They moved on him just after dinner. He didn't know for sure how many. But that didn't matter; all he thought was: Please, don't let them have a knife. He didn't want to get cut. Swing the baseball bat, swing the pipe, drop the cinder block on his hands… but not a knife please.

He was walking down the corridor from the prison dining hall to the library, the gray corridor that had a smell he'd never been able to place. Sour, rotten… And behind him: the footsteps growing closer.

The thin man, who'd eaten hardly any of the fried meat and bread and green beans ladled on his tray, walked more quickly.

He was sixty feet from a guard station and none of the Department of Corrections officers at the far end of the corridor were looking his way.

Footsteps. Whispering.

Oh, Lord, the thin man thought. I can take one out maybe. I'm strong and I can move fast. But if they have a knife there's no way…

Randy Boggs glanced back.

Three men were close behind him.

Not a knife. Please…

He started to run.

"Where you goin', boy?" the Latino voice called as they broke into a trot after him.

Ascipio. It was Ascipio. And that meant he was going to die.

"Yo, Boggs, ain' no use. Ain' no use at all, you runnin'."

But keep running he did. Foot after foot, head down. Now only forty feet from the guard station.

I can make it. I'll be there just before they get me.

Please let them have a club or use their fists.