Dying to Live

Chapter 30 -The Scream of the Damned

Now, each day seems to last an eternity. I have a faint hope that something will turn up but as each day passes the hope grows dimmer. Every day a guard comes and tells me I can have some exercise and every day I wonder if this is it. Is today the day the escape plan kicks into action or is today the day they take me off for my lethal jab? It's hell on earth.

"Exercise. Come now."

My ankle chains rattle as I shuffle out to the exercise area. Sometimes I'm left on my own in a dusty ten by ten metre yard, other days I'm taken to a communal area which, when full, accommodates five or six hundred prisoners. I have no idea why some days are different or who makes the decision but I prefer days like today when I'm in the big compound. It's more dangerous but it beats the mind-crippling boredom of solitude. I used to worry that one day I'd run into Matt the Aussie but now I realise that he'd be one of the least scary people in here, so I don't care about him anymore.

Some of the Thai inmates still treat me as a bit of a curiosity but most just ignore me. Some of the Europeans speak to me occasionally but the interactions tend to be short and not so sweet.

Fear permeates the compound and today the atmosphere seems even more prickly than usual. My newly-developed prison radar senses trouble. With the fence close to my left-hand shoulder, I shuffle in a clockwise direction. The Nigerians are huddled in the north-east corner, their usual spot. A group of Thai inmates is edging along the northern fence towards them. Inter-racial trouble is unusual, most groups save the worst violence for their own.

The safest place is back at the compound entrance, that's where the guards will come from if trouble does kick off. Before I've started to sidle back to the gate, angry shouts drift over from the Nigerians. The Thais respond with loud screams and threatening gestures. Everyone turns to watch the commotion, everyone including the giant Nigerian who is right beside me. He seems agitated and nervous. Are his people in trouble? Does he need to race over and help?

Again, my radar pings at me. This is a risky place to be so I retreat against the fence and crouch. Now my back is covered and target-wise I'm only half the size. My peripheral vision spots two Thai men creeping towards the Nigerian who's standing a couple of feet from me. Without warning, like rattlesnakes, they strike, one from either side, and smash pencils into his eyes. A blood-curdling and soul-wrenching scream pierces the yard as he tumbles backwards, the pencils sticking grotesquely out of his eyeballs like alien antennae. Two enormous black men emerge from the crowd and pin the thrashing victim down while the Thai men drop to their knees and start hacking at his thumbs with makeshift shivs. I vomit as they detach each thumb and stick the stubs in the man's mouth.

The whole thing is over in a matter of seconds and the four men drift off into the throng leaving a bleeding mess of a man behind them, his muffled screams drawing little attention over the cacophony of shouting from the other side of the yard, a cacophony which I realise now is a deliberate distraction to hide this monstrous attack.

The Nigerian tries to stand but stumbles backwards and lands on me. I freak out as I realise I'm the nearest person to the now-unconscious victim, hell he's lying half on top of me. I kick my feet and thrash my legs but I can't push him off, he's too heavy.

"Shit, shit. Get off me, you fucker."

I twist onto my side, hands clawing at the sandy ground in a muscle-burning struggle to gain traction and drag myself out from under the deadweight. My fingertips are raw as I scrape and squirm and drag myself along the ground. One last lung-busting exertion frees me. I keep crawling away until exhaustion overcomes me and I flop face first onto the dry dirt. Gulping and gasping for breath, I pull myself up to a sitting position. Shit, my trousers are covered in blood. I roll onto my front and slither snake-like through the dust in the hope of covering the evidence that I was near the scene of the crime. I also wet myself. I'm not sure if it was voluntarily or not, I like to think I consciously pissed my pants to further disguise the blood, but who knows? Either way, a bladder full of urine is bound to have some camouflaging effect on my trousers and the smell will make the guards less likely to want to investigate me too closely.