Chapter 2: The Escape

Amanda laid on the cot of her cell, eyes wide awake for she was too restless to succumb to sleep. All thoughts of violation, mutilation, and sully ran through her for the dawn of the fifth day was approaching. She didn't bother to move from her cot when the 8:00 meal was being served. Food didn't taste the same anymore and she was feeling weak.

There was a pause of sorts in her praying, for she couldn't be sure what it was she had done or said that offended God so much that he would let this happen to her. Why would he let her become a vampire? Why make her undead? An abomination? Something priests go to war with?

Her thoughts were interrupted as someone in the cell next door shouted “You, bitch! You stopped repenting bullshit?”

She dragged herself out of her cot and looked out of the bars. She saw no one. The voice continued on: “Finally realized God isn't listening to you? Figured out he ain't there?”

“God is everywhere,” she repeated as loudly as she could.

“Even here?” the voice went on, “that must make him in league with these monsters.”

That was a hard statement to retort.  If God was everywhere, that included where she was, and therefore he sees the evil that is here. So, that put Amanda back to her original thought track: was God punishing her for something?

Upon further reflection, which took her long enough to see the 12:00 feeding occur, she figured that this was some sort of trial, one that was intended to proof the strength of her faith to God. After all, many a prophet was put on these sort of trials. Abraham had to prove his love and devotion to God by sacrificing his son, the thing in the world he loved the most – which was a hoax by God merely to prove devotion, as God wouldn't want an offering of a person in that time. James, son of Jacob, was sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, angry that Jacob showed clear favouritism for him, in order to become the right-hand man of the Pharaoh of Egypt at the time. Moses had to lead his people through the desert for forty years before taking them to the promised land. David had to slay Goliath, and lead a rebellion against King Saul, who God was angry with. God took away Job's fortune and family as well as put him through immense suffering to test his undying faith in God. Jesus himself was put on trial when he had to pay our debt in sins for us when he was crucified by Pilate. History is full of prophets and martyrs, whose undying faith in God made them heroes for whom their lead is to follow.

With that in mind she sat up and bowed her head. “God, please forgive my herasy. I doubt you no more,” she said softly before chanting “I believe in God, the father almighty, the creator of heaven and earth...”

***

On the night of the fifth day, the inmates heard a rucous from a further area. In response the guard ran off. Their screams could be heard from down the hallway.

It was 0:00. The darkness was only pierced by those spotlights that skim the windows from outside. Shouting could be heard from the outside as fighting seemed to break out. There was screaming and there was gunfire. As the audio of the event outside invaded the cellblock some within were shouting “This is our chance! We flee now!”

Amanda leaned against the bars of her cell and watched some of the inmates struggle in an attempt to bend the bars of their cells. She looked over at another inmate who screamed out “Vamps are suppose to be super strong! Lets break out before the guards get back!”

It was a sound strategy: break and scatter into the nearby woods before the guards realize that they got
out. Course, the issue was, put simply, were they strong enough to break through metal bars? Sounded ridiculous, but somehow it seemed worth trying as there were no other options available for breaking out.

With no other alternative in sight, Amanda grabbed one of the bars of her cell, estimating that she could
squeeze herself through the soon to be gap that would result from a missing bar. She grabbed that thing and she started to pull. It was strange, for the usual muscle fatigue and strain she would normally feel attempting something like this was non-existant as she found herself pulling so hard that she could see the concrete on the floor grind itself into a fine powder and the bar loosen in its position.  She stared at this feat of hers with amazement as she she could see the muscles in her arms and legs tense up, but she felt minimum pain. Divine intervention, she thought, God must be helping me.

After a few moments the bar gave way and there was a gap between the bars that was just wide enough for her to step through. She noted that other inmates figured out the same thing and they raced out through the guard doors left open from when they rushed outside in a hurry to deal with what was happening outside. Amanda followed, finding herself running faster than she ever remember herself running. In the moments that followed as they ran down the hallway of cellblock C, and were in another hall, where the examination room and the guard station were connected, as well as other block – each with their own letter to represent them. After a few short moments the group was outside.

The cold air was the first thing Amanda felt as she raced out with the others. She thought she would never breath fresh air again, but here she was, breathing it in for the first time in five days. It lifted her spirits, only for the next thing she perceived was the increased noise of the commotion.

