12 Hours

They tell you when you start to prepare yourself to work for twelve hours.

Most of us had come from jobs where we worked eight hours a day, nine to five, from Monday to Friday. I had been an office drone when I found this job in the paper, and it had been an easy choice to switch to a job that would nearly double my take-home pay. I had accrued my share of debt in college, and my student loans were high enough to keep me under the company's thumb until I retired. With the level of pay I was receiving from the prison, however, I could afford to be out of debt in a decade instead of thirty years.

Stragview Prison seemed like an escape in those days.

In onboarding, they caution you about many things. The inmates, the stress, the workload, and the long hours are always the main bullet points in any presentation. They tell you that you will, likely, work the night shift for your first two years of employment. As a male, they told me that I would probably have to work in a close management dorm, the cell blocks with the rolling doors and the bars on the windows. They told me I would probably be placed in the confinement unit as a permanent floor officer, where I would have insults and excrement flung at me in equal amounts. They warned us, the fresh face TA's who had yet to step foot on the holy ground that was the compound, that we would see things here that we wouldn't see anywhere else. We would be assaulted with ideas and actions that had no place in the outside world. They told us that "normal people" would look at us and scratch their heads when we tried to tell them that the things they saw on TV weren't the way things actually were. They told us to prepare to be unable to relate to the people who had once been our friends and draw close to the new friends we would make with the others on our shift.

Above all, they warned us about the strain of our newfound careers. They warn us about the mental stress of day sleeping and sleep deprivation, about the long nights that never end. They told us that we would feel the urge to sleep, that we might even find our focus slipping, but that we had to be diligent; we had to be watchful. They told us that we could never take our eyes off them, even for a second, or they would bite like a bad dog.

They had selected two instructors from the compound for us to learn from. One was a plucky sergeant who worked the religious dorm; I think her name was Dotson. She talked a lot about reform and about inmates "turning over new leaves" and how it was up to us to provide a positive influence, so they knew there was something outside those walls. The other was a grizzled confinement sergeant who looked as though he had been carved from the abandoned rock quarry stones that sat at the edge of the grounds. He was tall and gray and seemed uncomfortable in the daylight. He was the one who would tell us, his wide eyes possessed of that thousand-yard stare you see in combat vets, that we must be vigilant and we must be prepared.

He told us about shifts that lasted days.

He talked about shifts that lasted your whole life.

I didn't understand what he meant until that day.

Until I found my own never-ending twelve-hour shift.

What happened was a freak accident, which meant that it had been meticulously planned for weeks. The H dorm inmates had likely been planning the events, but what happened before it was a perfect shit storm. We had been experiencing a very aggressive sickness that had put most of the dorms in quarantine. The dorms that were not infected were being used to cook the meals. As the food quality decreased and the number of inmates on quarantine increased, an underlying panic seemed to permeate the compound.

I'm writing this down so that someone will remember it later.

I'm writing it down so I'll remember it later

If there is a later.

Hour 1

When we were called to quad four of H Dorm, it was to break up a fight. H dorm was not under quarantine, but the dorm was a melting pot of different gangs, and they were all afraid of the sick people. The fight was already done by the time we arrived, the parties involved having melted into the crowd. We were left to find them, make sure they received medical attention, and were adequately punished for disrupting the normal flow of the compound.

I was accompanied by two other officers, each more useless than the last. Officer Fest was a Captain's pet, a boot-licking ladder climber who was better at taking naps than being an officer. He was joined by Sergeant Creest, a year and a day man who had more experience smoking cigarettes at the captain's office than running a dorm. When I had called for assistance, the captain had found them hanging out by his door and directed them to help me. Together they might have made a competent officer, but just barely.

I didn't much care. This was my dorm, and I was going to have control. The other officers were purely for appearance. I had a reputation for being fair but firm with my dorm, and that level of consistency goes a long way with these guys. I could have walked out on the floor by myself any other day, and gained immediate control of the situation with a few words and some command presence. This was a situation that called for more presence than just me, though. So the three of us left the officer station and went out to put them in their cells and assess the damage.

When we arrived, it was clear that the fight was not as over as I had thought.

The large group was gathered around a single man. His nose was bloody, and they seemed to be backing him against the door of the quad. When we came in, he nearly lept out into the sallyport to get away from the mob. Creest pulled him out, slapping some cuffs on him, and took him away before he could do more than sputter. Fest moved in behind me, popping the seal on his gas as we came through the door. I put out a hand, trying to waylay him, but it was too late. As the group came towards us, I could see the knives coming out and knew it was too late for words. The mob was howling about the man being a carrier, someone with the sickness, and wanted him dead.

