The Secret of Lions by Scott Blade Page B

yard as they walked up and down, surveying the attempted
prison break. A furious warden stood with them. He had been called
in on his day off. He was forced to help wade through the
unexplained events of the failed prison break and the dead bodies
that lay in its wake.
    My father was the key to the entire
perplexing event. He woke up lying on a cot in the guards’
quarters. He felt dazed. Various uniformed officials surrounded him
in this cramped, tiny room, including some military officials he
did not recognize.
    Heinrik sat up and realized his cot was
elevated slightly higher off the ground than it should have been.
The warden sat in front of him looking disturbed and uncomfortable.
He sipped on a mug filled with hot coffee, and unbeknownst to
Heinrik, it had a little whiskey in it. A pale steam emerged gently
from the top of the cup and evaporated into the musty room.
    “Do you want some coffee? It’s fresher than
usual. The military officers brought it with them,” the warden
said. He held out an extra cup, whiskey and all. It struck Heinrik
as odd that the warden was acting so nice.
    “Yes,” Heinrik nodded. Slowly, he sat up on
the cot, careful not to trigger any sudden pain. He was
particularly worried about his head. A severe and painful headache
lingered on his temple.
    “Heinrik, do you remember anything? Do you
remember what happened?”
    “I blacked out. But I remember some of it. I
thought that I was going to die,” he answered.
    “So it was self-defense?” the warden
asked.
    “Self-defense?” Heinrik said.
    “Why did you kill all of those
prisoners?”
    “What? What are you talking about?” Heinrik
asked, confused.
    “Heinrik, we know what happened. You are not
in any real trouble. We understand you were scared. Your emotions
got the best of you. A deep rage overcame you when you saw what
those men had done to the other guards,” the warden said. His fat
belly lumped out and spilled over his belt.
    “What?”
    “Heinrik, it is fine. Those men killed your
fellow guards and would have killed you. They were trying to
escape. You did what anyone might have done.”
    “I am still lost, sir,” Heinrik said,
rubbing his forehead.
    “Heinrik, you are not in any trouble, not by
any means. So I don’t want you to think that you are. I just have
to ask you something. Did you have to cut those men up into all of
those pieces?”
    “What? What are you talking about, warden?”
Heinrik asked, still confused.
    “Heinrik, we know what happened. One of the
prisoners witnessed the whole thing from his cell,” the warden
explained.
    “What?” Heinrik asked, shaking his head. He
looked up at the warden. His eyes had finally adjusted, helping him
to focus on the absurdity in the warden’s questions. Heinrik felt
colossally baffled.
    “Yes, one of the inmates saw the whole
thing. He told us that it was self-defense. He said they were going
to kill you. You were only defending yourself. You were in a very
dangerous situation,” the warden said.
    He sipped more coffee out of the mug. He
slurped it back, moving his eyes over Heinrik, scanning him for a
reaction. The warden’s hand shook as the coffee slid down his
throat. He wondered if Heinrik noticed the jittering. He was
nervous after discovering a side of Heinrik that he would have
never suspected, a dark, savage side.
    “The thing is that there was so much blood,
Heinrik,” the warden said, staring at Heinrik’s chest.
    Heinrik’s eyes slowly moved down and focused
on the shirt he wore. His clothes were soaked in blood. His shirt,
the sleeves, his pants, and even his brown, leather belt were all
covered in blood. The stains had already transformed into a
darkish, brown color. The blots were obviously red, but somehow
they appeared to have dried into a dark, claret blend, like a mixed
painter’s palette.
    The stains horrified Heinrik to his very
core. He could not understand how all of their blood had gotten on
him.
    “Warden?” he