Cut Off (Book 3): Cut Loose Read online

  CUT LOOSE

  CUT OFF | BOOK THREE

  Charlie Dalton

  Contents

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  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  A Gift

  The Commune

  Prologue

  1

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  1

  Even hell has its heroes.

  The inmates cheered when Michael turned up on his first day in the slammer. He was a poster child for the forgotten generation. He helped mastermind some of the largest heists in recent memory. He once boasted more airtime than Oprah Winfrey. Then the police caught him and threw his arse in prison.

  Party poopers.

  They cheered for Michael and slapped him on the back because they couldn’t commend the real hero; Quentin Morse, leader of the Chelsea Smile gang. He was banged up in the maximum security section of the prison in near-permanent isolation.

  There was hard time and there was hard time.

  It broke Michael’s heart to think of his friend locked up in the belly of this concrete beast, no more than a few hundred yards away.

  But Quentin wouldn’t be locked up in there forever.

  Not while I still draw breath.

  Michael stood in the outer cloister used as the exercise yard. A gang of tattooed men pumped iron and played games of football with a fuzzy tennis ball. High up, perched in towers at regular intervals around the walls, sat prison guards on active duty. Ordinarily, there were two men in each watchtower.

  But these were not ordinary times. One man did the job of two while his buddy carried out another job that was usually done with automatic systems. Like activating the pump so the toilets would flush or washing the inmates’ soiled uniforms by hand.

  Every attempt made to conceal the truth.

  That there was no power.

  Since the power cut, the prison ran on emergency power from a backup generator. The security cameras no longer observed and the overhead TVs no longer televised. The prisoners complained about the lack of power and almost caused a riot that very first day. Prison time was slow time and when you had nothing to distract yourself, you were left staring at the peeling walls and the ugly son of a bitch you shared your cell with.

  The prisoners didn’t know what Michael knew.

  The power hadn’t only gone out at the prison. It’d gone out everywhere.

  The lack of blinking lights at the nearby town was evidence enough of that. As were the screws’ vehicles parked outside. They hadn’t moved because they no longer worked. Why that was, Michael didn’t know, but he knew an opportunity when he saw one.

  Michael watched one of the watchtowers in particular. The man up there, perched looking down at the exercise yard with his expensive binoculars, was the esteemed Officer Steenwick.

  The fat bastard.

  He was cruel and liked to issue punishment with unnecessary force upon the inmates. Easier to take your disappointment with life out on others than to turn that aggression inwards. That meant blaming yourself and that wasn’t something losers did willingly.

  Officer Steenwick had a particular weakness for spicy sausages. He ate one every day for lunch. It looked like something you might find down the back of a sofa and turned Michael’s stomach, but Steenwick couldn’t get enough of the disgusting little tubes of mush.

  Knowing this, Michael sent a message to a contact on the outside, informing him using a secret code only members of the Chelsea Smile gang could read. His mission was to follow the tub of lard home, break-in while he was at work, steal the sausages, and replace them with those adequately altered to provide a powerful effect.

  Sunlight blinked off the binoculars as Steenwick lowered them. He came rushing down the watchtower steps – leaving it unmanned – and clutched a hand over his bulbous backside as he hastened for the restroom.

  Michael strolled over to the corner of the exercise yard where the two chainlink fences met. He visited three times every day, standing there just long enough to clip a single wire in the fence before moving on.

  He didn’t stop as he shoved the clipped fence aside and stepped through it. He took a moment to suck in a breath of fresh air into his lungs. He turned and walked calmly into freedom’s cool embrace.

  He approached the car park and strolled amongst the shiny vehicles. He took his clothes off, revealing the civvies he wore underneath. He balled his former prison uniform up and tucked it under a car. He got to his feet and wiped off his hands.

  Now for the second part of the plan.

  Michael wasn’t so selfish as to leave his fellow gang members inside. They were located in other sections of the prison, so a brunt force method was necessary–

  Footsteps came running up behind him. Michael turned to find a pair of prison guards rushing up to meet him.

  Oh crap.

  Beginning low, an alarm began to wail from the prison.

