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Writer's pictureMark Sanders

Chapter Three: Windmill

Blogtober 2020 Day Three Entry

Only one road ran through Prairie Junction, Kansas, and Phin followed it to the West, as he knew they could never return to Missouri. He’d rather be hanged than return to the reform school that he and Murphy escaped from three weeks earlier.

Murphy was a year older than Phin, who was 15, but he was six inches shorter than Phin and suffered regular beatings by the other boys when the nuns were out of sight. About a week after Phin arrived at the school, he saw three big fellows taking their turns on Murphy.

Phin took off his belt and wrapped it around his right hand. He knocked out the two who weren’t punching Murphy, then wrapped the belt around the throat of the third.

As he struggled to breathe, his face passing from red to purple, Phin whispered in his ear, “You motherfuckers touch him again, I will fucking kill you. Understand?”

The boy nodded, and Phin released the belt and threw him to the ground, punctuating his message with several hard kicks to his stomach.

Phin protected Murphy, but Murphy helped Phin understand their schoolwork, which never made sense to Phin, as all the letters on the page seemed jumbled up. It was Murphy who figured out how they could escape.

They followed the sun across the empty landscape, nothing in sight but a narrow road cutting through uninhabited land. A dim image on the horizon revealed itself to be a windmill, which Phin hoped meant water.

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