CHAPTER ONE: The Bad Seeds

 

The young man leaned against the side of the large brick structure with a heavy scowl covering his pasty-white face.

"I cannot believe we have to spend four hours listening to this nonsense, and then write the essay besides," he barked, shuffling his Gucci dress shoes from side to side on the grassy lawn. The girl standing next to him brushed her long dark hair to one side and adjusted her wire-rimmed glasses, which seemed a bit too small for her chubby face.

"Quit your bitching, Jerry. It's just a simple essay, and at least it's the final assignment of the semester."

He turned to her, his lips pursed. He raised a hand, opening his mouth to argue, then was cut off abruptly by an older man who crossed in front of him hastily.

"Okay people," he began, his arms held high as to attract attention. The man was prisoner-of-war thin with short-cropped hair that was more white than gray. A thin line of perspiration trailed down the right side of his face.

"The bus has arrived and will be pulling up to the back of the auditorium any minute. The seminar should last no more than three hours. I'll be grading your essay on both facts given here and your own opinion on the subject matter. Pay close attention to these people. They have some fascinating stories to tell." A tall, lanky young man holding a large yellow folder stepped up and raised his hand, waiving it enthusiastically.

"Professor Carpenter, will all of them be speaking tonight?" The older man sighed, his shoulders slumping a bit.

"Yes, Marvin. Like I've told you people before, each of Dr. Dante's patients is a direct relative to the subjects covered and each has a story to pass on. They've each had...problems of their own since the incidents, and are presently receiving treatment." Another of the twenty or so students had slowly surrounded the professor when the bright headlights of a large yellow bus cut two distinctive lines through the crowd. The bus passed them slowly and pulled around the structure to it's rear. The professor strolled towards the front entrance to the large brick building, a faded 'Macintosh Middle School Auditorium' sign hanging just above the double doors.

"Creepy place. I wonder why they picked it to hold the seminar," one student whispered to another as he scanned the badly cracked sidewalk leading to the entrance.

"Cheap digs, my man. I'm sure they go where they pay the least," another replied with a shrug.

"Seminar hall on campus was booked solid, obviously," another chimed in. Within moments, lights lit up the small hallway just to the right of the foyer.

A clicking noise followed, and the doors swung open with a loud creak. The man who greeted Professor Wilton Carpenter smiled shyly and held out his hand in greeting. Professor Carpenter took the man's hand and then turned to instruct the students.

"Okay, folks. Everyone sit near the front of the stage and do not talk once the presentation begins. I'm certain you will find this extremely informative as well as exhilarating."

The other man smiled as he knelled down to set the stoppers on each door.

"You are correct, Professor. I can guarantee your students will be mesmerized by what my patients have to say."

As they entered the spacious but obviously ancient auditorium, a chubby girl with a pair of thick-lensed glasses hanging from a chain on her shirt smirked aloud, feigning disgust.

"Jeez, when was this place built, World War I? It reeks like mothballs and rat droppings."

The thin girl beside her giggled, one hand covering her mouth as to muffle the laughter. "Did you see the doctor? He reminds me of that old actor that always plays nutcases. You know, the guy from that Tom Hanks movie 'The Burbs'. Gibson I think his name is.

Little guy, but looks like a real cracked egg."

The lanky, excited young man from earlier stepped up behind her, causing her to cringe slightly before they all selected a chair.

"Henry Gibson. He was also in that 'Nashville' movie from the seventies."

The chubby girl ignored him completely as she sat her notebook down in the empty seat to her right. The other girl smiled and began biting her nails nervously.

"Well, let's just hope Doctor Gibson and his crackpot patients give us the Reader's Digest version of their nutty relatives. I have a Calculus test in the morning I have to hit the books for when we get back to campus."

The inside of the auditorium held fifteen rows of twelve seats, all of which suffered from the faded, chipped paint and wood cracks that time and overuse had inflicted. The tiled ceiling was circular and high, approximately thirty feet at its center, and dark water stains made it resemble a semi-completed crossword puzzle.

The stage itself was fairly small, twenty to twenty-five feet wide and another twenty in length, and the curtains that were tied to each corner were a dull, dim red and held a thin layer of dust, along with more than a few shredded cobwebs.

