“It’s still unknown,” the scientist says. “They have been screaming like this relentlessly for hours nonstop, and they are both heavily sedated, but the sedatives have had no effect whatsoever. They are not in physical pain. It may be emotional distress from the experiment, or some sort of bioelectrical imbalance from the energy field that was generated during the experiment, causing seizures of the entire nervous system. We are observing them quite carefully. This is all foreign to us.”
“I don’t want excuses. I want answers!” shouts Lued as the wails from the two men permeate through the thick cell walls. “I want to be updated each hour at the hour for the next four hours and then every three hours after that. You will find out what’s wrong with them, or I will have your head. Is that clear, Dr. Kal?”
“Yes, sir,” the scientist replies with his subservient eyes staring at his feet, clutching his clipboard with quivering hands.
Chapter 7: Trouble at a Dead End
“Hey, fellas,” Ron says, frowning. “What’s wrong? And why the hell are we over here instead of the ball court?”
Steve, Kim, and I look at each other. Ron wasn’t here yesterday to know that a team of country bumpkin racist hoodlums commandeered our usual meeting place.
“Well, while you weren’t here, we ran into some trouble. Take a look over there,” I say, nodding in the direction of the ball court. “We don’t know who they are, but they are big and nasty.”
We could see the four who confronted us yesterday slapping the dorky fifth one around for sport.
“Do you know ‘em?” I ask.
Ron usually never shuts up, but this time he was speechless. Seeing him swallow a lump in his throat made me immediately lose confidence in this predicament. I could tell by the blank stare on Ron’s face that he knew something, something that wasn’t going to be good for either of us. My fear began to grow as small beads of sweat started to grow on Ron’s forehead.
“Yeah, I know ‘em all right,” he replies in an unconfident tone. “What in the hell did you guys do to piss them off?”
“Nothing,” Steve angrily says. “They just came over and threatened to kick our ass if we didn’t move. Those were the same guys that have been giving Kim and me trouble for the past week.”
“Well, chaps, best you stay away from these guys,” Ron says. “Seems like we’ve been targeted.”
It was hard to hear those words come out of Ron’s mouth. He was as tough as they come. Really gung ho and didn’t back down from anyone. Quick to challenge anything, but this was different.
“Targeted?” I say. “What do you mean, targeted? Who in the hell are these guys?”
“The shittiest of the shitty is what these guys are when you think of human beings,” Ron says. “They were a family of white supremacists that lived on the outskirts of town. The Swelchz family, also known as the Dead End. There was the grandfather Amus, his son Harold, and his four grandsons and their two cousins. Harold, the father of the four grandsons, got drunk off his ass one night and killed their mother for some odd reason and is now doing life in prison. The four brothers, Brian, Raymond, Tom, and Harold Jr., were then left in the care of their neo-Nazi grandfather, who was ten times kookier than his son. The grandfather was a real piece of work. He washed out of the Marines back in the forties, during the war, for stealing information from the army and served a twenty-year sentence for treason. Then, when he was released from prison and returned here, he was hell-bent on the destruction of integration and the purification of the white race. Says he’s part of some all-powerful army that is for total rebellion and destruction of America and the construction of the new world order. His agenda carried onto his son and then on to his grandchildren. Drilling them every day about the war to end all wars, the “agenda,” the worst parts of the Bible that speak of killing a lot of people on earth and the inevitable war to end all wars, some sort of end-of-the-world scenario of Armageddon and the reaping that was soon coming. Really twisted stuff, if you ask me, but you didn’t ask, so piss off.
