Dale wasn’t sure the exact time that the bus was going to arrive but he was certain that it was going to come that day. It was exactly three months since he was carted away from Dexter and brought to this road with the Welcome to New Mexico signboard. Since The Redemption happened every month, he was expecting to see the Platini truck drop another ex-prisoner today – who would think he was free, until he sees a sniper chasing him around town.
Vehicles from Dexter were not difficult to spot. Platini was the only truck manufacturing company in the whole of the Island and its trucks came in only one colour: avocado-green. Although Dexterrans didn’t really like the brand colour of creamy green, The Platini industry would not change it for any reason and everyone was too poor to start their car factories and reject the unfair monopoly of Lloyd Platini, the Reckdettean billionaire. The masses of Dexter just never had it their way. Everything was too tough, they would say and Dale was not having any of it. There had to be one radical head in the midst of the vast crowd.
The road was desolate and that’s why they dropped off the ex-prisoners here in a new land. The road was dark too, it was closed in by tall, large-leaved trees forming canopies over them and as a result, the road was dimly-lit even when it was just afternoon. It was among those trees that Dale stood, crouching beneath one of them and wore black dresses that he had both at a cheap-priced boutique the day before. In his two back pockets, he had two loaded Glocks and a small pepper spray.
The weapon-dealer had said: ‘Hey, you should have this too. It will be your saving grace’ before he gave him the pepper spray for free.
Laying on the soil beside Dale was a black heavy carrier bag loaded with weapons that he had spent all his money on. They were four AR-15-style rifles, two Herstal guns and two SIG Sauers. The other items were endless rows and rows of bullets and round hand grenades. There was a Barrett sniper also and breaching tools like a TEC torch. And countless other things.
He had waited close to seven hours in the same position, yet unshaken and his eyes not dizzy and the only thing that kept him was that that bus was his only link back to Dexter and back to Boorbunk.
Then the moment came. He heard the loud buzzing of a vehicle coming towards where he was and he was sure it was not a car’s. He peeped behind the tree and now he could see the green vehicle. Dale sighed deeply when the bus screeched to a stop just in front of him. He knew it was now or never. At the impulse of the truck’s door opening, Dale shot thrice at the bus.
God, save me, he muttered under his breath as he caught the sight of three masked riflemen who had escorted the about-to-be-freed man. The prisoner in black ran out of the vehicle, not quite understanding what was going on or who had shot the gun. Before the guards could pull out their rifles, Dale shot at them again; killing two of them and the last one who was unhurt, hopped at Dale and pinned him to the ground, jabbing his face with the butt of his gun. Dale could do nothing as his gun had slipped out of his hand far away from him. The guard brought out his gun and was about to shoot Dale when he got shot. The shooter being Humphrey, the fellow Ward-15 man who had been redeemed that day. He had killed the guard with Dale’s Glock that had skidded off his hand.
‘Are you okay?’, he asked Dale
Dale nodded as he staggered to his feet, still trying to recognise who his saviour was. Logically, he didn’t have to be anyone he knew before he saved him since Dale had been targeting the guards, not him which meant they shared a collective enemy. Humphrey also was browsing the face on his memory list because he was certain he knew him and needless to say, from Dexter, from Boorbunk.
‘Humphrey?’, Dale whispered, trying not to mince it up.
‘Yes, that’s me. You are Tristan’s friend’, Humphrey shouted triumphantly, although he couldn’t get his name yet. ‘Behind you!’, Humphrey alerted to Dale.
The first thing his hand went to was the pepper spray and on turning around, sprayed half of it on the face of the attacker who happened to be the truck driver before shooting him.
‘I know your name now, you are Dale’, he said with a big smile on his face.
‘Yes, I am Dale’, he replied and they hugged each other.
They were still on the road with four bodies and a Platini truck blocking the way, and fortunately for them there were no cars passing yet. ‘Let’s leave here’, Dale said.
They dragged the bodies to the bush side and got into the vehicle driving it out of the road.
‘Oh my goodness! I didn’t think that I would see you today. Look at you’, Humphrey shouted as they parked the car into a nearby parking lot.
‘How would I have thought that I would meet someone I knew?’, Dale replied, equally excited.
‘What were you doing out there?’
‘I was going back to Dexter Islands’, he said for the first time without hesitation because he knew Humphrey understood why. ‘I was going to smuggle the bus to the dock and then somehow get on the boat and make it to the prison’
‘You never seize to surprise me, man. You still want to go back there’, Humphrey said. ‘Despite how safe it is down here’
‘Humphrey. We are not safe down here. We could still get killed. They sent someone to kill me even when I had come here’, Dale said and placed his hands on the steering wheel.
