Dale sniffed beneath his mask. He tried to walk as confidently as he could and with the long strides that those rifle-men usually walked, not forgetting the slant way he was meant to hold his rifle with both hands. Humphrey carried the weapon bag at the side of his leg where it could stay undetected.
There were two men dressed the same as Dale waiting at the gate of the prison, and Dale didn’t take a stop before walking through the open gates. Humphrey rushed along, so scared that the men at the gate had recognised him and were going to kill him the brutal way The Death Toast victims were killed.
‘What do we do now?’, Humphrey whispered to Dale.
‘Do you know the way?’, Dale asked as they walked through a lighted hallway.
‘No. How am I supposed to know?’
‘How are you not?! You left this place only few hours ago’, Dale protested. There were two doors to the sides of the alleyway and one at the entrance.
They were in one of the four buildings guarded around the first ward, that was the lodge of most of the wardens.
‘I don’t know. They led me through too many doors’, Humphrey said. ‘But I think the last door we went through was to the…left’, he said and they entered the door at the left side of the hallway. The room they got into was dim and with shaky bulbs that blinked on and off in a way that distorted their vision. They headed down a set of winding staircases and as they drew closer, they could hear loud noises.
‘Okay, we’re in the right place’, Humphrey announced as they moved on.
‘You sure?’
‘Yes, we’re somewhere near Ward 1, so we are on track but I must tell you we are miles away from Ward 15. Boorbunk is too large’
Humphrey and Dale kept loitering around moving from door to door and across corridors as silently as they could. Each of the hallways had offices on either side of them, with their doors numbered one to hundred.
After making out their way in Ward 1, they found a different gate which they were able to get through with the right body expression. The tangled doorways didn’t pose too much of a problem in this case and they followed the pattern for the next eleven wards.
‘I can’t wait to get this heavy thing off my head’, Dale said, wondering how the other guards managed to keep those things over their heads for hours.
Many times, they passed by other actual wardens and acted like part of them; moving with purpose. Humphrey was the one open to more exposure since he wasn’t using any masks and was still very identifiable by everyone else, the only way he managed to dodge was by bending his face sideways or down and avoiding eye contacts.
Nonetheless, they would soon be found out. Dale barged into the head officer of the twelfth ward and he caught them right off guard.
‘Watch your way!’, he said. Humphrey’s breathing was shaky when he saw that the officer had looked across the shoulder of Dale and directly at his face.
‘Hey!’, the officer called before they were able to completely escape. ‘Warden, what are you doing here at this time?’
Humphrey half-turned to him and tried to mutter something but nothing came forth. ‘You can go, guard’, he said dismissing Dale. ‘Warden, will you look up at me now!’
As much as Humphrey didn’t want to cause a scene, he was alone and on the verge of being recognised as an ex-prisoner, he couldn’t do anything than let his hand move closely to his pocket.
‘And what’s in that bag? Look up now or you’re going to lose your job! Are you deaf? What…’
Humphrey shot three times at the man and with a racing heart, he ran so fast to nowhere exactly. He didn’t think of finding Dale or finding the exit, he just wanted to stay hidden.
Meanwhile, three guards have rushed to see the dead body of Officer Lehmann and at that instant, they spoke into their earphones: ‘There’s an intruder in the building, he’s killed Officer Lehmann. Secure all exits. Let all the guards get into position’
With that, there were blaring sounds all around and guards had started marching out with their rifles, not knowing who they were looking for exactly.
Humphrey kept running around, wishing he would run into Dale but he wouldn’t even know Dale if he saw him, he dressed like the rest of the guards.
‘Intruder has been found, fleeing Room 91 and going up the stairs to the second floor…In Room 92 wearing the green uniform of a police warden’, the radio shouted and Humphrey began to cry. He could hear the sound of boots jogging up to where he was. They were going to kill him on sight and he wasn’t going to let them do that.
