Rogue Warden

By Jonah K. Young

John David Dempsey is the warden of Oxbow Penitentiary, the prime position of power at the bloodiest prison in the South. Although he takes his career seriously, his morality is overpowered by a deep hunger for large sums of money. To quench this lust, he has struck a deal with a powerful oil tycoon, and he now oversees the dumping of chemicals and toxic waste into the river surrounding the prison grounds. He is rewarded handsomely for this, but after three years of illegal disposal, an environmental disaster looms, and with it, an infestation of mutant inmates poised to destroy all mortal life in their path. Can John David halt the carnage and mayhem that he ultimately brought to Oxbow? Can he save his beloved wife, and the other innocent spouses and children who reside in the village located on the prison grounds? This will be the truest test of his character. This is his nightmare.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483540634

Book preview

greed.

I

The sunken gray sky pushes downward like the cold breath from an angered god. John David sits in his car, watches the sky descend. His big fists are clamped to the steering wheel and a cigarette hangs from his lips. The radio isn’t on. Instead he listens to the morning rain batter his windshield. He has parked the car—an unmarked police cruiser—on the gravel lot of a rural Baptist church. But he is not there to clap and sing and listen to a sermon, for he is an atheist, despite being named after Biblical icons. The church lot is simply the staging ground where money will soon change hands.

Coleman, you son of a bitch!—he says to himself. Why you always so damn late? No understanding of punctuality. None of it!

He glances down at his golden watch: Seven a.m. The underlying fury rises up, reddens his face and ears. Franklin S. Coleman, the man he waits for, is typically late. He is also filthy rich. He owns an oil refinery and petrochemical plant along the Mississippi River. John David hates Coleman, but loves his money.

His mind shifts to a thought of his wife, a subconscious strategy to combat his anger. He had left home over an hour ago, and she remained asleep, burrowed in a gentle swell of blankets, beautifully lying there in a state of pure peace. Her lethargy, however, was abnormal. Seven days a week, John David wakes up and gets ready and goes downstairs to find his breakfast cooked and the newspaper on the table. But not on this morning. No breakfast. No newspaper. Now his stomach hurtles with hunger, and he has no knowledge of yesterday’s news other than the assumptions he can make. More casualties in Vietnam. More political bullshit. Those are certainties.

So what’s it been?—he asks himself. Twenty-one? Nah. Twenty-two years Patty and I been married and I can’t recall a morning she’s slept in. Hell, she was even up and at ‘em first morning after our wedding. Oh sure, it’s been a good run. I believe that. In fact, I know that. But I just couldn’t wake her this morning. I couldn’t disrupt her. Reckon she ain’t feeling well.

He scratches the tip of his crooked nose.

Then again, maybe she ain’t sick. Maybe she’s having the best dream of her life.

An elegant black car pulls into the lot and John David cracks the knuckles of his right hand. Coleman steps out into the rain, shuts the door gently. His car is expensive. It’s an Imperial. He climbs into John David’s car, slams the door. He wears a razor-sharp suit, the hat of a cowboy, black shoes that shine.

Why you always late, Coleman?

Time don’t matter much to me. And I’m a scatterbrain. Ain’t no way around that.

You smell like booze.

I’m a drunk too.

Let me see the money.

Coleman removes his hat and places it between them on the console. He picks his briefcase off the floor and opens it on his lap. It’s loaded with tight stacks of money. Here it is, Johnny. Twenty thousand bucks.

Now you listen to me, Coleman. If you late again my price goes up. Way up.

Horseshit. Y’already raised the price once.

I’m the man taking the risk here, and if I get pinched, I’m through. But you, hell, you so rich it’s disgusting.

How late am I?

Thirty-two minutes.

Well, ain’t you precise.

John David cracks the knuckles of his left hand.

Fine, Coleman says. I apologize. That what you wanna hear? I’ll go talk to my driver, see what the holdup was. Maybe I’ll fire his ass. Leave him out here in the rain. Leave him in the stinking swamp.

If you late again the money doubles. You understand me?

You ain’t calling the shots here, Johnny. You don’t dictate me. You think I can’t find me a better means of dumping chemicals? ‘Cause if it comes to that, I can, and I will.

You won’t, Coleman. You know that. The system we got here is perfect.

There’s always another way, Johnny.

Another way to get yourself caught. If they catch you dumping this shit into the river again, they gonna shut down your refinery.

Take the damn money, Coleman says. I gotta get back to my whores.

Yeah, that’s right. Go on up to your castle in Jackson. I’ll go back to my prison on the river. See you in a month.

II

John David drives his car on a narrow dirt road at high speed. He is late for work, but it doesn’t matter much; he runs the place. He cruises past a white sign with red letters that announces the prison’s name. Oxbow Penitentiary. Not far beyond is the prison gate, the facility’s lone entrance. A guard shack has been built there and high-security fencing shoots out of the shack in opposite directions and travels as far as one can see. Great coils of barbed wire are strung along the top of the fence. A tower stands beside the shack and a guard paces in the tower like a sniper in a theatre of war. Two more armed guards patrol outside in the cold morning rain, bundled in official prison cloaks. John David wears one too. His big black boots press the