Free Faces in Time by Lewis E. Aleman Page A

his mind’s eye, then each letter spelling it out, and for a reason that he can’t connect, Tom Swift also comes to his mind.
    The popping stops.
    Moving past his eyes, the hand inside a thin glove smashes a piece of duct tape over his mouth. He feels the gloved hands grabbing at his armpits and pulling him off the floor. His shoes drag across the ground, scuffing his polished shine. Shoved forward, his waist hits a laundry cart, his body bends over its rail.
    Quickly, he’s shoved again, and his body falls headfirst into the cart, his nose smashed and stretched to the right against the bottom seam of the off-white cloth bin inside the metal frame of the cart. The seam roughly presses across his face. His knees rest where they are pressed into and stretching the front side of the cloth cart, while his head is jammed into the bottom rear.
    His hands push against the cloth, and he struggles to get a grip to reposition his body so he can lift his head. His hands push into the canvas, stretching it, and his head rises off the bottom. Lurching forward, the cart rolls. Losing all leverage, his hands slip, and his face crashes into the bottom of the cart again.
    Rather than trying to hoist himself a second time, his hands move toward his face. Grabbing clumsily at the tape, his fingers struggle to get a hold on an end. Finally, they grab a corner and roughly yank it off.
    Just as his lips begin to call out, “Help,” the cart stops, and he feels a large, powerful, bare hand come down on the back of his neck. The other ungloved hand grasps his belt and lifts him out of the cart.
    Hoisted in the air, panic spills over his face as he recognizes the bits of hair on the floor of the cell he is in.
    Looking at Chapetta standing several feet before him, the strong hands send him flying toward the concrete floor. Rutherford’s left shoulder hits first with a sickening snapping noise, and the vision of Edmund’s towering frame comes into focus just as his boot comes down on his throat.
    Pinning the deputy warden to the ground wih the standard issue shoe, he looks to Chapetta, “You’re a good man; you take care of that little girl.”
    “Thanks for the chance to do it.”
    Nods and adds, “You better get outta here.”
    “You too.”
    “My offer’s still good about the cash,” at which Rutherford begins to squirm but is met with more foot pressure on his throat.
    Chapetta shakes his head, “No, just ‘cause I pushed him in the trap he put out for me, doesn’t mean I’m a scuzzbag like him. You do this fast before I come back to my senses and turn both of us in.”
    As the young corrections officer turns away pulling the cart behind him, Edmund whispers intently, “Chapetta, one more thing.”
    Chapetta places his hand on his Taser holster as he looks back into the cell.
    “Rutherford wanted me to tell you he’s sorry it had to be this way.”
    Glancing down at his boss that is about to be his boss no more, “Yeah, me too.”
    Rutherford watches his patsy walk away, the only man who could possibly patrol this wing during the next few hours, taking with him all reasonable hope of leaving the cell alive. The panic swells, and he begins to thrash his body back and forth trying to break free of the foot at his throat.
    Without warning, the foot releases his neck. The light shining down on his prostrate body changes suddenly as Edmund lunges straight up into the air. Rutherford rolls onto his side trying to deflect the blow, but Edmund’s feet crash into his hip, side, and ribs. His lower torso feels mangled, filling him with the compulsion to wheeze and cough, but he makes little more than a whine.
    The inmate grabs the cell keeper by his neck, pulling him off the floor. With two quick steps and a shove with his choking hand, Edmund sends Rutherford’s head crashing into the brick wall.
    Heat and sting are all that the deputy warden knows.
    With a tightening on the throat, he pulls Rutherford off the wall about a foot and