Ohio's on Fire

“Mister Carlile…Mister Carlile…Austin, can you hear me?”

With a sudden jerk of his head, Austin Carlile returned his attention to the small, windowless room he was seated in. Beside him, a behemoth of a man with a neo-Nazi haircut sat with his hands folded in his lap. The chair on which he sat was almost visibly shaking under its tremendous load. In fact, the small circle of chairs around Austin were in the same predicament—all except his of course, and the one belonging to the tiny elderly woman directly across from him.

Doctor Janet Tobias sat amongst seven of Ohio State Penitentiary’s inmates as if she were with the ladies of her Saturday afternoon book club—with a patient smile and neatly folded hands. Austin supposed that in her 83 years she’d seen and heard enough to be completely calm in this sort of situation, but he still wasn’t sure as to why she’d elected to keep her position as the prison’s resident psychiatrist. Surely she could have better used her time with needlepoint or by knitting one of those awful Christmas sweaters grandmas often make for their grandchildren.

“Mister Carlile.”

Doctor Tobias repeated his surname in her high-pitched mousy tone and Austin wrinkled his nose. ‘Mister Carlile’ was his father’s name and he felt he was required to be at least thirty years older in order to respond to it.

“Are you ready to speak today, Mister Carlile?” she asked kindly, knowing that his answer would be the same as it was yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. But when he shook his buzzed head silently, she didn’t turn her focus on the inmate beside him like she normally did. Instead, she set her clipboard down in her lap and leaned forward in her chair. “Mister Phillips told me he heard you screaming in your sleep again last night, Mister Carlile. Could you tell me about that?”

Austin’s heart rate increased a little but he remained silent. He shot a nasty glare to the large man beside him, and Henry Phillips winced remorsefully. Austin’s nightmares had been getting worse but that didn’t mean he wanted the shrink knowing about it. He made a mental note not to share his roll of toilet paper with his cell neighbor for a while.

“Mister Carlile, can you tell me about the zombie?”

A low rumble of laughter echoed around the room and all eyes turned to Austin. He didn’t answer right away in fear he’d start yelling. It was bad enough that he was the laughing stock of cell block D. This he definitely did not need.

“There’s no such thing as zombies,” he finally growled t, effectively ending the laughter of his fellow inmates.

All except for one.
Two seats to his left, a Hispanic man with a scorpion tattooed on the side of his face sat forward, smirking like the devil. “Das not what I heard, muchacho,” Diego spoke up, his thick accent laced in malice. “Word is, you saw un monstro eat some little girl.”

Austin tried not to flinch as the gruesome memory flooded his thoughts. “That didn’t happen,” he seethed through clenched teeth.

This time Diego laughed loudly, relishing in the effect he was having over Austin. “Aye, I don know, hombre. You sounded pretty convincing your first night here. Sniveling like un niño in your sleep, the zombie did it! The zombie did it!”

Unable to restrain himself anymore, Austin leapt to his feet. “THEY AREN’T REAL!” he bellowed over the man’s mocking imitation.

The Hispanic man jumped to his feet as well and crossed the space between them. Austin had a good five or six inches on him height wise but Diego had noticeably more muscle.

“So you admit it then?” he sneered in Austin’s face. “Go on and tell that abuela with the clip board what she wants to hear… You killed all those people…”

“NO!” Austin yelled at the same time his fist collided with the side of Diego’s face.

All at once, all hell broke loose. Every inmate was on their feet; cheering, yelling or attempting to pull Austin and Diego apart. Fists flew from every direction and curses in English and Spanish alike echoed around the room. Poor Doctor Tobias had sought refuge beneath her own chair and was screaming for help as the fight progressed into a full on brawl in the small conference room.

Austin wasn’t even sure if the punches he was throwing were meeting their intended mark but he had about three months of pent up aggression he was in need of unleashing, be it on Diego Sanchez or not. Every inmate in Ohio State Penitentiary had some sob story about why they were actually innocent, each one the same as the last. But Austin wasn’t like the other criminals locked up here. He was innocent. The only problem was finding someone crazy enough to take him serious.

Austin’s defense about the zombie on Ohio Interstate 71 had of course fallen on deaf ears—the judge, the jury, and he was pretty sure his extremely expensive lawyer didn’t even believe him either. Austin himself was still having a hard time wrapping his head around just what exactly he’d seen. Admittedly, if he would have heard someone spouting a wild excuse of a zombie causing a 50 car pile-up, he probably would have had them locked up too.

Unfortunately for Austin, the only other witness to the crash apparently didn’t even exist. He had woken the morning following the crash handcuffed to a hospital bed, and the green-eyed girl he’d rescued was nowhere in sight. None of the nurses, doctors, or even police officers had seen or heard of a woman matching his description. Each of them dismissed his concern about her injuries as a parent would a child’s imaginary friend.

With the deaths of 27 people on his hands, Austin’s lawyer had managed to get him a life-sentence in the psychiatric ward of the state pen. He would die in prison, but at least a little more comfortably.

