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Beauford had really taken a liking to inmate Dupree. He often told Richard that it was a damn shame that he was in the cell in the first place. Any father in the world would have done the same thing he did. The ones that couldn’t do it didn’t deserve to have children in the first place. Richard thanked him enthusiastically and joked with Beauford that he should let him out of his cell so the two of them could go get a beer. Beauford knew the man wasn’t serious; they were friends and Richard would never do anything to jeopardize his retirement. No way, no sir. He knew that if Richard was like the other piece of shit trash that he had spent twenty-seven years dealing with he would have told on Beauford when he saw the six-inch folding knife he kept in his boot. At first he was nervous that Richard would turn him in, but Richard never said a word about it. That was when Beauford knew Richard was truly his friend. Beauford was going to ask Richard if he could come visit him in prison.

Beauford was yanked violently out of his slumber when a deafening crash resounded throughout the otherwise silent wing of the basement. Beauford screamed like a little girl, which he hoped Richard didn’t hear. The last thing he wanted was for Richard to see him as anything less than his equal. Beauford’s heart pounded violently in his chest and adrenaline dumped into his blood stream assuring that he was awake and ready to respond to whatever was to come. He knew it was called the fight or flight response, the evolutionary holdover from his caveman ancestors that ensured their continued survival.

The first thing Beauford noticed after his embarrassing scream was the stench of shit. Richard must have been sitting on the toilet and accidentally knocked over the stack of legal work on the sink next to him. Beauford looked at the toilet but found it vacant. Did Richard crawl back into bed and not flush the toilet? No, that couldn’t be the case because it didn’t explain the racket that woke him up.

Beauford wiped the crust from his eyes and without realizing it, his hand lowered to his chin to wipe the drool away. He blinked his eyes a few times so he could see into the cell and figure out what Richard was doing. Peering towards the back of the cell, Beauford realized that he would never see his retirement.

Richard was dead.

“No, no, no, no NOOOOOOO!”

Beauford began to cry. He had allowed his friend to die a few feet away from him. How long had he been asleep? How did Richard not wake him? He couldn’t have been sleeping that heavily. He was a pro at sleeping on the job; he never fell into such a deep sleep that he didn’t know what was going on around him. He needed to be able to sit up and act alert if someone turned the key to the lock at the end of the hall.

He had to do something. He screamed at the top of his lungs.

“SOMEBODY HELP! I NEED HELP! GET IN HERE NOW!”

He frantically waved his arms at the camera at the end of the hall like a crazy person. He hoped and prayed that Doug would see him. The guy in the control booth never slept, but he did like to read Lee Child novels, and the latest one had hit the shelves last week. Please be looking at the camera, Doug.

No time. Richard needed his help. In a state of total panic, he forgot that he had a telephone on his desk, one that he seldom used since he was asleep for most of his shift. Beauford fumbled his keys and after what felt like an eternity managed to unlock the door. He crossed to the other side of the cell and almost slipped and fell in the fetid excrement. He grabbed Richard by the waist and hoisted him upwards, hoping that Richard might still be alive and able to breath.

Why is no one coming?

He was never going to be able to get Richard down. Beauford was fifty-six years old and couldn’t have been in worse physical shape. He got winded just walking from the parking lot and down the stairs to the basement. Beauford began to cry even harder but regained hope when he realized that Richard’s salvation was in his boot. With one hand, he grabbed at his left boot and pulled the knife out. He let go of Richard, unfolded the knife, stood on the bunk and cut him down.

Surely they would be here by now; why is nobody coming?

His radio.

Beauford had forgotten to hit his alarm. One of the first things he did when he sat down at his desk was to turn off his radio. The County Courthouse shared a radio frequency with the Deputy Sheriff’s office and the Fire Department. The thing went off the whole damned night with people checking in every time they pulled over to take a piss and people having discussions about what gas station had the best coffee. It drove Beauford insane, and he saw no reason to allow the damn thing to keep him awake. He promptly hit the red button that would send help his way.

