Refuge From The Dead (Book 1): Lockdown Read Online Free PDF Page A

engaged in a hearty handshake. “Damn right you will! I figure on locking up at least two of ‘em tonight!”
    In prison, the term “locking up” meant a trip to the Segregated Housing Unit or SHU. If you fuck up in life, you go to prison, if you fuck up in prison, you go to SHU. Nothing to read but religious materials, no access to commissary, and only three phone calls allowed per month. The old term for SHU would have been “solitary confinement.” However, it wasn’t completely solitary. Inmates could still yell through the small cracks in the doorframe or tap coded messages on the wall in Morse code. They were conniving little bastards.
    “Well, as long as you leave me alone tonight, I will call that a victory. How’s that sound?”
    Grant shrugged his shoulders. “Works for me, bro.”
    A half-hour later, Michael Caine was at his assigned building for the night, Alpha Building. While it wasn’t the best post on the compound, the guys in Alpha rarely gave the COs any trouble. Most of them had worked their way into Alpha building by behaving and acting like civilized human beings, or were close to being released. They had to work to get where they were, and allowed a few more amenities than the rest of the prison. They weren’t going to do anything to fuck that up.
     
    * * *
     
    Officer Caine sat at the small metal desk in Alpha Pod 1. Outnumbered eighty to one, he was the lone officer in his side of the building. Pod 2 held 96 inmates, and Pod 3 held 80 more, so even greater numbers than that outnumbered him and his fellow officers. The only reason you get to go home in the morning is because they let you do so. Words of wisdom from Captain Chance rang through his head. He was there to do a job. Nothing more. Nothing less.
    Most of the inmates were milling about in the day room area of the pod. Eight round, metal tables lined up in an upside-down “V” made up the seating. Two sets of aluminum staircases on either side of the room led to the top tier. A closet was off to his left, and another closet was on the top tier. The top tier had railing all the way around, along with a flat, metal strip that ran along the bottom, preventing the inmates from sliding underneath the railing. Every door was painted green, with the cell number in white. The cell number was painted vertically, to be easily identified from the control room that sat above him. The control room sat fifteen feet above him, mindful of everything going on in the pods below it. The control room had Pod 1 to the left, Pod 2 directly in front, and Pod 3 off to the right. Between the control room operator and the myriad of cameras in the building, very little went on that the staff did not know about.
    “Look at this muthafucka here! It’s the goddamn rookie of the year!”
    Michael snapped out of his stupor. Daydreaming was not conducive to a safe work environment. He would have to work on that. When he did look up, there was an inmate standing over his desk. While the man wasn’t overly big, he still made Michael a bit leery. This guy hadn’t been sent to prison for missing church on Sunday. He was about five feet, ten inches tall, and around a hundred and eighty pounds. While the rest of the population around Black Mountain was white, nearly half of the inmates in the prison were black, as was the man standing in front of him.
    The inmate had his orange, state-issued ID card clipped to his shirt. “Mr. Stanley. How can I assist you?”
    Inmate Demarco Stanley held his hands up. “Ain’t tryin’ to cause no trouble, officer…Caine,” Stanley said, leaning down to see Michael’s own state ID card on his chest.
    “Then what do you want, Offender Stanley?” Beads of sweat popped up on Michael’s brow. This was the first genuine encounter with an inmate that he’d ever had. While it was not overly stressful, it was something new and relatively awkward.
    “Look, man. I get out this bitch in fifteen more days. I ain’t tryin’ to