DEATH WATCH
Episode One - Routine
DISCLAIMER
DEATH WATCH is a work of fiction. While the author works as a Corrections Officer and draws on that experience to create a semi-authentic atmosphere and somewhat procedural accuracy, all characters, events, institutions, and incidents depicted in this series are entirely fictional. The town and prison are fictional and coincide with the Towers Valley universe which I have created.
This is horror fiction, not memoir. Any resemblance to real persons, events, or institutions is coincidental.
The views, actions, and conduct of characters in this story do not reflect the views, policies, or practices of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the Department of Justice, or any correctional institution or agency.
This is a story. Nothing more.
Towers Valley Penitentiary
August 25, 1989
0514 Hours
By five in the morning, the coffee wasn’t supposed to taste good.
It was supposed to keep you alive.
Sergeant Harlan Briggs filled his chipped department mug without taking his eyes off the briefing room. The stainless-steel urn had been cooking on the warmer since midnight. The coffee smelled like scorched earth and tasted even worse, but after twenty years behind the walls of Towers Valley Penitentiary, he’d learned there were things a man simply stopped complaining about.
Government coffee was one of them.
Officer Ellis Booker lifted his own cup and took a careful sip before grimacing.
“Still tastes like somebody wrung out an inmate’s sock in the fucking thing,” he gasped.
Briggs drank anyway.
“Needs another sock.” He took another long drink, almost like he enjoyed it. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with it. Gonna make you a mean machine, Booker.”
The room broke into tired laughter.
Nobody laughed because the joke was funny. They laughed because it was five in the morning and they were about to spend another twelve hours locked inside a concrete box with more than two thousand convicted felons. Gallows humor wasn’t entertainment. It was survival.
More importantly of all the officers on shift, Sergeant Briggs was their Captain Ahab.
Officer Jimmy Carver leaned back in his chair beneath the rattling exhaust fan and lit the first cigarette of the shift. Smoke drifted lazily toward the ceiling as he unfolded the morning newspaper.
“You boys been following that Menendez story?”
A few heads turned.
“The rich kids out in California?” Booker asked.
Carver nodded. “Blew their parents apart with shotguns. Living room looked like somebody butchered a pair of cattle.”
“Jesus.”
“They’re saying they went shopping afterward. Rolexes. Courtside Lakers tickets. Spent money like they won the lottery.”
Briggs leaned back in a beaten leather chair. This was his chair when on shift. Right in the corner of the room, next to the air conditioner.
“Well, money buys a lot of things,” Briggs added.
Booker looked over. “Like what?”
“A good lawyer,” Carver snorted.
“Think it’ll help?” Briggs shrugged.
“Maybe. Won’t keep them out of prison.”
“If they ever landed here,” Booker said, “they wouldn’t last a week.”
“No,” Briggs agreed. “Somebody would decide they looked pretty enough to own.”
Another round of dark laughter rolled through the room.
“Them Cali boys be holdin’ pockets before the week would be out.” Briggs let out an ugly bellow, one that nearly shook the room.
The television bolted into the corner mumbled through another report about federal overcrowding. Politicians promised funding. Administrators promised staffing. The news anchor promised reform.
Nobody in the room looked up.
Briggs had heard the same promises under four presidents.
Nothing ever changed.
Keys clattered onto scarred wooden tables. Duty belts hit the backs of folding chairs with heavy thuds. Someone cursed because his radio battery hadn’t been charged overnight. Somebody else stole the last powdered doughnut before another officer could reach it.
Routine.
Everything happened the same way every morning. Routine kept officers alive, the day somewhat predictable.
Routine kept Towers Valley from coming apart at the seams.
Officer Kyle Mercer sat near the back, nursing his own cup of the terrible coffee and trying not to look as green as he felt.
Six months in and he still hadn’t figured out his routine here. Shit, he still struggled to ignore the smell that seemed to cling to every inch of the prison. Industrial disinfectants, moldy concrete, and mildewed body sweat. It clung to everything. There was something else he still couldn’t identify.
The veteran officers didn’t seem to notice it anymore.
Kyle noticed it every single day.
He’d transferred from a smaller lower-security institution downstate where inmates measured their sentences in years instead of decades like Towers Valley Pen.
This place was different.
Towers Valley Penitentiary was a relic. Built in the 1940s, maybe earlier. The kind of prison that had seen riots, murders, suicides, and cover-ups long before Kyle was born. The kind of place that chewed up rookies and spit them out before they made it a year.
He was determined not to be one of them.
The Menendez story had been all over the news for days. Kyle had watched it on the evening broadcast with a kind of detached fascination. Two brothers. Shotguns. A mansion in Beverly Hills.
It felt distant, like something from a movie. But sitting here, listening to the officer’s joke about it over burnt coffee, it felt different.
These men had seen worse. They’d walked tiers with men who’d done worse.
And they’d do it again today.