I reached for my gas a little too late.

The knife slipped into my guts, and I was overcome with intense pain immediately.

I grabbed my stomach and stumbled back, the mob spilling out the door behind me. They had no real interest in me; they wanted the man that had started the problem. As I leaned up against the glass, I could hear the sirens going off as Hazer, the Officer I'd left in the station, saw the carnage and hit the lockdown alarm. My radio exploded with sound, the clarion call of "10-24, Officer Down! Officer Down in Quad 4 of H dorm." I saw the mob as it rolled over poor Fest, the orange spray flying indiscriminately as their knives twinkled in slashing arks. They would soon hit the door and realize they were locked, which would make them very angry.

That's when they would finally notice poor, wounded me and come looking for keys.

In the chaos, I scooted on my butt across the slippery floor. I tried to stand, but my knees were kind of shaky, so I made for an empty cell near the mop closet. I shuffled, my guts a mess of angry snakes, as the men at the back of the mob began to divert and come after me. I dug at my gas with my free hand, sending out an orange stream at the ones who wandered too close. They stepped back, hissing their displeasure as they gripped their faces and rubbed at their eyes, and I stumbled into the cell and slammed the door in their faces before they could recover.

The slamming door was like a coffin lid slamming shut.

This cell would be my shelter for the next twelve hours.

This cell would be my hell for the next twelve hours.

Hour 2

The sun started to set. I could see it through the grating and the plexiglass that hung over my window. It was filmy, like something seen through water. The strange undulating waves made the common enough setting of the sun look like a painting in some stoners gallery. It was as beautiful as it was jarring, and I both hoped for the darkness and feared it.

The Inmates pressed their faces against the smeary glass and leered at me. They reached their hands through the food flap, but they couldn't get me. I was sprawled against the far wall, my back against the warm stone, and I could see the pool of my own blood that had formed beside me. It hadn't looked too bad, a small puncture in my stomach, but the blood kept flowing as I lay there and held it. I removed my uniform shirt, already stained with dark red, and wrapped it around my stomach like a bandage. I'm not a very big person, the cheeseburgers haven't quite caught up with me yet, and the shirt made a passable bandage. It stopped the bleeding for now, but I can still see the blood spreading across the fabric. I'm too much of a coward to inspect the wound, and I don't want to make it worse than it already is.

I could hear them outside the door. They bustled about like ants, ever plotting as they made their plans and their ways. Every now and again, one of them would look in on me. They would press their faces to the glass like a kid at a zoo before losing interest and wandering off again. I watched them back, trying to make a note of who came to gawk at me. I would have them then, no more Mr. Niceguy. I'd see them all on the same block as the one who'd stabbed me.

My radio crackled frequently. They had assembled the Response Team and prepared to breach the dorm. They were having trouble because, after H dorm, another had decided to descend into chaos. I had seen them outside the window, decked out in their riot gear, weapons at the ready when the radio had reported F Drom was experiencing similar problems. Then D Dorm had followed, their inmates not making out but trashing the place instead. That's when I saw a bleary line of bodies come storming out of F dorm as someone disengaged the locks on their doors.

I watched as the team was moved to Center Gate so they could keep the rioters from breaching the Inner Ward or getting into the administration areas that lay beyond.

As they ran for the gate, control crackled over the walky to ask if I was 10-4?

"Yes, everything is still 10-4." I returned.

"Stay safe; we will get you out."

They were right, but their rescue plans were a bit premature.

Hour 3

I sat in the dying light and contemplated many things.

When we put men in these little cells, we never really appreciate how their whole world shrinks. These four walls became the borders of my worlds, and I knew that I was trapped here indefinitely unless some outside force acted on the door. In my case, this was a good thing. The inmates on the outside would tear me to shreds for the keys on my belt. However, this was likely a very sobering thought for a man lying in his bed at night.

You could die in your bed and not be noticed until morning.

You could be locked in here with a dead man till morning, and someone may or may not believe you until they saw the corpse.

They kept coming by to gawk at me. In the shadows of the cell, I could see their stretched faces as they wavered behind the glass. I could see their lumpy faces in otherworldly dimensions as they blocked out the light to have a look at me. I was a curiosity to most of them, but a few seem to be concerned that I might die. They know that if I die, they will be blamed. They know that if I die, it will add more time to their sentences. Some of them may even care about my life. It doesn't matter why they come, but they all come to have a peek as they pass their lives in this lock down.

