Chapter 2: Break Out
When Eugene opened the door of the solitary cell he could not, at first, see anything. It was blacker than a freshly painted hearse inside. He heard a faint shifting of cloth, which was followed by the appearance of a pair of green orbs pointing toward him.
“A little lop-sided for a storm trooper?”
“Huh?” The thief went further in, swinging to door half-closed behind him, “look, I’ve come to take you to a secret meeting with another prisoner. Try not to be so weird on the way, okay?”
“A secret meeting?” That seemed to get the cloaked man’s attention. His chains clinked a little as he sat all of the way up, “we are planning a break-out then?”
“Something like that,” Eugene hesitated a few steps away, “if I come closer, will you cause any trouble?”
“Not for you, I hope. Not at the moment,” the green eyes blinked owlishly as the chains clinked again, “I’ve stretched my arm out now so that you can reach the cuff. That’s where the lock is.”
“I know that!” Eugene walked cautiously up and felt around with his left hand until it came in contact with a leather glove. He felt up that softly until he met the cold steel of the cuff. The clasp was easy to find from there, though it was a little harder getting the pick into place with only one hand, in the dark.
“Let me help you,” Leaflow’s other hand took the wrench from him and put it in place, “it is one of the few perks of having eyes that can be seen in the solid dark. They can also do some seeing there.”
His hands were steady on the tool, not shaking or jumping about as might be expected from a madman. Eugene just grunted in reply, taking it from him. It was only a moment before the clasp came open and he could pull the cuff apart.
He heard the cloaked man rubbing where the manacle had rested and commented acerbically, “if you didn’t jerk against it for no reason it wouldn’t chaff so much.”
“If it didn’t chaff, would I remember that it was there?”
“Yes, unless you are a complete fool,” Eugene snorted, concealing his tools in their place. He led the way out of the room and down the hall until they reached the open grating of the air vent.
“This is going to be the tricky part,” he warned, “You aren’t thin enough to squeeze by security cameras against the wall, especially with that cloak flapping around. So we’ll have to crawl through the ducts the whole way and hope that they don’t neck off somewhere.”
“Or end in a furnace,” Leaflow added pleasantly, waiting for him to duck into the metal duct before following. They went on hands and knees through the tubing, which clanged hollowly around them from time to time no matter how careful they were with their crawling steps. Each time it clanged Eugene flinched, though he had to admit that his companion was just as stealthy as himself both in walking and moving through the ducts. It was only the rustle of his cloak which distinguished him.
They went past where Eugene usually turned off, dropped through a piece going straight down and traveled for a while more before coming to a place where the ducts went in two different directions. The thief paused here, catching his breath before whispering back, “I think we have to turn to the right. I just hope that it comes out in the corridor and not in some warden’s office.”
Following his instincts, they went right, turned a few more corners and took another split. After what seemed like hours but had only been minutes, they came out in the corridor only a few paces away from Maniac’s cell.
“That was classic,” Leaflow commented, sliding out of the duct after him.
Eugene went to open the cell door, “I know, it’s amazing they still put those things in a place like this.”
“Ah, but it’s only in silly TV shows that anyone would use them,” the cloaked man reminded him.
Walking into the jail room, which seemed brighter after having been in the endless night of the ducts, Eugene could make out Maniac standing near the window waiting for them.
“Maniac, meet Leaflow.”
They shook hands, the host looking their new guest up and down with interest, “Welcome to my cell. The accommodations are rather sparse, but I hope you’ll enjoy the visit nonetheless. Have a seat and tell me your story.”
Leaflow sat on the edge of the bed, crossing one leg over the other at the knee and giving a shrug.
“Mine’s a tale that can’t be told, my freedom I hold dear. Though it might seem silly to you, it’s what brought me here.”
Maniac laughed shortly, “ha, that’s very good, very poetic, eh Eugene? Now, are you ready to get down to business or do you want to keep spouting silly rubbish?”
His last words left no doubt that business would be the safer choice of the two. Leaflow regarded him for a moment with his queer eyes, before waving a hand and speaking in the same quiet, deep tone he always used, “my story is not part of our business, not yet. I assume that you are planning an escape with Eugene and want to know what sort of help I’ll be both during the break and after?”
