The Tomb

The only thing scarier than going to jail is getting used to being incarcerated. Seventy seven per cent of those who have been imprisoned commit offences to take them back. The world outside is alien; they choose what they know and are used to. Most people who embrace crime do not know this. Keta Lumbus was in that category, so he ended up there. All over the world the consensus is to deemphasize incarceration as punishment and focus more on rehabilitation. Hence, most prisons have undergone a nomenclature change to read Correctional Facilities. Katom did not. It has never been and may never be one. What it is, however, is a maximum security facility that houses a thousand of humanity’s not best.

Built on the hill, it was named for, it is inaccessible on every side but one, deep, steep ravines see to that. The only way in is via a bridge that links it to the next hill, a hundred feet away. At 1900 hours every day the bridge is raised, terminating its connection to the outside world. It is not brought down till 0800 except in emergencies, in which event the director would have to specifically approve it. Each, CCVT monitored, cell is made of reinforced concrete where the hill is not part of the structure. The inmates wear anklets that have a fifty metre radius. If they cross that boundary electric current, enough to bring down an elephant, will course through their system. In its forty years of existence, there had been only six prison breaks. Five had failed, fatally—for most of those involved. The place was so secure only air could get out, and even that could be regulated. They called it The Tomb.

It was there that Keta was sent. At twenty one, he was a fine, male specimen; almost six feet tall, rippling muscles, crafted abs, a beautiful face and a smile that brought out the sun every time he flashed it. That smile had melted many ladies hearts, old and young alike, and caused them to surrender money, morality and other magical things. That smile opened doors for him—including that of the prison. There had been a robbery in which five persons had died—two of them cops. The Police hunted them. For nine months and two days after the others had been rounded up, Keta eluded them. Then he smiled at a train station. One of the cashiers in the bank was on the platform. She remembered. The prosecutor had gone for the death sentence. The judge had obliged by ruling that three ‘be hanged by the neck till dead.’ Oshko who drove and Keta who had not been armed but had tried to keep the women safe were handed life sentences. They were eligible for parole after twenty years.

For the first couple of months, Keta could not handle confinement and the debilitating boredom of routine. It was the latter that drove him to attempt suicide a couple of times. By the eighth month he began to accept his new reality. His father, a peripatetic key salesman, had warned him severally about the company he kept and his founded-on-nothing, platinum blings-platinum wheels-platinum bitches, dreams. It had had the effect of water on a duck. When the man used his life as example, the boy would treat him to a supercilious, tolerating smile. The day after the sentencing, the man left on one of his trips, he never returned. Eleven years, four months, one week, three days, thirteen hours, four minutes and fifty seconds after Keta arrived at The Tomb, he broke out.

Every Tuesday, supplies are brought to The Tomb. To avoid connivance, the same crew is never used and the time is varied. It was this procedure Keta and Lafetz exploited. Lafetz, was a drug lord. He had been caught on tape raping a minor who later turned up dead. The Police had been after him for a long time. The murder charge was at best circumstantial, and at other times he would have walked but rape was a statutory offence and the cops were not about to let him go for whatsoever reason. He got life without parole. He had continued to run his empire from there. Now a cartel was muscling in on his territory and he needed to personally, and permanently, handle the incursion. He heard tell Keta was the man who could get things done. He sought him out. Keta realized if there was one person who had the connections outside needed to pull the job off, it was Lafetz.

It took a few weeks to put everything in place. The supply crew was usually made up of five persons. On that day there were three. At the moment they were about to be checked in, there was a loud explosion at the southern end. Theirs was routine, this new development was not; they were allowed in. Unloading usually lasted three to five hours. Once the guards confirmed the van empty it was waved through. The gate was halfway up when the operator got a call, as he spoke into the headset his face underwent a transformation. Keta knew something was wrong and asked the driver to make a run for it. Even as they cleared the gate they all could see the bridge being drawn up. The driver floored the pedal amidst rifle shots. The vehicle left one segment of the bridge at 160mph, hung in the setting-sun sky—a la magic school bus—for exactly ten seconds before landing with a bump on the other side. The automatic whoops that accompanied the release of bated breaths were not echoed by the driver. Lafetz noticed the third eye drilled into his head and went for the steering. The dead man’s weight and the vehicle’s speed combined to make his task arduous. He did succeed. Only, by that time, the automobile was airborne again.

When it hit the valley floor, it vindicated Hollywood by bursting into flame. By the time the guards arrived, it was apparent they had been saved the task of chasing escapees. The Tomb had retained its record. All the same they stayed a while before piling into their Humvees. After a metre, one took one last look back and saw a figure hoisting itself up on to the bridge. He allowed it finish then congratulated it with a lone shot. The figure arced and crumpled in slow motion. Keta stayed in hospital for three months. He was guarded day and night. He could not have gone anywhere even if he wanted to. The bullet lodged in his spine, paralysing him from waist down, saw to that. Then he had a visitor.

After that, some of the old Keta began to reemerge. By the time he left at the end of the sixth month he was as good as ever save that he still could not walk and he had aged. The beard he began to keep after the man’s visit did not help. Before he left the hospital, Keta asked to use the loo. He refused all assistance. He stated that there was no better time to start getting used to ‘no nurses on call.’ When he came out he wheeled his chair into the waiting van. It drove straight to Katom.

His eligibility for parole had been rescinded. The director himself was on hand to see the one who had dared… The wheel chair and its occupant were pushed into the Chief Warden’s office.
“Take off the cap; I’d like to see his face.”
A gasp succeeded that act. It was not Keta, yet it was. It was what he would look like in another twenty or so years. Whilst the director did not know Keta, he knew the seated man.
“You came back.” He whispered.
“You know him?” The Chief Warden asked.
“Meet Adaka Lumbus,” the director replied.
“The first and only man to have escaped from Katom.”
“Lumbus? The Warden echoed.
“Is that not…? The question hung in the air, unfinished.

From somewhere beyond the hills, ‘Joy to the World’ wafted in, carried by the wind. Somewhere out there, his son had another shot at life. They had made a deal in the hospital that day. They would trade places. He had terminal cancer. The boy would go to the mission fields of South America and tell of the saviour who loved the world enough to give His life for it. That was what Christmas was about—the introduction of redemption. And maybe somewhere in there he might even get a mention...

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