“What? No one even knows I’m here. And how do you have a letter for me?”
Benaiah pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his back pocket. “I know a guy who knows a guy. Just kidding, I do know the guy who mops floors in the administration wing. Theodore was my cellmate during my first stint. Anyways, he says that they are getting rid of old letters and correspondence. They weren’t delivering any of the letters to the prisoners, so we don’t know what’s going on outside. He managed to rescue a couple of letters before they got shredded. I think things are getting pretty bad out there. I heard that at least half the guards have died, and I think more than half of the prisoners have died too. I heard that in China the Scourge isn’t…”
“Just give me the stupid letter.” He grabbed the paper from Ben.
“Hey no need to be rude. My wife was rude. That was one of the reasons we divorced. She couldn’t even…” Benaiah continued to prattle on as Joe read the letter. It was from Kevin.
Dear Joe: I hope this letter makes it to you. It was the only way I knew to get in touch with you. I talked with the police and managed to speak to the guy you hurt. He said you were too drunk to hurt him that bad, and we convinced him to drop the charges. I’m working on getting you released soon, but things have gotten very disorganized, and no one will tell me anything. I keep trying to visit you, but they won’t let me. Monique and the baby are doing well, and I trust that God will help us and you through these troubling times. I went to check on your apartment and met up with Ayesha, Zach and Blender. I brought them up to date on your situation, and they are very much looking forward…
The letter was stained and ripped. The rest of the letter was missing.
He interrupted Benaiah, who was still rambling on. “Where’s the rest?”
Benaiah shrugged, “I don’t know, my dog ate it.”
Joe reached across the table and grabbed him by his collar and yelled. “I NEED the rest of this letter!”
Benaiah put his hands in the air in surrender. “Hey, don’t shoot the messenger. That’s all I got. Theo said he just grabbed some ripped-up letters and stuffed them in his pocket. They were supposed to be shredded, and he was lucky to get that. He asked me if I knew a ‘Joe’ and gave me that letter.”
Joe let go of his collar and put his head in his hands.
“You know, when I took accounting in college, a dog literally ate my homework. It was an essay assignment on the benefits of accrual accounting, and the dog was one of those Pitbull types…”
Joe closed his eyes and put his head in his hands. He had a lot of questions.
When was this letter sent? I hardly hurt the man in the park? Why haven’t they released me yet if the charges were dropped? Why are Ayesha and Zach back at my apartment? Where are their foster families or orphanage or wherever they got sent to? Where are child services? Is Blender at my apartment? What am I supposed to do now?
Joe rubbed his beard and looked up at Benaiah, who was still talking. “I need to get out of here,” Joe said, interrupting him.
“Oh, now you want to leave?”
Joe slammed the paper down onto the table, making a loud bang that echoed off the cafeteria walls. The guard gave him a warning glance then resumed massaging his curly handlebar moustache.
“Look,” he said, gritting his teeth, trying not to yell or strangle Benaiah. “Is there any way I can get my arraignment thing and get in front of a judge?”
“Why, what happened?” Benaiah picked up the letter and read it. He sat back in his seat and crossed his arms. “So, does this mean you’re not as evil of a guy as you thought?”
“Maybe, but Ayesha might need my help.”
“Who’s Ayesha? Is she your wife? I thought you told me she was dead. Is this a new girlfriend? You know I should get me a girlfriend. That might be easier if I lost some weight. Although with this food, that shouldn’t be hard. I think I’ve already lost…”
“Benaiah. Stop talking. Answer my question.”
“What was your question again?”
“How do I get my arraignment?”
“Oh yeah, I don’t know. One of the guards might know. The only one that even speaks to me has that funny moustache. I had a moustache in college…”
“Benaiah, he’s right there!” He pointed at the curly mustached guard. “Ask him.”
“Okay, fine, I’ll see what I can do.”
They both sat there for a moment.
“Well?” Joe asked.
“Well, what?”
“Are you going to ask him?”
“Now?”
“Yes, RIGHT NOW!” he yelled.