Beauford turned his attention to the inmate he had been charged with watching. His neck was bright red and raw. Blood had soaked into the bed sheet around his neck. Richard must have been hanging up there for a while, kicking before he managed to knock down the things on top of his sink. He checked the pulse on his neck and to his great relief realized that Richard was indeed still alive. He opened Richard’s right eye to find his retinas had flecks of blood in them. For a brief second he thought Richard’s eye focused and looked at him. Beauford saw this and began to slap his face.

“Richard, Richard! C’mon buddy, stay with me, I know you’re in there!”

Beauford then laid Richard’s head on the cold concrete floor and began chest compressions. Beauford could only perform the life saving technique for about a minute before he was winded and had to stop. Beauford rushed over to his desk and grabbed a set of leg irons out of the top drawer. He came back over to Richard and restrained him quickly with a pair of handcuffs and leg irons.

Beauford cradled his friend’s head in his arm. He wept and pleaded with his friend. “Please don’t die buddy, I’m so sorry. Help is on the way; you’re gonna be just fine.”

**********

Richard had been able to maintain consciousness while he was hanging in his cell. He ticked off the seconds in his head while the Deputy snorted like a pig as he began to stir.

1….2….Jesus Christ don’t laugh, he just screamed like a little girl…..that’s it, open the door and get in here, hurry up…3...4...5…6...7...8...no, use your knife you moron, I’m about to die...9…10…11…finally, now hurry up and cut me down…12…13…this is going to hurt, brace yourself …14… damn that hurt… OK, start taking in shallow breaths…15…16….yes, thank you, I have a pulse. OK, stop counting, you made it. OK, give him a flicker of life in your eye. Good, good. Finally! Now stop crying! You’re pissing me off!

Richard settled in and relaxed for what was to come. He needed to recover very quickly from what just happened if he wished to gain his freedom. Before slipping the noose over his head, Richard had wrapped a towel around his neck to evenly distribute the pressure to his neck muscles. Once he was dangling, he simply tucked his chin to his chest and flexed the muscles in his neck as hard as he could, still allowing a small amount of air into his lungs. When Clements entered the cell, he went as limp as possible to give the illusion that he was dead. Clements fell for the ploy; his plan had worked perfectly. Richard wasn’t sure if Beauford would put him in full restraints. He figured on handcuffs. Leg irons maybe. Belly chain and padlock would amaze him. If Beauford put him in a belly chain the rest of his plan would be difficult, but not impossible.

Richard had spent many long, boring days sitting in the courtroom looking out the windows; he memorized every detail of the buildings and roads he could see. One day he heard an ambulance come screaming out of a building across the street. He thought about the size of the building he was in and estimated that the front entrance to the courthouse was directly across the street from the ambulance bays. One night during his long talks with Beauford, an ambulance could be heard outside the courthouse so Richard took advantage of the situation. He asked Beauford about it, and the man was kind enough to answer every single question Richard had about the frequency of emergency calls and the number of staff that worked each shift.

Richard laid on the floor of his cell for less than two minutes before a stretcher was brought in, and he was loaded up to be taken the emergency room. This was the one variable that Richard couldn’t plan for; he had no idea which hospital he would taken to. Beauford had told him that the ambulances rotated to three different local hospitals depending on how busy each ER was at any given time of day.

Based on the number of employees working in the courthouse jail, Richard deduced that the only guard that would accompany him to the ER was Deputy Clements. Once he was loaded into the ambulance he discovered that he was right - Beauford and the two paramedics were the only other people in the ambulance.

“We got a white male, early thirties, approximately two hundred pounds, pulse steady, blood pressure erratic. Severe lacerations to the neck and reticial hemorrhaging, unresponsive to sternum rub. We estimate that we’re less than ten minutes out. Over.”

