Africa (Complete)

Chapter Twenty-Four

One of the guards let off a round of shots into the air, which caused people to tense up.

"Which one of you is going to tell me what the hell happened?"

No one spoke. The guard walked up to a slave at random and asked him to tell him everything.

"Uh... one guy..." the man stuttered as he nervously searched for the words. "Was being... disruptive. He... he said he quit. Then the guard shot him."

"Who carried him? Point them out."

The man looked around and even made brief eye contact with Kam. "I didn't see who carried the man."

The guard looked intently into the man's eyes and then held a gun to his head. "Are you lying to me?"

"No, sir. You can ask anybody, they will tell you the same thing. None of us know anything about what happened. We were here working."

The guard lowered his weapon and walked far away to another person. "Tell me what happened," the guard said. Despite not being anywhere near the man they spoke to first, the woman gave the exact same story, 

The guard walked throughout the field looking for any red flags. The new guard walked over the Ukari, looked her up and down, but didn't speak to her.

This seemed to satisfy the guard. He went back to the other guards. Death was not something that was going to interrupt their day. The guards demanded everyone return to work as it was back to business as usual as if nothing had happened.

Later that night, Kam approached the Texan and presented him with six thin metal pins. Seb looked down at Kam's open palm and asked him where he got those.

"It's not important," Kam said. "Can they be used to pick a lock?"

"Only one way to find out," Seb said.

The man quickly got to work and Kam asked him where he got his name.

"It's short for Sebastian," the man said. "And I'm guessing Cam is short for Cameron?"

"It's actually Kam with a K, it's short for Kamaru. It's Nigerian."

"Nigerian. I would have never known. You don't have an accent." Seb said.

"I'm American — from New York."

"New Yorker," Seb said. "I used to love going to New York. I wonder what it looks like now."

"My guess is a lot of tall buildings sticking out of the water," Kam said.

"Wouldn't that be something to see?" the man said.

"I saw a satellite photo of it after the meteor impacts," Kam said. "Manhattan was hit pretty hard. You know when you roll a snowball and it gets bigger and bigger, leaving behind a long patch of empty space. It looked like that minus the snow. One of the meteors torn through and wiped out a large patch."

"We don't get much snow in Texas, but I get the picture you're trying to paint."

Just then, the cuffs loosened and fell to the floor. "Shall I do the ones on your ankles next?" Seb asked.

"Yes, please."

"So what's the plan?" Seb asked. "You going to make a run for it?"

"Not tonight, I think I will just sneak out and have a look around."

"If you do get out, you have to deal with miles of rolling mountains and dense jungle terrain."

"That's if I decide to go through the jungle," Kam said, looking at him with a slight smile.

"Sounds like you've given this some thought."

"Nearly every second of every day. But of course, thinking and doing are two totally different things."

"Yes, they are."

The cuffs around Kam's ankles popped off and accompanied the others on the dirt floor. "You're a free man," Seb joked.

"Freedom is on a spectrum," Kam said, rubbing his wrists.

Kam was all set to sneak out of their hut when two guards entered. The chains were lying out in the open and were seconds away from being discovered. It would be too obvious if he were to put them back on, so he froze. Recognizing this, Ukari stood up and distracted the men. They spoke in Swahili, which Kam didn't understand, but moments later the two men grabbed Ukari by the arm and hauled her outside. She had a frightened look on her face as she wasn't sure what she had gotten herself into.

Kam immediately put his shackles back on and charged out after her.

"Hey, where are you taking her?" he demanded.

The two guards looked at each other. Ukari had the most terrified look on her face and hoped Kam could save her, but the two soldiers were armed and not shackled. One of the guards got right up in Kam's face and spoke in broken English. "Go back inside slave."

"Not without her," he said defiantly.

The soldier turned away to look at his friend and smiled with the most yellow stained, crooked teeth he had seen. When he turned back to Kam, he headbutted him right in the mug. Kam's nose immediately started gushing blood. The two guards seemed to take great pleasure in watching other people suffer as they both started laughing. The two soldiers then proceeded to punch and kick Kam, causing him to fall to the ground.

Just when he thought he had experienced the worst of it, the two guards reminded him that they were not done with him just yet. Hauling him to his feet, Kam was dragged off-site to the same part of the compound in which he had been before. His feet could barely keep up as the two guards shoved him.

Beyond two gated fences was the same giant hole in the ground where he had stayed before. Again, the guards seemed to take great pleasure shoving him into the pit, which he fell over fifteen feet onto the hard ground. The hatch was placed over the hole and blocked out the moonlight. The pitch-black pit was where he remained for the night.

Kam's body was badly beaten and still bleeding in several spots. As he had done in the past, Kam found a corner and curled up for the night, shivering and broken. As much pain as he was in both physically and mentally, all he could think about was Ukari. For all he knew, her night was about to be much worse than his. In that moment of darkness, Kam became overwhelmed with emotion. He broke down and began to cry until he fell asleep.