Resurrection Day print

Robby's last day on Earth started off just as lousy as the day before. The constant rain soaking the
prison grounds over the last week had once again created the same issue which had haunted him since the first day he took a job with the maintenance department.

“The tunnels under the dining hall? Again? Seriously?”

Robby’s supervisor shrugged.  “It’s the pumps acting up again.  What can I tell you?”

Robby’s shoulders slumped.  “Man, this is supposed to be some sort of maximum security big-deal prison.  You know, the best of the best for the worst of the worst?  And they can’t install a couple of damn pumps that actually work, now I got to go down there and patch ‘em up again?”

“I don’t know about the best of the best or any of that,” his supervisor said.  “I do know this place was old as dirt when it got bought by the company.  Guess they didn’t want to invest too much into tearing it all up and starting from scratch.  I think the business term is ‘minimum viable product’.”

“More like ‘minimum viable bullshit’.  Those people we got locked up in here?  The things they can
do… the things they have done? They should be in some space-age supermax prison, not this moldy old museum.  I’m not even talking about the Users.  The regular guys will cut your guts out just to see your expression change.”

“Look man, I didn’t build the place and I don’t make the rain fall.  I do my job; you do yours.  Right?”

“Fine,” Robby said, pulling a heavy flashlight off of the charging station and clicking it on briefly to
make sure it actually worked.  “I hate it down there.  It’s too dark.”

“Oooooo,” his supervisor said, flapping his hands around his ears.  “So dark and scaaaaaary.  I don’t
wanna go.”

Yeah, maybe if you ever got up off your fat ass and got down there, you’d change your tune, Robby almost said, but he forced his lips to stay shut.  The boss was the boss, and Robby needed the overtime.  No sense biting the hand that feeds.

He headed out of the maintenance center, using the doors that led outside so he could loop around
the various cell blocks.  No sense going
through the hassle of clearing the guard stations and the central hub just to avoid the rain outside.  Not to mention, Robby didn’t want any of those eyes on him; not from the regular convicts, especially not from any of the Users.

Trubuilt 187 was one of only three prisons in the entire country cleared to house magic-using
prisoners, and the only one at all on the East Coast.  Originally built in the 1800s, it stayed in use for over a century before being shut down.  Decades later, Trubuilt Corporation picked it up for pennies on the
dollar, slapped some paint over the cracks and flaws, and added it to their considerable list of privatized prisons.

They touted the purchase as being a perfect fit to meet the niche requirements of keeping magic-users… or just Users as the staff began to call them… locked away.  The particular challenges of restraining a criminal who could levitate or toss a magespear at will proved problematic at standard prisons to say the least.  More than a few casualties led to the powers that be to recognize that particular
care was going to have to be taken in keeping Users locked up, and it didn’t take long for the private prison industry to step up and offer their solution.

At first, there were hardly any “customers”, given the small number of people who could actually use
magic.  And there were quotas to fill… private prisons got paid by the customer… so it didn’t take long for the prison to turn into a hybrid.   Prisoners who were Users were housed in certain cell blocks, and the Regulars… good old-fashioned non-magical violent offenders… were put into different blocks.

Then business boomed, the cells filled up, and the real problems started.  The prison was falling apart, the old bricks barely being held together with spackle and duct tape and sheer willpower. 
Overcrowding only strained the infrastructure more, not to mention sparking violence and unrest amongst the customers.

None of that was Robby’s problem.  At least, not all of it.  Just the pumps that kept the tunnels under
the old prison from flooding.  The outdated
wiring and pipes and ventilation shafts didn’t react well to several feet of water, so the pumps had to keep it all nice and dry, especially when it was
raining cats and dogs like it had been all damn week.

Robby looped around the nearest cell blocks, giving the ugly buildings a quick glance as the rain
pelted him hard and forced his eyes into a squint.  Big ugly old monster of a prison, he thought. 
The dining hall was on the far side of the cell blocks, and the pumps that were acting up were underneath the dining hall.

It was a stupid design, really, born out of the patchwork construction of the prison.  Robby had no idea what the dining hall was originally used for back in the day, or if the dining hall had even been
included in the original design or was a new addition.

Well, newer.  Nothing was new in this place.

