Tanner Raines lay on his small bunk, arms folded behind his head, staring at the iron bars of his cage. He could hear the sounds of prisoners shouting and banging things against their cell doors, desperate men struggling against the injustice of their reality. It had been two long days since guards had walked the white halls of the prison ward. Water was no longer running in the stainless toilets and faucets, and there hadn’t been any delivery of food, toilet paper, or mail. Electricity had also been lost, making for some very dark nights in cells illuminated only by moonlight spilling in through small Plexiglas windows.
Having had plenty of time to watch TV before the crisis, Tanner knew good and well that the country had gone to pot. A virus was spreading faster than sightings of Elvis. Politicians had talked of freeing some of the prisoners in order to make it easier to care for those who remained. In Talladega, however, that plan had failed to materialize. Instead, the guard patrols became less frequent and then just stopped all together. It appeared that they had simply decided to let the prisoners rot in their cells.
Despite stories of poncho rafts and ropes woven from toilet paper, it was nearly impossible to break out of a medium security prison like Talladega’s Federal Correctional Institution. Tanner’s cell door was made from hardened steel bars that could not be cut or damaged with anything in his six-by-eight cell. He had but one hope, and that was that someone would let him out. Short of that happening, he would die. He understood this truth and waited as calmly as his nerves would permit. Remaining still not only allowed him to conserve his considerable strength but also to work on an inner peace that he had struggled with most of his life.
“In this world, people suffer,” he said, reciting the first of the Buddhist Four Noble Truths. “This doesn’t mean that I have to like it, only that I have to accept it.”
After staring at the door most of the day, he began to doze off. Just as he was about to resign himself to being one day closer to his inevitable doom, he heard footsteps in the hallway. They were hurried and uneven, coming in quick shuffles followed by short pauses. He quickly got to his feet and moved to the door to look out. The man coming down the hall was wearing a blue guard’s uniform, but his shirt was pulled out and unbuttoned, as if he had just stumbled out of a pub. As he got closer, Tanner recognized him as Ray Foster.
For a couple of years, Tanner had been teaching Kenpo Karate to Ray and three other guards. Not only did it lead to his receiving a few special perks from the guards, it also helped to keep his proficiency up, something that came in handy while in prison. Standing six-foot-four and weighing just over 250 pounds didn’t hurt either. Even at fifty-four years old, Tanner was a tremendously powerful man by anyone’s measure. Time, however, was every man’s enemy, and serving a fifteen-year sentence all but ensured that his art would be lost if he didn’t pass it on while in prison. The guards were quite receptive to being the student of a man who had proven the lethality of his style of self-defense on more than one occasion.
At this point, however, Ray did not look well. His face was swollen, his eyes were laced with bloody cobwebs, and his clothing was soaked in sweat. Even though Ray was as close to a friend as he had, Tanner stepped back from the jail cell door.
“What happened to you?”
“I’m no good,” Ray mumbled, moving up to the bars and fumbling with a large ring of keys. “No good,” he repeated.
When he found the right key, he held it up for Tanner to see.
“Only you,” he said. “For what you did for me. No one else. Promise me.”
Tanner said nothing.
“I cleared the entire lower ward yesterday. Only non-violents there. But here …,” he shook his head. “We can’t let them out. Promise me.”
“Okay, but they’ll die. And not in a good way. Long and slow from dehydration.”
“The lives they chose,” he said, shrugging, before breaking into a long uncontrolled coughing fit.
When he finally recovered, he inserted a key into the door lock and turned it hard until a loud clunk sounded. The door moved inward a few inches with the weight of his body resting against it.
“Don’t touch anything I touch,” he said. “And don’t get too close either.”
Tanner nodded. No chance of that.
Ray turned and motioned for him to follow.