Chain Gang
by Alex Atchley
They crawled face to ass for miles. Their chains rapped against the metal sides of the sewage tunnel sending bright, sharp painful shots into their eardrums. Bob hated it especially – the dentist told him to stop gritting his teeth so much, but he couldn't help it and that fucker was miles behind him now, along with the others: the guards, the warden, the dogs. Clark didn't mind as much, but he liked to complain about it the most. Alan said little.
After hours of crawling on their hands and knees, tasting dirt and shit, the moonlight burst through the muddy open end of the sewage pipe. They sloppily crawled into the mud around them. The light and shined on their cold, wet faces.
Sweet freedom.
The boys had been talking about it for godknowshowlong. That was their first taste. Yet, they were still shackled together, a brilliant idea from Warden Peele to get them to “get along.” It proved to be too good of an idea.
Clarke was the first to really notice the sky was colored deep sanguine. Blood dripping on a rusty chain. Bob was from here, but he didn't remember these mountains, these sharp, gargantuan crags towering over them.
“The air tastes like a dried penny,” Clarke said.
“Blood,” Alan said.
Bob scratched his head. This wasn't where he thought the pipe would end.
“I thought you knew this place. Aren't you from here, Bob?” Clarke asked, surveying the deserted plains stretching out around them.
“I thought so too,” Bob replied, “I can't see Big Iron from here, which is good... but unnerving.” It was a landmark in his home town of March Hills. From the bedroom that he lived in through his childhood, he could see Big Iron standing watch over the town, looking into its future residents with a powerful disdain. It was that or working in the fields for the rest of your life or moving far, far away and never looking back. He tried the third thing once, but it only lead him back to option number one.
“Well,” Clarke said, “where should we go? I don't want to just head in any direction if we don't know where we are, we need to take it slow and...”
“I know that, Clarke,” Bob said.
“Well, what should we do? We can't survive out here, we literally have nothing.” Clarke said.
A wolf howled in the distance, but the voice has a menacing, robotic timbre. The boys didn't like this.
Alan turned towards Bob and Clarke, and gave them a simple, effective look that conveyed the message: Let's get moving. Bob and Clarke followed.
“Do you know where we are, Alan?” Clarke asked.
“This place,” Alan said, “I have been here before.”
“I thought you were from the Reservation outside of Garysville,” Clarke said.
“This is not Garysville, Alan,” Bob said, cutting in a bit.
“No. This is a place I have visited in my dreams,” Alan said. His voice was flat and dark, no hint of excitement or puzzlement – just cold, matter-of-fact-ness.
“Don't listen to the wolves.” Alan said as another howl drifted in from overhead.
“What do you mean,” Clarke asked.
“Let's keep moving.”
Clarke and Bob shook their heads.
In the distance, the boys saw a faint tracing of a town, far in the distance. They kept to the side of the road.
“What town is that,” Clarke said.
No one responded. No one knew.
“You don't know, Alan?” Clarke said.
“No.”
“What do you mean you've been here in a dream?”
“I haven't seen a single fucking car for miles,” Bob said, after a bit of silent marching.
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