As the time crept closer to nine, a fact I only knew because of the chapel bell that tolled every hour until ten, I began to hear some definite agitation from the world without. Whoever was in the bubble had turned off the TV. This may seem a minor enough inconvenience, but to the inmates, the TV was their only exposure to the world. For many, it was their one joy in life, and the absence of it was very upsetting. To top it off, the unnamed Officer had also cut the exhaust fans and the wall-mounted fans. The quads in our old prison were not air-conditioned, something the Warden had been fighting to maintain for decades. Without the fans to push air and the exhaust fans to pull the hot air up and out, it would soon become stifling on the wing.

Outside, I could hear the sound of men yelling, things being thrown, and the sound of hellish revelry. I wondered, briefly, how many other officers were in a similar situation? How many were trapped in a cell, trapped in their officer station, their world confined to a box now? For inmates, this may seem normal by now, but to me, a man accustomed to moving about the wide world, it was torture. The men out on the yard, men who were now seeing their worlds grow larger by the minute, were freer now than I.

The realization made me feel even more claustrophobic than ever.

The radio only seemed to make my anxiety worse. The mob had taken over the yard and was now trying to break into one of the quarantine dorms. The Special Response Team was on the scene, but the riot quickly spilled out of their control. I could hear gunfire out there and knew there would be a few empty beds come morning. That would be on both sides; I had no doubt. Once they started rioting, it was hard to get them to stop. A few could be put down early on, but once the rioters had gotten this far, it would be hard to quiet them without extreme violence.

The radio was silent on my end; no one asking for an update on my status.

I told them all was still 10-4 just so they didn't forget about me, but the growing red stain on my shirt made me think otherwise.

Hour 4

As the bell in the chapel tolled nine, the negotiator approached the flap.

I was surprised that it had taken him this long to seek me out. In every situation like this, there is always a person who believes they can talk someone out of their stance. Maybe it's a hostage negotiator, a kidnapper trying to keep his charges quiet, an unwilling participant who thinks they can talk their captor out of this foolish act. There's always one person who thinks they can change the situation with a few well-placed words. A few times, I've been that person, the designated talker that goes in to deescalate the situation.

When he smiled at me through the glass, I knew why he was there.

"We got off on the wrong foot, Sarge. Can we talk?"

I was leaning against the wall, head pounding as my wound ached. I turned my sweat-soaked face to him and saw some of his resolve slip. I must have looked a fright. Untreated stab wounds don't tend to make one look fresh.

"You want these keys." I rasped, getting straight to the point.

He nodded, trying to reset his face as he got a good look at me.

"There is no way in hell that I'm going to give you these keys. You might as well save your breath and mine."

He shook his head like a father who was disappointed in a stubborn child, "Be reasonable, Sarge. There's no one up in the station anymore. You've been abandoned, just like us. We might as well help each other out."

I thought about it for a minute. Other than the team assembling and moving, I had seen no attempts to rescue me. My bleeding wasn't getting any worse, but it wasn't getting any better either. Without medical attention, I was not going to last long. I was also without food or water in here. I had nothing besides the water in the sink or toilet, and who knew what kinds of infections I was putting myself at risk to as I lay on the floor and bled from an unbandaged wound?

If I could get out of here, I could use my keys to get into the medical room at the end of the hall and clean and bandage my wound.

If I could get out of here, I could surely find a way to get to the relative safety of the Officer's station.

Maybe it would be best to make a deal.

As though to disprove his words, the lights in the cell came on then. The harsh fluorescents made me squint as they popped to life, but I smiled despite the discomfort. Those lights had to be turned on by a person. That meant that there was still someone in the station. The negotiator seemed to realize this too as I grinned my grizzly grin in the face of his obvious defeat.

"Go back and tell your friends that it's not going to happen. If you all want these keys, you can figure out how to come in and get them."

He shook his head, but, to his credit, he did not lose his cool.

"You're making this harder than it needs to be, Sarge." was all he said before leaving.

Hour 5

My radio had begun to chirp. This was the sound that meant the battery was getting ready to die. The batteries are supposed to have an eight-hour charge but, realistically, you're lucky to get three or four in before you need to change it. The beeps mean that, with limited use, you had about an hour of battery left. As I lay on the floor in pain, I felt like the little radio might be chirping my life away.

It had chosen the perfect time to die, too.

