CHAPTER ONE
Deep inside a maximum security prison, in the confines of a dark, windowless, cell, lit only by a feint, white, light filtering through a small hatch on the door, two men in their late twenties sat across from each other, flashlight in hand, chipping away at a hollowed part of a wall, the clink-clank noises of their makeshift tools, digging into the concrete, no match for the volume of their voices echoing in the room as they argued.
The two men had been digging the tunnel through their cell wall for a while, and judging by the amount of concrete they had unearthed, it seemed in a few days, hours, maybe even minutes, the hole would give in and the forested view of the outside world would appear. Regardless of the time, they remained patient, chipping at the wall in secret, ready to slither to freedom at the slightest sign of light.
Choking from dust coming from the wall as he scrapped at it, the shorter of the two men, Ryan, let out a misty sneeze much to the disgust of his accomplice Shane.
“Sorry,” Ryan said.
“No, don’t be,”Shane replied. “you’re aim is getting better, I reckon the next one you’ll get it straight into my mouth.”
“What do you want from me? It’s all this dust, I can’t help it, it’s triggering my sinuses.”
“I don’t want you to stop sneezing, I want you to cover your nose when you do it!”
“My hands are occupied jackass, you would know that if you had the light pointed straight!”Ryan said, matching his friends frustration.
“What are you even doing?”Shane asked, squinting his eyes at the hole they had made in the wall.
“What do you mean, what am I doing? I’m digging.”
“Well, you’re digging wrong.”
“This is how I’ve been digging the whole time, this is how you dig.”
“You’re supposed to dig across not down. We’re trying to get out of this wretched place, not go to cell block B.”
“Do you want to do this?”
“How dare you, you know my wrist is sprained.”
“Then shut up and let me get on with it,” Ryan said. “I have a system, down to up, I know what I’m doing.”
Popping his head up from the thin mattress that lined his bunk bed, their cellmate Tibbs, an elderly, greying, man in his late 60s, squinted his eyes at them in the darkness of the room and announced himself by clearing his throat, calling their attention to him as he went to speak.
“Gentlemen, could you keep it down kindly.”
“Oh, I’m sorry Tibbs, is the sound of our simmering freedom interfering with your sleep?” Shane asked much to Ryan’s amusement, chuckling beside him as he went on teasing their cellmate. ”Is the promise of our noses being washed by fresh, ocean, breeze as we ride off into the sunset while you rot in here, giving you nightmares?” he added.
“No, not really,” Tibbs replied.
“It’s not too late you know, you can still get in on this,” Ryan said.
“Yeah, just admit you were wrong about this whole thing and maybe we’ll let you dig through the final inches,” Shane added.
“Nothing has changed I’m afraid,” Tibbs replied. “I still think this is a horrible idea, but thank you for the offer. Listen, I know this might be your final night in jail, and you’re excited, but it’s all a bit loud.”
Ryan sighed from exhaustion. “Sorry grandpa, I’ll try and dig quieter.”
“And across,” Shane ordered. “dig across.”
“Actually, and this might come as a surprise but it’s not the digging that’s the issue, it’s more to do with your talking,” Tibbs said. “and I’m not even saying this because I want to go to sleep, though it would help, but it would serve you guys well to be quieter. With the guards roaming around outside, I’m a bit worried you might be talking yourselves into trouble.”
Just then the figure of a guard eclipsed the light from coming in through the hatch on their door and they went silent, listening as the guard’s heavy military boots stomped away, fading into the distance as they passed by and continued on their patrol.
“Point taken, we’ll keep it down.” Ryan said, whispering in fear, and Tibbs laid his head back down on the mattress, closed his eyes and disappeared into the silence of his mind.
Their quiet digging soon synched with the lulling rhythm of his heartbeat, thumping in his ear, and he started drifting to sleep, when his cellmates’ voices rose back up again in argument.
“Just let him tag along,” Ryan pleaded.
“No,” Shane replied.
“Why not? Come on, look at him, he is a nice, old, man.”
