Damnificados by JJ Amaworo Wilson

Author:JJ Amaworo Wilson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PM Press
Published: 2016-03-13T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

The Third Trash War—Prison break—Las Bestias de la Luz Perpetua—Settlement in Spazzatura—Shocked and awed—Rodrigo Hellibore meets his match—Konnichiwa—Truce

THE THIRD TRASH WAR WAS SAID TO BE THE WAR TO END ALL WARS. WHEN IT WAS DONE, the face of Favelada was changed; the trash pile was once again a mountain, inmates from an insane asylum mingled with escaped convicts to take over the running of the city, and a three-hundred-pound pig called Konnichiwa was installed as governor of one of Favelada’s provinces.

It all began in Oameni Morti. One drizzly Wednesday, two hundred prison inmates rioted. They hurled bombs made of cleaning products and gasoline at the guards, and set the prison on fire. While the authorities were trying to contain the riot, in another part of the building one hundred inmates bashed down a wall with tools smuggled from a building project, and escaped. By the time the guards realized the riot was a diversion, the countryside around Oameni Morti was littered with convicts tearing through the drenched cornfields.

They hid out in the woods. They survived the predations of wolves and bears by constantly keeping a flame burning, which is how they got the name given to them by the journalists: Las Bestias de la Luz Perpetua—the Beasts of the Perpetual Light. When the rainy season came, they went to the nearest settlement—Favelada—where they camped out in a bus station. They were criminals of the hardened variety: murderers, bandidos, shotgun specialists, heist gurus, and head-mashers of all kinds. In prison, they had been savage. Now, after months of hunting and gathering in the woods, they were feral.

Las Bestias eyed up a patch of wasteland called Spazzatura. There was a river nearby to provide water and a steady stream of boats to use for fishing and transportation. There was just one problem: the land was occupied already. The settlers, also escapees—from an insane asylum in far-off Mundanzas—had built a barrier of trash between themselves and the river, and constructed a settlement of timber and brick. They also built four towers, organized in the shape of a square. Into these towers, it was said, they sent miscreants to live alone for weeks on end.

One night Las Bestias raided Spazzatura. They carried knives, spears, clubs, and a few guns, but in truth they didn’t expect trouble. They had heard there were families there, little people living quietly by the river. They got the shock of their lives. Many of the ex-asylum dwellers were paranoid schizophrenics. They fully expected to be attacked at any moment, and when the raiders came, they were ready. The towers weren’t solitary confinement after all. They were lookout towers and places from which to shoot at invaders and fling grenades. As Las Bestias flooded in to Spazzatura they were met with a volley of gunfire that dropped ten men in five seconds.

To add to the ex-convicts’ confusion, there came a sound at eardrum-splitting volume of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony blasting out of loudspeakers from each tower, followed by a battery of fireworks that rent the sky like bombs and cracked like bullets.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.