Concentration camps are not comfortable places, unless you're insane like Villiam Troth. He'd been there longer than any of us and was quite happy with wandering aimlessly through the compound day-in and day-out. He knew those grounds better than the back of the right hand he'd lost when he first arrived. They say he was a feisty bastard and tried to resist, but one swift slice robbed him of his hand and his sanity. He wasn't quite to the state of drooling; the guards joked that they'd keep him around as long as he didn't drool. His friends carried handkerchiefs, just in case. Troth wasn't in enough of a right mind to want escape for himself, but he was the only one who knew the grounds well enough to pull it off. So how, for the sake of the rest of us, would we get him to help? It wasn't as difficult as we expected. One of the children just asked him and he told her. A break in the wire on the southern fence and a spare transport van at the east gate behind the barracks. Send sprinters through the fence, load women and children into the van floorboards. No one else mattered. Those who knew they wouldn't make it were to rebel and divert the guards. Our plan was set and we spread word of a date and time. And what about Troth? No answer. Just a smile of insanity and oh look a new leaf! Poor man. The night before we left, they beat him for fun and it was impossible to tell whether he was laughing or crying.
Fat Isaiah Mulligan was the first to be gunned down, but we had three through the break by then. They spread out in the field, and four more were crawling through to freedom right behind them. Barracks #12 and #17 were set ablaze by the rebels, and an army of screaming, half-naked geezers and gimps flooded over the struggling guards. Women and children made their way to the transport van, hidden from the riot in the yard, and began carefully loading into the floorboards. Two older men went down in the violence, but they proved their worth and the guards were well distracted. A guard finally fell in the onslaught, which only further fueled the other guards and they redoubled their efforts against us.
There were at least twenty out of the camp on foot and home-free when the snipers started in. Shots from a tower have a different echo than shots from the ground. Those twenty were dead before their faces hit the grass underfoot, and all was still and silent in the field within seconds. Then they turned their attention to the east gate, grinding open across the camp. It was either the squeaking of the gate's hinges or the revving of the van's engine, but the women and children were found out. First, the tires were blown. Then open-fire on the windows was unleashed until the vehicle was barely recognizable and there was no chance of life within it. A few rebels were still putting up a fight until the snipers finished them off.
Stronny Dalshen was the last to fall, finally giving in to six bullets and decapitation. He was always a tough soul. Brave. Hopeful. Some say it was due to his deafness – he wasn't swayed by the lies and curses spoken, or the gunshots echoing from towers above.
But what about Troth? Poor man. The night before we left, they beat him for fun and it was impossible to tell whether he was laughing or crying. No one could say when his wailing died out that night, and no one saw him the next day. The day of the escape. But there was no blood fresh on the beating post at sunrise and his bowl of broth went cold at the splintered table of lunch. And as those twenty sprinters raced against whizzing bullets southward, a single track of half-crushed grass lead northward. Drool dampened the staggered path toward the mountains of spring and peace, and so did a sound like laughing or crying.
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