As the short, troll-like man who had greeted them at the door walked slowly to the dark blue podium at the stage's center, the students seemed to grow silent in unison.

Professor Carpenter, sitting in the middle seat of the front row, nodded politely as the man leaned towards the mic and began to speak.

Squelching feedback echoed through the building for a split-second, then mercifully ceased.

"Good evening, young men and women. My name is Doctor Parnell Dante. I work as the Resident Senior Psychologist at the Browne Institute in Indianapolis. I have worked in this field for thirty-two years, and I have to say it has been many things but never monotonous or boring."

The lanky young man grinned, turning his head slightly to whisper to the girl to his left. "He even sounds like Henry Gibson. I just can't see this guy dealing with psychotic patients with such a wimpy demeanor."

The girl smiled wryly, staring straight ahead as the doctor continued.

"I'll bet he's a real tiger when pissed off," she replied, then repressed another giggle. "Yep. A mad doctor with a filled hypodermic," the student behind them replied, leaning forward while balancing the bulky notebook on his knobby knees.

Professor Carpenter turned suddenly and frowned in their direction, putting a quick end to the banter.

Gripping the sides of the large podium with his small, bony hands, the doctor seemed to be looking over the heads of the small crowd as he spoke.

"I have a rare opportunity for you and your students this night, Professor Carpenter. Nine of my patients will regale to you stories that are based on fact, not science or any other type of fiction. These are tales that concern members of their immediate family, and have affected them in a mostly negative nature since the incidents transpired, or in a few cases for their entire existence. They have come to me and volunteered to share their pain with complete strangers in the hope that it will help them finally discover a tentative peace of some kind in their own troubled minds."

The doctor turned slowly to the left and gestured for the person standing backstage to come forward. A moment later a slim, primly dressed woman possibly in her mid-thirties strolled confidently towards the podium, her long red hair swung back over her shoulders in a thick wave.

"Professor and good students, I would like to introduce you to Miss Laura Willis."

A small spattering of applause followed as the woman cleared her throat politely and faced the crowed with a pleasant smile.

"Good evening. As Doctor Dante stated, my name is Laura Willis. My husband, Mack Alan Willis, worked as a Correctional Officer by trade; that is until about eight months ago. Mack was a patient at the institute. He was placed in the violent ward, although in my twelve years as his wife, I never saw one such tendency in the man."

Clearing her throat again, she closed her eyes for a moment, slowly lowering her head. A few of the students glared at each other and shrugged. A few even smiled sarcastically.

When Laura Willis' head arose, the earlier smile had been replaced by a pained grimace.

 

***

 

"My husband had been an officer of the state for quite a few years, and although I feared for him each time he left me to enter the gates of the penitentiary, I never envisioned the job driving him insane. This is his story...,"

She took a deep breath and began just as the lights in the mostly empty auditorium dimmed.

 

CHAPTER TWO: The Tower

 

It stood fifty-five feet high, it's staggered brick construction giving it the look of being part of an old English castle. When you stood directly in front of it from a far distance, it seemed to be leaning slightly to the left. On foggy winter nights it resembled an ancient lighthouse that had long since been retired from active duty.

There was something about the structure that gave Officer Mack Willis the creeps. He couldn't put his finger on it, but he had been a correctional officer for almost fourteen years, and had pulled tower duty at least a thousand times, probably three hundred or more shifts in that specific tower, but the uneasiness he felt about it never faded. It wasn't as if he had experienced any traumatic events while pulling shifts, in fact, with the double set of thirty foot walls topped with razor sharp barbed wire and electronic sensor alarms along the prison perimeter, Tower duty had become an eight-hour journey into snooze- land. Still, Willis always had a strong feeling of foreboding whenever he climbed the stairs that led him up into the tower, but never understood why such feelings existed. He never mentioned it to the guard he was relieving, but sometimes he thought he saw the same uneasiness in their eyes as they left that particular post.

It was a cold, gusty fall evening as Willis entered the prison grounds and headed for the armory to pick up his thirty gauge. The lunch his wife had fixed was still warming his hands as he entered the gun room.