The Riot was not going well for the prison staff. They were holding Center Gate, but there were likely more inmates than ammunition. I could hear other officers on the radio that were trapped in their stations, trying to figure out what's going on. The inmates of Stragview had taken the Inner Ward, and I didn't need the radio to see that one of the dorms was on fire. One of the dorms on quarantine had been set ablaze, and with no one to put it out, it was unlikely that the inmates inside would survive. I hoped G Dorm was still secured. G dorm held the inmates who had been talking the loudest about hurting the quarantine inmates. They had found themselves locked up for the last few weeks for attempting to incite a riot, but it appeared that the riot had come off anyway. If they were allowed to escape confinement, it could get a whole lot worse.

The sounds of gunfire were few and far between, and as the riot began to settle in, I started getting sleepy. I know that sounds strange, but as I sat on the dirty floor of that cell, I was getting tired. I lifted a hand, the motion stiff and painful, and slapped my face as hard as I could. I'd lost too much blood to fall asleep. If I fell asleep, I might never wake up again.

My mouth felt like it was full of cotton, and my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. I dragged myself gingerly over to the sink and depressed the silver button that made the water spray out. It arced into the bowl, and I held my hand out eagerly for it. It was cold against my warm skin, and I sloshed it into my mouth eagerly.

I collapsed against the wall then, panting. The act of shimmying across the floor had taken a toll on me. I splashed some of the cold water on my face, trying to wake myself up and also trying to quell the heat that had sprung up recently. I was sick, probably feeling the first pangs of infection, but there was next to nothing I could do about it.

The radio crackled to life, the operator calling out to me for an update.

I reached for the radio, my fingertips slapping it dumbly as I slid over the floor to reach it. I caught it before it fell and pulled it to my mouth with an unsteady hand. The radio felt like it weighed about thirty pounds, and when I depressed the button, I thought it might slip out of my hands for a minute. I told control that I copied and started to tell them that I was fine but never got the chance. The radio beeped loudly, and the face went blank.

I dropped it to the concrete; the box now useless.

It was dead.

Hour 6

It was getting hard to stay awake.

My guts felt like I needed to shit, but all that came out was a lot of foul-smelling air.

My vision is starting to get fuzzy. I've been here for six hours, and I only know that little fact because an inmate yelled at another inmate that it was eleven o'clock, so shut the hell up. I'm still leaning against the wall, arm propped on the toilet, cheek pressed against the cold steel of the sink. I think my wound may have reopened when I drug myself over to the sink. I can see it starting to stain the shirt again, the red growing and soaking into the gray as it spreads my lifeblood through the fabric.

These notes may be my final statement to the world. I don't believe they have forgotten about me; I believe I may be less of a priority to them than other objectives. I can hear scattered gunfire outside, but it doesn't seem to be coming any closer. Someone is shouting through a megaphone, but I can barely make it out. The way the echoes bounce things around in here, it's a wonder anyone can hear anything.

As I sit here writing, I'm looking at the wall across from me, and I think my fever might be getting higher than I thought it was. The concrete wall, a wall I know to be solid, keeps rolling like waves on the ocean. I could almost believe that if I were to stick my hand out, I would feel the waves as they roll. The effect of watching the wall roll like high tide is dizzying.

I wonder if this is why inmates in confinement always seem so squirrely? Do they see this kind of thing so often that they eventually start to believe it's true? I know that the wall is solid, but at the same time, I know what I can see with my own eyes. Am I going crazy, or is it just the fever?

I can't be sure.

Hour 7

I'm lying on the cold concrete floor, watching the most interesting spider.

He has built his web under the bed and has somehow avoided getting it destroyed. I see him watching me as I watch him. We seem to be as interested in each other as the other is. The cold concrete feels good on my blazing hot face, and as I write this, I can feel my hand getting heavier and heavier. I can see someone pointing at me through the window. They're talking to someone else, but I can't hear them over the pounding in my ears. I can't remember if that's normal or not. It feels like I've been back here for days.

This notebook tells me it's only been seven hours, but it feels like much longer.

As I'm writing this, a roach has blundered into the spider's web. Mr. Spider has begun the process of securing his dinner, and I watch as the shiny brown body disappears into the white coat. The roach struggles against the inevitable, but as he disappears into his new cell, he grows still. Will I grow still, too, at the end?

It's quieting down out there. Most of the inmates are going to bed. I can hear them closing their doors and settling in. The smart ones are closing their doors, at least. Leaving your doors open is a great way to get shot when the National Guard finally gets here. Going to bed sounds like a great idea, actually. I know I shouldn't, but I can barely keep m

Hour ????

I don't know what time it is.

The ceiling is swirling like a top as I lay here and look at it. I don't know why I'm still writing. My hand moves on its own, it seems. I feel like I'm floating. My stomach throbs in time with my heartbeat. Something is going on outside. I can hear people shouting. Their voices sound stupid and fragile. They sound like toy soldiers stuck in the mud.