Kyle caught himself staring through the narrow window in the break room toward the empty corridor outside. This room had a long-barred window open where they could still maintain vigilant eyes on the inmates walking to and from rec or chow while getting something cold to drink or eat. The Office to the side was the Lieutenants with an open door and next to that two holding cages for inmates they had to bring in and correct their behavior or strip out.
It was strange.
The prison hadn’t even fully woken up yet, but it already felt... occupied.
Not by inmates, but by history. Every hallway looked like something terrible had happened there once. Maybe more than once.
He took another drink of the coffee and immediately regretted it.
Across the room, Officer Leon Washington rested one broad hand on a weathered Bible lying beside his cup. Kyle had never seen him read it though. It just sat there close by like the book was simply a part of his uniform.
Everyone called him Preach. The inmates did too.
Kyle had watched him talk a suicidal inmate down from a second-floor railing during his second week at Towers Valley. Preach didn’t shout or make one threat. He simply talked to the man. Just quiet words spoken with enough conviction to make another man climb back to safety.
Kyle had never seen an officer talk to an inmate like another human being like that before.
Preach looked up and caught Kyle watching him.
“You alright, rook?”
Kyle nodded. “Just tired.”
A faint smile crossed his face. “You’ll get used to it. Trust me.”
Kyle smiled back, though he wasn’t sure he believed him. He’d heard that sentence almost every day since arriving at Towers Valley. He still couldn’t decide whether it was reassurance...
...or a warning.
Conversation died almost immediately as Lieutenant Frank Rourke stepped out of his office and let out a loud yawn. He carried a clipboard with the shift roster beneath one arm. He wasn’t the kind of man who barked to get attention. Twenty years in uniform had taught him that real authority didn’t need volume.
He laid the clipboard on the table and looked over the room.
“Morning, morning.”
A chorus of half-awake greetings answered him.
Rourke glanced down at the attendance sheet and rubbed a hand across the stubble on his jaw.
“Looks like all of you are here.”
Carver smirked around his cigarette. “So, we still rockin’ three short for the shift? Fuckin great.”
A few chuckles erupted. They were all used to it by now.
Rourke didn’t smile. “Yes, Carver, we’re short three officers.”
“Only three?” Booker said. “Hell, that’s practically fully staffed.”
This time Rourke cracked the faintest grin.
“Miracles happen.” This time Rourke cracked the faintest grin. “Briggs, I need you to stay over tonight.”
“Goddamnit, Rourke. Don’t fuck up my day,” he growled sitting up his chair. “I did a double for you last night and now you tryin’ to fuck me again?”
“Blame Malone. Can’t make it in…”
“Again?” Carver asked shaking his head.
“He needs to leave if he can’t hack it. Seriously,” Cade added.
Officer Rita Cade had fifteen years inside Towers Valley Pen and had carved away every ounce of unnecessary emotion. She listened more than she spoke, and when she did speak, people listened. She was the first female corrections officer hired on, and a lot of men did not like her. Over time she proved her worth and gained the respect of officers and inmates.
Kyle respected her. During his first week she’d pulled him aside after shift and taught him lessons no academy instructor ever mentioned.
Don’t ever change a Yes to a No.
Don’t let anyone see fear in your eyes.
Don’t go looking for trouble, it will find you eventually in a place like this.
Those rules weren’t written anywhere. They were written into the scars of the officers who survived long enough to retire.
Officer Danny Koss spoke up, slightly frustrated with everyone about Malone. “I mean he did see Cox get stabbed up several times, man. He was right fuckin’ there—”
“We’ve all seen some shit, Koss! That ain’t no goddamn excuse!” Briggs roared from behind him. “I don’t know why you stick up for that fuckin’ LOP—”
“Enough,” Rourke said, calmly.
The room fell silent.
“Listen up, I want you all to stay fuckin’ frosty out there today. We got shit moving on the yard and the politics are getting messy. Rumor from Mo is that some work is about to get put in and we’re talking body bags.” Rourke explained in a more serious manner. “Everone tracking?”
They all let out their own simple responses or tapped on the table.
“We work with what we got. We leave the same way we come in. Got it? Remember that. We gotta lean on each other.” Rourke explained. “Cade, you get Mercer today for half the shift.” He looked at Kyle. “This is your last day with training and you're in the trenches tomorrow, you got this.”
Preach leaned over and patted Kyle on the shoulder for some reassurance.
“Donnelly?” Carver said looking around. “Fuck where is Donnelly?”
Nothing.
The room stayed quiet.
Booker frowned. “I think he went to take a shit?”
“Maybe he skipped and went to make relief early. He owes Burke time for last week?”
Ray Donnelly had worked third shift for almost twelve years. He wasn’t late but one time last week and that might be the case but it was out of character to skip role call. He wasn’t careless. Routine meant everything to Ray.
He parked in the same spot every morning. Filled the same coffee mug.
Walked the same route through C Block. Even took his cigarette break at the same minute every night.