Outside the guard were fighting with a large group of escapees, non of which were from her block. These ones seemed crazy: they had a wild look in their eyes, their cloths where torn and they were disturbingly pale. Some had blood on them. She also saw guards on the ground, dead, whom had been torn open at the neck – some of these corpses seemed to have been gnawed on. Guards who were still up were firing their guns at what was clearly a grouping of vampires, many too blood-crazy to remember to run from the grounds.

Someone grabbed her arm. She almost jumped from her skin, only to see that whomever it was wasn't wearing a guard uniform or a lab coat. Whomever it was was male, dishevelled, and looking a little wild in the eyes.

“Its just me,” he whispered, “Just stay away from that over there and avoid the lights and we should be able to clear the compound.”

She gladly took his advise and they bolted toward the perimeter fence, chain links and barbed wire galore.  It was no real secret that they would either try for the main gate or find/make a hole in the fence. Amanda and her new accomplice ran through the shadows of the night, hoping that the searchlights hadn't spotted them. Each push from their legs, every meter of race, every stomp of foot got them closer to the fence. Each second that tick and the progress of the control of the situation that allowed their escape also got them closer to being spotted by the searchlight. The two ran no knowing with option would occur.

All in luck as the two made their way to the fence. The guard was still too busy to realize that block C had escaped, and the lights were not trained on the fence yet. Amanda stared at the links of the fence and the barbs on the top, trying to figure out what she was going to do. She didn't have time to dig under, the barbed wire on the top would make climbing a painful and possibly fatal option, she didn't have bolt cutter to cut the links nor the time to try ripping them apart, and the main entrance was further away and in closer range of the watch towers.

Her male accomplice started running for the main gate, gesturing Amanda to follow. This she would have done if she hadn't froze while staring at the ominous fence. Odd, for when the man was far enough away from her that she likely couldn't catch up if she started to run a spotlight got a glimpse of him. He screamed in pain as a half-beaten guard came running from him from what appeared to be the main building. Amanda never saw what his fate was, for in her panic and hurry she attempted to climb the fence.

While fence climbing was something that she was not accustomed to, getting her hands wrapped along the links of the chain and her feet firmly planted on the links wasn't that hard. The hard part was, of course, the barbed wiring on the top of the fence, placed there so people couldn't simply climb over the fence. Amanda knew that sooner or later the guards would be done containing the issue that distracted them from guarding her cellblock and would be searching for those attempting to escape.

At the top Amanda felt her hands wrap around razors. She winced, but was surprised at how little pain she felt. It still stung as she strung herself over the edge of the fence, but she expected it to hurt more than it did. Hands on razors as she lifted herself up. Her blood was staining the steel of the fence and her clothes where ripping as she straddled the fence and her pants got caught in the barbs of those wires. Panic came over at the thought of being stuck here. After all, wasn't there a scene in one of the Saw movies where someone died getting stuck in a barbed-wire fence? Fortunately thought, in exchange for some of her modesty, she got herself released from the barbed wires and climbed down from the fence. All that didn't escape of her was a
pant leg, though she was cut up, especially at the hands, and bleeding.

God's intervention was the only explanation she could think of for it not hurting so badly. While on the topic of God's intervention, it was the only reason she could think of for the whole scenario playing out the way it did. Was it God's will that she made it out? To escape? If so, why? What strange task was god planning for her?

Once she was on the other side of the fence she started running again, this time to get herself lost in the woods outside of the compound. She ran for a long time before finding herself tired and in desperate need of cover

for the daylight that was to come. After all, she was now a vampire.  Vampires can't be caught out in broad daylight less they want to be a dead vampire.

She was able to find a shack in the woods that she was able to break into and could therefore fall asleep for the daylight hours, while at night trying to find elsewhere to be. She laid on the dirt ground in thinking, trying in vain to make sense of anything. Much she knew about her new fate. For one, she was now an abomination. A murderous monster that is to be slain.  God punishing the wicked ways of man by letting the devil manifest itself. Therefore, she could not go home. Her husband would reject her, and she could not raise her child. The church would also exile her, and she would be targeted for death.

Still, she had the issue of roaming around at night, as she would be accosted by anyone in a uniform and shot by anyone that stalked up on guns when the outbreak first became uncontrollable. Her sleep was a long one that was full of worry, but as the sun set again she was up again, and needed to get somewhere fast. Course, she felt very tired despite the full day's sleep. She was also hungry. So she kept on walking.

Oh god, that poor farm house.

As she walked through the wood, relying on what moonlight was available, she found a clearing. That clearing turned out to be a family farm. There, the events that place her outside near dawn would meet the proverbial

straw that snapped her proverbial camel in two.