Chapter 5

The Dead Zone

CHAPTER 5 Joel did well to follow Choke D Chicken and his gang where they were headed. As he treaded steadily behind them he could overhear their conversations. The gang headed to an isolated area a few walks away from the sports complex. This was the dead zone. There were more than 3 routes a person could use to get to the dead zone from the sports complex but Choke and the beavers decided to use the least patronized path between the three to avoid getting spotted by the officers, not as if these three passages were used by the prisoners nor the officers in the first place. No one wanted to be at the dead zone since it happened to be the site where dead prisoners like Shegg were buried. Rumor had it that the spirits of the dead prisoners occasionally haunted anyone; prisoner or officer, who dared ‘interfere with their sleep’. Choke D Chicken tagged the rumor as plain superstition and never bothered to give it a second thought. The dead zone was however very close to the plasma fence at the extreme ends of the grounds of the penitentiary. They basically functioned as highly powered, energy-intense walls. The energy and radiation from the plasma wall was so intense that standing only 2 meters from it was dangerous enough to cause a fatality. The officers and the more rational inmates knew that the past 2 deaths at the dead zone was due to this plasma wall and not haunting ghosts. At this point Choke and his beavers had stopped walking. They stood in front of a wall with what looked like a thick pillar covered in a dull lustered metallic material. Joel kept his eyes wide open as he followed just to make sure he did not lose his way should he have to bolt back to Spank the Monkey. He noticed that he had walked past three of the main bathrooms of the prison that were built in a parallel layout. This was when he realized that the dead zone was behind the last main bathroom which had been out of commission for close to 3 years. After passing by the last wall Joel saw the gang in the distance. He pulled back immediately out of the open area of the dead zone and hid himself behind the wall. The beavers didn’t spot him. He stretched his head instead from where he was to take a look at what Choke’s gang was going to do next. “Are you really sure about this?” Keith asked Choke D Chicken in a rather casual way. “That’s exactly what he told us to do right? After all he is our boss and he’s never gone wrong with his directives.” The figure of Choke D Chicken replied Keith. Joel was taken aback by the conversation he overheard. He realized that Choke communicated to Keith as if he were a fellow beaver, something that was not supposed to happen. He knew very well that the relationship Choke had with his beavers was not as jovial as it looked since Choke was very superior to them and he portrayed it everywhere he went with the gang. “Guys, let’s get this over with before someone sees us. We cannot be wasting any more time.” Claymore, the second beaver said. “He’s right Keith, there’s not much time” Choke D Chicken added. Joel looked on as Keith took a flat glassy object from the sole of his sandals and handed it over to Choke. Joel anticipated that something strange was going to happen and in an effort to make sure he wasn’t being watched or followed to where he was, Joel turned his head to look behind him. No one was coming. He then turned back to take a closer look at the beavers but they were no longer there. “What!?? They were just right there! How is this even possible!?” Joel asked himself. Joel leaned back on the wall he used as his cover for a minute with his eyes wide open in shock. He tried to fathom what just happened and how he lost sight of the beavers in a matter of seconds. To make sure his eyes were not the ones playing tricks on his brain, Joel stuck his head out once again to scrutinize the area but there was not a single trace of the beavers. Joel bolted back to Spank the Monkey to fill him in on all that he saw. … “They-They…They disappeared! They just vanished!” stated Joel as he tried to catch his breath from all the panting. “What do you mean they disappeared, Joel?” Spank the Monkey asked quite surprised at what he had just heard. “…one second they were standing right in front of a wall…a wall near the dead zone…the next second they were gone…literally gone” Joel answered. Spank remained silent as he tried to make sense of what Joel was saying. Pen, Finn and Clyde whispered to each other their questions and comments. “Ummm…and one more thing, boss.” Joel continued, “I don’t know if this helps but I’m thinking the Choke we saw may not have been the Choke we know. He didn’t seem to be respected by the other beavers…at all. He also mentioned something about an instruction a boss had given them and to be honest that sounded very unlikely to me. If I’m being real…I’m not sure that was Choke D Chicken, boss.” Spank and the meerkats looked at Joel simultaneously for a while and looked away to decide whether to believe him or not. “That’s ridiculous. It cannot…” “It can!” Spank cut Finn short. “And there’s a way we can find out. Finn, I need you boys to go check on Choke D Chicken’s cell. Clyde, you go check on the beavers. We’ll get to know if that was really Choke or a joke. If it isn’t I might as well have an idea of what’s going on and I’ll be paying an old friend a visit” Clyde and Finn nodded their heads and headed to the cells to do what they were tasked to. END OF CHAPTER 5