chapter 21

The children continue to assault him several more mud balls. Bob does even cry or make a noise as he was assaulted by the other children.

About one minute later, the attack ends as the children laugh at the sight of the mud covered Bob.

The lad gets up and walks away, which shocks the attackers. They had no one so gentle tempered before and the children were frozen like statues. They failed to get a rise out of the young boy.

#

Pete was laying on his belly with a IV strapped in one of his arms. All sorts of chemicals was being pumped into the young teenager's body. The lad started to wake up and that he was in a large hospital room with sections separated by only a curtains that hanged from the tall ceiling. The lad forces himself to the side of the bed.

He groans,"How long had I been out?"

A voice speaks,"About three days you had been out. You had nightmares during the first day and the nurses had to give you a lot of drugs to get you to sleep silently. You had keep everybody up by the yelling and they were very mad at you."

Pete said,"Oh! I was just thinking out loud but thank you anyway."

The voice spoke,"You are welcome."

Pete then comprehends what just had occurred.

He spoke,"I am to too tired to get up so I will trust that you are not just my imagination. You are going to give you the benefit of the doubt."

The girlish voice giggled,"You are not crazy! I do really exist but you will have to take my word for it. Can you do it?"

Pete hurt as he laughed and let out a groan of pain.

Pete spoke,"Yeah I can do it, just do not make me laugh."

The voice spoke,"What is wrong? Did I do something terrible?"

Pete grimaced as he spoke."I forgot my back was hurt and it hurt me to laugh. Do not feel so bad."

The voice gasped,'Oh, I am sorry! I did not know that your back was hurting you."

Pete spoke,"It is okay, no blood no foul. I had been through worse."

The voice seem relieved by the boy's comment and gave off a sigh.

Pete asked,"What is your name, if I may ask?"

The voice spoke."My name is Cindy and what is your name?"

He spoke,"My name is Pete."

Cindy spoke,"Pete that is a good name. I like how that name sounds."

Pete jested,"I find that Cindy is not a bad name ether.

She spoke,'Hush and lay back in bed, the nurses are coming."

He did as he was told and lad back down on his belly. He acted like he was simply sleeping.

#

Bob was trying to wash his mud covered clothes off in a bathroom sink while being clothed

only in his boxers and wife beater. The boy had his shoes sitting under the sink laying freshly cleaned. He finally gets the clothes cleaned the best he could and rings it out into the sink. He

puts his clothes back on wet or not and continued on his day. He had nothing else to wear for the rest

of the day. The kids at the orphanage were only given one set of clothes to wear until bedtime no matter what, when they are given their pajamas.

He thinks to himself," Mom, Dad, give me patience. These children are so mean to me and I can

not help if I am fat. You were both fat yourselves and short but you were both good people! The other kids were thrown into this place just like I was, so I will not hate them for lashing out in anger of this place. They are just putting their hate of this place unto me."

#

Pete genuinely like to be in the hospital ward since it meant that he could talk to Cindy on the other side of the privacy curtain. The pair would talk for hours, except when the nurses came to do their rounds. Cindy was almost always treated first among the two and always for a longer time.

After such a visit, Pete asked,"Why is that you are given more time than me?"

Cindy sounded upset when she spoke,"I just have a bad stomach bug and it can contagious. That is all."

Pete spoke,"That is why we must only talk through a curtain."

Cindy sighed with relief.

"I just did not want you to get sick like I am. This bug makes me sick for at least three fourths of the year at a time."

Pete spoke,"What is the name of the bug?"

Cindy seemed surprised with the question, as if she had not expected to have to give a response.

Pete spoke,"I am sorry that you had been given twenty questions so I will let you fill in what you will and not due to my pressuring.

The girl started to cry.

He asked,"Did I do something wrong?"

She spoke,"It is just that no one ever showed me such concern, before in my entire life."

He spoke,"Those tears must be happy tears then?"

She spoke,"Yes, it must be happy tears."

#

One week later, Pete's wounds healed so that he had to leave without being able to tell Cindy goodbye.

Pete hated to leave Cindy behind but he had no choice in the matter. He had been able to see the scars of the vicious attack on his back. It was a terrible memory, but now Pete associated it with the time he shared with Cindy. Yet, after the deaths of the orphanage workers he now had to watch P's and Q's from now on. It was not time yet to rebel, but it was time to just go with the flow. He must the in's and out's of his new found prison if he was to escape it one day.

"That day will soon come," thought the young boy.

#

Pete and Bob were sitting on two broken chucks of concrete in the wasteland that was the playground.

Pete spoke,"I remember going to the old time deli once a month, and the subs were so good!"

Bob spoke,"Yeah, I had the chance once in while for a pot of chili once in a while. We ate it for days on end.

Pete spoke,"Let us try the new slingshot that I was given as protection money."

Bob asked,"Protection money?"

Pete smiled.

Bob said,"What did you do?"

Pete spoke,"Some of the kids that beat you up the other day were afraid that I would not attack them again, so they gave this slingshot to keep the peace."

Bob smiled.

Pete set up five tin cans in row on a beaten down bench.

The tall boy had gathered five stones to fire at his targets. Pete only got one out of five on his first try. He gathered up the stones and set back up the knocked over tin can.

Pete spoke,"It is your turn now, since you are the reason we even got it."

Bob hesitated at first but soon took the slingshot from Pete. He aimed and hit all five targets on his first try.

This amazed both boys and they were both speechless for several seconds.

Pete spoke,"Wow! You are a natural sharpshooter!"

Bob spoke,"I am?"

The chunky lad had never realized before that day, how good his eyes really were.

#

Cindy was not truly an orphan like Pete was, but it would probably had been better for her. Since she was the daughter of the man who scared Pete, the administrator of the facility, Damion. She had been not exempt from the fiend's constant abuse.

Cindy's mother was named Cindy Loo and she had not been a willing participant in the exchange of DNA. She had been forced by Damion to keep the baby and hide the pregnancy. The cruel man had delivered the baby girl himself as he strangled the mother to death.

#

Damion processed the dead body in the orphanage basement and buried the bones and unusable parts under the dirt floor in the basement. The basement floor was then covered in wet cement. The next day, Damion fed the human meat to the children, while he eagerly watched everyone eat the food like it was it was the best BBQ that they had ever had. The staff did not know what was up, but most did not eat the BBQ because they knew something was up. Damion was never kind to anyone without a motive in mind.

It was common knowledge among the staff that the administrator was a sexual deviant. He raped the prettiest girls in the orphanage and got them all pregnant, so that he would receive more money from the Urano government by taking on more babies in the orphanage. Most of these babies were lists as babies of Jane Doe's as was done to Cindy. No one in the community ever questioned what Damion had made known as it was the gospel truth.

Cindy had given birth to several children by her father, by the time she was fourteen years old.

It was a sad truth that was a dark cloud over her entire life.

Damion had told her that she was a whore, despite she was an underage girl being raped by her own father.

Damion spoke,"Cindy, if you ever be seen by those in the outside world they will hate you because only bad girls had sex as a minor! They will call you a slut! You will be killed if you tell

anybody about your babies. You must not do it!"

Cindy had somehow was not robbed of her sweet demeanor no matter what hell she was put through.