Wendigoon

Someone handed us pieces of crusty old bread through the bars.

It was much appreciated.

The new guards didn't show up for work for another full day.

We got plenty of yard time that day from these new guys, but they seemed more confused than us.

We all watched from a distance as Will asked a guard about what happened.

The guard shrugged.

it means DOCR took him back returned to state custody since the company couldn't handle him that made sense if the floor had been full of nut jobs then North Dakota's first local private prison company hardly had the experience to handle them but these news guys didn't even have the skills to handle us there were half as many guards as before and they didn't know the routines or who the dangerous ones were among us as a result they were distant, scared, forceful all except one guy

Kellen.

Kellen wasn't the first guard to treat us like human beings, but by then he was the only one around.

He traded jokes while in the yard, never hit us, and looked us in the eyes when he talked.

He went and found some paperwork to confirm the crazies had actually been transferred, but it took three months to get that info out of GCG.

By the time he told us he'd heard back, we'd sort of forgotten the whole thing.

Two nights later, maybe two hours past lights out, the guys on the second floor began screaming.

Dante leapt up and fell on one of our cellmates by accident before shouting, Other guys in our row began banging on the bars and shouting for the guards, but the uniforms charged past and headed downstairs without talking to us.

We could hear them shouting orders down below and then yelling in confusion.

Prisoner screams were clear coming from the second.

It sounded like they were terrified of something in particular and wanted help.

Sounds of gates being slammed and people running reached us after about 10 minutes of shouting.

Then it was silent.

We sat in the dark waiting, listening until morning.