“That’s it.” Maniac nodded approval, while Eugene settled himself at the other end of the bed in the shadows, head tipped up against the wall and eyes shut as if he were asleep.
“Without meaning to brag, I have killed at least one guard here by hand. And with my sword, which they took from me, I could do a little more than that.” Leaflow paused, shooting a glance toward the young thief before going on, “Eugene and I together would have any stealth factors covered for you. As to after the escape, I don’t have any money with me or nearby but–” he held up a hand to forestall argument, “I know a man who owes me quite a lot of ‘dough.’ One hundred thousand dollars, to be exact.”
“So, you’re a dangerous fellow who is out for his rightful gains, hmm?” Maniac crossed his arms and tapped a foot thoughtfully on he floor, “I like that. How much of it would you share with us if we got you out of here?”
“If we all get out together, we can split is as evenly as possible between us,” Leaflow shrugged, “a third of it will be plenty for my plans.”
“And enough for mine,” Eugene put in suddenly, “Especially if the man who has it is the person I suspect he is. Leaflow, does he go by the name of ‘Fflewder Flan’ when he is on a mission?”
“Not that I know of. He told me that his name is Yad.”
“Then do you know who wrote this?” Eugene reached into his pocket and took out the crumpled envelope, straightening it out to hold before the cloaked man. Interested, Maniac lit a match to look at it as well. Leaflow stared at the addresses for just a second before nodding his head, “yes, I did write this. It originally contained a letter I wrote him hoping he would send me my money, in case it was enough for bail. But with a murder added to my list of sins, I don’t think that they would accept monetary repentance at all. Where did you find it?”
“Just laying around,” Eugene shrugged, smiling to himself as if pleased as he put the envelope away, “but you can count me in on the whole deal. And I’ll even fetch your sword at the same time as I reclaim my hook.”
“Good!’ Maniac clapped his hands together, making the other two wince at the sharp noise, “now we can really get down to business. All in it together!”
—
After some arguing, whining (On Eugene’s part) and logical consideration they had readjusted the escape plans to fit all of their abilities and circumstances. The next day all three prisoners were ready to carry the plan out.
Merrily whistling a Christmas jingle, Maniac waited for the guards to deactivate the alarm on the tool shed before helping another convict haul out both a ladder and a pole-pruner. Under the watchful eyes of guards posted both around the courtyard and walking on the wall tops they hauled the tools over to the side of the office buildings, just where the structure ended and left a blank space of wall before the main complex began. In this shady alcove they leaned the ladder up against the offices and pulled the pruner up to the rooftop with them.
There was a gap of about a yard between the flat office roofs and the wall top, both of which had razor wire running along their edges at that point. There was nothing but a lower, slanting roof between them, under the wire. The guards on the wall glanced frequently over at the two prisoners as they began lopping off the lower branches of the oak, clearing them away from the office roofs. Someone had brought it to the warden’s attention that they could, possibly, be reached by an inmate and used to climb out of the courtyard over the blade-studded wire on the wall tops.
Maniac ran the pole pruner while his companion threw the branches down into the yard, where they could be hauled away or burnt at a later time. While they were working, other inmates were scrubbing the walkways, washing the walls or raking gravel in the courtyard. The halls inside were also being swept and scrubbed. Certain prisoners had these duties on different days, so that the prison was always neat and tidy, inside and out. A summer storm was rumored to be on its way, so some things were being done ahead of time to avoid it. Everything was business and industry until the pruners had just completed their job. Then a sudden shout was heard from the wall tops on the opposite side.
“Hey, you, get off of there!”
The guards pointed up toward the top of one of the short towers which supported the gates on either side. All eyes in the courtyard were turned that way, attention caught. There, standing on one of the decorative battlements on the inside of the tower, was a slim young man. He was wearing the dress of a prisoner, and when he waved an arm in mocking greeting it was seen to be missing its hand. The guards on the wall top pointed their guns up, shouting, “get down now, or we shoot!”
