulling at one another’s hair. He shot to his feet so fast he shunted the desk forward two feet with his thighs.

‘What the fuck are ya doin’?’ he yelled.

But the girls continued to battle it out.

He picked up the cattle-prod and the keys to open the door and rushed in leaving it open. He wanted to stick them both with the prod, if only to separate them, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t harm the blonde one any more. “Or else”.

‘You bitch. You fucking whore,’ cried the blonde, pulling out a fistful of black hair.

‘You’re the fucking bitch-whore, you virgin cow.’

‘Stop fuckin’ around,’ he shouted. But they both carried on rolling about the floor screaming obscenities. ‘Aw, fuck this.’ he said, and stuck the prod between them.

After only a one second jolt, the two girls separated like opposing poles of a magnet. Hal dropped the prod to the floor and gripped the dark-haired one around the throat with both hands and began to squeeze.

It wasn’t long before Vicky started to recover from her share of the zapping, but her mind was muggy, fizzed by the sudden electronic jolt. There was something she had to do. Had to get. Had to … the gun. That’s it. Get the cop’s gun and shoot the ugly fucker. But she couldn’t do that, she couldn’t get out, Jill was in the doorway and that cop was all over her.

With little or no time to think, Vicky jumped on the cop’s back and started to claw at his face. She had all four fingers of one hand inside his mouth and two fingers of her other hand buried deep in his nostrils. She pulled and tugged to feel flesh ripping under her fingernails but he wouldn’t let go his grip on Jill’s neck. Then she felt her hair being pulled and tried to hold on by gripping both his ears for all she was worth, but two seconds later the rodeo ride was over.

Vicky hit the floor and slid against the bars on the opposite side of the cell and looked up to see an expression of maniacal rage on the cop’s face, a rage that could only be matching the fury he was putting into his hold on Jill’s throat.