‘What the hell? They actually do that. That means there is no Redemption’
‘There is nothing like that. Everyone’s fated to die once we step in there. And you think that I will leave everyone back at Ward-15 to die. Since I met The Humor Sect, I have not been able to go back to Baskers to find my brothers. My mind completely forgot them but the amnesia is clearing out and I want to see my real brothers. I want to know if they are still alive. I want to know my real name. My life will never be complete without doing those things’, Dale stated.
‘Dale Eagan is not your real name?’, Humphrey asked.
‘Yes, I am yet to find out what it really is. When I was nine, some assassins came to my parent’s home, killed them, abducted me and jabbed me with an hammer on my hand. It was The Humour Sect that found me half-dead by the side of the road and named me Dale Eagan. I suffered memory loss from that jab’
Talking about Dexter was a clear way to go glum. ‘I miss my family too’, Humphrey said with reddened eyeballs. ‘My grandfather who was blind in one eye the last time I saw him. I don’t know what it would be now. I want to see everyone I know’
Dale turned his face to him and held his hand. ‘Then let’s do this’, he whispered to which Humphrey nodded.

Ten minutes later, they were both in the van with Humphrey dressed in the uniform of the original truck driver that they had killed and Dale was in the back seat, with a mask over his head to camouflage as one of the executioners who had escorted Humphrey. He didn’t need to pull off all the clothes and simply took the mask off one of the dead men’s faces as he was already dressed in similar black clothes. Humphrey had dumped his black prison clothes in the bush where they placed the four bodies.
‘It’s good that you can drive because I don’t know how I would have handled the truck. I never thought of that part’, Dale said.
‘Yeah. I got this. I have been driving my grandfather’s rickety Platini which my father inherited from him, since I was fourteen’, Humphrey replied smugly.
Dale learnt to handle the gun in his hand like the guards usually handled it, and their characteristic silence would make things easier for Dale to act as one of them since he wouldn’t speak at all. On the other hand, Humphrey was a little more prone to being detected. He would be easily recognised since he was just picked that same day as the redeemed man. Humphrey did not raise his face from the steering wheel as he drove and now that they were almost reaching the sea that demarcated the USA and Dexter Islands, he heaved loudly.
‘We’re here’, he said to Dale who was at the back.
Dale sighed as well and muttered a little prayer. ‘Are you ready for this, pal?’,
‘I am scared’, Humphrey sincerely responded.
‘Yeah, we both are’, Dale said.
‘Liar’, Humphrey said and they both laughed.
‘Okay, it’s time. Don’t look scared or anything. If they get suspicious, then we will go violent but for now, hide this’, Dale instructed quickly and shoved one pistol into Humphrey’s pocket. ‘Use that’
‘Okay’, and that was the last thing they were going to say to themselves before they acted as driver and executioner-man.
Humphrey was meant to ride the truck down on the berth that had been mounted over the sea, and park it inside a large ship that lay in the middle of the sea.
There were three immigrant officers at the dock and Humphrey whined down the car’s glass down. The immigrant people obviously didn’t know him as anyone that wasn’t meant to be in the driver’s seat.
‘Where is your pass?’, they asked Humphrey.
‘What? Pass? I don’t. I am not’, Humphrey stuttered, hoping he hadn’t completely implicated them.
Dale reached over from behind the truck and picked the pass card that was laying on the passenger seat and gave it to Humphrey.
‘Oh, yes. Here it is’, Humphrey said, trying not to look relieved or grateful.
The two other immigrant officers opened the gates of the dock, allowing the van cruise down the berth towards the cruise ship and that was where the real danger was.
‘You’ve got to be careful now’, Dale said and he didn’t know how much that scared Humphrey. Dale handled the rifle in his hand the professional way he was supposed to, and because he knew that it was going to come in handy when the people at the ship discovered that there was meant to be more than one man at the back of the truck.
Humphrey slowed down as the vehicle got into the boat and it was time for them to work to the cabin where so many other people were going to be. Dale came out from behind the truck, following Humphrey out of the parking space of the ship. The ship was supposed to return to Boorbunk immediately and if everything went as planned, they would land safely and wait for the right time to launch the first prison break that Dexter will ever experience.
Since the ship was a transport system solely for conveying freed prisoners, everyone in the cabin were wardens and they would know who Humphrey was, at one glance. ‘Welcome back, you took quite a while’, one of them who was waiting at the door of the cabin greeted with a jumbled voice.
