Chapter 9
Without any way to tell time, Sarah made her way to the main doors when she suspected it was close to the time the day shift would be arriving.
With the security panels that unlocked the doors through key cards down, someone needed to be at the entrance to let the next shift in.
She was a little surprised to see that no one was waiting at the doors for her when she opened them.
The hot Florida sun poured into the prison block.
They should have been starting to arrive minutes ago.
It bothered her that everyone seemed to be running late.
Sarah knew some of the correction officers and other employees lived in town, though, and the EMP might have made coming to work impossible.
Still, at least a handful of employees lived over twenty miles away from the facility.
They should have been there for the morning shift, yet the only cars in the parking lot were those that had sat there all night.
The sense of foreboding returned to her once more.
It seemed like something more was going on.
She frowned and headed back into the cell block to find Alan.
The others would be gathering soon for the morning roll call, and she didn't want to miss it.
With Adam now aware of his situation, she had nothing left there to keep her around.
Sarah wanted to get out of there and fast. With the light flooding in through the windows perched near the roof, she no longer needed the candle burning in her hand.
Blowing it out, she quickly set it down and gathered her bag.
Sarah yawned and stretched out. Who knew what kind of chaos they would be dealing with for the next few days.
There was a knock on her office door, and she quickly glanced up. Alan smiled at her and waved from the other side. Sarah motioned for him to come in and join her.
“How’s everything going out there?” Sarah asked.
“Oh, you know. Nothing but complaining from most of the inmates. Plus, not having any of the answers to their questions is a pain in the ass.”
Sarah chuckled. “Well, that’s just something else we’re going to have to work through. I’m sure they’ll have all of this figured out in no time. Until then, we just have to make do with what we have.”
“Not as easy as it sounds,” Alan replied. “Hey, did you happen to give Adam the good news? I’m hoping he’s excited to finally get out of here and get on with his life.”
“I did tell him. I don’t think he quite understands what it means just yet, but I could tell he was glad to finally leave.”
“I’m happy for him. Just so you know, the captain is here along with the others. They’ve all been here for about half an hour now.”
“Good. I was starting to worry that the relief team wasn’t going to make it in. With none of the cars having any power, along with nothing else, it seems, I didn’t know if we would all get any relief.”
“Unfortunately, you’re still right. The captain is here along with some others who have been here.”
“What do you mean that I’m right?” Sarah asked. “I thought you just said that the others were here. Are we not getting any relief?”
“Well, at the moment, we haven’t had a single member of the relief team show up. Also, there’s absolutely no way of getting ahold of any of them, either.”
“So, not one person has come in yet?”
“Not a one of them. I don’t know what we’re going to do, but the captain is waiting to talk to all of us.”
Sarah frowned and headed out the door after Alan.
Just as he’d said, the only people in the common room were the ones she’d seen hours earlier when they’d met to do a roll call.
Meredith looked more worried than she had hours before.
It was easy to understand why, though, since no one had shown up for work.
They couldn’t leave the facility unattended.
Until reinforcements came, they would all be stuck at the prison.
From the way things were going, it looked like Sarah was going to get her overtime anyway.
Her mind raced as she pondered what the lack of relief workers meant.
Given the circumstances outside, it was entirely possible that the county officials had placed the general public under a state of emergency.
If that were indeed the case, the only people on the roads would be members of the military and police force.
Still, special privileges could be granted to prison personnel if Meredith had any way of contacting them.
The mood was noticeably different than it had been hours before.
People were worried. She listened as the group whispered amongst themselves.
Several of the guards had gone out to the parking lot to work on their vehicles, but none had been successful in getting them started.
From one trio of employees, she could hear the whispers of an uprising taking root.
They didn’t want to be there. They had families they needed to check on.
She could understand their fears and silently thanked God that her parents were safely in Maine, where they had power.
Still, something had to be done to calm the group. They had a job to do.
“All right, everyone. Get settled in,” Meredith said. “I have some things we need to go over. The sooner we get through this, the sooner we can get back to figuring out what we need to do.”
The conversations taking place throughout the group quickly quieted. It was always interesting to see how fast her coworkers followed the captain’s lead. Once everyone was settled in and had their attention on Meredith, the woman cleared her throat and started to speak to the group.
“Okay. So, as you all know, we have no communication. That goes for everyone in here, along with the outside world. I hate to be the one who has to tell you all, but we’re going to have to get started on the morning routine. We are the day shift as of right now.”
“Has there been any new information?” a guard asked.
“As I said, there has been no new communication, and the radios are still down. I don’t have anything new to tell you.”
“How long are we going to be stuck here? Some of us have families we need to check on.”
“I understand you all have questions, and I wish I had the answers, but I don’t. I have no idea when anyone will come in.”
“What about sending someone into town to get some news? I think we can handle one guard going and finding something out.”
Meredith sighed. “It’s something I’ve already been planning on doing. Sending just one person out to get news for us all seems like the best solution right now.”
“Who are you going to send?” the guard asked.
“I was going to ask if anyone wants to volunteer to go.”
Sarah’s hand was the only one that didn’t shoot into the air.
As much as she wanted to go out and explore like the rest of them, she knew her skills were of better use to Meredith at the facility.
Looking around at the other guards, she struggled to think of one of them making the trek into town and back in any reasonable amount of time.
The only other employee in good shape was Michael Cook, a secondary guard from A block, but he had a cast on his leg from a motorcycle accident the month before.
With the town of Glenwood just over two miles away, Sarah knew she could get there and back in roughly thirty minutes.
The others would take at least two hours round trip.
Her eyes scanned the group once more before moving back to their leader standing on a bench above them.
Harden was already looking at Sarah. She cringed and slowly raised her hand to offer up her services, knowing it was what their boss was waiting for.
Instantly, Meredith called her name, and the others grumbled disapprovingly around her.
After a long and harrowing shift, she understood just how much they all wanted to get a brief respite from the prison, but it was still work time.
Sarah would do what she was sent out to accomplish and be back as quickly as possible.
The inmates would start to get restless soon.
Their doors should have opened a half hour before to start the morning rounds, but the cells were still safely locked with the inmates inside.
It would take the skeleton crew hours just to get everyone fed and out for a little while. She had to move fast.