Bill Ryan, a veteran guard of over twenty-five years, was pulling a shift of signing out the weapons. Willis was always reminded of Archie Bunker when he saw Ryan, who was pudgy, balding, and had the demeanor of an abused bulldog.

"How goes it, Bill? Gonna be a cold one tonight." Ryan grunted, his face a frozen scowl.

"Mack, you youngsters don't know what cold is. Hell, I worked a tower shift one night up in Illinois without the benefit of a built-in heater and glass windows. It was just you and the wind. Hell, it got down to forty below in late January and February.

The whole damn inmate population could have walked out right under me that night and I wouldn't have given a rat's ass."

Willis smiled. He and the other guys on his shift called Ryan "Newsreel" due to his endless stories of the way "Prisons used to be."

According to him, what were once hard ass penal institutions were now 'Wanna-be Lawyer Training Schools' and 'Concrete and steel Holiday Inns.' Mack checked his ammo and then signed out the weapon.

"Well, Bill, this is one youngster that is damn proud to be living in such a technologically advanced society on such a tit-hardening night."

Ryan grunted again, this time a slight smile breaking across his rugged face.

"I hear you, son. I tell ya what though, something in the air tonight. Felt... I don't know. Something not altogether in place, you know?" His smile had turned into a frozen scowl.

Willis laughed uneasily and felt the hair on his neck instantly stand on end. "I think it's just that, Bill. The wind. Let's hope so, anyway."

His weapon secured, Willis strolled down the paved walkway that led to the main tower. He waived at a few of the officers standing outside the Mess Hall, although he didn't recognize them. Correctional Officer was a job that held a turnover rate higher than any other job in the country. He was used to seeing faces he didn't know. If you lasted longer than six months, you were considered a veteran. Individuals like Bill Ryan and himself were like the Great, Great Grandfathers of the guard.

Willis exited the main gate and walked to the base of the tower.

As he went to insert his entrance key, a strong gust of wind almost blew the keys out of his gloved hand. The prison site itself was ten miles from the city limits, and the surrounding hills and thick foliage compounded the feeling of isolation. Once the gust died down, Willis suddenly became aware of just how eerily quiet it was. His shift started at 6pm, which meant dinner was winding up for all the inmates, and this usually meant lots of loud chatter, screams, and cat calls as they were shuffled back to their cellblocks.

He re-keyed the door and stepped inside, and became immediately aware of the lack of heat inside the walls.

"Aw, great. Real friggin' good."

He heard footsteps above him as he climbed the steps towards the main tower room. A small bathroom was just to the right of top step as you entered the guard shack. He heard the sounds of the man he was to relieve doing just that. Officer Pat Lawrence had been assigned to the unit only three months ago, his uniforms still slick from newness. He stepped out of the mini-john, which held a toilet only, and smiled the happy grin of the soon-to-be off-duty sentry.

"Mack ol' buddy! Welcome to the land of cold Java and frosty testicles. Can you believe this crap? My prick was frozen to the side of my leg."

Willis walked over to the console, which held one phone; a hot line to the communications center, a felt tip pen and logbook. He placed the rifle barrel against the large window glass, rubbing his arms briskly.

"How longs the heat been out, Pat?"

Lawrence vanished back into the john and flushed the toilet, then reappeared a moment later, smile still intact.

"'Bout an hour after I got here I noticed it getting cooler. It was warm as toast here when my shift started. I hear they're saying it might sleet too. You wearing your long johns under that ugly ass uniform, Mack?"

"Hell, no. Foolishly, I actually expected heated conditions. This pathetic state-issued jacket ain't exactly in the same league as a parka, either. You call it in to maintenance?"

Lawrence was checking his keys and looked back up while shouldering his rifle.

"Yep. Called it in about three. Captain himself informed me that maintenance won't be out 'til around nine or so, so I guess you get to play penguin for a few hours." He started down the steps, then paused, looking back at Willis.

"Mack, you might want to call Com about the lights over in the laundry building. I noticed 'em flashing on and off a few minutes ago. Damn weird. I was fixing to call when you walked in and I remembered I had to whiz so bad I thought it was gonna start leakin' out my ears."

