Chapter 33 Chapter 32

The side hall door in the Phoenix jail was open, the iron walls of the corridor acted like a natural loudspeaker, and the monstrous monotonous call continued throughout the morning.Lloyd Henrider felt that the repeated echo was both crying and frightening, and it was creepy. "Mom," the voice was hoarse, and the echo sounded again. "Mother……" Lloyd sat cross-legged on the floor of his solitary cell, his hands so sticky with blood that they appeared to be wearing red gloves.It is now 10 am on June 29th, at about 7 o'clock, he found the right front leg of the bed loose, since then, he has been trying to remove the screws under the bed frame, using his fingers as a tool, he has removed 5 of 6 screws.As a result, his fingers looked like an untrained boxer's battered body.The sixth screw was about to come out, and he had to wait until the job was finished before thinking about whether he could be saved, otherwise, he forced himself not to think about it.The best way to forget about panic is to not think about it.

"Mother……!" He stomped his feet, blood flowed from his injured trembling fingers, and dripped onto the floor. He stretched his head into the corridor as hard as he could, his hands were tightly grasping the iron fence, and his eyes were wide open. "Shut up, you bastard!" he screamed, "Shut up, shut the fuck up!" A long silence followed.Lloyd savored the moment of silence like a piping hot milkshake in a McDonald's restaurant.Silence is golden, he always thought it was a stupid way of saying it, and only then was he convinced that it was a good point. "Mom...Mom..." Another scream came from the cell.

"God," Lloyd muttered, "holy God. Shut up! Shut up! Shut up, bloody fool!" "Mother……" Lloyd walked back to the bed, kicking at the foot of it, hoping someone in the cell was staring at him, trying to ignore the trembling of his fingers and the panic in his heart.The last time Lloyd had seen his lawyer, things seemed vague, he tried to recall.In Lloyd's mind, the stored events of the past era played over like a movie. 3 days ago, yes, 3 days ago, Lloyd was slammed in the crotch by Mathers' knee.The two guards took him back to the reception room, and the Shockley guard, still at the door, greeted him.Why, pustules, do you have anything to say?Shockley stared at Lloyd with his mouth open, then spit thick phlegm into his face.Give you some germs, pustules, someone else got it from the warden, I think you should share in it, a vile scum like you in America deserves a cold.The guards then took him back to his cell.

Devins seems like a reserved person, not easily breaking the good and the bad.It is said that the judge in Lloyd's case became listless with influenza, and that two other judges were also ill, so that the case was left to the alternate judges.Maybe they want to put it on hold.Just wait, the lawyer said.When will we find out?asked Lloyd.Maybe you won't know until the critical moment.Devins replied.I'll let you know when the time comes, don't worry.Lloyd never saw him again after this, and in retrospect, he remembers the lawyer having a runny nose, too. "Oh...God!"

He put his right finger in his mouth and sucked blood.There was only a little bit of that unfortunate screw left, and he needed to work harder.The yelling at the end of the corridor had stopped bothering him with "m...mum"... at least not that much, he had to try.Again he had to wait, what was going to happen, and sat there, sucking his fingers, resting for a while, and then, tearing strips from his shirt, bound them up. "I know what you and your mother can do," Lloyd muttered. The night after talking to Devins, they began taking sick inmates out for transport.Won't take a good place because they don't take a dying person.The guy in the cell to Lloyd's right, Trask, had warned that most of the guards sounded snotty, too, and maybe we could get a break there, Trask said.What?asked Lloyd.I didn't think so, Trask said.A tall, lanky man with the look of a detective, he was charged with armed robbery and manslaughter in the most secure wing, awaiting severe punishment.

Trask had six chunks of meat hidden under his thin mattress, four of which he had given to a prison guard.The guards seemed friendly to him and often told him what was going on outside.The guard said that people outside were leaving Phoenix, but they didn't know where.Masses and masses of people are sick.People complained that the government said there was a vaccine that would be effective soon, but most people thought it was a lie.Many radio stations in California constantly broadcast horrible things, such as martial law, army blockade, soldiers with weapons, etc. There are also rumors that 10,000 people have died, and some say that long-haired gangsters often Poison the water.

