Page 25 of Freshman

Alfie slumped into his threadbare sofa with a long-drawn-out sigh. He stared out the living room window at the cars that whizzed past. The outside always reminded him that work was nearby. There was no dramatic wall on the horizon covered in barbed wire, but there was a white sign for Larkwood Prison opposite his house.

He groaned and fell to his side. His stomach bubbled for food, but his tiredness won the battle, and he fell asleep on the sofa, not the plush king-size bed of his dreams, and not with Nate’s T-shirt beneath his nose.

7

There was trouble in paradise for the lovebirds. Alfie stayed clear of their heated conversations, but every so often there was a shout or whine of outrage from behind the lobby gate.

“Think she’s calling it off,” Henry muttered, then slipped his shaded glasses on, ready for his nap.

When roll call arrived, the atmosphere was tense, and rather than wait for Alfie in the lobby area like they usually did, Marie and Glen disappeared to talk in private. The twins were out smoking, and Henry was slumped in the chair in the office—asleep or dead, Alfie didn’t know.

Alfie shook his head and moved along to his second favourite cell. He called it his favourite aloud to get a chuckle from Nate. The soft-spoken Queenie, betrayed only by his deep laugh.

Alfie smiled in anticipation and struck his fist to the door, but there was no response.

“Queenie?”

He tapped his foot as he waited, but there was no reply.

“Tyrone?” he said, knowing he could anger a response from the cell. There was nothing—no soft voice, no noise of someone shifting in their bed. He pressed his ear to the crack above the hinge, frowning in concentration, but there was an eeriness coming from cell 149.

“What’s happening, Freshman?”

Alfie leaned back and stared at Nate’s door. He frowned and shook his head. “Please don’t tell me you’ve set this up.”

“Why would I do that?”

Alfie turned his attention back to the cell in front of him. “To get me to open the hatch.”

“I only want you opening my hatch… Open my hatch so I can see your smile, and maybe your coc—”

“Hey, Queenie!” Alfie yelled.

There was no response. Even when he bashed his fist to the door, there was nothing. He startled at the thump to Nate’s wall.

“Queenie, stop pissing us about!” Nate shouted. “You’re holding up, Freshman.”

Still no response. Alfie grabbed his keys and unlocked the hatch. He peered into the dark cell, narrowing his eyes to increase his sight. The bright lights that lined the perimeter fence shone through the bars of the window. Alfie could see a figure lying on the bed, arm dangling to the floor.

“Queenie?”

Alfie stabbed the button on his radio, speaking fast into the receiver. “Code eleven. I have an unresponsive prisoner. Cell number 149.”

The radio crackled, but no one answered. Queenie didn’t move, and Alfie slapped his hand to the cell door again, attempting to startle a response.

Nothing.

The angle Queenie’s arm hung at unnerved him. Wrong, chanted in Alfie’s head.

Something was wrong.

Alfie repeated his panic into the radio, but a static hiss was all that greeted him. He beat his fist into the door again, and Nate struck the wall between their cells.

“Queenie doesn’t fuck about,” Nate said.

Alfie grimaced. “I’m supposed to trust your word, am I?”

He tried the radio again, then leaned over the railing and yelled Henry’s name, but that didn’t work either. He was at the farthest corner of the prison, shouting for a deaf man.

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