With inhumane speed, he brought forth two grenades from the weapon bag and set it around Room 92. With few seconds left before about hundred guards would capture him in the room and the greades exploded, he rushed to the window in the side of the room and dived at it head-on, shattering the tempered glass and falling all the way down from the building to the ground. On air, he got hold of an AR-15 style rifle and shot at all the guards that he could see. He crashed to the ground with the side of his face and despite the amount of blood all over his body, he found the energy to get up immediately, he carried his bag over his neck and replaced his gun with one of the dead guards’ highly powered Armory rifles. He pulled out an earpiece from one of the guards’ ears and placed it in his.
‘There is a second intruder who is making it out of Ward-12, he’s dressed as the guards’, the signal rang loud and clear from the earpiece and Humphrey got running to catch up with Dale. As he ran, he shot but he found out that he was many miles away from getting out of the ward at all. He found himself at the foot of Boorbunk’s control tower that he found more useful than finding the exit. He climbed in, marching up the stairs and shooting everyone in his path.
‘Wo, this is so cool’, Humphrey exclaimed when he reached the topmost floor. From where he stood, he could see the whole of Boorbunk and it was larger and more labyrinthine than he thought. He, just like the rest of the prisoners had always thought their cellhouses to be the only compartment of the ward but it was only one single building surrounded by four fortresses joining together as a rectangle.
It was then that the earpiece beeped again. ‘Intruder 1 is yet to be located. More guards should fill Ward-13, Intruder 2 is trying to get away!’
Humphrey’s eyes widened with urgency. Dale. He picked the telescope and looked down the tower, narrowing his vision to Ward 13. There, he could clearly see Dale combating other guards with his hands and his legs, knocking off their guns from them and beating them up, no matter how hard they came at him.
‘Dale the Lionheart’, Humphrey remarked as he watched Dale fighting relentlessly without any form of fatigue in him even when he had two bullets in his shoulder. Humphrey moved away and ran towards the weapon bag.
Sniper. Sniper. He needed a sniper. He shuffled through the bag and brought out just what he needed: A Barrett M82 and targeted the guards as they had started crowding over Dale. After all the men had fallen to the ground, Dale tried to stagger and walk along but he just slumped to his feet. He felt too weak and too hurt, two bullets were still in his shoulder and he was bleeding badly.
‘No, no. Dale, stand up, not now’, Humphrey prayed.
‘Sniper alert. Sniper alert!!’, the loudspeaker screamed into his ear.
The control tower was the only place in the whole of the penitentiary that there were no cameras and that’s why they couldn’t find him and in turn, didn’t know where the sniper was shooting from.
Humphrey knew he needed to think fast. He couldn’t just watch Dale lay down there, helpless. He put on a Kevlar vest, carried the bag and held the gun in his hand, ready to meet up with Dale. He got off the control tower which meant their cameras would pick him again.
‘Listen attentively, all of the guards should surround Ward-12. Intruder 1 is near the exit’
Momentarily, he could hear hundreds of bullets hitting the ground in his wake and he had to speed up. The bullets were touching the ground, only inches after he had moved past them. He peered back once and he saw about fifty men chasing him. ‘Shit’, Humphrey yelled. He picked a grenade from his pocket and slung it backwards. There was an exploding sound and that announced the blowing-up of all the sentries that had been chasing him.
He turned over to the exit gate and he kept running in spite of the countless riflemen that had surrounded the gate and charging at him. He roared hard as he was about to do yet another wild thing that he had not tried in his life. He jumped, more like flew over the gate before any of them could do as much as cocking their guns. He kept running even after landing on one knee that he was sure was broken on impact.
‘Hey, Dale, get up, they are coming for us. We’ve got to go’, he said to Dale who was still laying on the ground. Humphrey looked into Dale’s eyes and realised he might not be able to get up. He was exhausted. Blood had soaked his black vest completely but he still gave a loud groan and whispered: ‘Let’s go’
‘Yes, let’s go’, Humphrey said and helped him up. By that time, more troops were chasing them and they were on the run yet again.
