There was a very large storage area in the prison building that had enough food and water to sustain the lives of thousands of people for the next three months. With over fifteen hundred nonviolent prisoners released, that food and water storage had now become enough to last through the next five months approximately.
If they executed the rest of the prisoners, the food and water storage would possibly be sufficient to sustain the guards and their families for an entire year.
There were also plans in motion to bring food and water into the prison building on an ongoing basis.
The world's resources were becoming depleted, and Wilkinson and Mattock saw the prison as a sort of safe house.
Simply put, not following the warden's orders would put Wilkinson and Mattock in a scary situation; a situation they felt dangerously unprepared for.
Chapter Five
By the time Wednesday afternoon approached, Wilkinson and Mattock were still battling frantically with indecision.
“We can't wait any longer,” Mattock said. “The warden will be back tomorrow, and he's expecting to see a prison full of corpses.”
Wilkinson rose from his chair. “No. The warden is expecting a prison that no longer houses inmates.”
Mattock looked at him confusedly. “Are you talking about letting them all go free?”
“Maybe.”
“You might want to reconsider,” Mattock said. “Think of your wife and kids. Think of the danger you'll be putting the whole town and all the surrounding areas in if we let these violent criminals go free.”
“Do you really think I haven't thought about that already?” Wilkinson snapped.
“Well, if we're going to execute twenty-five hundred inmates before the warden gets back tomorrow, we have to get started now,” Mattock said.
There was a long pause.
“Okay,” Wilkinson said. “Round everyone up. I want every guard in this prison to be fully aware of everything that's about to take place. Tell them I want every inmate restrained. Let's get them prepped for execution.”
* * * * *
Wilkinson walked down the corridor of the solitary confinement section, gripping his shotgun. Mattock and three other guards were right behind him, peering into the cells as they walked past them. They walked all the way to the last cell on the far end of the corridor.
“We'll start at the far end, and then we'll work our way down,” Wilkinson said. “Don't get too close to the inmates. Do you guys want to start on the east side of the hall?”
“Sure.”
“Good. Mattock and I will take the west side.”
Mattock's set of keys rattled as he extracted them from his pocket. He inserted one of the keys into the slot of the jail cell at the end of the corridor. A snapping sound emanated through the hall, and then the door to the cell opened.
Gunshots were already going off in other parts of the building.
The mass execution had begun.
Most of the guards had quit the job to be at home with their families, so if anything went wrong and a prisoner got a hold of a weapon, there would be a lot of trouble.
Mattock thought the guards had done their job a little too fast. How was such a small number of guards able to restrain twenty-five hundred prisoners in less than an hour? “They better have done their job right,” he said, catching Wilkinson off guard.
“What do you mean?”
“They better have placed the handcuffs and chains on the inmates firmly enough,” Mattock said. “They were working fast because you put a lot of fear into them with your demanding tone of voice.”
Wilkinson felt as if he was being scolded. “What do you want me to do? Should I have written it down for them, so they don't have to here my condescending voice?”
“I didn't say you were being condescending. You sounded a little too demanding, though, and I think you might have put too much pressure on them. You know what happens when you put too much pressure on these guys to do a good job.”
“We do have to do a good job, and we do have to do it fast!” Wilkinson shouted. “The warden wants everything in place by tomorrow!”
Mattock said nothing.
Wilkinson took a step forward and entered the cell, pointing his shotgun at the forty-seven-year-old inmate.
Mattock drew his sidearm and held it casually, not expecting to use it.
“Do you have any last words?” Wilkinson asked.
The inmate stared at him. His lips were quivering with fear. He looked like he wanted to say something, but couldn't find the right words.
Wilkinson waited patiently for a few moments, then put a pair of earplugs in his ears. Mattock did the same.
A loud shotgun blast erupted from across the hall, startling Wilkinson. He looked over his shoulder and saw three guards walking out of the cell. One of them nodded at him, as if to provide assurance that they had done their job successfully.
Wilkinson faced the prisoner and raised the shotgun.
The prisoner stared at him with wide eyes, hoping it would be quick.
Mattock waited for his partner to open fire, and he didn't blame him for hesitating. But something was wrong. It was taking too long for Wilkinson to fire, and he was starting to doubt that his partner was going to pull the trigger at all.
The gunshots from down the hallway were getting louder, and suddenly, Wilkinson looked back and saw Mattock lying on the ground. He had been shot three times in the upper back region.
Trying to stay concealed, Wilkinson moved to the doorway of the cell and peeked down the hall.
Mattock's dire prediction had come true.
They had rushed too fast to get the prisoners prepped for execution. There had been at least one inmate who was not properly restrained, and he had managed to attack a guard and get a hold of his gun.
From there, he had taken the guard's keys and freed some of the other prisoners, so they could kill even more guards and take even more guns.