“One day, the two oldest brothers, Brian and Raymond, polished off a bottle of bourbon, grabbed their rifles, went off into the night to find the first thing that they didn’t like, and committed a violent hate crime by murdering an interracial couple—a black man and a white woman. They both went to prison, and now there are just the two youngest brothers, Tom and Harold Jr. Surprisingly, the youngest of the bunch, Harold Jr., is one horn away from being the devil, a really mean SOB. He’s the leader of the other brother and the two cousins. They were called the Dead End Family because their house was at the end of town, at the end of a dirt road, and if you married into the family, it was a dead end. You’d either be dead before you were forty, or you ended up in jail, or, whoever messed around with them, they ended up dead. They had joined the local gang called the Butterfly Boys. Sounds unintimidating, doesn’t it? However, the lot of them were as lethal as rattlesnakes. They got their name from the transition of a new member from being a cute and cuddly caterpillar when they start off, but, when they come out of their cocoon, instead of getting pretty wings and fluttering about living peacefully and such, they get a butterfly knife, the symbolic weapon of choice, just like samurai and their katana. They are quick to brandish these knives as well. Showing off their fancy artistry of the handle and locking mechanism like a Wild West gunslinger twirling his revolver. They quickly open and close the blade, sometimes two at a time, calling it ‘letting it fly.’ If you ever see a small tattoo of a butterfly caught in a spiderweb, either behind their ear or on the underside of their wrist, it means tuck your tail under your ass and run away. With a killer’s mentality of, I hate everyone who isn’t one of us attitude, they’ve chosen us for their next prey. Either someone wants us gone, or they are trying to keep tabs on us for some reason. I trust we should do our best to stay out of their way, fellas. Or we can give them Steve’s mum for bargaining chips.”
“Screw you, you bug-eyed fancy lad,” Steve angrily replies.
“Anyway, have one of you guys been doing something you’re not supposed to?” asks Ron.
“What do you mean?” Steve and I say simultaneously, as I try to hide my guilt. It’s almost impossible for anyone to know what I’m up to, but what is Steve worried about?
“Well, have any of you messed with the wrong kid at school or been sticking your nose where it shouldn’t be? Steve,” he says, folding his arms as Steve gets a bit agitated, “have you been peeping on the nuns again?”
Steve exhales with a sigh of relief. “You’re such a joker,” he says, laughing uncomfortably.
While their bickering continues, I ponder what will transpire in the upcoming months at the Rose and here at school. The cold has been the enemy, along with every adult here, and now this—a bunch of knife-totting hooligans that are itching to kick our ass every time they see us.
On top of that, I’ve started to make my plans on how to break out of the Rose to go to this place that was in my father’s messages.
I’m trying to guess who has released the hounds on us and why. Maybe I am to blame with my late nights and meddling around, or was it Steve who may have stolen something from the wrong person? For whatever reason, I don’t know. It seems as if nothing we do or say warrants a blessing. I used to pray, but now I just survive, and I don’t even ask why things are the way they are. I think God forgot about us and this entire county, for that matter.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Chapter 8: Breaking Out
The school day ends and my old ways of killing time when I was younger come back to me during lights out.
I’ve made it a priority to map out every hallway, utility closet, exit, fence, window, lavatory, vent, outer structure, and road leading in and out of Shady Oaks and the Rose. It keeps me busy during the redundant lectures in class. Either that, or I have trouble staying awake in the back of the class because I have been up all night. I used to do the same thing at my old house. Every air duct, doorway,
window, and the square footage of each room.
My dad said I was a real math whiz and an artist rolled into one. “Da Vinci Red” is what he used to call me. He’d show me the books where there were depictions of the inventions that Da Vinci used to create. Old televisions, radios, and clocks that my dad had as junk would be my playthings for hours. I would tear them apart to see how they worked and mix pieces to form makeshift working replicas. He’d then sell them for a cheap price whenever he could. His confidence in me to do whatever I put my mind to was never absent. The only things I still have to remember him by are the books that I kept, a photo of him and my mom, and one of him and myself when I was too young to remember it being taken.