It wasn’t just the dark and the quiet that made Robby nervous when he was in the tunnels underneath the dining hall.  Those particular tunnels
led underneath and up to the morgue, as well. 
Robby didn’t care to speculate what kind of sick, twisted thinking had led the prison architects to decide to stick the morgue and the cemetery next to
the dining hall in the first place.  All he knew was, the air down there was different. 

Not just cold, not just damp; in the tunnels, the air was hollow.  Down there, it felt like his breath was being pulled out of his lungs by unseen hands trying to drag the very life out of him.  And knowing those dead folks were up above him, weighing down the earth that pressed on top of the tunnels, only
made the sensation of the life being crushed out of him that much worse.

There wasn’t anything to be done about it, though; the pumps were where they were, and there was no use complaining about it.  Robby knocked on
the maintenance door to the dining hall, waited for the guard to let him in, and made his way to the stairwell.

Newer concrete steps gave way to worn flagstone as Robby descended; it was as if he were walking back in time as he stomped his feet down the steps. 
The light always seemed insufficient in the stairwells and the tunnels, spaced out a little too far apart or maybe just not quite bright enough.  It was as if the dark was swallowing each light up slowly, as if the light was slowly losing the battle to the dark in tiny increments.

Robby clicked on his flashlight, more for emotional comfort than real necessity, and fiddled around
on his keychain for the right set to unlock the metal door at the bottom of the stairwell.  The door groaned and squealed as it twisted on its rusty hinges, and when it clanged shut behind him, Robby
couldn’t help but jump a little.

“Hate this place,” he muttered.

Dirt and detritus covered the floor of the narrow tunnel.  As hard as it was to keep the aging prison working at all, keeping these old tunnels
clean as a whistle was hardly a priority for the custodians.  Even when Robby and the other maintenance staff tried to sweep up, it never seemed to make a difference.  The dirt practically materialized out of nowhere.

He waited for a second and strained his ears for the old familiar sound.  A constant low hum always filled this part of the tunnels, coming from the pumps doing their best to keep the water at bay. 

It wasn’t there.  

“Pumps must really be messed up,” Robby said aloud, to chase away the heavy quiet. “Usually they’re still running but can’t keep up.”

Sure enough, the tunnel was already showing early signs of flooding.  Robby followed the tiny stream of water leading into the dark, toward the pumps, when a hint of sound tickled at his ears. 

It was so quick and faint, Robby thought he might be fooling himself, imagining spooks and ghostly
creatures floating in the deserted tunnels.  But a second later, he heard it again, more clearly this time. 

Muffled voices.

It had to be; the human ear has a natural inclination to pick out voices and conversation, and even as
low and muffled and distant as the sounds were, they were definitely voices.  He couldn’t see anybody down the dim tunnel up ahead of him, but the voices were coming from close to where the
pumps were located.

His hand reflexively went down to the radio on his hip, but he shook his head at his jumpiness.  Come
on, he thought.  There ain’t no Great Escape going on down here.  Probably just some other crew guys beat me to it, working on the pumps.

He laughed at himself a little bit as he continued closer to the sound.  There was no way in hell anybody could’ve broken out of the cell blocks
and then made their way down here.  What was under the dining hall that an escapee could want? 

Anybody that managed to miraculously work their way out of their cell, then out of their cell block,
past all the guards, and make it that far would be high-tailing it for the wall, not burrowing down under the dining hall and cemetery to mess with the
water pumps.  Besides, even as old as the prison was, there had never been a single incident where a prisoner managed to escape.  Trubuilt Corporation bragged about that all the time.

Robby’s steps began to quicken and get more confident now that he knew he had some company down here.  Much better to have another
heartbeat and living voice around to chase off the cold and damp and dark that seemed to hold sway down here.

The voices slowly got louder and louder as he approached, until finally he could pick out words and then sentences between two men talking.

“…telling you, Fly, those water pumps are supposed to be going.  It’s starting to flood in the tunnels. 
I mean, not much, it’s not like it’s going to drown us or anything, but someone is bound to notice that they’re not working…”

“And I’m telling you, it’s time for you to shut the hell up and focus.  This Trick isn’t for the absent-minded.  Something goes sideways, and you are going to find yourself in a world of hurt.  So forget about the pumps and concentrate.”

“All right, all right, just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

What in the hell are these guys talking about?  Robby thought to himself, straining to recognize the voices, when a strange blue light began to play into the tunnel from an intersection just up ahead. 