Willis sat down in the 'view chair' as it was called. It was positioned so the view the officer saw was the prison's main gate and the perimeter line all along the front of the site.

"Okie-dokie, dude. Can do. Hey man, check out how quiet it is out there. Maybe they put Quaaludes in the con's tea tonight."

Lawrence stepped back towards Willis, his expression grim and without a hint of the good humor of just moments before.

"Mack, this is gonna sound weird, I know, but humor me. Has it been lightning tonight?"

Willis grinned as he poured steaming hot coffee from his thermos into a 'Scooby-Doo" labeled cup.

"Pat, you know we're not supposed to smuggle booze in here on duty." Lawrence laughed nervously.

"Man, I tell ya, I was sitting there about an hour ago, and I saw this big flash. Hell, it was like somebody had stuck two spotlights in each one of my eyes and clicked them on for just a sec. Weirder than that, a second later I could'a sworn a plane passed over, 'cause a shadow passed above the tower. I didn't hear any engines, but something very damn large flew over."

Willis sipped his Java.

"Pat ol' buddy, over the years my mind has come up with all kinds of strange crap to keep me occupied, most of them pornographic in nature. Don't worry about it, though, it's probably only a brain tumor."

Lawrence laughed and headed back down the steps. "Thanks for your 'moron' support, Mack. See ya tomorrow."

"Not if I see you first, pal."

Willis heard the door close and a key turn, and then felt a rush of colder air enter the small circular room. Every guard was required to pull tower duty when their name came up on the rotating list. It was a duty you either tolerated or despised, but it came with the territory. On one hand, it was an easy shift since it was almost a certainty that you wouldn't be required to do anything but stare out a glass window and write the words "All's quiet/zero occurrence" in a logbook each hour on the hour. On the other hand, you weren't allowed to bring anything in on your shift that might 'distract' you from monitoring the perimeter, i.e., radio, magazine, portable TV. You sit and watched. You peed as quickly as you could and got back inside and watched some more. You crapped as quickly as you could, and got back inside and watched. You called the Com center each hour to verify that everything was quiet and uneventful. It made for an extremely tedious, mind numbingly boring eight hours.

Most officers would rather work the lunch line or even an outside job site in the dead of winter than pull tower duty.

After taking an additional sip of Coffee, Willis scooped up the Com phone and waited for an answer. After three rings, a veteran officer named Potter picked up, sounding slightly out of breath.

"Com, this is Potter."

Willis made a squeaky farting sound into the phone by blowing into his right palm.

There was a slight pause on the other end, then Willis started laughing and heard a weary sigh on the other end.

"Damn it, Mack. Cut the shit, will ya?'

Willis leaned back in his chair and reached into his coat pocket for a cigarette. "How's it hangin', Stan? Sounds like you been chasing down es-ca- pees..."

Potter laughed somewhat nervously. Willis had known this man for years, and he always seemed to be on the verge of sheer panic.

"Aw, we got power outages all over the damn place. Maintenance is short-manned and we got counts coming up in forty-five minutes. Can't count 'em too well by flashlight. Two of the cells blocks are totally in the dark, and the backup generators are on the blink."

Taking a long drag off his smoke, Willis leaned forward, attempting a clear scan of the laundry building. From his vantage point, only the west side of the building was visible, but the windows that he could make out held only blackness. He also noticed a thin sheet of fog drifting in towards the site from the west.

"Other than that, everything's hunky-dory, right Stan?"

"Oh, kiss my ass, Mack. Pat already book?"

"Free as a bird turd. Hey, I guess he already told ya we're thinking about storing meat in this tower for a sideline."

"He told me. I'll get 'em out there as soon as I can, doc. Might be midnight, though," Potter replied with a bit of cheerfulness.

"Spanks a lot, bud 'o mine. Just tell my relief to bring a hammer and chisel to free me from the iceberg when he gets up here at two. See ya, Stan."

He heard Potter bellow instructions to another officer even as he hung up. The fog was coming in heavier a few minutes later. It resembled sea waves headed for some unseen shoreline. The wind had died down from what it had been an hour earlier, allowing the fog line to thicken and group together as it entered the site. It had already coated the ground view Willis had from the tower, and was rising rapidly.