Fortsworth

Chapter One: A Fitting Revenge

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say... Jenkins, the prison guard at Fortsworth Maximum Security Prison, would say that damn near every day. He was a real space nut, and me and the guys on block four really got a kick out of that. My cellmate, Rudy Two, had a thing where he'd ask Jenkins a "space" question, and he'd ramble an answer for thirty minutes before noticing our poorly stifled chuckles and "get a load of this guy" grins. Jenkins would fall for it every time. He'd get so mad his pudgy cheeks would jiggle, and his whole face would turn red as a beet. Then he’d spout off about not appreciating knowledge, or anything else for that matter, and he'd claim that's why we ended up there in the first place.

Fortsworth. It was a special kind of Hell. Designed especially for folks like me: degenerates of society, failed products of the system. Dirty water, no decent food, no air conditioning... just the other day a guy on block five was murdered by the heat of Texas. There was no funeral or moments of silence. I still don't even know his name, but we all knew what happened to his body... everything is recycled here. Fortsworth... I'm so glad that place is behind me.

I could have eventually gotten used to the dirty water and the miserable heat, but it was the buzzing I could no longer bear. The incessant, high pitched buzz of those damn cameras, flying all around us, while we ate, while we worked, while we slept. It was enough to drive a person mad, and for some, it did. You see, Fortsworth wasn't just a prison. It was also the most popular reality show on Earth, and for those of us on death row, our lives depended on it.

Most of the guys there had never even seen Fortsworth. They knew they were on a live reality show and the rules we had to follow, but not much else aside from that. I wasn't allowed to talk about it. None of us were. We were not to acknowledge the show in any way. We were NEVER to address the audience, and finally, we could not, under any circumstances, acknowledge the cameras. The damn things were like horseflies, hovering and lurking every way we'd turn! We were supposed to just act like they weren't there, like the world wasn't watching our every move, listening to every word, judging us, deciding our fate! And worst of all, for me, I had to pretend the buzz wasn't there, like it wasn't crawling at my skin... drilling and gnawing away at my sanity.

Now believe it or not, I didn't do those things I was accused of. I didn't murder those women. I wasn't a violent person. But after the buzzing, after Fortsworth... well, let's just say I'm a changed man.

Everything else changed too the day I finally snapped. Rudy Two and I were walking through the courtyard at rec time. It was actually cooler that day than usual, and there was even a slight breeze in the air. We were joking and laughing while playfully imitating Jenkins . Rudy was kicking a pebble along with us and I had mused to myself, like many times before, about what a kid that guy was. Amidst the pleasant weather, Rudy's freckled smile, and the rhythmic little thud of each pebble kick, I think for a moment I actually felt peace. The buzzing seemed further away, and the fresh air seemed renewing yet familiar... old and new at the same time.

It was all interrupted though by the sound of Jenkins’ voice. He'd heard us joking about him and was extremely upset. I remember thinking he must have had a bad day because I'd never seen him worked up like that before. Things become a blur after that. Everything happened so fast. Rudy was laughing, Jenkins was shouting, and the buzzing was back, only this time it was a swarm. The confrontation had brought forth a frenzy of drones and resisting the urge to swat them was driving me to the edge. I was already losing my grip when I heard the gunshot, and saw Rudy's wide eyed, lifeless expression directed at me from the ground, blood spurting out of a hole in his head, directly in front of his face lay the pebble.

Rudy was the only innocence I had left in that place...

The next thing I knew, I had Jenkins pinned to the ground and my hands were around his throat. I was squeezing so hard my entire body was shaking and Jenkins’ head, like an extension of my hands, was shaking with me. The frenzy of cameras was all around us, in front of my face, in front of his face, at my ears, and I felt one brush the back of my hair. One touched me. One of those miserable, damned things actually touched me. I smacked it like the blood sucker it was and grabbed hold of it. The thing was still buzzing in my hand when I crammed it into Jenkins' mouth. The now muffled buzzing and Jenkins’ gags and gargles was the most satisfying thing I'd ever heard. I snatched another one and shoved it in, and then another, and another. There was an endless supply of them.

I felt glee, like that of a sadistic child wildly stomping away at ants. I was laughing hysterically while reciting to him "Nobody can hear a scream...Nobody can hear YOU scream!...". Blood was pooling and splashing inside his mouth when I noticed the cameras were not the only thing buzzing around me. The rest of the inmates were crowded all around, cheering and wild with excitement. I remember thinking someone had shot me when I felt a burning pinch on the side of my neck, and then everything melted into darkness.

I dreamed of Rudy Two. He was kicking his pebble. We were laughing. He was saying he was going to get us out of Fortsworth. I asked playfully, "Oh yeah? How you gonna do that?" He became silent. His smile sank into a sinister smirk. That's when I heard the buzzing. Thousands of horseflies began erupting endlessly out of the hole in Rudy's head. I screamed an inaudible scream until I was suddenly awake, not at Fortsworth, but somewhere else.

"There he is..." I heard a very child-like voice proclaim. I was shocked when I realized Sadie Falcon, the Lizzie Borden of the 24th century, was leaning over me! This girl murdered her entire family on the night of her sweet sixteen birthday party. They found her walking down the street, covered in blood and in shock, dragging an ax behind her. There were wild theories about it. Some people thought she was framed, others thought she had a split personality, and some even thought she was possessed. Her trial was all over the news a few months before I was arrested. Apparently, the jury didn't buy her story about blacking out and not remembering what happened, so off to Fortsworth she went. Now she was standing right in front me.

The next thing I noticed was glorious. There were no cameras. The buzzing was gone! The air was cool and smelled like jasmine. I was sitting on a leather couch. Most everything was white, the furniture, the walls, even the fuzzy rug on the floor. Sadie was wearing a white dress, and I wasn’t surprised to see that I was also dressed in white.

I might have thought I was dead and in heaven, or maybe even some sort of twisted Hell, but having seen the first season of Fortsworth, I knew exactly where I was. I had made it to the finals. I knew, were I to find a window, I'd be peering into darkness from aboard the Jettison, a space station built especially for Fortsworth. It was a chilling notion, but even more so was knowing for the next few weeks, I’d be competing for a pardon against Sadie Falcon and two other inmates, and by the end of it, only one of us would remain alive.

I later learned that Rudy Two was supposed to be the fourth finalist. It made sense. Who couldn't love that guy? Always smiling and happy in spite of the misery of Fortsworth, never failing to lift the spirits of block four. A light in the dark he was. How a jury could sentence him to death was a mystery to me. And it turned out I wasn’t the only one fond of him. The audience adored him, and I had exacted a fitting revenge for one of the world's most beloved criminals. Rudy got me out of there after all...