The guard said he was feeling better and he heard that troops were going to barricade State Route 17, Interstate 10 and State Route 80 tomorrow morning.He would take his wife and children, take as much food as he could, and stay on the mountain until everything calmed down.He said he had a cabin there, and if anyone tried to break into it within 30 yards, he shot him in the head. The next morning, as soon as the transfer was over, he had to fuck off.Trask's nose started to runny, he said he had a fever, he babbled in panic almost the whole time, he yelled at every guard.When he was not sick, the guards would tease him. Now the guards don't even look at him and the other prisoners, who are as restless as lions in the zoo who have not eaten enough.Usually there were 20 guards at any one time, but now Lloyd only saw four or five different faces.Lloyd started to feel scared.

On the twenty-seventh, when Lloyd began to eat the half-bowl of rice thrust into him through the iron grating, he saved half of the precious bit to put under the mattress. Yesterday Trask had a sudden convulsion, his face blacker than a card of spades, and he died.Lloyd looked anxiously at Trask's leftover half bowl of rice, out of reach, unable to get it.Yesterday afternoon, I could still see a few guards. No matter how the prisoner got sick, he never took anyone to the infirmary.Maybe it was just death in the infirmary, and the warden decided to stop his useless efforts.No one came to remove Trask's body.

When Lloyd took a nap yesterday evening and awoke to empty prison corridors and no one serving dinner, the place really looked like a lion cage in a zoo.Lloyd couldn't imagine how cruel it would sound if the entire prison was like this.He didn't know how many people were still alive and how much strength he had to shout for his supper, but it seemed that there were many echoes.All Lloyd knew for sure was that the Trask to his right was gathering flies, the cell to his left was empty and had previously housed a young smooth talker who had robbed and killed an old woman, no In a few days, he was taken to the infirmary.Opposite Lloyd were two empty cells and the dangling feet of a man who had killed his wife and his wife's brother in a money game.

That night, the lights were automatically turned on.Afterwards Lloyd ate some beans which he had saved two days before, and though they tasted rancid, he ate them anyway.He washed in the toilet bowl, then climbed onto the bed, hugging his knees to his chest, cursing Pork for putting him in this predicament.It was all Polk's fault, and Lloyd never wanted to get into this kind of trouble. After a while, Lloyd's stomach calmed down.If he knew what was going to happen, he would have taken a few more insurance policies.There was something behind the head, he didn't want to look back, it was like the curtain was fluttering, there was something behind the curtain, if you wanted to look, you could see a pair of bony feet under the curtain.It was the foot of a corpse.His name is Staveson.

