They were all out now among the multitudes of guards who were not with rods or with blackjacks but with real guns because today someone among them who had his wrists bound in those chains was going to get battered to nihility with its contents. Dale stood there staring at the governor and then the revulsion he had felt returned to his stomach in a sickening way, wrapping around his gut and he suddenly knew that he was going to spill it out from his mouth, in his words!
All the men had taken position with their rifles and the officers had gathered themselves around, waiting patiently for the governor to perform his blind vote.
‘Before anything is done, I will like to have a word with these things’, he said as he waved his hand over all the prisoners and then he stood up from his sofa which surely had the skull of Pierson Plummer hanging there rigidly and then walked to the edge of the podium, where Carreras had dived to him on his death day. ‘Killing, savagery, evil, mischief’, he started as he paced around. ‘Crime, sins, misdemeanour is all I have found here and your faces say it all’, ‘Boorbunk is the trashcan for such men who have decided!’, he shouted making some of the men tremble but Dale could only feel resentment build up in him. ‘To ruin the future of Dexter and I say to you, that y’all are doomed. Your death isn’t far away from all of you! Because sooner or later you will all have a Toast to Death!!’, he shouted out loud and some people staggered as they stood.
Dale wondered how someone who knew he was lying and in fact the evil one could say such things with daunting temerity. All the rest of the prisoners bowed their heads to the ground as if the face of the governor were torrents of fire and Dale could have been like them but he wasn’t going to drop his head, he needed the hate in him to build up to the needed height and then spill his guts!
‘Because y’all need to know what you are here for. This isn’t a reformatory because I believe that you guys are way more rotten than refining and there is only one thing to do with those kind of rotten samples, dispose them off and as far as I’m concerned, it should be done one after the other’, he said and the officers burst out in heinous laughter.
Ah aha ah! It’s really funny! Dale shut his eyes and then opened it again because he knew that things were going to get really awry very soon.
‘Because the only fate left for you is death!’, the way he say that last word was so horrendous that the prisoners shivered. ‘The country is strictly against bands of terrorists like you and we are going to keep this country as safe as we have to’
‘You ARE WRONG!’, someone echoed from among the eighty-four men in orange and every eyes turned to the speaker. He was in the middle and he was a little bit shorter than the rest of them, he looked younger too. ‘And you know it. You know we did nothing wrong to deserve this place!, he continued.
‘Oh really’, the governor said, enjoying the clever audacity that the little boy in front of him had shown. ‘I especially know you, Dale Eagan! You are one of the special men whose life should have never been!’. Everyone was trembling as they could sense evil in the voice of the governor, Dale was probably going to lose his damn life today.
The shock he was meant to feel was replaced by wrath. ‘And I know you too! I especially know you, Governor Caiman Dormas!’, Dale could hear Barry calling his name telling him to stop, hoping he will. ‘You told us you were going to help us and listening to our cries and I guess you meant the direct opposite. You bloody lying beast! You come here and you rant us down, despite knowing that we are innocent, completely innocent’
The governor looked on, it was hard to discern what was on his face but that was scary. There was like a terror in that undiscernible face. The type that consumed people. While they all saw terror, Dale could see the sting of his words, the blatant truth that shocked Dormas, he couldn’t believe someone would say that. In that short time, Dale could see that desperate need on the governor’s face to get rid of him, to make sure that no one said such words to him. He could see that vulnerability, that insecurity on the governor’s face that he always made sure was away. That was why he had brought up the talk that morning, to scare the living daylight on them. He was like Pennywise who preyed on fear to stay alive and the new Dale was no prey.
‘You host The Death Toast?’, Dale said and his voice got shaky as he looked up at the face of Pierson with ink over it. ‘You have betrayed every one of us and you are a disgrace to the people of Gollogher and the nation of Dexter. And I swear to God that you are going to get punished for all the evil things that you have done’, he said and his eyes watered.
The governor looked on at him and then he uttered two words: ‘Kill him’. It was a whisper, a fiendish whisper that could also roar in the ears of whoever it was addressed to, a whisper from the lips of the devil.
Everyone exclaimed in high voices as the armed men came to pull off the chains from the hands of everyone.
‘Kill him now’, he repeated as he kept staring at the eyeballs of Dale who had not moved a gaze from him. And from all their positions, the men set their guns at him making the prisoners clot together in a different place, not sure they wanted to watch this.
‘Dale’, Barry called and when he looked at him, Dale found out that he didn’t look good when he cried.
But Dale knew he wasn’t going to die. Not today. It wasn’t yet time. ‘Oh, common. All of you pack of wolves would drop your fucking guns now!’, he said and the entire room went silent. ‘It is The Death Toast and that is the only possible way to kill people in here.’, he said with so much calm in his voice that the gunmen who were supposed to convey a great sense of fear slowly and involuntarily dropped their weapons. To the disgrace of the governor and to the relief of the rest of the prisoners. Dale was shocked, he was shocked that he had actually spoken like that with so much authority and command but actually, it was the old Dale that was shocked. The new Dale was only getting started and that was what was shown on his face.
‘You are not the one who decides who dies in here. You can retrieve your power back when you get to the council of the Order of The Quppis but not here. You mug-faced terrorist!’
The governor remained at the top of the podium, watching how the men had defied his order because of the words of this little man who seemed like he was indestructible. All the prisoners went back in their line and then they watched the governor walk down from the podium. He was coming to Dale. He walked down to Dale and came so close as if he would walk right through him.