“No, he’s not. Nice, old, men are out in the world, taking care of their grandkids, not in here with us. Trust me, he’s not what he seems, he’s hiding a darkness behind those doe eyes, I know it.”
“Would it hurt you to take a chance on someone?”
“It would and it has,” Shane said.
“Well it’s not fair,” Ryan argued. “why do you get to make all the decisions when it comes to this?”
“Because if it was up to you the entire prison would be lining up to escape because they smiled at you as you walked by. Ryan, you’re gullible.”
“No I’m not.”
“Yes you are, it’s why you’re playing right into his hands, it’s why I’ve been making you dig all this time, and it’s why you don’t get to make the decisions.”
“Wait, your wrist isn’t sprained?” Ryan asked.
“No.” Shane replied
“Huh!” Ryan sighed while in deep thought. Acting unbothered, he faked to be going back to digging at the wall when he turned back around and swung the iron tool at Shane, whacking it on his head, sending him recoiling in pain.
“What the hell!” Shane exclaimed in a suppressed yell, scratching his head in pain, and Ryan whacked his head again. “Stop! Stop! What the hell are you doing?”
“Taking control,” Ryan said, shoving the tools into his hands. “Here! You’re scrapping through the rest of it.”
“Fine by me, I hate your digging anyway.”
“And we’re taking Tibbs with us.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Yes we are,” Ryan argued, calling to their cellmate. “Tibbs!”
“Ryan, stop it, you’re drunk with power.”
“Tibbs!”
“Think about this,” Shane said. “he’s old, how are we even going to get him over the wall?”
“I don’t care. Tibbs!”
“Yes Ryan,” Tibbs answered, popping his head up from the mattress.
“How do you feel about seeing your family again?”
“You’re going to kill me?” Tibbs asked.
“What! No! What? I’m offering you freedom,” Ryan said. “why would you even think that?”
“Oh, it’s just that all my family are dead.”
“Right, yeah, uh...sorry about that. Listen, I know you didn’t help with the digging but we’ve decide you can come with us anyway.”
“We?” Shane asked in objection.
“We’ll take you as far as you want,” Ryan added, ignoring his friend.
“Oh, no thank you.” Tibbs said.
“Well, we tried,” Shane said, jumping in. “the man doesn’t want to come, what are you going to do? We’ll write to you when we’re outside gramps, but that’s not a promise.”
“Tibbs, stop worrying about the escape plan,” Ryan argued, refusing to give up. “it’s is going to work, it’s working already, just come along, what do you have to lose?”
“It’s not about the plan, I...I just can’t.”
“Why?”
“Listen to the old man,” Shane protested. “He wants to stay.”
“Just come with us Tibbs, I promise, we’ll take care of you,” Ryan persisted.
“I can’t, the judge sentenced me to life in prison.”
“Okay, now even I think you’re being ridiculous,” Shane said. “Stop being difficult and just get ready, we’ll be leaving soon.”
He chipped at the burrowed section of the wall and a huge lump of concrete gave in.
“Come with us,” Ryan added.
“I can’t, I can’t my friends, I’m sorry, this is where I belong.”
“No it’s not, you can start anew. This is a fresh start. We all deserve a second chance.”
“Not me, I have to stay, for what I did, I must stay.”
“What did you do? What’s your deal old man?” Shane asked, stopping his digging to stare at him in question.
“What do you mean?”
“Why are you here?”
“I told you, I killed someone.”
“We all did, Tibbs, I mean why did you kill someone? What made a ‘nice’, old, man like you finally snap?”
“Well, that’s a long story.”
“We’re not going anywhere, yet. This wall is still standing firm, I think we can sit through another one of your rumblings as we chip at it, right Ryan?”
“Yeah, I mean, you’re already struggling to go to sleep, the way I look at it, it’s either you talk or we do, regardless you’ll still be up.”
“Take us through it old man,” Shane added. “take us through this unforgivable murder of yours because I’m finding it hard to understand why someone would reject freedom with such a passion.”
Silence fell on the three men as Tibbs pondered their request, the sound of the wall disintegrating as Shane chipped at it echoing in the room.
