Snippet #1344906

Chapter 1: Dissolution.

Thomas West sat on his bunk and calmly looked on as they wheeled the late Johnathan Carter out of his cell. The body was covered in a white cloth which was already becoming saturated with freshly spilled blood, leaving a trail on the ground as the two guards wheeled him out on the trolley. He had been sick for nearly a day and the prison officers hadn't bothered to quarantine him away from the other inmates, a practice long abandoned in a country that now could care less about convicted criminals. Priorities in order were food, water, power, law, and a few hundred more down the list sat human rights. For Tom that meant he was at the bottom of the food chain, where his jailers were usualy happy when another inmate succumbed to the 'Virus' - they would have more food on their plates that night.

Carter had at first simply had a fever, which until a few minutes ago when the armed guards came in to shoot him in the head had turned into a bloodthirsty fever pitch, complete with screeching and thrashing as Carter tried to reach Tom and kill him. 'At least they had the good sense to tie him down before he turned' Tom thought, climbing off his bunk and staring down at the blood trail leading out of the now locked door, no doubt in the direction of the prison's often used furnace. He guessed the mortality rate behind these bars due to the virus was close to 50%, nowhere near as bad as anywhere else if he believed the news. It was becoming a charnel house.

He heard the screams of one of the newer inmates further down the corridor, set at a pitch that Tom knew all too well. It was the screaming of a dying man, and no doubt in a few minutes more guards would arrive to shoot both him and whatever infected inmate was beating him to death. There was no noise from the other cells, most being empty now and those that weren't usualy held cowering prisoners waiting for their turn. With no quarantining, little food, heating, medicine or cleanliness the virus was spreading though them like wildfire. Tom knew it would be his turn too if he didn't do something about it, and crying himself to sleep waiting for the inevitable always seemed like a waste of time to him, aswell as pathetic.

"West. Oi, Westy" the unmistakable voice of Warden Jole called out, accompanied with the rattling of his baton on the door to Tom's cell. Jole was a fat man in his middling years who looked like he spent more than his fair share of time sitting down, watching cctv and sleeping when the chief wasn't looking. The gas mask he wore was already steaming up from the inside and from the way he stood slightly hunched with his chest labouring to breath he doubted the fat man was comfortable in all that gear. All the guards had masks these days, and those that didn't usualy fell ill in such squalid conditions along with the prisoners.

"Westy. We're taking you to Pentonville. Back away from the door" He said, opening the cell door to show he was accompanied by another two heavily built guards. Pentonville was a place never talked about, where nobody came back from and over the last year had developed a black name for itself. It used to be a normal prison located in the middle of London, but if the rumours were true was used to 'dispose' of serious criminals who were beyond any rehabilitation and whom the government would prefer to see gone forever rather than by chance as with the usualy prison virus 'lottery'. Tom was a serious criminal.

He simply smiled, feigning ignorance. His stomach had dropped to somwhere near his toes but he refused to let despair take hold. He was a dead man anyway, and this might just be his chance to get out...