The light flickered intermittently into the tunnel from a hallway branching off to the right, and seemed almost like someone was using an arc welder or something else with a powerful electrical discharge.  There wasn’t anything but an old storage room down that way, though, and Robby
couldn’t imagine what anybody could be welding in there. 

He clicked off his flashlight and slowed down as he approached the tunnel where the light was coming from, stopping just shy of the intersection.  The voices had stopped, replaced by a sort of low muttering or chanting in a language Robby couldn’t recognize.  His mind felt like it was going to twist in
knots trying to sort out the alien sounds worming their way into his ears.

He thought once more about the radio on his belt.  This was weird, really weird, but Robby still couldn’t imagine that those were escaped prisoners up ahead of him.  It didn’t make any sense.  This would be a dead end for them; in fact, it was the opposite of the direction an escaped prisoner would want to go. 

So, what was he going to do… run away in a panic and call for help on the radio, only to find out that
it was nothing but two other custodians fixing something he didn’t know about?  That’d be just great.  He’d never hear the end of that one. 

Still, something wasn’t right, so he crept up on the corner like a cat and held his breath in tightly
as he stole a peek into the tunnel leading to the right.  It was almost completely dark down that
tunnel; a single bare bulb in the large storage room ten yards away cast long shadows into the hall from two men bent over at the waist, backs toward him,
intent on something lying on the floor.  Robby couldn’t tell what they were hovering over; their bodies blocked his view. 

He could see that the two men were wearing prison uniforms, and once again, he reached reflexively toward the radio on his belt.  He paused, though, from a combination of curiosity and knowing that if he tried to raise an alarm while standing so close to the prisoners, they’d turn and be on him before he could get out half a sentence.

He had begun to edge back behind the corner to make his escape when the blue light caught his eye.  It was coming from in front of the two
prisoners, silhouetting them, a bright blue flickering that probably would’ve been blinding in the darkness if Robby could’ve seen its source. 

They’re Users, Robby realized.  They’re Users who got out somehow and got down here and they’re doing something crazy, some magic Trick, that’s
what that blue light is.

He stood frozen and kept watching despite himself.  He’d never seen any real magic done up close.  Most mages worked for the government or rich people or both, or performed up on a distant stage or sometimes a Youtube video, but Robby had never had the chance to see honest to God magic up close and personal.

What kind of Trick is that? he wondered, and then immediately interrupted his own thought.  Who cares, stupid?  Get the hell out of here and call the
cavalry, right now!

Still, despite his thoughts, he found himself transfixed, wanting another moment or two to witness the miraculous, wanting a glimpse as to what the two Users were doing to answer the big mystery. As much as he screamed and yelled at himself inside of his head to get out, get out of there, run top speed down the tunnel and raise the
alarm, his body betrayed him and he stayed stock still, peeking around the corner, pushing his luck just little bit further and a little bit further and a little bit further.

One of the Users suddenly slumped forward a bit, as if tired, and the blue light stopped.

“You okay?” the other one asked.

“Yeah, Fly, yeah.  This one just took a lot out of me for some reason.”

The tall, thin one on the right called Fly punched the tired User on the shoulder good-naturedly.  “I hear you.  This motherfucker’s been down a while. 
It’s all right, though.  We got the job done.”

Fly turned to his right and stepped out of sight, and Robby finally got a glimpse of what the two Users
had been focusing on.  There on the stone storeroom floor, lay a mud-smeared corpse.

“Let’s put him on your side with the others,” Fly said.

The mages didn’t bend down to pick up the corpse; instead, there was a sudden jerking, twitching
movement and the dead man sat bolt upright.

Jesus! Robby thought, taking an involuntary step back, mind whirling and racing as it tried to process what he saw.  He had to run, he had to run right now, and when the dead man’s head turned and looked straight at him, that’s exactly what he did, he turned and ran down the dark tunnel as fast as his legs would carry him.

It was mere seconds before he heard shouts behind him.  He didn’t turn to look, didn’t do anything other than pump his legs as fast and as hard as he could, every nerve in his body snapping and sparking with panic.  His thoughts raced a million miles a second;
what to do, where to go, should he go for his radio, no, forget it, just run for your life, no time for the radio yet, when suddenly, his legs went out from
under him and he crashed face first onto the stone floor.  Water from the shallow puddle he’d landed in
instantly soaked his entire front, but it was the furthest thing from his mind; he launched himself to his feet with a desperate strength and tried to run
again, but there was another unseen force crashing into him from behind and he fell once again to the wet floor. He twisted a little as he fell, landing on
his side, and he shot a glimpse back the way he’d come. 