Rourke looked around the room and that’s about the same time the others noticed it too. His coffee mug was untouched.
“Maybe he finally got smart and kept driving.” Briggs laughed.
“You wouldn’t.”
“I absolutely would.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
“The pension’s too good.”
That earned another round of tired laughter. Twenty years, hazard retirement. That was the magic number.
Give the place the best years of your life and maybe—if you were lucky—it would give enough of them back for retirement.
Maybe.
“I’ll go find him, got to make rounds anyways.” Briggs drained the last of his coffee and stood. “Probably taking a dump.”
Cade rose from her chair and fastened her radio to her duty belt.
“You drew D Block with me today.”
Kyle nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
She looked at him over one shoulder.
“Don’t call me ma’am.”
He blinked.
“Makes me feel older than the prison.”
A few officers chuckled as they walked past.
“Sorry,” Kyle smiled. “I forgot, Cade.”
“Got it.”
Across the room, Preach slipped his Bible into the inside pocket of his jacket before checking the battery on his portable radio.
“B Block again?” Booker asked.
Preach nodded. “They’re not tired of me yet.”
“They’re hoping you’ll save ‘em.”
Preach smiled. “I don’t do the saving.” He opened his hands wide in the air. “He does the saving.”
Carver rolled his eyes. “Here we go, B Block is for bugs. It suits you that’s why you love it.”
Preach only shrugged. “I just listen.”
Long concrete walls disappeared beneath rows of fluorescent lights that buzzed overhead with an uneven electrical hum. The paint had long since surrendered to decades of boots, carts, stretchers, and handcuffs scraping against it. Blood once covered every inch of this place at some point.
There wasn’t a square inch of Towers Valley Pen that looked new, or clean for that matter. It was a straight stretch of corridor. Four Housing unit Block on the East and West end.
Cade and Kyle walked down to the West end, their keys jangling on their duty belts. Somewhere above them, steam hissed through aging pipes. Some large cockroaches scurried across the floor by a large trash cart.
“Okay, today since it’s your last day of observation or whatever I’m gonna let you run the unit.”
“What? Really?” Kyle asked, nervous and more excited than anything.
“Yeah, you got this. Just remember to keep your radio on.”
“Always do.”
“Good, some guys don’t.”
Sergeant Briggs could have walked C Block blind folded, he knew the prison that well. This unit used to be his for many years before Donnelly took it. The range stretched before him beneath rows of humming fluorescent lights.
It looked exactly as it always had.
The tier smelled faintly of overcooked oatmeal and stale bread from breakfast wafting down the corridor. Only a few seconds in and he felt something was off already. The unit was still secured. No inmates were out for the day, which was not routine.
No sign of Donnelly or Burke on the floor.
Briggs went to the officer’s station and opened the door which was slightly ajar. Two backpacks, one radio on the desk, but no one in the room. Brigg’s felt his heart slamming into his chest. He swallowed hard and put down his cup of coffee. He looked over the room for a second trying to process what could possibly be going on.
The chair sat empty.
The C Block clipboard rested exactly where it should. Morning count sheets, incident logs, half a cup of coffee. A set of reading glasses.
Ray never left his radio behind.
Not once in twelve years.
“Sergeant Briggs to Control,” he spoke on his radio.
“Go ahead.”
“Have you seen Donnelly or Burke come by in the corridor?”
“Negative.”
His worry grew even more now. Briggs decided to walk the ranges first before assuming the worst. They might be shaking down a cell before cracking the doors for the day, sometimes incidents happened, and he didn’t want to overreact.
Most of the inmates were already awake. Some stood near the bars waiting for chow.
Others sat on their bunks reading paperbacks with the covers torn off. One old biker scratched lottery numbers into the back of a magazine with a golf pencil no bigger than his thumb. He was bald headed, overweight and had a large beard. One of his eyes was slightly discolored from some unspoken accident.
He looked up first with his good eye. “Mornin’, Sarge.”
“Eddie.” Briggs said, stopping by his cell. “What’s going on?”
Eddie was a lifer who had been convicted of killing his girlfriend and was widely known for running with the Pagans. The old man had been locked up at the Pen as long as Brigg’s had worked here. He’d watched Brigg’s grow from a green rookie to a hardened Sergeant. They had an understanding and history together.
“Where’s the officer for the unit? Donnelly? Burke?”
Eddie put down his pencil and turned, standing to face Briggs. He was shaking.
“Sarge, you gonna need backup.”
His stomach tightened. He felt it right then and there, the hair standing up on the back of his neck. Briggs looked around and noticed every inmate on C Block was looking out their door windows at him.
No one spoke.
No one smiled.
“Go down range, Sarge. Be careful,” Eddie warned, nodding his head. “Get that back up.”
Toward the last row of cells in the far right corner of the range, Briggs could see the door was cracked open to Cell C-113.
“Sergeant Briggs to Control…”
END OF EPISONE ONE