Curly moustache man walked towards them. “Is there a problem here?”
“No, no problem, Alfonso. My friend here would like to know when he might get his day in court. He’s been here for months now, and he hasn’t even been officially charged yet.”
Alfonso leaned in towards them, talking quietly. “Not anytime soon. Things out there are not good, Ben. We are not supposed to tell you guys anything, because the boss says he doesn’t want the prisoners to panic. All I can tell you is, don’t hold your breath on anything happening in the near future.” He stood back up.
“Why, what’s going on out there?” Joe asked, but Alfonso was already walking away. “What do you think he means that ‘things out there are not good’?”
“I don’t know. It could be the virus is getting worse. Maybe there’s been a war. Or maybe the Russians have nuked us. No, it would more likely be the Chinese or North Korea…”
“Ben?”
“What?”
“He called you Ben.”
“Oh yeah, only my mother calls me Benaiah, but I thought I’d try out my full name for a bit to see what it felt like.”
“So, you lied to me about your name?”
“No, technically, that is my name. But you know it did sound awkward when you said it.”
“Well, we need to get out of here, Ben.”
Chapter 17
Later, Joe and Ben sat outside on a bench overlooking the basketball court.
It was a cool November afternoon. They had frost a couple of nights, but the small amount of snow that had fallen had melted away.
The basketball court concrete was cracked in places, and the nets no longer had any netting. A small group of prisoners were playing a friendly game of basketball. Puffs of steam blowing out their mouths as they ran back and forth on the court, chasing the bouncing ball.
“What do you think about trying to escape?” Joe asked.
“I think you're not the first person to try. This place is designed to not let anyone escape.” Ben rubbed his head. He was balding, and the bare patch on his head felt cold in the light November wind.
The players bumped each other as they ran down the court.
Joe rubbed his leg where he had been cut. It was almost healed now, and it no longer hurt when he touched it. “But now there are fewer guards, and if the world is as bad as they say it is, maybe the guards that are left don’t care.”
“Maybe, but then why don’t they just let us go? What if we just wait until the guards stop coming to work and then we can just walk out of here?”
“And what if we get locked in our cells and abandoned? Do you want to die in here?”
“No, I don’t want to die at all. That is why death by prison guard isn’t appealing to me.”
One of the players stopped in front of them. He had his hands on his knees and was trying to catch his breath. He was well over six feet, was well-muscled and had a tattoo of a hammer and sickle. His blond hair was short on top and shaved close on both sides. He looked menacing except that he was always smiling. He looked over at the two of them on the bench.
“You guys planning an escape?”
The sudden interruption startled Ben, and he almost fell off the bench. He pushed his glasses nervously. “We were just talking.”
“Oh yeah? Well, talk to me.” The other players continued their game as the
man sat down beside them.
“We were thinking it might be better to get out of this place before we’re abandoned,” Joe said.
“And we were thinking that staying alive in here might be better than getting shot on the way out.” Ben shook his head at Joe.
“The name’s Sargent Kolikov. Adrik Kolikov, but they call me Ubi.” He extended his hand and shook both of theirs. “I tend to agree with your friend here. I don’t want to starve to death in here.”
“I’m Ben, and this is Joe. They call us Ben and Joe. I suppose you would like to join our little team of desperadoes.”
“Look,” he said to them while watching his friends run to the opposite side of the court, “I can help. My buddy’s and I were thinking that since the number of enemy combatants has dropped significantly, we may have a tactical advantage.”
Ben rubbed his hands together, trying to keep them warm. “They also have the advantage of being armed. What do you plan to do, Captain Gung-ho, overpower them with your bare hands?”
“Exactly. But not just any bare hands, trained bare hands that have been in worse situations than this.” He nodded to the players, now arguing over who was going to get the ball which had bounced off the court and down the hill. “Tank, Stretch, and I are former Canadian Forces, and we can fight.”
“Well, I’m an accountant,” and I can evade things like taxes and hopefully death. And what kind of name is ‘Stretch’ and ‘Tank’?”