‘Let’s go’, Dale shouted and it was his normal voice, not shaky with fatigue or agony despite the blood still drooping from him as he walked, just that warrior mettle that no one could match. Henceforth, Humphrey was going to see Dale as a demi-god with superhuman resilience, he still ran faster than the rest of them.
‘Where are we going?’, Humphrey asked, panting heavily.
‘To the cellhouse’
‘But this is not Ward-15’
‘We didn’t come here just for them. These ones are innocent too’, Dale shouted, amidst their heavy running with bullets that was meant for their heads, whistling past them continuously.
They broke the metal cellhouse door and rushed in, shooting all the wardens that were in there. ‘Humphrey!’, Dale called as they climbed up the stairs to the very jails where the prisoners stayed.
‘Yes?’, Humphrey turned back.
‘We can do this!’, he responded.
Humphrey gave a firm nod and as insane as what they were doing was, he was going to believe it because Dale said it. We can do this! We will survive!
The actual jaildoor was harder to pull down. ‘Humphrey, take out the…’, Dale was going to say but Humphrey had already brought out the Lightsabre out of the bag and pinned it against the door, breaking it down at once.
Humphrey went on to break the doors of the prisoners while Dale waited at the door on the watchout of any incoming attacker. Dale yelled out: ‘Once you’re set free, run as fast as you can and protect yourselves’. As he spoke, he shot at some wardens coming towards where they stayed.
‘Thank you, you grrrrreat men of valour’, one ugly-looking scabby prisoner stammered as he walked out of his cell.
‘Go, go’, Dale barked again.
‘Dale, tell them to stop’
‘What?!’
‘Tell them to stop now. The guards have circled this building!’, Humphrey shouted.
‘And how’d you know that?
Humphrey pulled out the earpiece from his ear. ‘I can hear their commands from here’
Dale reversed his clarion call from Go! Hurry! to Stay where you are! However, he could already hear some of them getting shot as they stepped outside the building.
‘What are we going to do now?’, Humphrey asked with an urgent voice.
Dale looked away, uncertain of what next. The loudspeaker with which the prisoners usually received orders spoke now. ‘All prisoners left in Ward-13, put your hands in the air and do not attempt to move out. We have surrounded your cellhouse and you will not live if you try to move out’.
Those words from the loudspeaker only increased Dale’s uncertainty and intensified Humphrey’s panic – the way he had felt just before he had smashed his head through toughened glass, shot bullets in mid-air and landed on his feet after falling thirty feet. Up to that point, he hadn’t still realised that he had a fractured knee.
‘We can help’, one of them said and Dale turned to the speaker. He was a six-foot-tall bloke with powerful arms and a chest so broad that only wrestlers would require such a physique. ‘You came all the way to save us risking your own lives even though you’d been extradited’, Dale was surprised he recognised the both of them as ex-prisoners. So much for The Redemption. ‘We will join you’, he said and the rest of them joined their voices.
They all jumped when they heard the loudspeaker rumble. ‘Intruders! I know you can hear me! Drop your guns and walk out with your hands in the air. There is no escape for you. You’ve got ten seconds’
Dale faced the men in orange uniforms. ‘This is what we’re going to do’
‘Ten!’, the loudspeaker blasted louder almost rendering Dale deaf.
‘There are ten rifles remaining in that bag. Hundreds of grenades and some Kevlar bulletproof vests. So, you are going to group yourselves in ten factions. And the strongest men among you will lead each faction. He will have a gun with him and would wear the bulletproof’
‘Nine!’, but no one seemed very concerned about it anymore. They had their ears pinned back to Dale’s instructions. ‘Eight!’
‘…and as for the grenades, you’ll set it at separate locations inside the cellhouse’
‘Six’
The selected prisoners rushed to the bag pulling out the rifles and getting ready for an adventure they were scared to do but also dare to undertake, if it would lead them to freedom. The same way Humphrey had felt when they had arrived at Boorbunk.
‘Three! You are going to regret your decision’
‘So where are we going to go?’, a small-headed tiny prisoner that reminded Dale of Carreras, requested with a distressed voice and then Dale fell silent again. He had no idea of how they were going to make it out of the place.