  Maybe my plan isn’t so successful after all…

  He held up his hands. “All right officers, you got me–”

  But the guards didn’t stop. Their eyes were fixed firmly on the prison and the wailing sirens. They replaced the original electronic system with crank-operated ones. They must have picked them up from a museum somewhere.

  Maybe they knew he escaped but they couldn’t communicate with the guards on the outside? Maybe they didn’t recognise him with his civvies on? Maybe he was looking for an explanation he couldn’t fathom because he didn’t have the necessary information?

  That was usually the answer.

  The men in the exercise yard turned to the prison entrance. They heard something Michael couldn’t, but now that he saw the expressions on their faces, a slow grin spread across his features.

  Two muscle-bound gods approached the door but never
reached it as the doors banged open. A flood of inmates burst through and filled the exercise yard.

  There are few things more dangerous than an inmate who sees the bright light of freedom just over the horizon. They’re wild, feral, and desperate to reclaim that which was stripped from them.

  Human behaviour was predictable. That was why Michael orchestrated the event several days ago.

  Information was a valuable commodity. By informing the inmates the power was out, they would, eventually, make a break for it. Michael informed his fellow gang members to spread the rumour the moment Steenwick carried his fat arse to the lavatory.

  Rumours could spread like wildfire when the kindling was well prepared.

  And the incumbents at Pikehall prison were always ready to set fire to the place.

  The two guards who passed Michael ran into the exercise yard to confront the inmates.

  “Don’t do it,” Michael said under his breath. “Turn around and walk away.”

  Brave or stupid, the men held their batons. They looked so strong and sturdy in the practice yard. Less so when faced with a wall of angry inmates.

  “Back to your cells!” the guards shouted. “Get back now!”

  The inmates roared and ran at the guards.

  They were done for.

  The inmates easily overpowered the guards and pummelled them into the ground. Overrun and run over, the guards marched over the top of them, tripping on chunks of torn flesh from the two dead men.

  A torrent of muscle and attitude slammed into the outer fence. Some managed to climb over, others got crushed underfoot.

  Guards armed with rifles opened fire. The rubber bullets slammed into the prisoners, ricochetting off and striking fellow inmates. They weren’t going to stop, not when they were so close to freedom.

  Within minutes, the weight became too much and the fence gave way, buckling beneath the onslaught. A man with a bushy beard got snagged on the razor wire. No one stopped to help him and instead used him as a stepping stone.

  Inmates with personal vendettas scaled the watchtower stairs and threw the guards out.

  There was no need for that, Michael thought. Not when you had already won.

  Was it a regular power cut? Michael didn’t think so. Not with the cars not working. Something else was going on here. Something big.

  Michael whistled and strolled like a man in the park toward the nearby town of Pikehall. See you soon brothers, Michael thought. And we’ll be back for you soon, Quentin. We won’t rest until you’re free.

  The other prisoners were wannabes. Quentin had always been Michael’s hero.

  Always was, always would be.

  2

  Bill hid his pain but even he couldn’t keep it from their mother, Nancy, for long. A fully-trained nurse, there was nothing she couldn’t spot wrong with you within thirty seconds. It took some haranguing but eventually, Bill relented. It went to show how much pain he was in for him to let someone touch him.

  He removed his shirt with slow, flinching movements. It stuck to his back where the blood had congealed.

  Nancy hissed through her teeth. “You fool of a man. You know better than to let a wound like this get infected.”

  “If I’m a fool of a man, I suppose I don’t know better,” Bill growled but his attempts to take control of the situation were doomed to fail.

  “Hold still.” Nancy scooped up a small canister of disinfectant and sprayed it on the wound.

  Bill gritted his teeth and looked away as she washed it out.

  Stupid, maybe, Katie thought. But tougher than a chicken’s arsehole.

  “I’m going to have to stitch this up,” Nancy said.

  “Not on your life.” Bill drew his t-shirt down. “I’ve seen you stitch. Frankenstein did better work.”

  “I don’t care who does it, so long as it gets done.”

  Jodie raised a hand. “I was good at needlework at school.” An undiscovered talent, and much-needed in the days to come.

  Nancy arched an eyebrow at Bill, who nodded his head.

  “After what that little girl went through, she’s tougher than the rest of us put together,” Bill said. “Just do your best, darlin’.”

