23 Hours: A Vengeful Vampire Tale

4.

They carried Caxton through the prison halls at a fast jog. She was wrapped up in a thick blanket that pressed against her nose and mouth and made it difficult to breathe. She couldn’t see where she was, much less where they were going. Finally they brought her into a small echoing room and dumped her on the floor. COs in full riot gear stood around her with stun guns, ready for her to jump up and attack them on sight. When she didn’t, they stepped out of the room and a pair of female COs in stab-proof vests replaced them.

“What’s going on?” Caxton asked. She looked around and found herself in a room lined with dingy white tiles. There was a large steel bathtub on one side of the room and what looked like medical equipment hanging on the opposite wall.

“Strip,” one of the COs said. A big woman wearing eye protection. She leaned against a plastic table and stared out the window. The other CO, who had a harelip, kept her eyes glued on Caxton. She didn’t even blink.

Caxton knew this routine. She’d been a cop in her previous life. There were times when you were handling a prisoner when you couldn’t predict what they were going to do, so you made sure they didn’t have any options. She understood that she wouldn’t be allowed to ask any questions and that if she didn’t do exactly what the guard told her, the men with the stun guns would come back in and do it for her. Looking down at the floor, she unfastened the Velcro strip that held her jumpsuit closed in the front.

“Everything. Off,” the big CO said, while studying her own fingernails.

Caxton kicked off her slippers, then peeled off her underwear and her bra. It was very cold in the little room and she started to wrap her arms around herself, but the CO with the harelip took a step forward and grabbed her arms and pulled them down at her sides.

“Don’t touch anything. Keep your hands where we say,” the big CO told Caxton. “Now, we’re going to search you. Do not move. Do not swallow. Do not flinch.”

Harelip pulled on plastic gloves and then ran her fingers through Caxton’s hair. She took a flashlight from her pocket and pointed it into her mouth and her ears. She lifted up Caxton’s arms and checked her armpits, then told Caxton to lift up her breasts so she could check underneath.

“Turn around,” the big CO said when that was done. “Lean over the table. Now spread your buttocks. Wider.”

Caxton gritted her teeth. Harelip squatted down to get a good look.

“Stand up. Turn around again. Spread your vagina.”

Caxton squeezed her eyes shut in shame. But she did it. She knew they had the legal right to handcuff her and do it to her if she refused. When she opened her eyes again she saw Harelip staring up at her from between her legs.

“You like this, lesbo? You having a good time?” Harelip whispered.

Caxton said nothing.

“Clear,” the big CO said. “Alright, prisoner. You can put your underwear back on.” She picked up Caxton’s jumpsuit and balled it up under her arm. “This gets searched separately.” She left the room. Harelip went over to the door and stood next to it, her boots slightly spread, her hands clasped behind her.

Caxton pulled her bra and panties back on. Then she just stood there, waiting for whatever came next. There was no place to sit down except on the edge of the bathtub, and it looked very cold. She made a point of staring at the floor, thinking the last thing she wanted to do was antagonize Harelip by looking at her.

Eventually there was a knock on the door and another woman came in. She was older than most of the COs Caxton had seen, maybe fifty-five or even sixty. She was wearing a conservative jacket and mid-length skirt, with a stab-proof vest over the top. She was carrying a metal folding chair and a Black-Berry, which she worked with one thumb even as she set up her chair and took a seat.

For a while longer nothing happened. The newcomer didn’t speak, and Caxton didn’t think she ought to try to start up a conversation. The older woman used her thumbs to type something on her BlackBerry, which held her whole attention.

Finally, without looking up, she said, “I think we have a problem here.”

Caxton scratched her nose. Harelip leaned forward, her eyes very hard.

“I don’t like it when you girls don’t get along,” the older woman said. “It makes it difficult for all of us. I need to find a way to restore the peace, you see. So we’re moving you to Special Housing. Effective immediately.”

Caxton looked up. That was very bad news. “What? But I—”

“We have a zero-tolerance policy for stabbing in this institution.” The older woman was still playing with her handheld device. She smiled at something on her screen.

“I only acted in self-defense,” Caxton said. “It wasn’t even my shank.”

