The Escapee

            Big Mike didn’t speak.

            Many believed that he had never spoken, saying that it was because his mother drank too often while pregnant, or that she dropped the poor child on his head before she even came home from the hospital.            

            Others preferred to believe his father was the cause, pouring caustic chemicals down Mike’s infant throat to stop his incessant wailing, or simply beating the noise out of him with a clean blow to the throat.

            Some swore to heaven that Mike had lost his vocal chords more recently in a freak accident, and more still assured it was no accident.

            Whatever the cause, the fact remained that for as long as he had been an inmate in the state correctional system Big Mike had never uttered a single syllable.

            The silence didn’t cause him much trouble, Big Mike was exactly as he sounded: huge, a solid six feet, five inches, and three hundred pounds of muscle and fat.

            It happened several times over that some newcomer, freshly convicted and itching to secure his spot in the prison hierarchy, walked into the yard looking to take down the biggest and baddest and singled out Big Mike for the job. The end result was always the same; the instigator awoke the next day to the annoying buzzing of hospital lights and the headache of his life.
            More conniving men sought to have Big Mike play on their team, someone as large as he would be a very useful tool for a gang leader on the rise, but Big Mike always politely refused their requests, and went about his business. (At least that’s the impression that was given.)

            An ideal inmate, Big Mike kept to himself, spending his time reading, working out, or sitting in quiet contemplation. He never bothered anyone and, for the most part, no one bothered him.

            That first week of August, however, something changed. Big Mike spent no time reading, or working out, he wouldn’t even eat or shower without being told. People weren’t even entirely sure if he slept at night.

            All the time he could spare was spent just staring out of his tiny cell window, face hopelessly pressed against the bars. No one was quite sure what Mike was looking at, there were several theories floating around, but most assumed he finally lost his mind.

            On the night of August 16th Big Mike was missing from his cell.

            It had been through a series of fortunate accidents that he had escaped. A door not fully locked here, a guard looking the wrong way there, and a forgotten tunnel dug during a former inmate’s escape attempts all aided him in his time of need.

            Mike was across the yard and jogging past the fence before anyone even suspected he was gone, and was well beyond the highway before the alarm started sounding. There was nothing that could stop him.

            He hustled his way down a steep hillside and into the darkened forest beyond.

            When unruly branches caught on his uniform he broke them with his fists, when faced with a stream he wadded through it without a so much as a grimace, and when he took a fall that shattered his ankle he stood right back up and kept moving until he found what he was looking for.

            It was the next morning when the dogs found Big Mike. He was about ten miles south in a small clearing lying in the soft mud with his arms wrapped snugly around a bundle of tattered sheets, petting it slowly with giant gentle hands, and crying silent tears to himself.  

            He gave up the bundle without any fight and willingly returned himself into the custody of the law.

            Inside the bundle police found the decaying body of Tanya White, a local girl who had been stolen from her bed little more than two weeks prior, on the eve of her sixth birthday.

            The authorities were flabbergasted as to how Mike could have found her corpse out in an area of the woods he could not have even dreamed of stepping in within her short lifetime.

            Back in the big house Mike was questioned relentlessly about how he knew where to find the girl’s body.

            Was it another prisoner? Had someone else let it slip? A guard or a visitor? Did he maybe see the murder occur from his window?

            They begged and pleaded with him for even the slightest bit of information, but it was no use; Mike’s lips remained as unmoving as ever.

            In the end it was easier for everyone to believe that Mike had found the girl’s body by accident, and he was shoved unceremoniously back into his cell to finish out the remainder of his sentence.

            That night Mike sat in his cell looking at his feet, as small invisible hands were placed lightly on his knees.
            Thank you, she whispered, the memory of her blonde hair bouncing behind her in an unseen wind, and the palest image of a smile crossing her face.
            Reaching up on her tiptoes the fading specter placed a fragile kiss on one of Mike’s tear-stained cheeks before disappearing entirely into the beyond.

            Goodbye, was all he thought.

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The Escapee was originally written in June of 2010, inspired by my driving past the Stateville and Old Joliet prisons as I headed to and from my internship at the Joliet Area Historical Museum all summer. 

The original version of this story was barely a page long and the writing was sloppy at best. Still, the idea was enchanting so I spent the entirety of today (except for when I was creating this blog, or on facebook, or watching TLC shows about brides) revising it in order get it up to snuff. -KayPee