Excerpt from Beat the Devil
Copyright 2013 Anthony Izzo
1
They were taking him to one of those Supermax
facilities, where John Raven would spend the rest of his days in a
cell. Twenty-three hours a day in a six-by-eight cage, with an hour
allowed for exercise.
The guards walked him out of the cell block, Raven
shuffling along with cuffs and leg irons. The Department of
Corrections van waited for them, dimly visible through the sheets of
rain falling outside Block D.
The guard, a pig-faced slug named Harrod, nudged him
along with a shotgun. One of the other guards slid the door open and
they muscled Raven into the van. A steel grid separated the driver
and passenger from the rear seating. They shut the van door and Raven
listened to the rain beat on the van roof. It was a six hour drive to
Supermax. To the end of his freedom.
Herrod turned to him and said, “Going to enjoy your
new home, Raven?”
“I'd enjoy skinning you. That's what I'd enjoy.”
The look of anger appeared on the pig's face was worth
it.
“Boy, if I had five minutes with you, I bet you
wouldn't talk so tough,” Harrod said.
“You wouldn't last five minutes with me. “
He scared people. That he knew. He'd always been big,
growing to six-foot-five as a teenager. He had done thousands of
pushups and burpees in his cell, packing on slabs of muscle. His long,
dark hair sometimes hung over his eyes, making him hard to read. And
then there was the scar: a mess of pink tissue that crisscrossed his
right cheek, given to him by a cop.
“You'll never see the sun again, know that Raven?”
“Do you have family? I once cut a family of four to
pieces. The father lasted two hours before he died.”
“You deserve to rot,” Herrod said, turning around.
Raven smiled, something he rarely did.
The van began rolling and he looked out the rear window
and Griffin State Penitentiary faded in the distance, becoming a
large gray blur in the falling rain.
The scenery rolled past, the road flanked by towering
pines. Up ahead twin head lights approached on the other side of the
road. He could see the running lights of a semi, the rig swerving
back and forth. Something was wrong with it.
It drew closer and Raven watched it veer towards the
van, the grill looking like the maw of a great beast. The van's
driver tried to swerve, but the semi clipped the van's bumper and
they whipped around and before Raven knew what was happening, they
had flipped. The van rolled several times and Raven felt as if he
were in a steel drum being rolled down a hill.
He heard screeching metal and the blare of a large horn
as the van came to a stop. He was staring up at the broken side
window, the van resting on its side. Turning his head to the right,
he saw the pig-faced guard sprawled over the seat. His neck was
cocked at a bad angle. Broken.
The front windshield had been smashed out and the
driver was nowhere to be seen.
His body felt as if he'd been hit with baseball bats.
He realized when he moved his arms, his wrists were no longer bound,
the chains having been snapped by the crash.
He got to his knees and began crawling towards the
front of the van. The cage separating the driver from the passenger's
had been peeled open. He crawled over the dead guard, who smelled as
if his bowels had let go. After ten minutes, he managed to crawl out
the hole where the front windshield had been.
The guard who had been driving lay on the blacktop, his
face covered in blood. Raven went to the dead guard, hunkered down.
He found a set of keys on the man's belt and undid his shackles. Then
he took the guard's weapon, a Glock 40. He grabbed the extra clips,
too.
Looking down the road, he saw the semi had rolled. The
trailer had been ripped open, looking like someone had taken a can
opener to it. Smoke billowed from the tractor.
He saw a second set of headlights approaching and he
watched as a Ford pickup truck approached. It stopped and a large man
in a blue mechanic's uniform got out. A grease-smeared cap rested on
his head. “You okay? Any other prisoners around?”
“Just fine, and I'm the only one,” Raven said.
“You ain't going to hurt me, are you?”
Raven shook his head.
“I'll get my cell,” the man said, approaching. “Call
for help.”
“I'll be needing your clothes,” Raven said.
“Excuse me?”
“Your clothes,” Raven said, and shot him in the
face.
He undressed the man, who was roughly Raven's size.
After stripping down to his prison-issue boxers, he dressed in the
man's uniform. The patch sewn on the shirt indicated the guy's name
had been Jeff. “Thanks Jeff,” he said, and dragged the body, now
clad in a pair of red jockey shorts, into the woods. Taking the Glock
and ammunition, he got behind the wheel of the Ford and drove off.
He wondered how much time he had before they realized he
was loose. And if it was enough time to settle some old scores.
He drove for half-an-hour until he spotted a ranch home
tucked back on a hill. A long driveway snaked up to the house. Even
at eleven p.m. the lights were still on.
Turning up the driveway, he killed the headlights and
eased the vehicle forward.
Off in the distance, sirens cried out.
Donald Spielman was in bed watching the local news run
through a fluff piece, something about a dog riding a skateboard. He
wondered why he bothered with the news at times. The dog, a terrier
named Sydney, rolled along on screen, its tongue wagging in the
breeze. Nonsense, he thought.
He glanced at Isabel. His wife was sleeping on her side,
her breasts pushed up in the lace nightie. He considered nuzzling her
neck and seeing where it went. Their boys were staying with her
parents for the night, which meant a rare evening alone.
He was amazed by her beauty. The dark hair and flawless
olive skin. Even more amazed that she had fallen in love with an
average long-haul trucker.
He was about to make his move when a knock came at the
door. It made him flinch.
Who the hell was here at this hour?
Donald got out of bed and threw on a faded terrycloth
robe. The thing was so ragged Isabel threatened to burn it every so
often. He tied the belt, intent on telling the person at the door to
politely fuck off.
They did get the occasional visitor. They were a few
miles from the nearest neighbor. Visitors usually came in the form of
stranded motorists. Probably someone looking for a jump or help with
changing a flat.
As he opened the front door, he heard himself gasp. A
man with a bouncer's build stood on the porch. He wore a pair of
coveralls that strained at the seams. His long, dark hair partially
obscured his eyes, making the man hard to read.
“You break down?” Donald asked.
“I need a place to say,” the man said. His hands
were jammed in the coverall pockets.
“This isn't a Motel Six. I'll bring the phone to the
porch, if you need to call someone.”
“Your place will be fine.”
Donald felt his face start to flush. “Take a hike,
huh?”
He started to close the door, but the stranger pulled a
semiautomatic pistol from his pocket. Donald froze.
“Who else is in the house?”
Donald's heart jackhammered. “My wife.”
“We're going inside. If you try and run or call for
help, I'll shoot you between the legs. Got it?”
He'd been a fool for opening the door. He wanted to
lunge at the man, gouge his eyes, but he didn't. Getting shot here
wouldn't help Isabel. “Okay.”
“Good man. Now let's go meet that wife of yours.”
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