“Hmm? I have three inmates in the infirmary right now. One has second-degree burns on her face and chest. One has a broken nose that’s going to have to be rebroken if she wants it to set right. The third might lose an eye.” She glanced up at Caxton. “You have a bruise on your wrist.” She looked back down at her email. “You tell me who should be put in confinement, hmm? There are two kinds of women in this place. There are the ones who just want to get along, work off their time, and go home. Then there are the ones who will stab somebody because they got bored. It’s my job to separate these two groups. Today you volunteered for group number two, and I don’t care who started it. Beyond that, you’re a high-risk prisoner, so you ought to be in protective custody anyway. It’s all been decided. You’ll be in administrative segregation for the rest of your sentence. Do you have a problem with that?”

Caxton bit her lip and thought about how to respond.

Prisoners who complained about the conditions in Marcy always regretted it. If you complained, that meant you weren’t cooperating with the staff. That meant you weren’t demonstrating “good behavior,” and that meant you spent even longer inside, longer until you could go before the parole board, until you could walk free again. Inmates at Marcy did not, on the whole, complain.

On the other hand—AdSeg was the worst part of the prison. It was where the truly violent women were housed, along with those so crazy they couldn’t be allowed to roam free and those who were at such a risk of getting killed by their fellow inmates that they had to be watched around the clock. AdSeg was more than maximum security. It meant no privileges, no privacy, and not even the slightest illusion of freedom.

If Caxton had to spend the next five years in an AdSeg cell she would probably go crazy. She had to say something, anything, to avoid that fate.

“I want to talk to a manager or supervisor about this,” she said. “I want to appeal your decision.”

The older woman stopped pressing buttons with her thumbs. Then, slowly, she put her BlackBerry on the table next to her. Smiling, she reached out one hand. “Augie Bellows,” she said. “I’m your warden.”

Crap, Caxton thought. She’d made a bad mistake. She had to try, though, anyway. “You should know I’m a model prisoner when I’m not being attacked. I have a background in law enforcement and I—”

“I know exactly who you are,” the warden said. She smiled brightly. “And you should know not to expect any special treatment because you used to be a cop. Many of us here on the staff feel that cops gone bad are the worst kind of prisoner, honestly. You were entrusted to know the difference between right and wrong, and you did a bad thing anyway. How could we possibly take anything you say seriously, ever again?”

“If you look at my record, you’ll see I’ve cooperated fully at all times. I’ve never started trouble and I’ve done everything that was asked of me,” Caxton said.

Bellows shrugged as if to say it didn’t matter. That it couldn’t possibly matter. “We’ll move your things for you. No need to pack. Of course, there are severe restrictions on personal items in AdSeg, so most of your personal belongings will be confiscated. You won’t need any makeup or hair care products in special housing, anyway. Now, if things go as I hope they will, you and I will never have to meet again until it’s time to send you home. If I were you, I would do everything in my power to make sure we don’t.”

“Are you doing this to me because I was a cop—or because I’m gay?” Caxton demanded.

The warden gave her a prolonged, searching look. “It’s because you’re in my way. That’s all. You’re a minor obstacle in the road of my life.”

Then she rose and picked up her folding chair, then went to the door and knocked on it. The door opened and she went out without another word. And that was that. Caxton was doomed to spend the rest of her time in the prison in the worst hell they could create. There was nothing she could do about it. She felt invisible doors slamming shut all around her.

“Wait there,” Harelip said. “Do not move. Someone will be along to escort you shortly.”

Caxton did what she was told.

Except.

Warden Bellows had left her BlackBerry sitting on the table.

Caxton had been a cop. Cops were nosy. They couldn’t help it—it was how they solved crimes, and how, sometimes, they stayed alive. She felt a compelling need to look at the handheld device. She could almost, but not quite, make out the screen from where she stood. She took a step sideways.

Harelip leaned forward again like a dog on a chain.

Caxton held up her hands in surrender. And took another step sideways. When no one burst into the room to restrain or beat her, she stopped in place and looked down. On the screen of the BlackBerry she could see a fragment of a chat transcript. Warden Bellows must have been chatting with someone the whole time she was sentencing Caxton to her new fate. Caxton had no reason to care about the warden’s personal correspondence, really, but there was one thread that jumped out at her.

ABell: It feels like forever. I can’t wait to get started.

DamaNoctis: It shalln’t be long. Patience, I say to ye. ’Tis worth the wait.

ABell: I hope so. I’m risking a

That was all she had a chance to read before Harelip stomped across the room and grabbed the thing off the table. “Get the hell back, bitch, or I will fuck you up,” she screamed in Caxton’s face, knocking Caxton backward until she fell to the floor.

A few minutes later a detail of COs came to walk her to her new cell. They at least gave her a brand-new jumpsuit so she wouldn’t have to show up in her underwear.