Jealous Much? – Chapter 3

A TASTE

I had my mouth latched around the hole I’d made on the warden’s neck. I closed my eyes in pleasure as his warm blood flowed down my throat, it was as calming as a warm beverage in the morning. It took a while before the blood stopped flowing. I didn’t want to start sucking on it so I gave up on him. I felt the sharp pain on the back of my head again, it felt just like the moment before I ended Daniel. I shook my head as if trying to shake off the pain; it was time to get back to escaping this hell hole. It had been almost a month now and I hadn’t seen Maria. She hadn’t even come looking for me since I saved her from Daniel. I was almost angry at her for not even showing any concern, but no, I couldn’t get angry at Maria. I’m sure she had her reasons.

I picked up the warden’s knife from his pocket and then took his flashlight. I saw his gun in his holster but I wasn’t really interested in having another gun. I honestly didn’t even know how to reload the thing if I wanted to. I walked out into the hallway, and started to make my way towards the east wing. The taste of blood lingered behind my throat, It wasn’t so much an enjoyable thing as it was a necessary thing. It was something I felt like I simply had to do. The hall was dark and quiet. I didn’t want to risk using the flashlight unless I absolutely had to. Walking slowly I quietly made my way through the hallway, making sure never to step too hard on the old floors. Stealth was my game; one I knew how to play a little too well.

Before long, I had reached the end of the hallway. It’s weird how that entire hallway was watched by only one warden. What if something happened to him? Who would tell the others?

The door leading out of the hallway had a glass panel on it which let in the light from the room ahead, the light cast the shadows of two men from the other room onto the floor of the hallway. They were making themselves some coffee and making a lot of noise in the process. One of them seemed to be quite the comedian as the other one laughed rather loudly at virtually every comment he made. They were both in my way. I took out the knife and peeked in through the glass panel, both wardens were rather fat, their shadows didn’t do them much justice, I could literally run past them and they would not be able to catch me. But that would raise an alarm, I didn’t want to trigger any alarm earlier than necessary. I scanned the room to pick out who I would cure first, the Comedian had a Taser and a mug of coffee as his only form of defence and his audience just sat there with his back to him, laughing. The funny guy was going to have to go first. I placed my hand on the doorknob and just as I was about to open it. The comedian decided to leave the room from the other door; this was too good to be true.

I waited for him to leave and close the door behind him then I opened the hallway door slowly, for a door this old, the hinges were too gracious. I expected a lot of squeaking but it made absolutely no sound.

I stood behind the poor big guy for a while, the thought of curing him was one I wanted to really savor and enjoy before executing it. He sat there reading his paper and occasionally making loud remarks about jokes that his friend had made earlier before laughing to himself in short uncontrolled chuckles. He was truly a sight to behold. He filled the entire chair and was overflowing from its edges. His uniform stretched over him and seemed to scream for release. What a sick person he was.

I pushed the knife into the back of his neck while covering his mouth with my other hand. The knife went all the way through his neck until it burst out in front. I started to pull the knife out as slowly as I had pushed it in; there was no screaming or laughing for this audience anymore. It was like cutting open a bag of water, blood gushed forth like a running stream from his withering frame. I decided against trying the blood from this fountain.

I unscrewed the lightbulb in the room and cracked it gently on the side of the table. I needed the room to be dark so that nobody would easily see the dead guy in the pool of blood on the floor. I decided to head out through the same door that the comedian had gone through. I got to the door and as I put my hand on the doorknob, somebody turned it from the other side.

I stayed behind the door as it opened and got pinned to the wall behind it. I peeked out the side of the door and two big looking men had walked in.

“Marvin, get the lights, will you?”, one of the men said as he made his way to the coffee machine, Marvin made his way back to the door area to look for the light switch. He flicked it but the light didn’t come on.

“Damn, I think it’s broken” Marvin said, while he brought out his flashlight and turned it on.

