The night was peaceful and serene.
Then the alarm went off at the county jail, and many of the prisoners got to their feet to see if it was anyone in the pen next to them that had made the break. Some of them even had holes dug for just such occasions, and they scurried to take advantage of the lack of security. (If the guards were focused on one escapee, they wouldn't be looking for another.)
To the few who had learned virtue, or remorse (which is a pebble's throw away from virtue), they resigned themselves to life in prison, and the alarms were unable to rouse them. There were those too who had been unsuccessful in their own escape attempts, and dreaming of the punishments the culprit would receive once caught, tossed and turned and sweated bullets in their tormented sleep.
To one, this was the chance and the gamble of a lifetime. He could become as free as the men who came to deliver prisoners to their cells, with one exception: once he was out, he wasn't coming back. If he was caught, there was no second chance, they would have their eyes on him for the rest of his natural life. He was kidding himself if he thought that a chance like this would come along twice for him, and he knew it. It was now or never, and he was hell-bent on it being now.
He moved calmly and decisively between guards and searchlights, being very careful, and none too hasty. He had heard of many a failed escape attempt because the prisoner had become giddy with the prospect of freedom, and let it cloud his judgment. No, he knew that he had to remain calm, and he had no problem with staying right under the guards' noses until the next morning; then when they thought he had made the slip, he'd follow a truck right out the front gate.
He picked a spot in the shadows of the prison wall, and sat down, keeping his eyes and ears open for any signs of danger. Then, after a couple of hours, the alarm and searchlights became calm like sedated dogs and he allowed himself to feel a little safe.
He thought back to his escape, to the point when he first decided to leave his life behind bars and journey fearlessly out into the great beyond. He had been on kitchen-duty, peeling potatoes for the soup that would feed the other thousands of inmates. Afterwards, he remembered, he had dish-duty to look forward to. He didn't remember what it was he did that earned him the extra honors. Maybe the warden felt he needed to pick someone at random, to cast the fear of God into the other men who were afraid of nothing but the bars that held them in.
Along with kitchen- and dish-duty, he also had to aid with the laundry. He didn't mind the other jobs, but laundry was terrible. No one in jail ever cared enough to keep themselves clean and sanitary, so the uniforms, he recalled, smelled worse than the mold he found once on a sandwich he had hidden under his bunk. Ah, now he remembered, that little putrid sandwich was the offender that earned him all those extra duties, for no food was allowed outside the canteen.
He almost laughed, alone in the dark, when he thought of that sandwich. Turkey on wheat bread. It was dry and tasteless, so he held onto it. He didn't know why, but he just couldn't swallow it, so he kept it. He had seen many a fight burst out over rations in the canteen, so he stuffed the awful sandwich in his pants and carried it back to his cell.
He thanked God now for that moldy sandwich. It had given him the chance he needed. He had decided while on potato-duty, but while he was with the laundry he knew he'd make a break for it. He waited until the guards had become chatty with each other, after he had taken on the normal "I don't want to have to do this, but you guys have guns" look and went about his work, making them easy and unsuspicious. Then, he wet a rag and worked at bending the small bars that made a kind of window out onto the prison grounds, to make it seem as if he had left that way, and once that was done, ducked behind a pile of laundry bags.
He had hardly expected his plan to work so well. And he laughed aloud at the memory.
Soon he would be free for sure...
~*~*~
But, just as he thought he was safe, the betraying finger of a searchlight fell upon where he was sitting...