Richard Stephenson - Collapse

Head leaned over to Richard and spoke in his ear, “You know Billy ain’t makin’ it under the wire, his chest will bump the wires together.”

“Billy! Make sure you keep your arms at your sides and flatten yourself out the best you can. And go feet first”

“Yeah, I got it! Here I come.”

“Be ready to catch him,” Richard said to Head.

“Catch him? What the… oh, shit, yeah I got you. Fuck, this ain’t gonna be pretty.”

“Lookin’ good, Billy, just be careful. Nice and slow. That’s it.”

Tank’s legs and stomach were under the wire. Head grabbed his feet and angled his legs to the left. Richard grabbed his right arm and pulled as hard as he could.

“What are you…” Tank’s chest pushed the bottom wire up and it touched the wire above it. The stun charge was delivered across Tank’s chest and propelled him the rest of the way under the fence. Head and Richard held on tight, stopping Tank from being propelled into the stack of razor wire a few feet away. Lucky for Tank, the two men had shared the jolt of electricity, making it equally painful for all three of them.

Spider was laughing hysterically. “Man, that shit was cool! Holy shit! I can’t believe that just happened! You guys all right?”

“Shut up, you little fucker,” Head said, looking like he’d had the shit beaten out of him.

“OK, the last part is easy, let’s go.”

The four men helped each other over the final fence. The mattresses bore the punishment of the razor wire for them as they clambered up to the top of the fence and jumped down.

Once they were over, they ran a few yards at a time and stopped to lay on the ground to get away from the smoke. Once they got about ten yards on the other side of the perimeter road they stopped again, as Head began to choke and vomit. He sounded like he was being strangled. Spider tried to calm him down as he kicked and flailed around.

“Richard, we’re all gonna die out here! This is crazy! What the fuck are we supposed to do?” Spider sounded like a frightened child.

Richard had absolutely no idea what to do. He figured that most of the inmates locked in their cells were dead. Had he managed the nearly impossible feat of escape only to die a hundred yards from the fence? His only hope was that Mother Nature would show him some kindness and blow the smoke away.

“Is Head okay?” Richard asked Spider.

“I don’t think so, man, I think he passed out. He’s still breathing.”

“We just need to relax and wait a few minutes. The smoke has to let up eventually. Just try to stay calm and save your breath. Stop talking, close your mouth and breathe through your nose.”

The four men rested on the ground for the better part of an hour. The smoke didn’t clear up at all; if anything, it got worse. Richard was more worried about the heat than the smoke. They were losing bodily fluid in the form of sweat at an alarming rate. If they stayed in that spot for too long, dehydration would set in, and they would begin to suffer from heat stroke. Richard continued to scan what little he could see of his surroundings. It was the middle of the afternoon but it was dark as night. All he needed was for the sun to peek through just a little so he could see what was around them. They needed some type of shelter from the heat and smoke.

Spider was nearly in tears. “I don’t think Head is going to make it! I can’t tell if he’s breathing or not!” Spider continued to nudge Head. “C’mon John! You still with me, man? C’mon, just hang in there! Richard, we gotta do something! I don’t think he’s breathing!”

Richard crawled over to Head and turned him over on his back. He detected a faint pulse and very shallow breathing. Richard began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to put some much needed oxygen in his lungs. One thing was certain — Head was going to die very soon if something wasn’t done.

“Stay here and keep putting air in his lungs. Make sure you tilt his chin back and watch his chest rise and fall. I’m going up the perimeter road a bit to see if we can find a way out of this.” Tank and Spider looked at Richard in fear as he crouched down and headed towards the road. Once there, he dropped a shirt in the road to mark the spot. The rear gate was on the opposite side of the prison grounds; no way he could make it that far. He just needed a drainage ditch or maintenance shed anything at all. He had only moved a few yards when he saw a glimmer of light reflect off something.

It was one of the perimeter vehicles.

Was someone still in it? Did the guard die in there? Is he laying down on the floorboards with his pistol ready to defend himself? Richard slowly approached the rear bumper of the vehicle and peered in the back window. He couldn’t see anyone inside. He slowly crept to the driver’s side and peered around. The driver’s side door was wide open. He laid down and looked under the vehicle. The driver’s side tires were flat. It was clear to Richard that the guard had abandoned the vehicle and shot out the tires. He probably joined the other perimeter patrol and they left together when the smoke got too thick and no one was answering the radio.

“Thank you, gentlemen, this will do nicely,” Richard said to himself.

Richard quickly looked over the vehicle to see what he was dealing with. The keys were gone, so was the radio. Richard noticed that the front passenger seat had been replaced with a gun rack. One slot was empty and the other had a rifle resting in it. Richard grabbed the rifle and saw that it was a variation of an M-16. He searched for ammunition but came up empty handed.

Richard exited the vehicle and made his way back to the three. He could tell something was wrong.

“What?”

“It’s Head, I don’t know, but he…” said Spider.

Richard dropped down next to Head, put his fingers on his neck to check for a pulse and dropped his ear over his mouth. After twenty seconds, he knew the answer.

“John’s dead. We can’t do anything for him; it’s time to go.”

“What do you mean he’s dead? There’s gotta be something we can do! We can’t just leave him here!” Spider was not taking the death of his best friend very well.

“There’s nothing we can do for him, unless you want to carry him. The rest of us are going to die if we don’t get moving. Tank, you still have those tools?” asked Richard.

“Yeah, I got ‘em. What are we doing?”

“Follow me. Spider, I know how close the two of you were, but there’s nothing we can do for him.” With the two men in tow, Richard headed down the road to the vehicle.

“Fuck me, Killer. You kill the guard?” asked Tank.

“No, I figure he abandoned the vehicle and left with the other patrol.”

“Two of the tires are flat. What good is this thing?

“Billy, I wasn’t planning on driving it anywhere. Help me push it down into the ditch.”

Richard put the car in neutral and they pushed the vehicle off the road into the drainage ditch. Richard couldn’t really understand why a drainage ditch was even needed. The desert floor was so dry that whenever it rained, the ground soaked up every drop like a sponge. Nevertheless, the low-lying ground would help protect them from the smoke.

“You got a hammer and a screwdriver? Spider, help me rip up the paneling from the floorboards. Tank, start nailing holes in the floor so we can breath.”

“Spider, can you hot-wire this thing?”

Spider had a long history of stealing cars. When he started to target elderly black people and not only car-jack them, but kill them for their cars, he landed himself in prison. Spider had the engine running in under a minute.

Richard hit the controls and rolled up the windows on the driver’s side. He then cracked the passenger side windows an inch and turned the heat up full blast. Next he switched the thermostat from fresh air to recycle.