1. Escape
659 Words
Chapter One
Escape
Dew fell heavy on his exposed leg. His feet were cold. Gun-ho used his index finger to tenderly move her hair from his mother’s cold face as morning finally arrived.
He kept running over in his mind Jae-sun’s instruction: Gun-ho, you must be strong. You must lie still beside your mother’s body all the way to the pit. You must not make a sound!
He didn’t want to be strong! He wanted to cry out, to succumb to the anguish he felt over losing her, losing her so violently. But, so far, somehow, he summoned the discipline to lie still and be silent.
A mixture of blood and dew dripped from the fatal wound of the man lying mostly over him, dripping into his left eye. He closed it tight, while leaving his right eye open so he could see his mother. He resisted lifting his hand to wipe away the drip as it rolled down the side of his nose and into the corner of his mouth.
He froze!
Two soldiers were approaching the truck, Gun-ho’s heart pounding in his throat! One of them laughed. The other cleared his throat and spit. Gun-ho clenched his teeth hard as one of them jumped up onto the back.
Cigarette smoke added to the stench of death all around him. The one on the back laughed wildly. “I will piss all over these bastards!”—a final effort to dehumanize and degrade.
The warm urine splattered on Gun-ho’s exposed leg. Then a lit cigarette hit his leg, rolled back and stopped, trapped by the back of his leg and the corpse pressing from behind. As the butt cherry seared his skin, Gun-ho bit his lip and called on every sense of survival not to move.
The man jumped off the truck.
Both doors opened and closed.
Then the engine started. As the truck moved, Gun-ho bent his left knee forward, allowing the butt to fall off his leg.
The truck stopped. Someone said, “Destination?”
“Burn pit.”
“How many bodies do you have?”
“Look, man, what does it matter? We are just going to dump them!”
“Hey, I must fill out this form, so don’t be a prick. Let us see, date? M-A-Y 20th, 2009. Okay, how many bodies?”
“Twenty-four. Can we go now?”
The screech of the opening prison-camp gate landed hard on Gun-ho’s ears. The truck began to move forward.
Jae-sun’s escape plan might work! It just might work!
Gun-ho’s fellow passengers shifted with each pothole during the ten-minute drive to the pit. The corpse lying mostly over him ended up rolling past him and came to rest against the siderail on the driver’s side of the truck.
Gun-ho was grateful for the reprieve from the dripping. He allowed himself the luxury of pulling the collar of his shirt forward and using it to wipe his eye and the left side of his face.
The driver slowed, turned sharply to the left, and stopped. He engaged the clutch and ground the stick into reverse. When he got it in, the truck lurched and died. The driver restarted the engine and this time got the truck into reverse more smoothly.
Jae-sun’s instruction came to mind. Be aware of your surroundings, and once they begin to back the truck up to the edge of the pit, look to see if you have an opportunity to slip off the back so they won’t be able to see you in the side mirrors.
Gun-ho lifted his head and turned to his left to see out the back. The pit was still ten meters away. He was about to extract himself from the pile of bodies when the truck came to a stop, short of the pit.
He quickly lay back down.
Both truck doors opened.
The passenger shouted, “What is the matter with the damn thing?”
“I don’t know. The power switch for the hydraulic pump must be broken; the bed won’t go up!”
“I don’t want to unload these bastards by hand!”
“Do you want to take them back to camp? If we do that, we might be joining them!”
Uh oh!
- Writer