“You crazy gringo, get off me!”

Ignoring Diego’s insults, Austin didn’t stop throwing punches until he was lifted clean off the ground by a man nearly twice his size. He didn’t have to look to know that it was Officer James Roark. Of course it was him. Officer Roark had personally requested that he be transferred to this wing of the prison the day Austin was incarcerated. Thinking that his lawyer had managed to get him a personal prison body guard, one could only imagine Austin’s dismay when he discovered that Roark’s daughter was amongst the 27 victims of the Ohio Interstate 71 incident.

“All right you skinny fucker, that’s enough!” Officer Roark growled in his ear. If he were any closer to him, Austin could have felt Roark’s thick mustache tickle his neck. His massive arms wrapped around Austin’s body and yanked him backwards while another officer did the same to Diego.

“Put me down, fatso!” Diego was barking at his restraining officer. “Ahora! Put me down!”

“Shove it, Sanchez!” Roark snapped angrily. In one fluid motion, he had Austin on the ground and one of his massive shiny black boots in between his shoulder blades. “Stay down, if you know what’s good for you,” he barked at him then turned his attention back to Diego and the officer restraining him.

Austin lifted his head a little and saw Diego had been put in the same position he was in on the floor. The other inmates and Doctor Tobias had already been cleared out, leaving the two officers to assess the situation with their boots still firmly planted on their respective inmates’ backs.

“He started it!” Diego and Austin both shouted at almost the exact same time. Fighting did not go over well in the prison, especially not in group therapy meetings. Fully knowing that rule breakers were subject to harsh punishments, it was the obvious choice to point fingers at someone other than themselves.

Officer Roark pressed his boot down harder into Austin’s back. “I don’t care who started it! I’m ending it! And around here, my word is law!” He turned his attention back on his fellow officer. “Take that wetback to his cell; I’ve got other plans for this one.”

Austin stole a glance up and saw the second officer look between Roark and him nervously. “Um…Jimmy…”

“GO!” thundered Roark, making the other three of the room’s occupants wince. Once Diego was dragged off the floor and pushed out of the room, Roark took his boot off Austin’s back. In a move that nearly knocked the wind out of him, Roark kicked him hard in his left side, and rolled him onto his back.

“I knew it was only a matter of time before you fucked up, Carlile,” he spat, slowly circling around him. Austin groaned loudly as he was given another swift kick in his right side. This one nearly cracked a rib. “You’re gonna pay for what you did to my little girl.”

Austin’s mouth got the better of him and glared up at Roark. “Takes a real man to kick a man while he’s down, doesn’t it?”

An hour and a half later, Austin was literally thrown back into his little 6 by 8 cell, bloody and already bruising. Roark hadn’t killed him, but it damn near could have. He groaned as he slowly pushed himself off the cold concrete, reaching beside him for the cot that was suspended from the wall. After two failed attempts, he finally lifted himself up onto the cot and rolled onto his back.

It had been a long time since he’d gotten an ass kicking like that, especially one he didn’t deserve. He supposed that he could have tried to defend himself against Roark but he feared the cost of doing so would have been far greater than just taking the beating. Though admittedly, the thought of knocking Roark on his ass did cross Austin’s mind a time or two.

“Austin…?” The timid question came from the cell beside him and Austin could picture Henry’s plump face pressed against his cell bars trying to see into the neighboring cell. “I’m sorry man…” Henry started timidly. The sound of the older man’s apology annoyed Austin more than usual. “I shouldn’t have told the doc about you…I was just—”

“Don’t sweat it, dude” Austin sighed, cutting him off. He hoped that Henry would take the hint and leave him alone for a while but he had no such luck. Like an overly caring mother, Henry started prying again.

“Are you okay?”

Austin exhaled loudly and winced as a sharp pain radiated from his left side. “I’m fine,” he lied to Henry. “Just really tired. It’s almost lights out anyway. I’m going to try to get some sleep now.”

The neighboring cell what silent after that and Austin was thankful to be finally left alone. Henry was a nice guy and all, but he sure did like to talk. Austin should have known that the silence would only last so long.

“If it’s any consolation…I believe you.”

Austin lifted his head at Henry’s nearly inaudible comment. It was a nice gesture, but one convict believing him wasn’t going to get him a shorter sentence. Besides, he was supposed to be sticking to the story that zombies weren’t real.

“I was drunk, Henry,” Austin said flatly. “There’s no such thing as—”

The sound that cut off his statement was one that would haunt Austin’s memories forever. An almost deafening scream of terror followed by a series of gunshots echoed through the long corridor of cell block D. Every inmate was on their feet almost instantly, rushing to peer through the gaps in their bars. Austin hobbled to his door as well, holding his side in pain while the shouts and sounds of gunshots grew louder.

It seemed to Austin that the louder and more distinct the screams became, the fewer gunshots he heard following them. A decreasing pattern. A troublesome thought then occurred to Austin; whoever was causing the screams was winning, and he wasn’t quite sure which team he was on.