I pushed myself back in behind the door, the room had fallen deathly silent. None of the men was saying anything. And then the flashlight pointed directly at the door I was hiding behind. It grew brighter as they came closer. And then the door flew open and the blinding light shone right in my face. “Step away from the wall slowly”, Marvin said. I heard the click of a gun behind the light but it didn’t sound like a really big gun. Before long, I felt jolts of electricity running through me and passed out.

…

My eyes opened to the blurry view of what seemed like a crowd of people. I could hear murmuring from among them but couldn’t quite make out the words they were saying. My eyes cleared and I could see things much better now. I was surrounded by prisoners. Some were chanting my prison number, the others watched me in awe. I was positioned at the prison courtyard, chained on my hands and feet. I knelt on the floor and just watched. I’d become some kind of symbol to these men. Soon they spread apart as guards flooded the courtyard, the guards ordered me off the floor and pushed me out towards the prison gate area. A big van was parked and its back doors were open; there were men and women in suits sitting inside it, alongside soldiers that looked like they were going to war. I was pushed into the van, landing at the center of the soldiers.

“He’s all yours” said the prison guard as he slammed the doors shut.

Two soldiers stood me up and kicked my knees from behind so I knelt between them. They angled my face towards a dark-skinned woman in a suit. She looked like she was the one in charge here.

“You will be tried in court for the murder of two prison wardens, after which you will be coming with us to the maximum-security state asylum”.

I kept quiet and looked her straight in her eyes. There was no fear in her eyes, just the look of satisfaction; it was rather out of place. She smiled and ordered the soldiers to leave me on the floor.

“It’s a long ride back to state men, get comfortable”, she said as she leaned back a little to rest on the wall of the van as it started moving.

…

The court room was virtually empty, there were about six people on what I presume were the jury’s seats, I was not even allowed a lawyer, the dark-skinned woman sat in the table a few feet beside mine with a soldier at her side. There were about three more soldiers in the room and two police men, one of them walked to me and stood beside my table, the other stood in front of the judge’s seat.

“All rise!” a man shouted from the corner of the room as the judge stepped in. Fat old blob he was, could barely even walk upright; he looked like a penguin still trying to find its footing. He turned sharply to face me as though he had heard all that I was thinking, looked me straight in the eyes for about a second or two and then returned his focus to the chair he was about to dump himself on. He sat with a loud sigh; you could virtually hear his aching muscles shouting praises after being released from all that weight.

The dark-skinned woman, agent Hannah (as the judge called her), finished reading out the charges against me. Murder of Mr. Daniel Rodden, murder of warden Price Coleman, murder of officer Bates Manning. The judge called me up to the stand to state my version of the story. He seemed uninterested, but at least he wanted to hear both sides. I started my story with how Mr. Daniel tried to rape the woman I love and how I had to stop him, the judge stopped me in the middle of my statement, “rape, you say?”, he asked.

“Yes, your honour” I replied.

“Objection, your honour!” agent Hannah shouted.

The judge asked me to hold and allowed her to speak.

“If it would please your honour, I would like to bring forth a witness”, agent Hannah said, looking quite proud of herself.

The judge signalled the soldiers at the door to let someone in.

And there she was, the love of my life, Maria; she walked in with two children at her side. I was stunned that she didn’t even look at me. Just kept her head down and walked down the centre of the court room with the two little children. “Mrs. Maria Rodden, you may speak”, agent Hannah said while motioning Maria forward. She raised her head to look at me and began accusing me of murdering her husband in cold blood, “That man is a vicious man”, she said while pointing towards me, she continued talking about how she had watched me brutally take her husband away from her and why I should be put away forever.

Her words came at me like daggers, how could she be so ungrateful? I agree he may have been her husband but he didn’t deserve her, not as much as I did. I fell in love with Maria the first day I saw her at the train station, sure I didn’t have the opportunity to talk to her but I spent almost a year watching her from her bedroom window and at work too. I chased away a lot of home intruders from her home. I kept her warm while she slept at night; I was always there with her. Where was he? Always traveling for business meetings. Her husband couldn’t have loved her more than I did, she should know that by now.