The ceiling keeps changing colors as it swirls. It looks like a blacklight poster I saw once in my friend's room. It shifts through the colors as the spiral continues to spin. I can see a light starting to form in the middle of it. I arm sweat off my forehead. I can feel the flesh against the back of my hand, and I don't like it. It's much too warm.

Things are making banging noises outside the window. I can hear boots stomping around inside and outside. People are shouting. I don't know what's going on. I'm scared. I want to go home.

Hour 10

I woke up to the sound of banging on my door and the chimes from the tower signaling chow time. I managed to sit up and make my eyes focus long enough to see that it was the negotiator from earlier. He doesn't look so sure of himself now. There's a big bruise on his cheek, and he looks pretty scared. He keeps swimming in and out of focus, but I don't think that's anything he's doing on purpose.

"Sarge?" he yelled, trying to get my attention, "we need to get out of here. Please, give us the keys, and we'll get you some help."

I can't muster the focus to speak to him. I manage to flop back to my spot between the toilet and the sink and run some more water into my hand. The cool water feels nice, but it's doing nothing to cool me off. I can feel myself sliding sideways again, but the negotiator yells at me and forces me to come back to some groggy awakeness.

"Sarge, please. You're not going to last much longer, and you're the only bargaining chip we have left. Please, we can get you out of here. We can help you."

I lean against the wall again, blocking him out. I'm not even sure how I'm still writing at this point. I'm tired. I think I'll stop for a while.

Hour 11

Someone out there is rolling doors open.

I can hear them loud as thunder as they crash open in their metal tracks. People are yelling, but it's all very muddy and disjointed. I'm having trouble feeling my fingers. My arms feel very heavy. My breathing feels watery, and my chest feels heavy. I think I might be dying, but that might be wishful thinking. There's no face at my door, but that means nothing. Maybe they've figured out how to get into the booth. Maybe they have keys, who can know? I can hear someone outside in the day room, voices raised in anger, and I'm afraid now that they might have figured out how to get in.

A door close to mine just slid open with a sound like a landslide.

If they come in here, they will kill me. That may not be such a bad thing anymore. My notepad is lying on my lap, and the writing I can see appearing on the page is nearly illegible. I can see the original pool of blood I left, now dark red and flaky, but the red streak I left earlier is still a little wet looking. I can feel my pants, tacky with my blood and sodden with piss, and I'm surprised I'm still conscious.

Another door has rolled open, this one right next to my cell.

I can hear someone next door screaming, and the sound of a gun is thunderous in the quiet dorm. A gun! Did the inmates get their hands on a weapon? Why would they start killing each other? A stupid question. Why do inmates do anything? Well, if they have a gun, at least it will be quick.

There's a bright light on my face.

The door rolls open.

I hope it's quick.

Hour 12

That's a lie.

It's really been about three days, but it might as well be the twelfth hour.

A lot has happened in those three days. The men at the door turned out to be the recovery team. While I was hovering on the edge of life, they breached the quad through the fire door and rolled in on the disoriented inmates. I have been told casualties were limited, but I heard someone get shot next door, so...who knows. My wound was bad. The knife had pierced something important, and it had started leaking into my sternum. I had also continued bleeding thanks to the leakage, and the doctor said that if I hadn't been saved, I would likely have died in a few more hours. I had been flushed out, patched up, given antibiotics, and will probably make a full recovery.

The Warden himself came down to speak with me. He's an odd guy, I've only met him a handful of times, and it's always weird to see him outside the prison. He offered to shake my hand, but I made a half-hearted show of it. He seemed very intent on my story, asking me to recount my experience for him as he regarded me with those far too curious eyes. I could swear they gleamed behind his little gold glasses as I told him what I had lived through. The prison will, of course, cover my medical bills, and The Warden has offered me a commendation for my bravery.

Bravery.

All I did was survive.

I didn't tell him about the notes I had. I wanted to keep them so I could see if they matched my memories. The cramped, scrabbly handwriting is just barely legible, and it reads more like the writings of a mad man. I'll likely post it along with this story, just in case you'd like to read my half-mad ravings.

You're probably curious to know why you're reading this at all? This story contains no monsters, nothing supernatural, no killers other than those who tried to stab me. This story contains a different sort of horror. When you're trapped behind the door, your blood running out, you begin to feel that your life is on a stopwatch. It's a sobering feeling; knowing your time is limited. Just because I made it out doesn't mean they all do.

So, if you decide to go beyond that fence, make sure you're ready for whatever those twelve hours have in store for you.