The guards on the outer edge of the tower-top turned about and hurried towards the swaying figure. He spun around to look at them, windmilling his arms for balance at the sudden change in equilibrium. Just before they reached him he lost his balance and fell. Tumbling outwards through the air, his clothes were caught on the coils of wire for just a moment, catching at and ripping them with an audible tearing noise. Hardly slowed, he whirled down to hit heavily in the scantily flowerbeds below. It was a twenty-foot drop, plenty to have broken a bone.
Everyone in the yard, guards and prisoners included, rushed over to see how badly he was hurt. Maniac leaned on his pole pruner to look over the office roof toward the flower beds, “well, I wonder if he survived? If not, we might get some meat for dinner tonight.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
The other man gave him a glare. “Poor kid, I hope he’s alright.”
Maniac sighed, “if you want to find out, I’ll put the tools away myself I suppose. But it’s a waste of your time; everyone else is already there.”
Before he was done speaking the other inmate had climbed down to the ground and was hurrying to join the crowd. Still whistling, Maniac climbed down and carefully tipped the ladder over lengthwise so that it was hidden against the shady side of the wall. Then he strolled out with the pruners and put them away in the shed. In all the confusion that ensued, no one noticed that one folding ladder out of three was missing from the building. The guards locked it up tight and set the alarm as soon as the young man had been carried away from where he had fallen.
—
That night, when the prison was in darkness once again, Eugene lay on a bed in the prison’s hospital ward. He had a bandage wrapped down his left arm and a few smaller ones stuck to the same side leg, as well as a pack of ice on his head. He heard the faint sound as the main door of the ward was opened and shut, before the locked door into his partition of it was fiddled with and pushed open. He opened his eyes to see a pair of green ones glowing down at him.
“You look like a tenderized steak. Are you alright?” Leaflow stepped up beside his bed, tilting his head on one side so that his eyes were almost one above the other in the darkness.
“And you look like a malfunctioning stoplight,” Eugene scrambled out of bed, stretching, “I’m fine. It hurt more when I fell out of my bedroom window once…or was shoved, actually. But I’ve learned how to fall safely since then.”
He grinned, tossing and catching a brown bottle in his left hand, “as you can see, the nurse decided to take a nap. Rather suddenly decided to. While she’s asleep I unpacked all of the blankets from the chest at the end of the bed in case I got cold.”
Indicating a form slumped in a chair against the wall, snoring slightly, and a pile of thick, warm blankets he added, “you can carry them. Give me back my picks.”
Leaflow had been entrusted with the lock picks the night before, as Eugene was likely to be gone over pretty thoroughly by the doctors after he fell off the wall, dramatically creating a distraction. Now the cloaked man tossed the tools back to him and swept up the blankets, folding them over one arm.
“It was a trick getting here, even with them. Maniac’s map of the ducts is pretty sketchy.”
“Forget it. Now that you have me, we can’t go wrong,” Eugene waved his stub arm airily, leading the way out of the hospital ward. On the way Eugene had Leaflow wait in the ducts for a short space of time as he went off by himself, before coming back dragging a clinking pair of items behind him.
“This must be yours,” he said, pressing the hilt of a leather-sheathed sword into the cloaked man’s hands, “I don’t know anyone else who would be crazy enough to keep such a medieval weapon hanging around.”
“…Says the man with a metal hook instead of a more sophisticated prosthetic,” Leaflow returned, “but I must thank you for returning this. I’ve had it for quite some time.”
They had no space to belt on their utilities there, carrying them awkwardly in hand instead. The blankets also had to be transported through the duct, though this problem Leaflow solved by shoving them ahead of him the whole way with the sword stacked on top. Finally they reached the exit near Maniac’s den. The convict was waiting eagerly at the door, a club made from one leg of his chair held in hand.
“Are you both in one piece?”
“Hardly,” Eugene complained, unlocking the door for him, “I’ve been sliced into so many parts by that wire and Leaflow’s great lump of a sword that I don’t know how I’ll go any further tonight. Could we wait for the morning to leave?”
Maniac looked at him in astonishment for a long space of time, before giving a brief laugh.
“Hah, you’re almost too convincing for your own good. I might leave you here if you insisted, but only with a broken skull to keep you company.”
“Barbarian,” the thief muttered, closing the cell up again.