Nothing has been left out since I’ve also taken the liberty of writing down every camera, guard post, guard shift time, and beat walk pattern. The long restless nights were not a waste; it has given me knowledge of the tendencies of each guard on their nightly posts. There are four—two on each floor. One sleeps, one whistles, one sings, and one disappears once or twice a month for a few hours. There were a few chances that I took to gather this information. I would sneak out of my room and past the sleeping guard after the second guard passed my room. Then I would go down the stairs and reach the utility closet on the first floor. There I would wait for a few hours, trying my best not to pass out from the stockpile of chemicals stored in there. I’d listen for footsteps and conversation of the first-floor guards, one who walks the first-floor beat and the perimeter of the grounds and the other who watches the monitors of the security cameras.
Every night I wanted to bust out of this place and take Kim and Steve with me, but where would I go? No friends or family to shelter me. No money to eat or to rent a motel room. I’d be a street rat, peddling for pocket change and sleeping in parks and underpasses, having to steal to survive. I’d probably get caught by the police and be brought back here after being held at the precinct for a short time. So for now, my sneaking efforts are only to pass the time and find a way to get outside of these walls and outside of that gate for a short time. Just to follow this imaginary trail of bread crumbs that have fallen into my lap.
That local library isn’t too far from the Rose. Just about two miles or so east of here. I would have about an hour and a half window from the time I left my room until the time I could get back. Plenty of time for me, since for some strange reason I can run a mile effortlessly in under five minutes. I did that when I was clocked for my PE test, which is even more strange since I’ve never trained a day in my life. Maybe I get my athleticism from my father. He said he was a premier athlete in the army, one of the strongest and fastest soldiers on the field.
Steve has come through on his end with providing me the things that I’ve requested. I gave him the money, and he asked me no questions. I’ll need these materials to get through the wrought iron fence. Going in and out of it almost every day, I’ve noticed weaknesses in some sections of the gate a short ways down from the opening. I’m guessing time and the elements have eaten away at the bars near the base of the gate. Time and elements can eat away the strongest of anything, a terrible fate to the mightiest mountains and buildings man could ever create. We kids are no different, as we too have been worn down by the Rose. Trying to climb the gate would be much too risky as it’s over ten feet tall, and the edges at the top of each vertical rusty bar are barbed. A separated shoulder from falling or getting my hands ripped apart is an invitation for getting caught and being put into a penitentiary.
School and the Rose have both become a war of attrition. The Rose used to be a sanctuary from being pestered and bullied, but now that the Dead End is here at the Rose and at the school, there’s nowhere to hide. So we methodically stay out of their way, and we’re always grouped together, especially at school, where the Dead End are at full strength, to thwart their aggression toward us.
There has been another kid that the Dead End has been pestering. He’s a scrawny kid, very pale, with dark circles around his eyes and brown hair that drapes over his face. He stays at the Rose with us. I’ve always seen him, but he keeps to himself, eating by himself, sitting alone at lunch by himself, and always in the very front of the bus to and from the Rose. He’s always digging in the dirt at the Rose and at lunchtime in the grass near the ball court.
“Hey,” I say as I walk up to the kid as he digs in the dirt with a stick.
He stops digging and looks forward, trying not to make eye contact with me, and goes right back to digging with his stick.
“What are you digging for? Is it rocks that you’re looking for?” I ask, kneeling near his hole. He pauses and starts digging slower.
“I found this rock right outside one of the statues near the school grounds.” I pull a small stone from my pocket. “It must have been unearthed a long time ago when they first built this place.” I extend my hand with the stone in it. His unwillingness to take it makes me place it next to his crudely dug hole. He pauses, keeping his head forward while straining to look out of the corner of his eye at the stone that I have placed near his feet. He takes one hand off his digging tool, quickly swipes up the stone, and continues digging, this time faster, still doing his best to never look at me.
“I’m Dwight. What’s your name?”
“David,” he whispers in his childlike alto voice as he pauses his digging.
“Nice to meet you, David. If I ever find any more special rocks, I’ll let you know.”
He nods. “Okay, David. I’ll see you later,” I say as I walk away.
“Tree bark,” David whispers.
“Tree bark?” I say, turning my head.