  Nancy threaded dental floss through a small needle and rinsed it with whiskey. She ‘accidentally’ splashed a little more over Bill’s wound. This time, it caught him unaware and he screamed.

  She handed the thread to Jodie, who bent over the wound and stabbed the needle into Bill’s flesh. Katie didn’t need to see anymore and stepped outside. She took in a deep breath of fresh air and let it out in a single long blow.

  “Couldn’t stand the sight of blood, huh?” Ronnie said. “I don’t blame you. I can’t stand it much myself.”

  Bill let out a yell. So much for keeping it under control.

  “You’re a soldier,” Katie said. “I’d have thought you were well used to seeing blood.”

  “When it’s my own, I’ve got no choice. When it’s others…” He shook his head. “We’ve all got our little foibles, don’t we?”

  He slipped a pack of chewing gum out of his pocket and extended it to Katie. She declined.

  “Does Tanya feel the same about blood?”

  “She’s me, inverted. She hates the sight of her blood but loves the sight of mine. She goes out of her way to see it, too.”

  “Don’t you ever worry she’ll do you in one of these days?”

  “Worry? I look forward to the day. Then all the pain at her hands will be well and truly over.”

  3

  Katie hadn’t spoken to Oscar in five years. She saw him in passing at her father’s funeral but was too firmly in mourning mode to notice him. He was the only real neighbour they had at the lodge and that was because it previously belonged to him and his sprawling farm.

  Her father converted the old barn into the comfortable dwelling it now was. Of course, he only got around to making it comfortable after he finished educating his children about how to survive in a rough and turbulent world – whether that was without electronics due to an EMP solar storm or a nuclear fallout war or an asteroid strike or a virus pandemic or any other devastating incident that resulted in manmade systems to break down.

  And if the end didn’t come? Then he hoped they would use the place as an educational tool for their own kids. Her father was always openminded about how the end would happen, as well as when, but he knew that eventually, one day, the human race would find itself backed into a corner without anyplace left to run.

  The lodge was that place. It could comfortably cater up to fifteen people but would need serious renovations to cater for more. Not that they needed more right now. It was hard enough preparing the place for the apocalypse as it was.

  “Hey there, Katie,” Oscar said. “Long time no see.”

  Katie hugged him the way she used to when she was a little girl. Back then, she only managed to hug one of his tree-trunk legs. Now, he was shorter than her and she wasn’t sure if it was because she grew taller or he shrank with age. His hair was thinner and wispier than she recalled. He still sported the same ten-gallon hat, so worn it was smooth around the edges where he touched it with his fingertips.

  “How you doin’?” he said.

  “Not bad, considering. How are you holding up?”

  He let out a rasp. “Not so great, if truth be told.”

  “Why? What’s up?”

  “It’s my farmhands. A lot of them don’t want to come out of town this far. You’d have thought people had never lived without power before.”

  Katie didn’t have the heart to tell him it was a far larger problem than he thought. The chances of the power coming back on anytime soon were, frankly, nil.

  “I’m sure we can help out – as soon as we get ourselves situated,” Katie said.

  The kind old man’s face beamed. “You would? Oh, mercy, mercy me. Well, that would certainly be a huge help. We can hardly harvest what we have right now, nevermind in the coming summer months.”r />
  “I can’t promise we’ll harvest everything but we’ll do as much as we can to help.”

  “What with the power going off and all, are you short of food or supplies?”

  “We’ve got some but could always do with more.”

  Oscar thumped a fencepost with his chunky fist. “Then after we finish the harvest, feel free to help yourselves to as much as you want. You can always come back for more later. Lucky I had those silos set up the way your old dad used to keep telling me.”

  Katie chuckled. She remembered him harping on about silos when she was just a little girl. “Only took, what, twenty years of badgering to get you to take action.”

  “True enough. That’s the problem with people around here. We’re not used to change. I suppose that’s what all this power outage thing means to most everybody. The things they’ve grown used to have slipped away.” He waved his hat at his face and stared into space, running the thought through his mind. He shook his head and replaced his hat. “There I go, mind wandering again. Will you be planting some of your own crops soon? You’re not too late for the summer season.”