The bed creaked as Tibbs sat up on the mattress and Shane and Ryan’s eyes sparkled in anticipation as he turned towards them and went to speak.
“I’d like to preface this by saying, I’m not a nice, old, man, I’ve never been,” he said.
“Knew it,” Shane said, in celebration.
“I’m among the most deplorable human beings you’ll ever meet, a real stain of a person and a waste of existence,” Tibbs added.
“Oh, okay, now I feel a little bad.”
“No, don’t,” Tibbs said. “you were right to mistrust me and what I’m about to share with you doesn’t even begin to encapsulate the villainy of who I am, the evil I’ve committed, but I’lltry to lay it all down as vivid as I can for you. You will not consider me in the same light again, you’ll want to kill me afterwards and I won’t blame you. You will want to hit me and I’ll encourage it. Be warned gentlemen, this is a tragic story, of the highest order. With that being said, let me take you back in time to my younger years, when I was in my twenties, about your ages or so.”
“You used to be twenty?” Ryan teased.
“Yeah, I was never always old.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Yeah, I’m trying to imagine it but all I’m getting is a wrinkled child in a dungaree,” Shane said.
“No, I used to be young, I also used to be a cop.” Tibbs said and Ryan and Shane both looked at him, shocked.
“Okay, that’s...interesting?” Ryan said
“Very interesting,”Shane added in an equal tone of intrigue.
“Yap, the panic in your eyes is why I’ve never told you or anyone in here. Cops don’t usually have it very easy in prison,” Tibbs said.
“Good call. I’m struggling not to stab you at the moment,” Shane admitted.
“I was an anti-narcotic officer,” Tibbs added.
“Okay, now you’re pushing it.”
“A narc? I see why you keep it a secret,” Ryan said.
Continuing, Tibbs said: “I wasn’t just a narc, I was one of the best narcs in the country, I had a talent for it, highly trained with an eye for bullshit, I had all the drug barons shaking in their boots, and I enjoyed it, maybe a little too much. It was-”
“Before you continue further,” Shane said, interrupting. “I feel it’s important to let you know, because of your age, I’m picturing all this in the stone age.”
“Oh, and I’m picturing it in a...post apocalyptic future.”
Carrying on, Tibbs said: “Okay, anyway, it was a-”
“Wait, wait, wait, what do you mean in the future?” Shane asked, interrupting again.
“You know like a rundown industrial, post-nuclear war landscape,” Ryan replied.
“I understand the aesthetics, what I don’t get is why you’re going with it.”
“It’s a creative choice.”
“It’s a choice but it’s not creative, the man is a thousand years old-”
“I’m 67,” Tibbs chipped in.
“It simply doesn’t make any sense why his life story would take place in the future,” Shane argued over him. “Surely, you get where I’m coming from?”
“But I feel like it can though.”
“But it shouldn’t, it shouldn’t Ryan.”
“But it can.”
“Why? Why? Why are you doing this? Why can’t we both have the past and riff on his old age together, why do you always have to be different?
“Stop trying to stifle my imagination!”
“It’s poor world building!”
“Gentlemen-“
“it’s an intentional choice!”
“It’s dumb!”
“Gentlemen! Are you guys going to keep interrupting as I tell this story?” Tibbs asked, bringing their argument to a halt.
“Probably,” Ryan said.
“Yeah, probably,” Shane added. “But, please, carry on with your story that is set in the dinosaur era to the black and white times of the 20s.”
“And also in a futuristic industrial dystopia.”
“Nope.”
“Uh...okay, where was I?” Tibbs said, trying to remember where he left of in his story.
“I believe you were bragging about how good of a snitch you used to be.” Shane answered.
“Right, well, I was good,” he said loosing himself in the memory of his past life. ”We were wiping out cartels left, right and centre, me and my partner Otis. Oh, we were unstoppable. We had worked together for only a few years but our chemistry was undeniable and our success was immeasurable. It was hard to find a drug busts without our names on it, so when intel came in of a drug syndicate in a shady part of town best believe we were the two leading officers in charge of taking down the operation.”