This time they did not take the ducts, inside crossing the aisle to the opposite jail cell. Its door was fastened with a combination lock hung on a chain to keep people from straying into it. Looking through the bars, Eugene saw that the back wall was cracked and crumbled outwards from where another unfortunate had attempted an escape. That inmate had not lived past his own explosion to see the outer air of the courtyard.
“Five minutes until the next guard patrol,” Maniac told him, pulling a watch that was missing one strap from his pocket and consulting it, “as long as they don’t check the cells too closely, we’ll be alright. The combination is 3587.”
“I just found out,” Eugene’s hands had been busy on the lock the whole time. Pulling up on the shackle with his newly installed hook, he had been turning the dials gently with the thumb of his other hand. Now the locked popped open, clinking as he moved the chain out of the way.
“Impressive.” Maniac nodded, glancing at the undone fastener before entering the door, “I used to have a safe-crack working for me who was almost as fast. Sadly, he decided to drink nitro glycerin when they caught him with his hands in the local bank’s money.”
Leaflow came through the barred door after him, and then Eugene slipped through and put the chain back in place, closing the lock.
“No going back now.”
“There never was,” Maniac slapped his club meaningfully against his opposite palm.
A few bricks had to be slid out of the way and some rubble shifted before they could squeeze out of the hole into the yard. Eugene glanced around warily, pointing out a camera installed on the wall near the main door of the prison. Avoiding its view range, they moved through the shadows across to where Maniac had stowed the ladder. The sky was overcast, thunder rumbling somewhere in the distance. The guards on the wall tops did not see them in the heavy gloom.
“Two guards will meet here,” Maniac explained in a hoarse whisper, “the third won’t come any closer than the far corner. I’ll get one of the closer ones, Leaflow can get the other and you take the third out at the far end, Attoli, got it?”
Eugene pulled the brown bottle from his pocket, along with a white square of cloth which smelled strongly of chemicals, “got it.”
The ladder was silently raised and leaned against the wall, resting just a foot below the walkway. Waiting tensely, Eugene listened as the sound of steady footsteps echoed closer along the stones. A flashlight beam swept across the courtyard and all three prisoners flinched further into the shadows. Another pair of footsteps joined the first and low voices mumbled above. Maniac gave Leaflow the nod, before they both climbed swiftly to the top of the ladder and sprang out on the wall top. Eugene scrambled up after them, hearing the sound of a sword being drawn and sunk into a body, as well as a solid thump.
Trying not to look or listen too closely, the thief hurried along the side of the walkway until he saw the form of the third guard just ahead of him. It was facing outwards, flashlight pointing across the outer grounds.
With a flying leap Eugene tackled him to the hard cement, stifling his shout with the soaked square of cloth. After a moment the guard stopped kicking and lay still. Heaving a sigh, the thief stood back up, leaving the cloth laying on the guard’s face. He really saw no point in killing a stupid soldier unless one had to.
“Often people don’t survive being chloroformed, or otherwise sedated, unless they have oxygen pumped into them meanwhile. The chemicals restrict their breathing,” Leaflow said from just a pace away, making Eugene jump. The thief looked at him suspiciously, but his glowing eyes were innocently searching the courtyard and other walls, “I don’t think we’ve been seen yet. Let’s go.”
They strode back over to where Maniac had the pile of blankets on the walk and was preparing to throw them over the coils of wire. Eugene stopped him and pointed out a pair of slim, silver wires hidden in the coils of razor-line, “wait. If those two come in contact with each other, an alarm will sound. Let me see a blanket.”
He felt a storm wind begin to pick up, cool on his hot forehead, as he knelt by the wires. Using both hook and hand he carefully fed the thick cloth through the lines, laying it on top of the lower one to insulate it from the upper one. Once he was done he stood up with a sigh and wiped his forehead. “There. Now you can put the rest on.”
Leaflow draped the thick, polyester-wool blankets over the top of the coils so that the razor blades were padded, while Maniac dragged the ladder up and folded it out longer than it had been. Together the three of them guided it over the wall until its feet were resting on the outside. Maniac consulted his watch again.
“Fifteen minutes until the patrol car comes around to this side. One more fence to cross. We had better hurry.”
There was, according to him, an armored car which patrolled in a wide loop around the confinement compound. It drove slowly, sweeping the night with its headlights, but as long as it was on the far side of the prison they were safe.