“There’s a lot of different trees around here. I, uh, I collect tree bark, too,” he says, hiding his face as he buries his chin into his chest while scraping at his hole.
“All right,” I say with a smirk. “I’ll be on the lookout for tree bark. See ya later, David.” He smirks as well, and I leave him to his digging.
A few weeks passed, and I gathered all I need to make my move to the library. Everything is packed into a light sack that I prepared the evening before, hidden underneath my bed behind my lockbox. Inventory includes my crude but detailed schematics of the Rose, a map of the city, with the location of the library, an egg timer, leather gloves, penlight, and a screwdriver.
I wait until the hallways are dead silent. Looking outside of my window, I watch the first-floor guard walk the rose garden. I wait for him to round the corner to the grove. That’s the cue for me to head out. Gently clicking the egg timer to the ninety-minute mark, grabbing my sack and tiptoeing to the door, I carefully close the door, and it’s a quick walk down the hall, past the sleeping guard and down the stairs, carefully walking under the camera directly over the first-floor staircase. Slipping into the utility closet on the first floor, my nostrils are overwhelmed with a torrent of harsh fumes coming from the racks of solvents and cleaners along the wall. My frail sinuses can’t bear the brunt of the noxious fumes, and a trickle of blood seeps out of my nose and onto the floor while I wait for the guards to change shifts. Making a crude gauze from industrial paper towel inside of the closet, I stuff my nose with the coarse cloth and pinch it shut. My throat is burning from breathing in the fumes through my mouth. I fight back the urge to cough, making my eyes water. Ten minutes later, the coast is clear. Through the cafeteria door and out the back loading door I slide outside, still woozy from the utility closet. Dumping my nose stuffing into a trash dumpster, I make my way to the grove, sliding against the wall, staying out of sight of the cameras. As the camera pans away from me, I dash toward the trees.
The moon glows with a heavenly aura. The sky is the deepest of blacks, effortlessly showing the twinkle of the stars. The brisk air pushes against my face as I dodge the moonlit trunks of the oak and juniper trees. The leaves and twigs crunch beneath my feet with each hastened step, and I make it to the wrought iron gate. Sliding on the leather gloves and grabbing the screwdriver and penlight from my sack, I sit on the groun
d and place my feet against the lower bar of the fence, and I pull on the vertical bars where it’s rust eaten. Knocking with the blade of the screwdriver at the weakened welds that hold the lower and vertical bars together, I yank at it more and more. After a few yanks, the bars begin to give and bend far enough for me to slip through. Crawling beneath the violated metal, the cold dirt and thistle cling to my chest and belly. Standing to my feet, brushing off the filth, I taste the chilly air of freedom through my blood-encrusted nostrils. It’s the first time I’m outside of these gates on my own accord.
The stars guide me eastward toward the library as I push ahead into the night. The chilly air nibbles at my fingertips. I run full stride to the library, ducking behind shrubs and oaks when I see the headlights of the rare cars that drive by, and I stay out of the gloom of the streetlights.
A glance at the egg timer shows that ten minutes have passed. I look up and the library is up ahead. It’s a rickety looking building that looks more like a mortuary than a library. I reach the door and it seems that the library hasn’t been up and running in decades. Prying the lock open with the screwdriver, the door gives way easily as age has defeated the old security locks. Walking right through the front door like I owned the place, the skunky smell of damp paper, print, and dust fills my nose to my excitement. I prance through the shelves like a bumblebee in a flower patch, not knowing what I should take with me. Then I see a shelf that has a book on it that sticks out from the other books around it and it has the exact same symbols as on the chessboard from my father. They speak to me, a pulsating sound that beckons me to grab it. I sweep away the dust to find that the book has no title. Opening the cover, there is nothing but words and numbers and depictions that make no sense to me, yet I’m still drawn to them. I pack the suspicious book along with the others that I’ve chosen and make a hasty retreat.
Chess Players: Atlantis and the Mockingbird Page 6