413 Creates a Difficulty

(Originally published in Flashes in the Dark Feb 2011)

If Simon hadn’t been a prison guard, he could easily have been an accountant. That was why they trusted him on the night shifts: he had never missed a digit on a single report. He counted the images in the CCTV Monitors, checking them off as he went.

106 – Sleeping

107 – Sleeping

108 – Sleeping

They were given drugs, of course. Those men would never voluntarily sleep, it had to be induced. All of them were troubled young men who had been selected from various state boot camps to enter the military development program. All of them had excelled physically but were resistant enough to authority to be deemed a liability.

201 – Sleeping

202 – Active (Contained)

203 – Sleeping

Each one of the men barely seemed to fit into their beds, they lay like twitching monoliths. The ferocity of their appearances was highlighted by the spartan minimalism of their rooms. They had enough space to get up and walk to their doors but there was nothing else in their cells, just four greying walls, a door, a camera (behind protective glass) and a keypad to remind them that they couldn’t open the door. All of their brows were furrowed in anger as if their dreams were as hateful as their cells.

Prisoner 202 was beating his fist into the wall, long and committed punches that could have broken down just about anything, except for that wall. Simon wondered that it didn’t hurt them when they acted up like that. It made him glad that he no longer had to do physical checks on each cell, he had lived in fear of them seeing the exit code and running riot. 202 was contained but his tranquilisor dosage would be increased on the following shift.

307 – Sleeping

308 – Sleeping

309 – Sleeping

Almost time for a coffee and a cake, thought Simon, you need these things to get through the night. He checked the last batch of prisoners.

411 – Sleeping

412 – Active (Contained)

413 –

Simon paused his typing, 413 was not acting to code. The man was sat cross legged in the centre of his cell, simply staring at the camera. He had broken his bed-frame and used it to create, what looked like an abacus. As Simon stared into the monitor, 413 seemed to stare back at him.

The numbers on 413’s abacus read: 7 6 9 4 – the code to the cell door. Simon looked down at his report and then back up to cell 413. He was having difficulty trying to disposition the prisoner’s report status: 413 was neither Active (Contained) nor Active (Loose). He could feel the man’s eyes burning into him as he moved. Simon, stared back at him defiantly.

Rumaging through the desk drawer, Simon pulled out the procedures manual. He couldn’t believe that he had forgotten the number he needed to type in to the console; they used it all the time on the day shift. He typed in the number and watched casually as room 413 filled with a dense fog. The prisoner’s eyes did not shift until they finally gave way to terror and he clutched desperately for breathable air.

Simon finished his report.

413 – Deceased

Simon saved the report and stood up. He took a plate of cake from the office fridge and poured some coffee from the pot.

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