They didn’t respond and simply sauntered past him, hiding their face without showing they were hiding. The warden looked behind them expecting more masked men to walk in and Dale knew that they could no longer hide anymore.
‘Hey, where are the other two guys?’, the warden shouted at them.
Humphrey turned to Dale and mouthed, ‘On three’ and with that, his hand clutched to his left pocket.
‘Where are the two other men? You were three that escorted the prisoner?! Where’d they go?’, he asked and now most of the other people on the boat were starting to get suspicious.
‘One…zero’, Humphrey counted in his mind and that was the countdown to an intense shooting orgy. Dale emptied half the bullets left in the AR15 rifle quicker than he had ever done anything in his life. He stayed steady as he moved his gun since it wasn’t the first time he was doing it neither was it the second time, he had handled heavier rifles and shot bullets sporadically since he was eight. On the other hand, Humphrey roared and shot at the same time, it was the first day in his life that he had killed anyone.
In the next twelve minutes, there were only two of them left standing in the room with blood over the deck. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that it was a silencer gun that you gave me?’, Humphrey lamented. ‘I was so scared when it wasn’t making any noise’
‘Well, you made enough noise already, so I made a wise choice’, Dale said and hung his bag over his shoulder. ‘We are not done. There are most likely people in other rooms and hopefully, they haven’t heard blasts from here. Let’s go’
They moved from room to room and Humphrey’s silencer was on duty when they found people but there were only few of them left.
‘What’s up?’, the sailor at the wheel hollered when he saw some two men approaching him.
‘Can we give you a hand?’, Dale asked as they walked closer to him
‘No, thank you very much. I’m good…’, a bullet in his stomach wouldn’t let him finish as they dropped him off-board.
‘This is what I meant, sorry’, Dale said. ‘Oh my goodness!’, he said as he could see some very high currents on the sea approaching. ‘We just made a mistake’
‘What?’, Humphrey asked.
‘Do you know how to drive a ship?’
To which Humphrey chuckled, ‘I know how to drive anything with a wheel. At least one thing I am good in’, he added, referring to his amateur shooting. ‘Very good in’, he said, lurched on the accelerator to prove his gloating and then the ship started to move very fast over the water. ‘I told ya’
‘You are going to get us both killed’, Dale said.
‘We are going to die anyway’, Humphrey joked. Or maybe it wasn’t.
They were approaching the coast that the heavily-guarded fortress of The Boorbunk Bay stood upon and yet again, Humphrey’s stomach tightened. This was a bigger threat to their survival.
‘So what’s the plan?’, he asked Dale sitting nearby him.
‘Well, I will have to take over the wheel now. So you change into one of the warden clothes and keep your face down, you’ll need a better gun this time. You are going to take two Glocks’
‘Where did you get all these guns from?’
‘Should we talk about that or the plan?’
‘Common. We are almost there. Let’s know what we are going to do’
‘That’s it for now. Just leave the wheel for me and go and change into those other clothes’
‘That’s all. Who’s going to be the sailor?’
‘The sailor? There doesn’t need to be a sailor. No one can see if there is a sailor from outside the boat. We will just lower the speed when we have reached the dock. The boat would stop when it touches the coastline. All we need to do is to get off the ship as soon as possible. No one needs to check the people left in the boat. The only goal now is to get into Boorbunk. At least that simplifies things’, Dale explained.
‘Wow! I see how you get to fool us with your hands. You are a smart man, Dale’
‘Boorbunk, here we come’, Humphrey mouthed and he looked impeccable in the new warden clothes he had on. The ship had reached the dock and the tall prison walls ahead had cast a shadow over it. ‘Hey, Dale. Have you ever wondered why they call Boorbunk? Like a boor’s bunk? Like bunks for stupid people. There are no even bunks in there’
‘Shut up’, Dale replied. ‘All you can think about now is how the name came about?’,
‘Hey, do not tell me you’re scared Dale because I am super scared too. That’s why I am trying to use get myself not scared by talking’, Humphrey said.
‘Take this bag and shield it well as much as you can. That’s where all our weapons are’
‘Any noodles in there?’ Humphrey asked. ‘Hey, Dale’
Dale turned to him.
‘You never asked about Tristan and Pierson’
‘Well because whatever state they’re in. I would find out very much soon’, he said and stepped out of the ship.
‘And if you don’t find them at all, that also tells you the state they are. Hmm’, Humphrey said and followed.