Nightmares were chasing him. 

Two of them were muddy like the one on the floor, but the third was clean and nude and had a huge Y
shaped incision going up the front of his torso, stitched together with thick black thread.  Dead men, all three, that much Robby knew from what he’d just seen, and they were charging towards him
with a strange, loping stride, baring their teeth like rabid dogs and reaching out with hands tipped with nails that looked more like claws than anything
human.

Robby scrambled to his feet, feeling like he was stuck in thick tar no matter how hard his muscles
strained.  He could see them closing in fast on him, knew in his heart he’d never regain his feet fast enough, strained every muscle and sinew to the limit anyway in a desperate attempt to escape the
inevitable.

He’d made it halfway to his feet when they crashed into him and dragged him back to the ground.  One of the muddy corpses went straight at his neck with brown-stained, broken teeth, and Robby threw up an arm to protect himself.  Pain burned into his arm like molten metal as the dead man’s jaws clamped down on his arm, followed instantly by more intense pain from his midsection as the other two corpses tore into his abdomen with claws and fangs.

He screamed and struggled, hopelessly weighed down by the dead men tearing him apart, warm wet
blood running down his body in streams that became rivers. And then, it was over and they were off him, leaving him lying face up and torn apart on the dirty wet stone floor.

He wasn’t dead, not yet.  His body was a mix of intense pain and numbness; he was too weak to cry out.  Still, he struggled to keep drawing breath, hoping against hope that something, somebody, would intervene and save him.

The two Users caught up to him as the dead returned soundlessly to the storage room. Fly paced
nervously, shaking his arms around as if he didn’t know what to do with them.  “God damn it.  God damn it!  Man, this is… we screwed this up bad, man.  This guy’s definitely going to be missed.”

“I told you we broke something loose when we crawled past the pumps.  I don’t know if it was this trip or one of the last ones…”

“It doesn’t… forget the pumps, stupid!  Stealing bodies from the morgue and the cemetery is one thing, this…” Fly said, pointing down at Robby
lying in a spreading pool of blood, “…this is not exactly going to go unnoticed, you know what I’m saying?  We were supposed to have a lot more days and a lot more trips to get everything ready, and now…”

Fly finally stopped pacing and shrugged in resignation.  “Now we’re going to have to get everything started prematurely.  And you know she’s not going to like that.”

“How mad do you think she’s going to get?”

“Well, pretty fucking mad, I’ll guess! How mad would you get if your master plan got all screwed up
by a couple of idiots getting caught and setting it all off too soon?”

Fly shook his head before he continued.  “Forget it.  Forget it.  Whatever.  What’s done is done.  Not our fault.  We’re not omniscient.  It’s not like we’re Maestros or masterminds. We just know what we were taught and do what we were told.  Guess we’ll have to start the music early, that’s all.”

“What about this guy?”

Another shrug from Fly.  “No sense letting good material go to waste.”

The skinny mage knelt down next to Robby and looked him over. 

“Oh, damn, man, are you still alive?  Wow.  Well, you’ve got to be fading fast with all this blood coming out of you.  Let’s hope so, anyway, for your sake.  Can’t imagine what it must feel like for the Trick to work on you while you’re still breathing.”

He leaned over Robby’s face and put a hand tightly over Robby’s nose and mouth, sealing them shut.  Even as weak as Robby was, as soon as his air was cut off, he reflexively began to struggle, to fight with
everything he had for one more ragged breath. 

It was pointless, as wounded as he was, and Fly began to shake his head as he held Robby down and
smothered him.

“Shhh, come on now, let it go, brother,” he said in a surprisingly kind tone. “Let it all go. You don’t
want to be in there for what’s coming next. 
Trust me.  What’s coming down on this prison… you’re getting off easy.  Just fade out now.  Just fade.”

Robby’s feeble struggles reached a crescendo, and then darkness clouded the edges of his vision, moving quickly inwards and swallowing the light as he finally faded away lying on the
cold stone floor.