The Last Days of October by Jackson Spencer Bell

she’s at, I’ll ride by there and tell her what’s going on.”
    Justin closed his
eyes.   Damn.   Damn, damn, damn.
    “I didn’t hit
Kayleigh,” he said.   “She’s lying.”
    “Shit, I would
have.   That girl was always gonna get her
ass beat some day.”
    “Maybe, but I
didn’t do it.   I pissed her off and this
is how she’s getting back at me.   I
shouldn’t be here, man.   I got to get to
class in the morning!”
    “I know,” Petey
said, rising from his chair.   “But look,
maybe your mama will come through.   And
if not, maybe the judge’ll let you out on a written promise to appear.   Come on.”
    The doorway to
in-processing opened onto a long hallway.   Behind them stood the first floor control station, a glass-enclosed room
roughly the size of in-processing with desks and computer banks and telephones
beeping at the two deputies inside.   Just
beyond the door to the control station, a pair of patrol deputies manhandled a
struggling middle-aged man in jeans and a flannel shirt.
    “I’m bit!” he
cried.   “I need to go to the hospital!”
    “Sir, you got to
stop…”
    The man tilted his
head down and threw up all over the dirty floor.   Whatever he had, Justin hoped it wasn’t
contagious.   Petey led him down a long
corridor.   Closer to the darkened holding
cells, the smell of pine cleaner yielded to the stronger scents of unwashed bodies
and gas station bathrooms.
    Please, God, let this be my only night in
here.   I know I don’t call you much, but
I don’t ask for much, either.   Okay?
    The electric lock
on the door opened when Petey spoke into his radio.   He motioned Justin inside.   The cell was small, with two bunks stacked
against one wall and a steel toilet/sink combination on the other.
    No cellmate, at
least not for now.   Chances of midnight
butt rape: zero.
    “Here you go.   Sleep tight.”  
    “Buenas noches,”
Justin said, but Petey was already gone, his footfalls clomping back up the
corridor.  
    Justin climbed
onto the top bunk.   He folded his hands
behind his head and stared up at the blank, cracked ceiling.   Down the hall, the commotion at in-processing
intensified.   Screaming, yelling, chairs
scraping.   Keys on chains rattling.   More screams echoing down the corridor,
followed by Petey asking some guy what the damn hell was wrong with him.   Sounded like the whole world was down there
raising hell.
    He was in jail.
    “Fuck me, ” he muttered.
    Yep, said an invisible Kayleigh.   He could almost see her wicked grin twisting
in the bars.   Fuck you.
    He rolled over on
his side and tried to block out the sounds.   He closed his eyes but didn’t sleep, and he was still awake when the
power went out.

 
    12.

 
    The power failure
plunged the cell into the deepest darkness Justin had ever known.   Ten seconds later the generators kicked on
and the overheads once more bathed the floors and walls with their sickly glow.
    Down the corridor,
somebody screamed.
    Blown transformer , he thought.   He didn’t even sit up.   He remained on his bunk, facing the wall,
until he heard a noise at the bars behind him.   At this point, he rolled over and looked.
    He froze.
    The man standing
at the bars was a jailer.   He looked
vaguely familiar; Justin thought he might have seen him sitting at the monitors
there in the control room, but he couldn’t tell for sure, not now.   His face was a hideous white beneath the
wisps of his military regulation haircut.   Blood soaked into his uniform shirt from a wound in his neck.  
    What what what the FUCK is that
    The eyes—solid
black from corner to corner—pulled the life from Justin’s body like a medieval
executioner drawing a prisoner’s bowels.   He had to blink to keep himself from flying off the edge of
madness.  
    It smiled and
parted its white lips to reveal a set of fangs.
    Now Justin sat
up.   His breath caught in his chest.   He couldn’t even scream.
    The jailer seemed
to