“They’re our call signs or nicknames, like Ubi.”
“What kind of name is Ubi anyway?”
“It’s short for Ubiysta.”
“Is that Russian?”
“Yes, it’s the Russian word for killer.”
“Oh.” Ben paused before continuing. “I knew a guy named Obee. He was a computer programmer. He was definitely not an Ubi. If he had a call sign, it would have been Big Nerd. He was a smart guy, though. He had the entire periodic table memorized. I’m not sure what that had to do with computers. I used to help him with his taxes…”
“Does he always talk this much.” Ubi looked at Joe.
“Yes, even in his sleep.”
Ubi got up from the bench. “Well, I think we should plan for our great escape before we’re all too starved to think.”
Ben looked up at him. “You know, nobody in The Great Escape, survived, right?”
“Well, then this better be the Greater Escape. We’ll reconvene at 1400 tomorrow.” Ubi re-joined his friends in their game.
Over the next couple of days, Joe, Ubi, Tank, Stretch and reluctantly, Ben, made plans for their greater escape. During the afternoon free-time in the yard, they would gather by the basketball court and go over the plan.
It was early on a cool crisp morning when they initiated their plan. As usual, there were two guards on duty in the cell block. They both had radios and batons and one of them had keys. The only time they would open a cell was if someone was in danger or if someone had died.
Joe and Ben waited anxiously in their cell for Ubi to make the first move. They didn’t have to wait long.
“Guard, guard!” Ubi yelled from across the cell block. “Stretch isn’t breathing. I think he’s dead.” The two guards walked over and said something Joe couldn’t quite make out. One of them was talking on his radio. About 15 minutes later, two more guards with masks and a stretcher came to Ubi and Stretch’s cell. The guard with the keys opened the cell for them. The two masked guards wheeled the stretcher into the cell.
“Okay, that’s our cue,” said Ben from his cell on the opposite side of the cell block, “hit me.”
Joe grabbed Ben and threw him up against the bars making as much noise as he could. “Guard! Help me! He’s trying to kill me!” yelled Ben.
One of the guards came over. Joe made sure the guard was looking then threw a decent right cross at Ben’s face, hitting him a little harder than he intended. Ben slumped to the ground as the guard banged on the bars. “Hey, settle down in there.”
Ben stood up as Joe stood in what he thought might be a boxer’s stance. “Come on, pudgy, let’s see what you got.”
Ben stood up and kicked Joe square in the balls. Joe keeled over, wailing. Then Ben grabbed Joe in a choke hold and squeezed. Joe’s arms flailed wildly. “Help, he’s killing me.”
The guard banged his club on the bars. “Johnny, get over here, I need to go in.” Johnny was the guard with the keys. As Joe was pretending to fight Ben, he stole a glance over to Ubi’s cell. He could see them quietly overpowering the masked guards.
Johnny came over and turned his key in the cell door and opened it. He pulled back his club and was about to hit Ben, but paused when he heard what sounded like a bat hitting a watermelon behind him. When he turned, he watched his fellow guard slumped to the ground. Ubi stood behind him with a guard’s uniform that was a couple of sizes too small.
The guard nimbly pulled his Taser from its holster and aimed it at Ubi. “Don’t move!”
Ubi put his hands in the air, smiling. The guard stepped out of the cell and grabbed his radio with his free hand. Before he could depress the button on his radio, he was hit hard on the side of the head and crumpled to the ground. Stretch, who was also dressed in a guard’s uniform, stepped over him and wiped his baton on the side of the downed guard’s pants. Stretch was about an inch taller than Ubi, and his uniform was even more ill-fitting then his cell-mates. “Okay, we have to hurry up before someone sees something on the cameras.”
Ubi grabbed his guard by the ankles and started to drag him into the cell. “I thought you said there were no cameras out here.”
“I said there were no cameras in the cells,” Stretch responded. “If they’re paying attention, they might see us out here.” The two of them dragged the unconscious guard into the cell.
Ben released his hold on Joe. He took off his glasses and rubbed his cheek. “I think you broke my jaw!”