“Roger, 1-6, Saint E reports they are ready to receive. Over.”

“Reticial hemorrhaging” referred to the red flecks of blood in Richard’s eyes. Given the state he was in, it meant that he had been hanging from the noose for quite some time, which of course Richard knew to be untrue. “Unresponsive to sternum rub” meant the paramedic had dug his knuckles into Richard’s sternum to see if he would respond. Richard was amazed that he didn’t flinch because it hurt like a bitch. The two phrases put together meant one thing - Richard had suffered severe brain damage. Richard knew he had to create this fiction for the paramedics or they would know he was faking and he wouldn’t get far.

“Hey, buddy. Hey, you!” The paramedic in the back was screaming at Beauford.

Beauford snapped back to reality and try to steady his voice. “Yeah, what is it?”

“How long was he hanging?”

“Uh, why?”

“Because I need to know! How long?”

“Uh, yeah. I’m not really sure, I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? I’m pretty sure he was up there for a while! What the fuck were you doing?”

Beauford had no idea what to say; he couldn’t think of a lie so he changed the subject. “Is he gonna make it?”

“Dude, at the very least this guy’s got brain damage. You got someone meeting us at Saint Elizabeth’s?”

“What do you mean?” Beauford looked utterly confused and searched his racing mind for some sort of explanation. Who would be meeting us at the hospital? Aren’t the doctors already there?

“You got back up coming or what? You notify your boss? Do you know what the hell you’re doing? Wake the fuck up and do something!”

“Uh, yeah, yeah. Hold on.”

Beauford fumbled for his radio. “Hey, Doug?”

The Control Center replied, “Go ahead, Beauford.”

“Hey Doug, uhh... this is Beauford.”

“I know who this is, Beauford! Gimme a break! What’s going on?”

“Doug, you got someone meeting us at the ER?”

“Negative. County Sheriff rides our radio net. They must know what’s going on. You didn’t tell them?”

Richard could not believe how easy this was going to be.

“Idiots!” The EMT screamed to the front of the cab. “Step on it Manny, we’re in serious trouble back here!”

Brock Hornsby was no fool. He spent three years as a medic in the army before he hired on with the Winchester County EMS. He knew exactly who the man was lying in his ambulance. He highly doubted the man was in any condition to do a thing. The man was probably a vegetable and the poor guy had even shit himse…

Richard sprang into action so quickly that the three men riding with him couldn’t have responded if Richard had moved at half his current speed. In one lightning fast motion, Richard reached up under the paramedic’s chin and with the aid of his handcuffs, rammed the paramedic’s head into the ceiling. At the same time Hornsby hit the roof, Richard rolled over onto his left hip and kicked both of his feet around, breaking Deputy Clements’ nose. Blood poured from the man’s face as he crumpled against the wall, completely terrified. Richard knew Beauford was down for the count. The paramedic proved to be a little more of a challenge, but not much. Slamming into the roof didn’t knock him out and only pissed him off. The driver slammed on the brakes, sending the truck swerving recklessly. Hornsby fell over onto Richard’s face. Richard gladly accepted the gift of the man’s ear in his mouth and bit a chunk of it off. The man howled in pain and clawed his way past Beauford, opening the back doors and falling out onto the curb. Richard moved to the front of the cab and spit the chunk of Hornsby’s ear at the driver.

“GET THE FUCK OUT!”

The driver didn’t have to be told twice. Wiping a glob of bloody spit from his cheek along with a chunk of something Manuel didn’t dare try to identify, he jumped out of the cab like it was on fire and ran screaming down the street. Richard climbed into the driver’s seat and realized he had one more task to attend to before he could drive away.

Beauford was still sitting in the back of the truck, the rear doors wide open, inviting him to disembark. The man was too terrified to do anything but tremble in fear.

“Get out of the truck, Beauford,” Richard said calmly.

“Richard, what are you doing? I don’t understand.”