Jealous Much? – Chapter 5
The bells went off again, with a voice on the speakers telling patients to go back to their “quarters”. I don’t know why they keep calling it quarters, these are the equivalent of prison cells, even far more secure. Anyway, I began to walk back to my cell, I had a very weird step because I was trying so hard not to make whatever the agent planted on me get loose and fall. It seemed pretty well stuck in there though. I got to the entrance to the hallway of the cells and there were Bo and his little friend waiting for me. I pretended not to see them and moved angling my head downwards while maintaining my weird walk. The Little man started off in his unusually deep voice, it basically mocked every other thing about him.
“The fuck is wrong with your leg newbie?” I kept on with my pretence and hoped he would just ignore; I couldn’t risk losing whatever it was that the agent had planted on me.
I had gotten past them but I could feel them right behind me, Bo’s heavy breathing was hard to not notice. I got into my cell and sat on the elevated platform; they of course came in soon after. Little man began ranting about how we newbies think we are better than the rest of them, occasionally tapping my shoulder and hitting my chest, each tap grew harder with time and soon it began to hurt. There was no way to kill him here without Bo ending me first. So, I calmly sat and let him get his time.
Then it hit me. A very lovely idea shot right into my skull. The cell barrier, it would be closing anytime soon. And I’ve seen how those things close. There’s usually no time to get out of the way once the alerts go off. “BEEP!! BEEP!! BEEP!!” the first warning sound shot through the air all around the hallway and on my barrier. Little man, realized he had little time left, the second beep would soon sound and then it’ll count 10 seconds and close shut. The announcer on the speakers had already started ordering patients into their cells and warning the defaulters about what they would face if they weren’t in the cells. Bo had already started walking out of my cell but little man called him back to give me a little taste of “what life in here feels like”, Bo reluctantly came over and… “BEEP!! BEEP!! BEEP!!” the second alert went off and Bo immediately hit me in the face and turned to go once I had fallen to the ground. Little man was already outside waiting for Bo. The countdown had started, 10, 9, 8… Bo was about to leave my cell, it was now or never.
I jumped on Bo from behind, holding on firmly to his neck and pulling him down to the floor. 5, 4… Bo started hitting me hard on the abdomen with his elbow and struggling to get out, he had pulled me half way across the barrier, little man had jumped in to help, hitting me on the back as hard as he could and trying to pull Bo out…2, 1. I jumped back instantly. Bo was too heavy to move that fast, his legs were still shaking on my side of the barrier, little man was holding his other half by his hands on the other side of the barrier standing in the hallway. Little man looked up at me with a look that spelled fear. He looked like a little child that had just seen blood for the first time.
The hall was filled with wardens and guards; little man stood in the pool of blood flowing from Bo’s upper body. The guards were all pointing guns at him and the wardens were too afraid to get close. They all kept shouting at him, the cells were sound proof so I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the guards were definitely shouting something at him. Little man stood there and didn’t even look at them. His eyes were fixed on me, he looked utterly terrified. He was frozen in state, he couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, he just stood there with his eyes locked dead on me. He looked like a little boy who had just seen a monster.
One of the guards summoned the courage to walk up to little man, the guard grabbed both his hands and pinned them behind his back while pushing him to the ground. The other guards fed off the first guard’s courage and got closer to help with the arrest. Little man kept the look on his face even while they carried him away. The remaining guards were now standing in the pool of blood too and talking to each other, I couldn’t make anything of what they were saying. Then one of them pointed at my cell and the rest looked in and came closer to the cell barrier. I stood right in front of the barrier staring vaguely at them from the other side. They had another round of words among themselves and seemed to arrive at the decision to open my barrier.
Two of the guards pointed their weapons at me while the other one got closer to the cell barrier controls. He started inputting the passcodes to the barrier controls and the two other guards tightened their grips on the guns they were pointing at me. Finally, the guard placed his hand on the biometric scanner to read his palm print and open the barrier. He seemed nervous, looking back over his shoulder at the other two guards who nodded their heads at him. Then he placed his hand on the scanner.
The barrier made the usual beeping sound before shutting down.
“Get down on your knees!” one of the guards shouted while pointing his gun straight at my head.
“Now!!” the other guard shouted as he came a step closer, threatening to shoot. I smiled and raised both my hands while bending down to kneel, ‘THUMP!’, the guard who had opened the barrier slipped in the blood puddle as he was about to enter the cell. This made the second guard nervous and his gun went off without warning firing two rounds into my cell. I could tell he was very scared. I was on my knees in the cell and looked back to where the bullets had impacted the cell wall. The bullets had bounced off the material used to create the walls, how could something this soft be bullet proof?
“What the hell Sam!!!?” My thoughts were interrupted as the other guard screamed at Sam. The guard who had fallen was now on his feet soaked in blood. “Get him out of here”, he said while gesturing at them to move me.
I was bundled out of the cell and taken to an empty section of the asylum. There were just three cells here and two of them were taken. In one cell was little man and the other cell didn’t have any lights on inside it but there was a figure inside. I was thrown into the third cell right beside little man. The cell walls here were made of glass all round and the floors were made of the same soft durable material as the other cells. The cells were positioned right in the centre of the empty room. There was literally nothing else in the room besides the three cells. Kind of like a showroom and we were the trophies.
The room was quiet for a little while after the guards had left. The cells were set in a triangular form at the centre of the empty room. The figure in the dark cell seemed to just stand still at the centre of its cell, there was little or no movement in there. Little man’s cell was the exact opposite. Fear was printed all over his face, I don’t think he had ever spent a day without Bo by his side to boss around and do his bidding. He was like a spoilt rich child who just lost all his money. He was pacing around his cell and occasionally stopping to look into mine shortly before continuing his pacing.
“Hey!!” little man shouted from his cell, “It’s almost eleven man and we are all alone here”, he said with a voice that was very close to a whisper.
“What happens at eleven?” I asked.
“You don’t know?” he kept whispering, “that’s when people go crazy in here”. Little man was in tears now covering his face with both his hands.
This was getting serious but I wasn’t going to let that scare me. I looked at the figure in the dark cell and I couldn’t see it standing anymore. It had probably moved further into the darkness in the cell. I looked back at little man and he was staring at something on the other side of the room, I turned to see what it was. A clock with glowing hands showed that the time was five minutes to eleven. I looked back at the dark cell and the figure was standing again. There was definitely something wrong with whatever was in there.
I sat down on the chair provided in my cell and then I felt something poke my leg. I hadn’t checked what agent Hannah had planted on me. I reached into my pants and pulled off the object that was attached to it. It was a pen. She had gone through all that just to plant a pen on me? I threw it at the wall in disgust, a flash of light shot out from the pen and partially melted the glass wall. This was no ordinary pen, I picked the pen from the ground and turned around to see little man looking at me from his cell.
“Where did you get that?” he asked.
“None of your business”, I replied. I was about to ask him who the woman was when…
“DING!!!” The clock in the room struck 11pm. almost immediately the glass cells opened up. Little man burst out and started running to the door of the empty room. Then the announcer on the speakers began to speak,
Little man struggled with the door but it didn’t budge, then he turned back and ran towards his cell, just as he passed the dark cell a pair of hands grabbed him from the darkness. Little man began to scream as the figure emerged from the darkness, it was a woman. Her hair covered her entire face, she wore a white gown and her skin looked like she was bleeding all over. Little man was small but not enough for someone to hold that easily, this woman was strong. Little man continued to scream as she thrust her hands into his torso and pulled his insides out. I began to look for a weapon I could use and then looked at the pen in my hand to see if I could find the trigger that shot the burning light.
