CHAPTER 4: PRISONS AND PLANS
"Wilf! Hey, Wilf! Over here!"
Wilf sat glumly in his cell, turning over a cheap prison-issue tin cup in his well-worn hands. He was surprised by the voice. The youth in the cell across the corridor was waving at him, trying to get his attention without waking the guard sleeping at the end of the hall. Wilf got up from the ground and walked over to the steriotypical steel bars that fronted all of the cells.
"What yoo want?"
The man looked up and down the corridor to make sure nobody was there and then replied quietly.
"Hey, look, we both need to get out of here, am I right?" Wilf nodded sadly.
"Who are yoo?"
"The name's Patrick... Well, tonight, we're, um," he checked the corridor again. "Well, we were planning on getting out of here…" Wilf was confused by something the boy had said…
"What do yoo mean 'we'?"
"The Answer, duh. You're part of the Answer, right?"
"Yeah. But yoo said we. Who else?"
"Well, there's me an you, and then there's Paul down the corridor. There's also this odd lass on Looney Lane. That's what we call the wing where all the crazies are. She's… well, she's not exactly right in the head. Her name's Megan. She's lost a few memories after being knocked on her head a coupla times, and one of those memories is her last name. She's now decided she likes Presley. Don't ask her about it or she'll go a bit looney on ye, right?"
Wilf was a bit bewildered by it all. He smiled shakily and nodded back to the man, Paul, who had been staring insistantly, waiting on an answer.
"Then there's also Sarah in-"
"Oi! Waddya think yer doin' there boy?"
The burly guard thundered down the narrow corridor, his clumsy movements followed by the depressed eyes of the inmates on either side. He stopped outside Patrick's cell and stared angrily at the youth inside.
"Ya've bin 'ere long enuf ta know there's no talkin' allowed!" To emphasise his point he banged the butt of his rifle against the bars of Patrick's cell. Unfortunately, it went through the bars and was grabbed by the strong hands inside. After a brief struggle the guard shook the hands off. He pulled the gun back out and aimed it at Patrick..
"Looks like someone wants ta go on a trip ta the hole!" The guard grinned viciously and unlocked the cell door with the key around his neck. He marched Patrick at gunpoint down the hall.
"It won't happen tonight! We'll talk tomorrow!" Patrick shouted to the whole hallway before he was shoved on.
Wilf sat down again on the cold floor and sobbed his way to sleep, muttering the odd "bloody Prentiss," and "poor Wife," much to the amusement of his fellow prisoners.