Wilkinson returned fire on the gunman, but his shotgun did not provide the long-range aiming ability that he needed, and his assailant managed to put a several 9mm pistol bullets through him.
The last thing Wilkinson saw before he died was a horde of prisoners roaming through the hall. He heard one of them shout “Get to the armory!”
Then Wilkinson turned and looked at his dead partner. A moment later, the cell around him grew blurry, and then faded away entirely.
Chapter Six
Cole sipped warm water while he peered through the kitchen window to watch the sunrise. An open window allowed a cool breeze to sweep through the hallway.
After the sunlight illuminated the room, he gazed at the pictures on the walls that didn't seem to reflect reality any longer. There were various pictures of the downtown skyline at dusk, all of the tall buildings lit up with standard electrical-powered lighting.
Nowadays, the electrical appliances that actually were running were powered by fuel generators or solar power, and the entire downtown skyline was certainly not lit up anymore when dusk fell.
The world looked eerily different in the dark, as if it was a different planet.
There were no more streetlights to illuminate the path when he wanted to go for his late-evening walks. He took walks in the daytime now, but it wasn't the same. There wasn't the same serene vibe he would get when most of the town had retired from the streets and sidewalks.
Wanting to extend his food supply for as long as possible, he had begun to stretch the time between meals more and more with each passing week.
His breakfast consisted of a handful of strawberries from his garden, and his next meal would not be for another ten hours.
Dreading what the numbers might say, he was reluctant to step onto the scale, but when he finally did, it showed he had lost twenty-three pounds in the last five weeks. The bulge in his stomach was gone, and that was a welcome relief, but his arms and legs were getting too lean.
The lack of calories also forced him to work out
less, which was bad for his stressful mental state. He was feeling edgy and restless, so when the loud knocking sound arrived at his front door, he jolted forward nervously.
Instead of heading for the front door, he moved to the dining room window, since he heard voices coming from the east side of his house.
He caught a glimpse of someone that was wearing what appeared to be a law enforcement uniform of some kind.
The man in the uniform moved closer to the side of the house, disappearing out of Cole's sight.
He tried to think of what a cop would be doing there. Do they have good news? Are they going from house to house, telling people they have food and water for them? It was doubtful.
Maybe they were rounding people up, so they could quarantine them somewhere. That idea sounded more likely.
The knocking erupted on the front door again.
Sensing that something was wrong, he refused to answer the door.
The voices continued outside the house, but Cole couldn't decipher any of the words.
One of the uniformed men came back into Cole's line of vision, and this time, he got a better look. The man had a tattoo that appeared to be comprised of letters on the back of his neck.
He approached the living room and peered through the window that stood at the top of the front door.
It didn't look like anyone was standing out there. He twisted the lock and precariously opened the creaky wooden door.
The front porch was vacant.
When Cole heard a strange noise coming from the hallway, he was unpleasantly reminded that he had left the window open.
Without locking the door, he began rushing through the dining room, when suddenly, a figure emerged from the hall and blocked the doorway. A second figure emerged shortly afterward, crawling through the open window and making his way into the hall.
By the time Cole turned around, a third intruder had already made his way into the house through the front door he had left unlocked.
He was surrounded.
The third intruder was holding a rifle with a high-capacity magazine. His facial expression seemed to convey a broad range of emotions. One of his eyes looked maniacally happy, while the other eye appeared to be brimming with anger.
One of the other intruders extracted a pistol from a holster he was wearing, and pointed it at Cole. The assailant standing behind him turned to walk away. “I'm going to do a quick search. I'll be downstairs.”
“Keep your hands where I can see them,” the rifleman said, smirking.
“I don't have a whole lot of food and water supplies,” Cole said.
“That's what they all say.”
Cole eyed the other two assailants uneasily. He recalled the conversation he had with Bryce a few days earlier, which allowed him to understand who these people were. They were escaped convicts. Why else would they be wearing guard uniforms?
“There's no food downstairs,” Cole said.
“We'll find out soon enough. In the meantime, why don't you tell us where you keep your gold and silver.”
“I don't have any.”
The rifleman aimed the weapon at Cole's left knee. “This is your last chance to tell me where it is.”
“If I had any gold or silver, I would tell you,” Cole said.
The rifleman began to squeeze the trigger when the other assailant abruptly walked back into the room.
“I can't find anything useful downstairs.”
The rifleman lowered the weapon. “Nothing?”
“There's a set of weights, a pool table, and a couple of bookcases.”
“What's in your hand?”
He threw a roll of duct tape onto the dining room table. “This was in his tool room. Maybe we can use it.”
“Search the rest of the house. I'm sure we'll find something.”
“Why don't you just ask him where everything is at?”
“I did. He claims he doesn't have any gold or silver.”
“Well, he must have something. A nice house like this must have some kind of safe, or a storage area of some kind.”
“I know how to find out.”