It was that time that Humphrey’s architectural knowledge kicked in. ‘I know where we are going to go. I want you follow me as silently as possible, lay low and stay close to each other. The rifled men should stay in front of each of their groups. Are you ready? Now, let’s go!’
Dale had a confounded look on his face that made Humphrey say: ‘I got this’ and they moved at once, swift and discreet. Humphrey laid the back and Dale was at the tail end. He led them to the last room of the prison and down an underground tunnel that he had learnt sometime in the past, was present in every building of Dexter – it had been built during the Invardi War to hide all the citizens from enemy attack.
‘One – zero’, the guards moved into the cellhouse, climbed up the stairs with the complete silence in the area building a foreboding suspense for them and walked into the very jails where they expected to see the prisoners calm and surrendered.
‘There is no one in the apartment. They all seem to have hidden somewhere’, one of them reported through his earpiece. ‘Move in, move in’, he ordered the other sentries.
With about three hundred of the sentries in the building trying to find them out, there was no better time for the grenades to detonate. As the whole cellhouse went into flames, blowing up to form a giant inferno eating up the flesh of the trapped guards and burning their bones down to ashes, they had a last-second glimpse of the kind of pain they had inflicted on Death Toast victims.
Two hours later, the entire Boorbunk region had turned to an opaque battleground. A rancorous war between The Black Group and The Orange Group. The Black Group consisted of a hundred thousand masked riflemen in black uniforms and The Orange Group consisted of eight thousand men in orange clothes led by two invincible intruders. One of the groups were fighting because it was their job, and the other were fighting because their lives depended on it and it was the only chance they had to be free from the hellish dungeon that they didn’t deserve. They didn’t want The Death Toast or The Redemption, they wanted to return home to their families.
Dale and Humphrey had struggled their way and after rescuing the captives of the thirteenth ward, they joined the men of Ward-12 to their army. They went further, gathering more strength as they moved, Ward-11 joined the list; Ward-10, Ward-9, Ward-8, Ward-7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and the first one. Despite their chases with guards and several close attempts they had to surrendering, they made their way back to Ward-14 and now with eight thousand men operating with aggressiveness and the sheer will to save their lives when they had the chance, they marched over to the fifteenth ward.
There was smoke in the air, thanks to explosions every few minutes from either of the two warring groups but now they didn’t need to run as they had done before, there were no guards chasing them and no bullets whistling past their ears. Dale walked ahead of the rest of the Orange group, as the commander he had proved himself to be but as he neared the fifteenth cellhouse, he couldn’t help but suddenly stop and heave a shaky breath. He was scared, badly scared that something had happened to Tristan or Barry, that was why he didn’t ask of them from Humphrey because he knew he wouldn’t be able to conceive the grief completely in his heart.
‘Dale’, Humphrey called as he walked alongside him. ‘They’re alright’
Dale chuckled and that revelation made the whole insane prison-escape experience worth it. They ran down to the cellhouse and broke all the doors and wasted all the wardens and guards that were still lying around.
‘Tristan! Barry! Ray! Today is a blessed day’, Humphrey shouted as they saw all the prisoners of the dear Ward-15 coiled up in their cells – about seven people in each confined space – locked in but trying to find out why there was so much blasts and gunshots outside.
‘Humphrey!’, Barry shouted. ‘How did you get here?’
‘I don’t know how I got here. Maybe you should ask Dale. He would tell you’, Humphrey announced and everyone in the cell was on their feet, stunned and completely taken aback.
The lightsabre was done with its work and about one thousand prisoners had joined the league. They all rushed to Dale, hugging him more tightly than they had ever needed to hug anyone. They were crying, they were laughing, they were just overwhelmed by the moment. Then, it was Tristan’s turn.
‘Dale?’, he called with a voice heavy with emotions than it was with humour. Dale had a smile on his face. ‘It’s you’, Tristan said with the emotions in his voice, bold as brass. ‘You came back?’
