Parchman, стр. 27

‘Help?’ Jamallaughed looking at the two other men with him. ‘The onlyhelp we need is from that man you are protecting over there.’

Max had no idea what he was talking about. ‘Whatever it is you need; wecan give it to you. We can help. Just let them go and we can talk.’

‘Talk?’ he laughed. ‘Your man Keshawn did more than talk with my babysister here. Now I’m an uncle. So you send your boy out here and we’llsend your white boy back to you. Simple.’

Max turned and shrugged to Denzel. ‘Keshawn, you know what he’stalking about?’ shouted Max over to where Keshawn was hiding.

‘Nah man, he a liar,’ said Keshawn. Keshawn held his gun over the carand shot towards where Jamal and the others were stood. Everyoneducked.

‘Let’s all stand up and sort this out,’ said Max.

Denzel and Santiago both stood and walked out with their guns down andtowards where Max was standing. ‘Keshawn, come on out.’Slowly Keshawn stood up with his gun still raised and walked out to wherethe others were gathered.‘What’s going on?’ said Max.

‘What’s going on is your brother in arms over there came and paid mylittle sister a visit when he was on leave last year. Oh, and did he mentionthe $20,000 he still owes me?’ said Jamal.

‘Is this true?’ said Max.

‘Yeahit’s true,’ interrupted Jamal. ‘Now you take your boy and we’ll take Keshawn and we all get to see tomorrow. Well, all except Keshawn ofcourse.’

Keshawn raised his gun to the man holding Aaliyah and pulled the trigger.In what seem like slow motion he dropped to the floor. Jamal stroked theknife across Jake’s throat who dropped forward clutching at his neck,whilst Max, Denzel and Santiago retreated back to the barricade.

Jamal pulled an AK-47 from behind his back and cut down Keshawn dead.Santiago who was watching his friend being murdered in front of himjumped the bonnet of the car he was hid behind and ran towards Jamal.

The noise of the AK rung out again echoing in the tunnel and sendingSantiago sprawling.Santiago’s own machine gun started spraying bulletseverywhere and instantly killing Aaliyah and the man holding the baby.The crying baby slowly rolled down the man’s body to the floor.

Jamal looked to his sister with tears in his eyes before picking up the baby.

‘Max, we got to go, now,’ said Denzel.

The two men turned and started running through the tunnel towards the farexit when Denzel dropped to his knees clutching his chest. Max lookedbehind him at Jamal who had the baby in one hand and the other on hisgun pointed towards them, still smoking.

As Denzel removed his hands and looked down at the wound he lookedback up to Max. ‘Run,’ he whispered before falling to the ground.

Max took one look back and ran..At the other end of the tunnel he broke down, bent double, and wiped thesweat and tears from his eyes. He had nothing left to give. Everyone wasdead.

He turned and walked through the streets. People looked at him as hepassed but none seemed surprised to see a man in the state he was in. Itwas commonplace here.

He reachedhis Mom’s one-bed house and walked up the steps to the door.The lock on the door had been smashed and the door was open. Withoutthe strength to even raise his gun he walked into the living room to wherehis Mom sat in her favorite chair. He knelt before her and held her coldlimp hands in his and rested his head on her lap.

Hours later he awoke. The sounds of a helicopter in his head.

‘We’ve got a live one here,’ came a voice.

‘What about the woman?’ came another.

‘No, she’s gone. Knife wound,’ was the reply.

In and out of consciousness he was pushed, pulled and loaded into thehelicopter and then away into the sky.

*****************

Two years later.

As Max helped the last of the government officials onto the truck a manput his hand on his shoulder. It was Commander General Roderick.

‘Take good care of this one,’ the Commander General said to him.

As he looked around to who the Commander General was referring to aman with his two sons walked towards him. He stood to attention andsaluted.

‘No need for that Captain,’ said Nathaniel Mathers holding out his handfor Captain Max Gradel to shake.‘I hear you’re hard to kill?’CHAPTER TWELVE

Back at the prison Logan turned to see the CommanderGeneral’s army ofSavages filling the courtyard at an alarming rate. The prisoners didn’tknow what had hit them and they were unprepared for the onslaught ofmonsters who had been released into the prison tunnels and subsequentlyinto the prison.

The Savages, although unarmed, were cutting down the prisoners like ahot knife through butter. Crimson red covered the floor of the courtyardwhere they were attacking the men with their razor-sharp teeth and talons.

These Savages were the worst type of human beings left in the world andthey only had one goal, which was to feed on the men before them.

Logan looked through his binoculars at the Commander General who wasglaring back at him and sneering. He knew he had absolutely no need tosacrifice his own army because his biggest weapon was the Savages. Howcould they have been so naïve and only weeks back Logan had used those very tunnels to get into the prison himself.

‘What do we do?’ he stammered looking at Professor Brittle and Max.

‘We hold,’ said Max. ‘We go down there and we end up dead whilst theCommander General just walks through those gatesunchallenged.’

‘He’s right,’ said the Professor. ‘Those men down there are all fighters andthey knew what they signed up for. The second we pull down from thesebattlementswe’ve lost.’

‘There are hundreds of them,’ said Xander watching the prisoners