Eric Flint: Time spike

But he'd terrified lots of people and he'd done so damnmany of them.

Six shots were all he fired, and he took down two men with them. The Boomer with him, on the other hand-that was Quentin Jackson-emptied his whole clip at his target. That was mostly just personal, though.

Jackson was quite good with a pistol and knew perfectly well his first three shots had taken care of his man. But since the man involved was Tom Davidson and they had plenty of ammunition, Jackson saw no reason not to satisfy an old grudge. "How does it feel being shot to doll rags, you fuck?" He started unzipping his coverall. "Jackson, cut it out," said Morelli. "We ain't got time for you to piss on him." "Sure we do. You and me supposed to stay here and guard the tower. We got plenty of time." "Fine. I don't want tosmell it, how's that?" In the end, Jackson satisfied the last of his grudge by muscling Davidson's body out of the window and letting it plunge to the concrete far below. Between that and all the bullets he'd put in him, the man would spend his afterlife a mangled mess. Jackson was a Rastafarian, of sorts-a one-man sect in the creed-and believed firmly that you went into the afterlife looking the way you did when you died. "Think there's any weed in the here and now?" he asked Morelli, a half hour later. Morelli had been wondering the same thing. From what he could see and hear, they'd be having a celebration tomorrow. And Morelli didn't approve of liquor. The stuff was bad for you. Frank took down the first two convicts advancing on the armory with four shots, two for each. The fusillade that followed from the guards with him took down three more. The rest ran. "Anybody hurt?" he asked. Thankfully, nobody was. Behind them, Bird Matthews finished with her first aid.

"Amazingly enough-assuming nothing gets infected-I think you're going to make it." "Hope so." Geoffrey hissed a little at the pain. "I'm worried about my kids." Matthews shifted to a squat and looked at him.

"Wouldn't think you would be. That much." "Meaning no offense, ma'am, but what you know about the heart and soul of a big city hit man could be written on the head of a pin. Where were you born and raised? From the accent, I'd say Podunkville, Middle-of-the-Sticks. Population, five hundred." Matthews smiled. "Okay. Fair enough. Why'd you do it, then?" He started to shrug, but the pain that gesture caused drew another hiss. "Hard to explain, exactly. Looking back on it, I think I'd've done better to take up hamburger-flipping. In the long run, anyway. At the time, though…" His eyes studied nothing in particular on one of the walls. "When you're a kid growing up in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood, with a whore for a mother and a string of men coming through instead of a father, your options look pretty limited. And you got the moral code of an alley cat. By the time I was fifteen, though, I knew two things for sure. And two things only. First, I was queer. Second, I was tougher'n anybody I knew. Way, way tougher than anybody my own age. So… one thing led to another. It doesn't take too long before you realize you've burned every bridge that might have existed, behind you. After that…" He was silent, for a while. "The funny thing is, the only thing I really regretted was that I figured I'd never have kids. And now I do. So, here I am. For the first time in my life since I was a kid myself, worrying about something." "Well, I know that feeling. It's the one thing-the only thing, and I stress that-I miss about not being straight." Kidd peered at her. "You're the dyke, right? The one they say has a motorcycle jacket?" Matthew chuckled. "Yep, that's me. Of course, I never wore it on duty. But if I can get my locker back, I'll show it to you." He managed an actual grin, despite the pain. "I'd surely like to see that jacket. The prospect's enough to keep me living, I figure. Between that and the kids." They were at the administration building, now. Andy Blacklock and Jeff Edelman worked their way across the building's large entryway. A half dozen guards bolted up the stairs, checking the upper floor offices. Another dozen went through the main level payroll offices looking under desks and inside file cabinets. And another half dozen went downstairs, to the basement area, checking behind boilers and inside tool rooms. A few slow minutes passed and theall clear call came from everywhere. The gates to the prison's interior were closed and locked, but they had a key. It slowed them down, but didn't stop them. None of the prisoners had stayed behind to protect the area. They went through the first set of gates. The second set, the ones dividing the guardhouse from the prisoner holding area, was open. So was the third set leading from the building to the main street inside the walls. "Whereare they?" Andy muttered. He was starting to get a little rattled, almost. Except for one brief firefight with a small group of convicts shortly after they took the entrance, they hadn't run into any opposition. And that firefight hadn't lasted more than a few seconds. One guard went down, with a leg wound, and two convicts were killed. The rest ran. In fact, the prison seemed eerily deserted. At Andy's command, four C.O. s left the main body of guards and veered left. They went through a door and up the stairs to the holding area reserved for men who needed close watching. The stairway was narrow, just thirty inches across.

And instead of the normal eight inch run and eight inch rise with a tread of eight or nine inches, the stone stairs had a six inch tread.

And their rise and run varied from step to step. Eight inches, six inches, nine inches, four inches. The stairs, built without a handrail, had been designed to slow prisoners down. They were difficult to climb and treacherous to descend at any pace above a snail's. The guards, four members of the prison's extraction team, went up the stairs sideways, at a pace most people wouldn't have thought possible. Once at the top, they fanned out. It didn't take long to check the cells, bathrooms and guard's station. The wing was clear. No prisoners. Inside one of the cells was a small wooden sculpture of a woman. Her perky nose, full hair and large eyes almost matched a photograph lying on the bottom bunk. Scrawled on the wall opposite the bunk was a message written in bright green paint: I am murdered Beneath that message was another: No honor among thieves The men looked at the graffiti. After a few seconds, Lowell Van Wagenen sighed. "It's not like Mark to leave his wife's picture on the bunk."

The others nodded. Mark Huston carried Peggy Huston's photo everywhere he went. The man showed it to anyone who would look at it. He had once said it was his life ring, the thing that kept him sane. No one ever pointed out that sanity was not the man's strong suit. Or that Peggy's photo looked just like Reba McEntire when she was young. Or that, according to his prison records, Mark had never married. Instead, they were grateful. From the time the picture showed up until the day of the Quiver they hadn't had to rush him to the infirmary because he had eaten glass or razor blades. They hadn't had to put him on suicide watch or in the hole for fighting with other prisoners. And not once did a C.O. get gunned down with a bucket of piss and shit. Mark loved his Peggy and their two children, a boy and girl who looked like kids out of a Sears catalogue. He was always full of stories about their antics in school and how they helped their mother. He made no phone calls and received no letters. But he could always tell you what they did over the weekend. A three-time loser who would never see the outside, he talked about the things he would do with his family once he got home. The fishing trips they would take, and the vacations to Yellow Ray and Disney World. He even took classes at the prison school so he could earn a living once he was on the outside. He planned to go straight. He was going to do it for the kids. He wanted them to grow up right. He wanted his son to be a doctor and his girl to marry well.