23 Hours: A Vengeful Vampire Tale

40.

The sky overhead was blue, with only a few fat clouds scudding by high above. After the gloom and oppression of the prison’s interior Caxton’s eyes had trouble adjusting.

Caxton climbed up onto the roof and held on to the edge of the skylight to keep from sliding off. The roof of the infirmary had a pitched, shingled roof that was far too sloped to allow her to stand up.

She helped Gert up and clutched the back of her jumpsuit to keep her from falling. She pulled her makeshift rope up through the skylight and wrapped it around her waist inside her jumpsuit. You never knew when you might need a rope again. Then she craned her head around to look at the central command center, which sat atop the prison’s central tower like a UFO on a pedestal. Windows ran all the way around its circumference, and its roof was studded with searchlights, machine-gun nests, and communications antennae. She could see a little bit through the windows and it looked like there was no one inside.

“We’ve caught a real break,” Caxton said. “Don’t look down.”

Gert was looking at the edge of the roof, down below her dangling feet. If she slid it would be a long way to the ground. She probably wouldn’t die from falling twenty feet, but she would most likely break a leg or an arm. Caxton couldn’t afford to let either of them fall.

“There’s nobody up in central command right now. I cut the power so they couldn’t watch us on the security cameras,” she explained. Gert hadn’t bothered to ask why Caxton had felt it necessary to blow up the powerhouse—she’d just assumed her celly knew what she was doing. “They have no idea where we are. And it looks like, without power to run the equipment up there, they didn’t think it was worth it to have anyone up there just staring out the windows. If they did, we’d already be in trouble.”

“I think we’ve got plenty of trouble as it is,” Gert said. She sounded like she was breathing heavily. Caxton wondered if she had a fear of heights. If she did, this next part of the plan was going to be tough. The best way to make somebody afraid of heights, though, was to put them up on a roof and ask them if they were scared of falling off, so she kept the thought to herself.

“We need to make our way over there,” Caxton said, tilting her head toward the central tower, “and then find a way in. It’ll be easy if we work together.”

“You’re going to teach me how to fly?” Gert asked.

“No. We’re going to walk. Two people can do that, but one can’t. So you have to do exactly what I say, alright?”

“Sure.” Gert looked into Caxton’s face. There was something funny about her eyes. “You got it. I do what you say, and I don’t die. I like that part of the plan. The part where I don’t die.” She glanced down the slope of the roof again. “Can we just do it now, then? Just, like, right now?”

“Sure,” Caxton said. “Don’t forget to breathe.”

Gert nodded and took a few deep breaths. It seemed to calm her a little.

“The roof is too steep to walk on, as you’ve already noticed,” Caxton said. “But if we stand on either side of the peak, we can counterbalance each other’s weight. You stand on that side, I’ll stand over here. We hold hands—hold on really tight—and neither of us will fall. If you let go—”

“I won’t let go,” Gert assured her.

“Good. It’s also important we walk at the same speed. So.” She held out her hand and Gert grabbed it. Careful not to overbalance, Caxton rose slowly to her feet and watched as Gert did the same. The grip on her hand quickly became painful, but Caxton ignored it as best she could. “Left foot forward.”

Gert moved her foot carefully, her toes grabbing at the shingles. Caxton moved her own foot.

“Right foot, now. Left.”

“Hold on! Okay,” Gert said, having taken her first full step on the roof. She looked over at Caxton and started laughing. Laughing a little too much. “I got it. Left, now. Now. Right, now, left.”

“Slow down, Gert,” Caxton said. “Let me catch up.”

“This is easy!” Gert laughed again. “Left, uh, and—”

Caxton’s right foot went out from under her. The shingles were old and weatherworn. One had crumbled underneath her. She fought to get her balance, hopping on her left foot as Gert dragged her forward.

“Right! Left! Right, left, right! Woohoo! Left!”

“Gert!” Caxton called, sliding along the shingles, her feet barely finding purchase. If she lost her grip with both feet at once they would both fall. “Gert, stop for a second. Gert!”

But Gert was nearly running along the shingles, swinging her legs high. Her hand crushed Caxton’s in a grip that kept getting tighter and more painful.

“Left, right, right! Ha ha, I tricked you on that one,” Gert said, hauling Caxton forward. Caxton started to scream—

And then she stopped. They had reached the edge of the roof. Beyond was a five-foot drop to a flat concrete roof that covered a walkway leading into the central tower. Gert jumped down without a care in the world, letting go of Caxton’s hand.

For a long, drawn-out second, Caxton was all hands and feet as she grabbed at the shingles, trying desperately to hold on. The shingles cracked and fell apart as her toes dug into them. Her fingers found exposed nails and clutched to them as handholds, but she was falling, she could feel herself slipping, it was a losing battle trying to—

Gert grabbed her by one arm and one leg and hauled her down onto the flat roof of the walkway.

“Now, that’s teamwork,” she said.

Caxton rubbed at her arm where it had been dragged across the edge of the roof. Her hand was numb where Gert had been gripping it and her feet were raw and red. But she was alive and she had made it down from the roof.

“Come on,” she said.

Ahead of them, in the wall of the central tower, was a window looking into an empty room. There were no bars on it, though it was thicker than an ordinary window and not quite as shiny as glass. Caxton rapped it with her knuckles and listened to the sound it made. “Bulletproof. We’ll never break through,” she told Gert.

“What?”

Caxton stared at her celly Gert’s face was bright red, with sweat slicking down her temples and glistening on her chin. Her pupils were enormous, with only a tiny ring of brown showing around them.

“What? No. Goddamn it, no. I did’t come all this way to—” Instead of finishing her sentence, Gert slammed her shoulder against the window, again and again.

“Gert! Stop,” Caxton commanded.

The girl stopped immediately. Then she dropped down to sit on the concrete and started chewing on her fingernails.

“You took something,” Caxton said.

“What?”

Caxton grabbed Gert’s sweaty chin and pulled it up so they were looking at each other. “Back in the dispensary. You took something when I wasn’t looking. What was it?”

“I don’t know whatcher talking about,” Gert slurred.

Caxton groaned in frustration. She didn’t know whether to make Gert throw up or just let her burn it off on her own. Without knowing what kind of stimulant Gert had taken, there was no safe answer to that question.

She would have to worry about it later. In the meantime she studied the window. It was fitted perfectly into its frame, which was set deeply into the brick wall of the tower. There was nothing to grab hold of, nothing she could bend or break. It was built in two sections, one of which was designed to slide over the other so it could be opened, and… and… the latch wasn’t locked.

Caxton put both palms against the sliding section of the window and pushed. It opened almost effortlessly, sliding along a well-greased rail.

She climbed inside, and dropped easily to the floor of the room. Gert followed a second later.