The beasts of Carbonarium part 5

He then tossed a bundle of drab looking clothes at me. I understood the purpose of the drab looking clothes was to degrade me. They wouldn't even let me have shoes my feet painfully sought out every pebble as I was herded roughly back to my cell. Oddly though I was not in shackles of any kind.The thought of escape never entered my mind I knew their pistols were aimed at me and I had little chance of escape.

      The cell door swung shut slowly with a pronounced, sustained groan. I heard the sound of the guards voices trailing off into the distance followed by mocking laughter. My eyes adjusted quickly to the dimness although there was nothing to see inside the tiny bare room. 

      I stood up and paced the short distance of the cell my legs cramped from sitting. I looked out the small barred slit at the top of the door. I had no way to tell exact time but it was nighttime, the moon had risen over the distant hills shrouding them in milky green colored foliage. The moons meager light showed faintly through the slit in the door. I heard the sound of jungle birds flying around freely reminding me of my own captivity.

      Again I heard the sound of the two guards they had returned and were snoring loudly outside the door. I thought for a brief moment of trying to escape then I heard one of them stirring around. Then there was another recognizable sound the anguished howl of the man beast that slowly trailed off into a purring snarl. I recognized the sound it sent chills all through me.

      There was not even enough light from the strained light coming through the door to read by. Not that I had any books anyway. I sat down on the thinly padded board that was my bed then I laid down on it. I tossed and turned trying to find a comfortable position. Finally I gave up and just laid there on my back praying that I could somehow manage to get some sleep that night. 

      I must have managed a little sleep because I remember being woke up by the painful thrusting of a rifle butt in my ribs. "Get up, get up" the guard demanded in a snarling tone. I rubbed my sleepy eyes and looked up at his own sadistic eyes glaring menacingly back at me. 

      Then I was jerked roughly out of bed by two of them. Blinding sunlight filled my eyes as they led me outside again. The two of them kept pace with me as if they feared I might try to run. A short time later we came to the door of a Quonset hut they pushed me inside.

      Inside was a man in an expensive brown suit sat at a desk under a fluorescent light. Hid back was to us at first but I saw the thin ribbon of smoke from his aromatic cigar. 

      The man slowly turned in the squeaky swivel chair and immediately fixed me with a defiant glare. 

"Mister Barbary" he said, rage bubbled inside me I hated when someone I didn't know addressed me by as mister "I believe you're trying to find your former associate Judas Carbonarium. 

      I was a little surprise I wasn't sure how he knew me. Or how he knew that I knew Judas Carbonarium was alive and hiding out somewhere in this godforsaken impenetrable jungle. That was after he detonated some horrible experimental bomb that obliterated what was at one time his own thriving city. The only survivors were the people who were out of the city at the time the explosion occurred.

    Slowly he placed the cigar in the ashtray at the corner of the desk then he offered me his hand. 

"I'm Chas Wallace Mister Carbonarium's attorney he said, the introduction was cool and informal which was fine by me. By this time I was so pissed off I might have crushed his hand had I shook it. He reached inside his suit coat and took out a gold pen and a checkbook.

      He scrawled something on a check then tore it out and handed it to me. I slowly picked the check up.

"As far as you are concerned Judas Carbonarium is dead" the words sounded like a threat to me. I looked at the check it was for fifty thousand dollars.

   "If you're offering me a mere fifty grand to look the other way you can kiss my a*s!" I yelled. Then I ripped up the check slowly right in front of him. 

      it wasn't money I was after in any amount I wanted revenge partly for Carbonariums men keeping me imprisoned here but also for the horrible thing Carbonarium had done to the village.

     Chas slowly placed his feet on the table and rudely blew the cigar smoke right in my face. I remained calm.

"It's either take the money and go free and return home and forget about everything in the past. Or stay here and face an uncertain future here with these savages" he said waving a hand to the guards.

      "How did you find me?" I had calmed down no considerably enough to be rational with him. There was still that angry part of me I forced deep down inside of me that I didn't believe he deserved civil treatment. Were it not for the armed guards I would have been tempted to snap his neck and leave his body to be torn apart by those wild beasts that roamed in the jungle.

                                      End part 5

 

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