There was no window in the bathroom, or else he wouldhave jumped out of it long ago. He couldn't stand the thought of turning thegun on himself. Instead, all he had was a bottle of Ambien. He was debatingtaking the pills. Mort could just pop a handful of those bad boys in his mouthand hop a train to eternal sleep. He looked at one of the oval pills. Pink withthe letters "AMB" printed on it... he wondered how many of the thingshe would have to choke down to end it all.
The last thing he wanted to do was take the pills andstill be semi-conscious if those things made their way inside. He couldn'timagine being eaten alive. The real question was, "If he took the pillsand overdosed, would he come back from the dead?" In the end, he didn'treally care. All he wanted was to not hurt anymore, and if dying from anoverdose of sleeping pills was the only option to avoid being ripped apart bycannibals, well, then that was how it had to be.
When he turned on the tap for some water, the bangingintensified. He would have to choke these things down quick. They would be inhere in no time. Thankfully, the house seemed to be of older construction. If itwas a newer house, the door would have been busted down by now, and he would berotting in the stomachs of three dead motherfuckers.
He held his lips to the stream of water and choked down apill. He had never been good at swallowing pills. The best he could ever do wasswallow them one at a time. He put another pill in his mouth, as he bent downto the tap, he jumped. A gunshot rang out in the hallway, followed by another,and then a third. Bodies slumped to the ground.
He stood there, not moving, a pill slowly turning bitterin his mouth.
"Anybody in there?" a nasally voice asked.
Mort stood there dumbfounded for a second. Then hefinally found his voice. He spit the pill into the sink, and yelled, "I'min here!" He moved closer to the door, and asked, "They alldead?"
"For the second time, my friend. You can come on outnow."
Mort opened the door and two bodies fell at his feet. Hejumped backwards but they didn't move. They were dead along with another one onthe landing. His savior stood at the top of the stairwell. He looked to be ahillbilly sort. Cowboy boots, a white T-shirt, and blue jeans held up by aplain leather belt with a huge, brass eagle belt buckle, this was not the manthat Mort had envisioned saving him.
"C'mon now. Move yer ass. Them gunshots'll bebringin' some more of them things in no time at all."
The man turned around and walked away, as if he expectedMort to follow. Mort decided that maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea. The manwas a good shot. He yawned as he stumbled down the stairs. Mort was starting tofeel very sleepy.
Chapter 46: Becoming Chaos
Ace stood in the hallway looking at the body of JungleFever lying on a cell floor. His eyes were open, but unseeing. A bullet holeyawned black and bloody in his forehead. The hallway echoed with yelling.People shouted at him to free them. He didn't care about them. They could allgo fuck themselves are far as he was concerned.
He ran down the hallway, yelling for Tak. Eventually hefound him... or what was left of him. It looked like his cellmate had beeneating him. There were bullet holes in both of their heads, but Tak's cellmatedidn't look to have any major damage besides the bullet hole.
How was he going to tell Tak's mom? That was the firstthought that popped into his head. It was a ridiculous thought when it ranthrough his head the second time. Tak's mom was 5,000 miles away, and even ifshe were here, what would he say? An American ate your son in jail?
Ace was still figuring out his next move as he walked upand down the cellblock, releasing everyone who was still alive. There wereseveral corpses, but none of them seemed to be moving around. It was the headthat did it. Pop the melon, drop the felon. It sounded like a good song lyric,but he knew that he would never write another song again.
This was the day. Today was the day that Ace became whohe had always wanted to be, who he had pretended to be when he was on stage.Today was the day that Ace became chaos incarnate. In a country falling apart,with no ties or loyalties to anyone, 5,000 miles away from home. If todaywasn't the day, then there would never be a day.
As Ace released the last person, they huddled in front ofthe door to the cellblock debating the next course of action.
"What are we going to do?" a bearded manshouted.
"I need to get back to my family," shoutedanother.
"What the fuck is going on out there?" said aman in an Electric Fever T-shirt.
Ace called for their attention, thumbing through hislimited knowledge of English in his mind. "We got to live. They got todie."
They looked at him, each man privately deciding if he wasa madman or a genius. The war went on for too long, so Ace said, "It'stime. Time to fight for your life."
With that, Ace turned around and unlocked the door. Helet them through while he calmly waited. When the last person had filed throughthe doorway he tossed the keys on the ground, and strolled out behind them.
They ran, screaming through the police station, theirfear manifesting itself as violence, swollen, mechanical, and born from theunknown. Ace kicked down a door to an office that he passed. He fought the urgeto riot with the mob, to let Ace Fever come to the forefront and assert hiscontrol.
They smashed windows, knocked over desks and brokeanything that could be broken as they surged through the hallways