The first drops of rain began to fall as they slid down the ladder to the barren, weedy ground on the outside of the main prison walls. At about a hundred feet distant a tall chain-link fence ran, topped by two lines of plain barbed wire. The three men snatched up the ladder and carried it over to the fence like a fire brigade, folding it into a shorter length so that it was not as awkward. Maniac’s club had broken on the guard’s head, so he no longer had it to hamper him.
“Is it electrified?” Eugene asked, gesturing toward the fence with his free limb.
“Not that I know of. But I’ve never touched it before,” Maniac returned, leaning the aluminum ladder up against it at the same moment. Eugene jumped free, cursing, but nothing happened, “don’t do that! I could have checked for electrical boxes first.”
“No time,” Maniac scaled the ladder and used the top of a fence post to vault over the wires. With a thump, he landed in freedom on the other side. Leaflow followed more slowly, careful not to catch his cloak on the wires. Eugene looked over his shoulder once, anxiously, to see lights moving on the wall top nearest them. It would not be long before the alarm was sounded. Without another moment’s pause he turned and ran up the ladder without using his hands, put a foot on top of the fence post and sprang over. Arms outstretched for balance, he landed lightly beside his companions.
“Come on, what are you waiting for?”
Maniac shoved wet hair out of his face so that he could see better, “a direction to go in. I planned up until here, but now what?”
“We find something to eat in that town, hopefully,” Leaflow put in, pointing toward the lights of the city at a short distance away, “the guards decided that it would be a fit revenge to eat all of my meals for me while I was chained up, so I am beginning to feel a little peckish.”
Eugene shook his head, “we’ll have to stay out of sight, mostly. But I’ll see what I can pick up. I just hope we find somewhere warm to shelter, too.”
Leading the way, he hurried toward the town just as the storm really began to come down on them. Cold, slashing rain poured down from the cloudburst. Lightening crackled, showing the three forms up against the dark sky. Soon Eugene was soaked through his flimsy prison clothes, feet bare in the sticky mud. He shivered as they went, arms wrapped around himself tightly. Rain even ran into the leather cuff of his hook, making it rub uncomfortably on his arm. They had just come into the edge of town when he noticed a brighter patch of light on top of a small hill to their left. Attracted to it, he hurried that way until he was standing in front of a wrought-iron gate with fancy spikes on top. Off to each side ran an ornate brick wall with more spikes on it. Under his feet was a gravel drive, which ran up to the very doorstep of a large, cozily-lit mansion.
“Leaflow, Maniac, look in there!” He called to his two friends, who came reluctantly nearer. The rain did not bother Leaflow much, as his cloak shed it easily. Maniac did not seem much effected either, except for having to push his soggy hair out of the way, even though his clothes were no better, “yes, that’s called a house. Nice little people live in them. But we can’t go in there now; we’ll be caught.”
“He’s right, Eugene,” the cloaked man agreed, “we’ll find something else to hide out in, further on.”
The wind blew pathetically through Eugene’s clothes as he stood looking in through the bars of the gate, face wet and feet muddy on the harsh gravel. He frowned, still shivering, “I want to go in and get warm!”
Turning from them, he began to scale the gate. Maniac caught him and dragged him back, growling, “they’ll catch you right away, you little fool! Then it will be back to that prison, or a higher security one further away. Come on.”
He dragged the thief a few steps on their way, upon which Eugene began to follow reluctantly under his own power. Soon he was trudging behind them as Maniac and Leaflow led the way into rain washed, wind-battered streets. They stuck to the back ways, avoid the few cars which ran in the night’s storm with their headlights on the brightest setting. Finally Leaflow found an abandoned shed behind an old house and Maniac pulled the door open, sweeping a hand around at the pile of dusty sacks, a rusty rake and the hard-packed dirt floor.
“Home, sweet home.”
Leaflow turned to tell Eugene to hurry inside and dry on the sacks, feeling sorry for the young man’s soaked state. He stopped, tapping his companion’s shoulder, “Ah, Maniac, he’s gone.”
“What?” Maniac spun around to peer through the sopping gloom of the thunderstorm, but there was nothing to be seen.
Eugene had slipped the anchor.