Two Bit Hack by Billy Jones
Part 27, Revelation or Revolution?
“The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it.” — Wendell Berry Tom had made quite the impression on us. If you believed his story then it explained what was going on, and why we were all living in Asylumland. Problem was, it didn’t fit what we believed about ourselves. After all, time travel is pretty far fetched even to a bunch of people living in an insane asylum. Still, he seemed to be right about my remembering. In the weeks and months that followed I started remembering more and more about who, where, and how I’d killed in the past. I remembered starring through rifle scopes, sticking knives in the backs of unsuspecting people, cutting throats, and walking down the street and pouring gasoline on people before lighting matches and walking away. Sometimes the memories came to me in my sleep — sometimes when I was wide awake. Usually I’d worked alone but sometimes I worked with others whose names I didn’t know and faces I’d never seen before or sense. If what Tom was telling us was true, someone had figured out the perfect way to kill anyone, anywhere, and anytime they wanted someone dead.
As far as I could tell we were powerless to resist. Even Tom said that since he’d become aware of what was going on they still managed to control him. He spoke of watching the entire thing right down to pulling the trigger and not being able to resist. I wasn’t the only one with memories either. Janice was having the same nightmares again and again. We tried to pass it all off as the power of suggestion, a psychological trick Tom was playing on us, but that wouldn’t explain the fact that I remembered killing Park Chung-hee before Tom had told us his explanation of what was going on. “There’s one thing for certain,” Janice said. “What’s that?” I asked. “Tom or no Tom,” Janice replied, “it’s time we got serious about getting out of here.” “You’re the president,” I said. “Give the order and I’ll make a run for it.”
“Just make sure you take the rest of us with you?” Janice ordered. “I’ll get up with Joe and figure out a way to make it happen or die trying,” I answered.
I would be no reluctant messiah like in the novel by Richard Bach, I’d not be leading almost 50 people to their salivation, and I knew it from the beginning. So did Joe and Tom, but when Janice convened our congress together the vote was 100% in favor of escape from Asylumland so good, bad or indifferent, lead them we would. To were we didn’t know. It was the middle of the night, most of the guards were asleep at their posts like they were always known to be. Joe, Sara and the Loon Squad took the lead knocking out any guard or orderly they came in contact with, while taking their stun guns, blackjacks and handcuffs as they went. Most of the other women followed while Tom and myself, along with the other men watched our backs pouring out jugs of ammonia as we went. As we exited the final door we tossed buckets filled with bleach onto the ammonia soaked floors. The resulting chloramine gas would take down anyone Joe, Sara and the Loons had missed, even if only temporarily. It took Joe all of a second to snap the neck of the guard at the gate who was too absorbed with his hand held device to ever notice Joe walking up behind him and a minute later almost 50 people had walked through the gates, across the road and into the woods to face a cold night in a place where none of us knew the way home. “We’re free,” Irene said clutching my arm. “For now,” I replied, “but you know come morning someone will be coming to hunt us down.” “I know,” she said, “all we can do is try.” I could feel her trembling as she held my arm so I put my arm around her and continued walking. We walked all night and all through the next day, staying away from roads, houses and open fields while moving west towards the mountains. While we expected to hear dogs and trackers rushing us at any moment, for some strange reason they never came. “Do you think they might just let us go?” Janice asked. “No way,” Tom answered, “they’re just counting on us turning up somewhere convenient.” “Maybe they know where we are all the time,” Joe suggested. “I wouldn’t put it past them,” Tom said, “they know how to control our minds.” “Why aren’t they controlling our minds now?” Sara asked, clutching to Joe.
“Who says they aren’t,” Sabrina suggested, “Who says they aren’t leading us somewhere right now?” “That’s just twisted,” Irene said. “Like everything they’ve been doing to us isn’t,” Sabrina complained. Late that evening we came to an abandoned house not far from Gladstone, Virginia near the banks of the James River. Joe and Tom wanted to keep pushing on but most of us were simply too tired to continue on without some rest. We decided it would be best if several of us kept watch while the others packed the inside of the house and slept a few hours. Tom, Joe and I volunteered to keep the first watch and Sara, Irene and Sabrina offered to stay up and keep us company. Four hours later, Sara went inside to wake up the second watch and everyone we had left inside was gone, vanished into thin air. “They’re gone!” Sara screamed. “They’re all gone!” Irene and I ran in the back door while Joe, Tom and Sabrina ran in the front door. “They didn’t come out this way!” Joe shouted. “They didn’t come out the back either,” I yelled. “That can mean only one thing,” Tom said,. “They’re all back in Asylumland.”