"Oh no," said Lloyd, "somebody's coming, it's got to be them, there's got to be some fucking guy." He always remembered the rabbit, he couldn't forget it.He picked up the rabbit and a cage in a junkyard at school.His dad didn't want him to have it, Lloyd begged dad, said he would take the money out of his allowance to take care of it, feed it, he loved that rabbit, he would really take care of it.But soon, he forgot to feed the rabbit.It's always like this.One day, he went to the back of a small house in Marathon, Pennsylvania, where a tire was hanging from a maple tree. He was sitting on the tire and dangled lazily. rabbit.He hadn't thought of the rabbit for at least two weeks and had completely forgotten about it. He ran to the little shed that was used as a storeroom, and it was summer like this, and when he entered the hut, a rotten smell hit his nose.His fur, which he loved to pet, was messy and dirty, and the rabbit's pretty pink eye sockets were crawling with white maggots.The paws were scarred and bloodstained.He tried his best to tell himself that the bleeding from his paws was caused by digging the cage, so that what happened later, but some morbid and desperate thoughts often appeared in his mind vaguely and clearly, that is, the rabbits were eaten in extreme hunger. own paws. Lloyd took the rabbit away, dug a deep hole, and buried the rabbit along with the cage.His dad had never asked about rabbits, and had probably forgotten he had one, because Lloyd wasn't overly pleased.Vivid dreams tormented him constantly, and the death of the rabbit had made him have many terrible nightmares.Now as long as I sit on the bed with my knees on my chest, the rabbit in my fantasy will reappear, telling myself that someone will come, someone will come, let him go, let him be free.He didn't have this flu called Captain's Trip, and he was hungry, as hungry as the rabbit was. Sometimes he didn't fall asleep until after midnight, and this morning, he continued to work on the legs of the bed. At this time, looking at the bloody fingers, he thought of the rabbit's paw again horribly.Thinking of it this way, he didn't feel much pain. At 1:00 pm on June 29, the bed legs were finished, and the last screw fell to the floor with a bang. He just stared blankly, not knowing what to do. He walked to the front of the cell and began banging violently on the iron bars. "Hey..." he yelled, and the iron bars made a deep, gong-like sound. "Hey, I'm getting out! I want to get the fuck out of here, get it? Hey, damn it, hey!" He paused, listening to the echo fade away.For a moment, the whole building was silent, and then from the other cell came a joyous, hoarse answer: "Mother! I am here, Mother! I am here!" "God!" cried Lloyd, throwing the bed leg into the corner.He's been struggling for hours, his fingers are bruised, but he's still fucking awake. He sat on the bed, lifted the cushion, took out a piece of bread, and planned to add a handful of dates, his mind told himself to save, but for some reason, he still grabbed it with his hands, tasting the sticky fruit flavor one by one. After finishing his meal, he walked aimlessly to the right side of the cell.He looked over there and saw Trask sprawled half on the bed, half under the bed, his underpants turned up at one corner.The feet were wearing the uniform cloth shoes of the prisoners, and the calves were exposed.A large slick-haired rat was eating Trask's legs for lunch, its long, repulsive pink tail coiled around its grimy body. Lloyd went over, picked up the bed leg, walked back and stood for a while, wondering if the rat had noticed him.The Rat's back was facing him, as Lloyd expected, and the Rat didn't even know he was there.Lloyd checked the distance and decided to hit with the legs of the bed. "Ha!" grunted Lloyd, swung the legs of the bed, and Trask fell off the bed with a loud snap.The mouse lay on the side, gasping for breath, a few drops of blood on its whiskers.The hind legs are moving, but the injured spine is no longer in control, and can only drag slowly.Lloyd hit it again, and it finally died. "Damn it, damn it!" said Lloyd, putting down the legs of the bed and slowly returning to his own bed, hot and frightened, feeling like crying.He looked back and yelled, "You should die like a mouse, you bloody bastard?" "Mom!" A voice yelled happily, "Mom... Mom...!" "Shut up!" Lloyd screamed. "I'm not your mother, your mother is in a brothel in Indiana!" "Mom?" The voice sounded again, with hesitation in the voice, and then there was silence. Lloyd started crying.He cried like a child, wiping his eyes with his fists.He wants a beef sandwich, he wants to talk to his lawyer, he wants to get out of here. Finally he lay down on his own bed, covering his eyes with one arm and rubbing his lower body with the other.This is the best form of hypnosis. When he woke up, it was 5 o'clock in the afternoon, and the prison was dead silent.Drowsy, Lloyd got out of bed and began banging the legs of the bed on the iron bars like a farm cook inviting his servants to a good country dinner. "Dinner"—is there such a word, was there such a good word?Hamburger steak, potatoes, tomato sauce, gravy, fresh peas, milk chocolate, and a huge plate of strawberry ice cream for dessert, there is no better word than "dinner". "Hi, is anyone there?" Lloyd yelled, his voice hoarse. no answer.No more "Mom...!" cries.At this time, he may already like that kind of sound, a group of lunatics is better than a group of dead people. Lloyd lowered the legs of the bed and the bed collapsed with a thud.He stumbled back to the bed, opened the cushion, and saw two slices of bread, two handfuls of dates, half a bitten pork chop, and a piece of red sausage.He broke the red sausage into two and ate the larger half. "Nothing else," he murmured, gobbling the pork off the ribs.He cried his name and cried, thinking he would die here, like his rabbit in his cage, like Trask in his cell. Trask. He stared thoughtfully at Trask's cell for a long time.Watch the flies circle, stop, and fly away.Trask's face was a standard LAX, and the flies always landed right on it.Finally, Lloyd took the leg of the bed, walked over to the grate, and used it to reach the mouse.Tiptoeing, he was just able to get on the rat's carcass and slowly draw it closer to his cell. Already close, Lloyd knelt down and pulled the rat to his side.He raised his tail and dangled the dead body of the mouse, then raised it to his eyes and stared at it for a long time.Finally, put it under the mattress, so the flies under the mattress will not be able to bite it.He stared intently at the mouse for a long time before putting the mattress back on. "In this case," said Lloyd Henrider quietly to himself, "in this case, that's all there is to it." Then he went to the other side of the bed and sat quietly with his knees on his chin.