‘I guess you’re right* about what you just said. I cannot say when you die but I can dictate how!’, he said and the rest of the officers agreed entirely. Dormas looked up at the skull and then looked back at the head officer. ‘I must say there is going to be a pause in the tradition of using new skulls because one of them might lose even his skull’, he said and then turned back to Dale, staring right into his brown eyeballs. ‘Anytime your name is picked, when it is your turn to win The Death Toast’, he spoke with majestic power that only few people had hearts that didn’t melt in presence of.
‘I will be there on that podium and watch you picked up by the armed men but they are not going to take you to any other room, they are going to bring another chair in here and right in front of us all, half of all your body fluids is going to be let out of you right here into sacks’, he said looking for that tinge of fear in it but it was new Dale, there was no fear no more. It was an illusion. He only blinked his eyes now because the governor let out some spit in his face as he spoke. Instead of the reaction from the man he was staring at, there was an unwholesome wail of fear among the prisoners and brays of satisfaction from the officers.
‘But that’s not all, that’s not close to how I want to destroy you! Since you seem so grand, I think you also deserve some grand way of being put to an end and everything is going to happen right in our very faces. What’s left of your body which I predict is still alive will be set on fire. I will be so pleased to see you burn and rot and scream to ashes!’, he said the last words grimly and with so much hatred in his eyes, fiery hatred, still looking at Dale’s eyes to see fear, at least a speck of it on his face to grope upon. And it was evident that that was what he had been begging for with all those words he had said.
Dale chuckled a clear chuckle, no sarcasm, no scorn, a pure laugh, the type he gave to Tristan’s jokes. ‘Just the way the inside of you is rottening out everyday. You callous creature. The only terrorist in this room is you! And I tell you! You!’, he said pointing his finger at his face. ‘You would not get away with all this evil, you’re going to pay for everything!’
‘Okay’, Dormas replied and then walked back to the podium.
‘And now is the time to cast the vote’, the main officer said whose name had been found out to be Officer Hurrell and then the governor stepped forth to the name table. He took one glance at Dale and then picked up a plank and gave it to the officer. He must have been praying that it was Dale so that the long outrageous process of death would happen that moment.
From the expression on the man’s face, it wasn’t Dale, he didn’t look pleased. ‘Simone Broadbent!’, he said and the rest of the rituals followed. The taking away, the uncomfortable pause, the roars of bullets and then the final wail of life from the victim. But that wasn’t all.
Dale looked behind him and then he could see some of the officers walking to him with a bridled pose. They didn’t have guns in their hands, they had clubs, the type that was used to kill Jackson some nights ago. And then they pounced on him in racking rage, the cudgels hitting his head and Dale remained there on the ground trying to shield his head with his arms from splitting apart. Thankfully, it didn’t before he passed out.
‘Dale! Wake up’, Barry shouted still with teary eyes but they were made to return to their cells where they will be till the end of the day, pondering on all the happenings of the morning. Broadbent’s death which was even overshadowed by the unimaginable deeds of Dale, something that none of them or all of them left combined could not dare to do even more not on the day of The Death Toast and not after few days that one of them had just lost his life and not to someone who can and who will order their deaths by finding any of their utterances by any means derogatory. What Dale had said was not only derogatory but outright insult to him. Something they wished doing and yet they couldn’t bear the thoughts of doing such drastic things because they were never going to get to live many minutes after saying that; a situation that Dale didn’t find daunting anymore. And now with some other set of gutsy litanies from Dale, he had managed to evade death in a really distorted twist of fate. He had done it intrepidly but after all said and done, he hadn’t gone scot-free without bearing any brunt. The way the governor had dictated for him to be killed was an entirely over-to-the-top murder assassination, the most gruesome they had ever heard which most mean really gruesome to be coming from someone from the People states of Dexter Islands, a type that Barry knew he wasn’t going to endure being a spectator to, a type that the governor and all his men were anxiously waiting for, a method of killing that only terrorists knew.
The next time Dale opened his eyes was to darkness. Utter darkness. Darkness like a curtain that subdued the room. He wondered how he had gotten in here, how the people had brought him in there. He wiped his palms over his face and then whispered prayers to himself. His face was wet and he could guess the liquid it was drenched in. The ground was cold and so was his body, severely frozen. It was, with no doubt, The Hole but for Dale, it didn’t sound as terrifying as it sounded before.
He faced down, ready to spend as many days as possible in this special torture lockup and then as much as he didn’t want to, his mind slipped back to everything that had happened that morning. He didn’t want to back to what had happened in the past and whatever action he had performed that might seem tremendous to him, it was like a dog returning to his vomit. Really? Of course not. That was a lot shallower and more spineless than the deed really was. It was like a king cobra looking back at his shed skin and feeling wild and a little achieved and feel a little need to stop on his adventures, when he is in fact just started and he had just started a fight that he better continued with, with as much intensity as possible, knowing fully well that before long, he will not be able to raise his voice any more. His ashes was going to be part of the endless debris down in the water outside the confinement.
He found out that his thoughts came in bold illuminated pictures and even clearer in this dense darkness. He felt different as he watched himself, he saw himself in a different light and the recognisable feeling roaming his heart was excitement, raw excitement like this was what he was supposed to be doing all his life.
His mind went to that moment when everyone had shifted away from him when the rifles were turned to him, everyone wailing and watching as bullets were about to knock him down. That was the time he had felt the most fearless, cared the least about his life and gave it up to follow his new mantra- FIGHT! And he had survived it but he knew that he wasn’t going to get such lucky in the future and until then he was going to keep his voice high. Because throughout the early hours of that day, he felt his father with him, like a beast within him.
Dale prayed, stood to his feet and paced around the room blindly.