Joe slowly stood up, rubbing his throat. “Well, if I can’t have kids now, I’m blaming you. Did you have to kick me right in the nuts?”
“I wanted to make it real - like your punch.”
“Okay, you fools, time to initiate Phase Two.” Stretch said as he and Ubi dragged the second guard into the cell.
Joe put on a guard’s uniform while Ubi grabbed the ring of keys off the guard’s belt and went to open Tank’s cell. Stretch ran to grab the stretcher. When he got back, Ben lay down on the stretcher with a blanket over him. Tank, who had been alone in his cell, put on the other guard’s uniform. Like his nickname suggested, Tank was built like a tank. He was just shy of six feet and was mostly muscle. Those muscles now bulged under the tight-fitting guard’s uniform.
Joe looked at the three others dressed as guards. “Okay, you all look stupid.” None of their uniforms fit at all. The cuffs of Ubi’s sleeves were almost at his elbows, Stretch’s pants reminded Joe of Officer Reginald. Tank’s shirt made it look like he would explode into the Incredible Hulk.
“I’m going to have to do the talking. You guys stay behind me,” said Joe.
He led the way to the doorway out of the cellblock. Ubi walked behind him, and Stretch and Tank pushed the stretcher with Ben on it. Some prisoners were awake now and were yelling to be let out.
“We better hurry,” said Joe, “Before the control room gets suspicious.”
The only way out of the cellblock was a caged room with locked doors on either end. There were cameras, an intercom speaker, and a microphone outside both doors as well as inside the cage. The intercom and cameras were connected to the control room. The guards got buzzed into the holding area inside the cage. Once the door closed behind them, the next door would be unlocked. Both doors were controlled by the guards inside the control room.
The five of them walked up to the first camera. Joe pressed the intercom. “Coming out!”
The intercom crackled. A voice said, “Who are you?”
Joe looked down at the key card around his neck. “It’s Ramirez. We got another dead one
to take to the morgue.”
“You look different, Ramirez.”
“New haircut.” Joe had black hair like the guard whose uniform he had taken, but his was a little longer. He hoped it was enough.
“What’s with the whole caravan? You can’t all come out.”
Joe looked back at the small procession behind him and made a quick decision. “No, it’s just the two of us and the body.” He looked at Ubi, who nodded and whispered something to the others. Ubi covertly handed off the ring of keys. Stretch and Tank started walking back into the cellblock slowly, the keys dangling from Tank’s hands.
The door buzzed, and Joe walked into the cage. He was followed by Ubi, who pushed Ben in the stretcher. From under the sheets, Ben whispered, “Now what? What about your two guys?”
Ubi responded, barely moving his lips. “Plan B, they’ll come in behind us.”
They stood inside for a moment. Joe wondered if they had been found out, and if they were now trapped inside the cage. His heart hammered against his chest. Finally, the intercom came back on. “Close the door fully behind you.”
Ubi swore under his breath and closed the door behind him. He then nodded through the cage at his friends on the other side. They returned his nod and disappeared.
“Plan C,” he whispered through his teeth.
Ben stirred under the blanket. “What’s Plan C?”
Ubi put his hand on Ben to stop him from moving. “Shhh, no more talking. Things are about to get hairy.”
Chapter 18
Over 500 kilometres west, in the city of Ingerwood, in Building One on Pochatok Street, Monique was feeding her baby. Ayesha and Zach rolled pool balls back and forth, and Blender was baking cookies in the kitchen. Kevin was still not back from his latest trip to try and visit Joe at the Abitido Jail.
“Miss Monique,” said Ayesha, “I really want a television and a Blu-ray player, so I can watch my movies.”
“I told you before, you can just call me Monique.”
“I want a laptop,” said Zach as he rolled the eight ball with a backspin towards Ayesha.
In the kitchen, Blender mixed the dough with a wooden spoon. “Yeah, well, I need some chocolate chips. Cookies without chocolate chips are just boring.”
Black Flag | Book 1 | Surviving The Scourge Page 10