‘I told you I will’, Dale replied and he knew he was going to burst in tears very soon. Tristan embraced him with all his being. ‘I will never leave my family behind’, Dale declared.
He could see Barry making his way up to him and hugged him too. ‘I didn’t think I would see you again, Dale’. Then, Peter joined in too and so did Ray and Felix and…before Dale knew it, he was buried in the arms of a thousand men. Of his thousand friends.
‘Now, let’s go home!’, Dale announced to the ten thousand now-freed men who had had enough of Boorbunk. The Boor’s Bunk.
As celebration, they filled the cellhouse with grenades and watched it explode. They found a group of Platini trucks somewhere at the exit of the prison and they loaded themselves in it.
Even when our wrists are in iron manacles, and our mouths are jagged together in bondage; the smoke will all clear down and we’ll be free! This was the song that echoed, loudly and mightily from the trucks as they cruised on Hustarbull untarred country roads on a cold, lonely night. The song was the second and third line of the second stanza of Dexter’s anthem, and no other words could capture that surreal moment.
Dale stayed in the third bus and he had, suddenly, turned to the king of an empire. The Orange Empire.
‘There were three people called every time. No longer one’, Peter said to Dale. Just like every new development of Boorbunk they had been telling Dale about, Dale was glad that he did what he had done quickly. If he had postponed it, there might never be a second chance of meeting Tristan and Barry, alive at least.
‘We were so many and one prisoner was brought in each day. We jampacked ourselves into the small cells and we fought a lot of times. Only the strongest will win the beds to themselves. The rest of us slept on the chilling floor’, one man from another ward said.
‘I didn’t even know what I did to get in the prison. They came to my house where I was hiding with the rest of my family from the terrorists. And they told me they were from the police and I was under arrest. And next thing I arrive here. What scared me the most was seeing the skulls on the wall’
‘Things weren’t as organised as they used to be when you were still there. The guards totally lost their humanity and marched around with guns everywhere. Even in the dining hall. Every day was like a mini-Death Toast. They would shoot someone for talking while eating or walking a second more after they told you to stop. Many innocent bodies have gone, forever forgotten’
‘They found every single chance to kill us. No one was courageous enough to do what you did back there to the governor, Dale’, one other guy who Dale didn’t quite recognise added. ‘And we did talk about you a lot of days. We missed you a lot. We didn’t know you were planning to save us again’
‘You should thank him too’, Dale said pointing to Humphrey who sat in the next seat and spread a grin over his face. There was still dried blood all over his face and clothes and his left leg was terribly distorted. ‘He is exceedingly strong’, Dale included and in that little moment, Humphrey felt a lot stronger than he knew he was.
‘You are hurt’, Peter pointed out. ‘There is glass in your head but don’t touch it. You’ll need a doctor, it’s far too deep’
Humphrey raised his hand to his head and he could feel the pointed mouth of glass projecting from his head. That’s what you get when you dive through a glass window without hesitation. ‘Yeah. I fell from a two-storey building and dived through the glass’
‘Really?... What the heck?... How’d you do that?’, the look of pure astonishment on everyone’s faces, including Dale’s, made him feel stronger.
‘But Dale is also hurt too. He should have been dead now if he was human’, Humphrey said and everyone laughed. ‘He’s got two bullets stuck in his chest’, Humphrey pointed out and then there wails again but they looked through his shirt and saw two clear bullet holes.
‘You are definitely not human’, one of them echoed and they all laughed again.
‘Where are we heading to?’, Humphrey asked the driver.
‘I don’t know. I am just following the direction of the second bus which is following the direction of the first bus’, the prisoner who had volunteered to drive the third bus said.
‘Do not worry!’, they heard someone shout from one of the front buses. ‘We are heading to my farm’
‘What did he say?’, Dale asked despite the fact that the voice of the first bus’s driver was loud enough.
‘As things stand. The driver moving the first bus is taking us to his farm’
‘There will be enough space for all of us to stay till tomorrow morning and I promise you there is enough food’, the bus driver bellowed again, proud to be contributing something very important to their getaway.