Chapter Seven
After tying Cole to a chair with duct tape, the rifleman pulled up another chair and sat directly across from him.
“You know, there's a very good chance that you're going to die, anyway. Why not make it as quick as possible?”
Cole was staring downward, avoiding eye contact.
The rifleman leaned forward, eagerly awaiting his hostage's response. “Do you really want it to happen this way?”
Cole slowly looked up. “The grocery store shelves are depleted, so why won't you believe me when I tell you that my food supply is depleted?”
“Some people believe in planning ahead, which means they have stockpiled food.”
“I have some stockpiled food,” Cole said. “But just what you see in the kitchen cupboards and pantry.”
“So, you believe in stockpiling; just not a lot?”
Cole said nothing.
Gunshots were going off in the distance, echoing through the neighborhood.
“It sounds like your neighborhood is in trouble,” the rifleman said. “We're going to need to stay in your house, with or without you. You can show us where everything is at. Or we can kill you and find out the hard way. So, don't you think it makes sense to cooperate with us? It will be easier on all of us.”
Cole kept silent. He was trying to discreetly struggle his way out of the duct tape, being careful not to make any big movements that his assailant might pick up on.
“I saw your garden out in the backyard. You must have seeds stashed away somewhere. How about telling me where those are?”
Cole didn't answer.
“I'm patient, but I have to warn you that I can have a bit of a temper sometimes, and it makes me do certain things that you won't like. It's what landed me in the joint.” He pointed his rifle at Cole and placed his finger on the trigger.
“The seeds are in the kitchen shelf below the microwave,” Cole said.
“Now we're getting somewhere,” the rifleman said. He stood up and walked out of the room, taking his weapon with him.
The other two assailants were rummaging through Cole's belongings upstairs.
Cole was now in the living room by himself. He began to struggle exorbitantly to free himself, desperately trying to find a weak point in duct tape.
His rib cage was tied to the chair, and both of his hands and wrists were duct taped together as they rested on his lap.
More gunshots were crackling throughout the neighborhood, mixing with the sounds of the rifleman rummaging through Cole's kitchen.
He kept struggling, and soon, he heard a peeling sound—the sound of the adhesive on the tape separating from his left wrist.
Progress was being made, but he had a long way to go if he was going to free himself before it was too late.
Chapter Eight
Cole continued to struggle to free himself. He rotated his left wrist back and forth repeatedly, so the remaining duct tape would peel away from his hand.
He maneuvered his wrists frontward and backward, doing his best not to garner the attention of his assailants.
If his elbows were closer to his torso, he might be able to get a better grip.
He violently tried to shift his position, and the chair was starting to move from side to side. He shifted again, and now he felt the chair tipping backward.
Nearly certain he was going to crash hard onto the ground and alert his assailants, he was relieved to find that the coffee table behind him had caught the chair.
With only the rear legs of the seat supporting him, he was seated in an incline position now, the back of the chair pointing in a seventy-five degree angle.
Cabinets and drawers in the kitchen were opening and closing, and the creaking floorboards on the second floor sounded like they were going to collapse. The two assailants upstairs were stomping around, going through all of his stuff and
throwing things on the floor.
Nudging himself forward several times, he managed to bring the seat back to its intended position, all four chair legs steadily placed on the floor.
A very loud gunshot went off, just outside the house, and when Cole turned his head to peer through the living room window, he saw a man dressed in a prison guard's uniform, standing across the street near Robert's place.
A thumping sound struck the ceiling above Cole. It sounded like the two assailants were going through the attic crawlspace now, where he kept his ammunition.
Driving his elbows into his torso for traction, Cole made a circular motion with his left arm. The duct tape was continuing to loosen, but at a very slow pace.
His heart was racing, and his wrists felt like they were on the verge of becoming dislocated. He didn't care at this point. He was focused on breaking free and was determined to do so at all costs.
The refrigerator door opened and closed. Cole kept his water bottles in the fridge, even though the unit wasn't running. It was considered a storage space. The rifleman was likely serving himself a bottle or two of warm water.
Cole continued to struggle, and then his effort was finally rewarded when he heard the duct tape peeling away from his left wrist.
At this point, the rifleman reentered the room and moved toward Cole. He had a water bottle and a several envelopes of seeds in his hand. He threw the envelopes onto the dining room table as he moved toward the living room.
“The world is becoming depleted because people won't stick together to maintain its resources,” Cole said. “All you want to do is steal and take advantage of people, consuming all the products without putting anything back into the world. Then you wonder why you find yourself in the predicament that you're in.”
“Oh really?” the rifleman sneered. He took a few steps forward. “Maybe I've tried over and over again to work hard for the world, but society chose to take advantage of me. Do you ever wonder why people end up in prison? I've tried to make an honest living, and I just wasn't rewarded for it.” He took a sip of water, then placed the bottle on the dining room table. Then he swung the rifle at Cole and struck him in the head.
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