And I wondered if the red rain falling on us might contain an infection, HIV or hepatitis B—something far more likely in here than on the street.

In his clumsy attempt to escape, the officer knocked me back into the bag with the body in it.

As I fell, it enveloped me, and I felt warm, sticky liquid on the back of my neck and soaking through my clothes.

Lurching forward, I pivoted slightly, a morbid part of me wanting to see. Lifeless black eyes staring blankly. Black head hanging unnaturally.

I slid forward trying to move away. When I sat up, I noticed that one of the nurses, a tall young woman with blond hair, had entered the sally port with us. Shutt was already off the truck moving frantically toward the gate where I had entered. The officer in the control room had the wits about her not to let him through.

I quickly jumped off the truck and had to hold onto its side as inside me all the blood seemed to drain from my head.

Within seconds, officers began pouring into the sally port from the other gates. Two immediately went over to check on Shutt. Another came to check on me. All of them straining to see into the back of the truck, which had taken on a surreal, slightly horrific quality.

“Chaplain, you okay?” Captain Skipper asked.

“Fine,” I lied, nodding. “But let’s get Shutt to Medical. He’s really shaken up. And he’s got blood all over him. We both need to get cleaned up.”

“They’re on the way,” he said, and looked back at the truck. “Damnation. How can there be so much blood?”

“Heart must have still been pumping,” I said. “How did everyone respond so fast?”

“Tower,” he said as if it were obvious.

I looked fifty feet up at the tower to see the officer leaning out of the window observing everything below, radio still in her hand.

When I looked back down, I saw that the nurse had her arm around the distraught officer, talking to him reassuringly.

I walked over to them.

“Chaplain, can you help me for a minute?” the nurse asked.

A delicate, pale, blue-eyed beauty, she wore more makeup than she needed.

“Sure,” I said, glancing at her name tag.

“Strickland,” she said, trying but unable to remove the distressed look from her late-twenties face.

“John Jordan.”

“I need to check on the inmate in the truck, John. Can you stay with him?”

“Sure,” I said.

She turned to leave, but then turned back to Shutt and said, “I’m so sorry, but it’s going to be okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”

She then ran over to the truck and bravely climbed onto the back.

Snapping on latex gloves, she carefully but quickly made her way to the bag with the body in it.