“They were trying to kill the town—to ruin it for the people who lived here and make it into someplace where nobody would ever want to live again. They wanted people’s houses to be places where horrible things happened, so the families couldn’t bear to be there anymore, to sleep there, knowing what some member of the family went through in the next room, or even in the same room. They wanted to demonstrate to the people of the town that as long as there was a prison here, the idea of being safe was an illusion.

“The prison is actually between three and four miles from Weldonville, which the Bureau of Prisons considered enough of a margin for safety. If somebody broke out, they couldn’t get on a road and hitchhike, because the road there went right from the interstate highway to the penitentiary, so it missed the town. The only people ever on that road were guards, supply trucks, and families trying to visit a prisoner.”

Leah shrugged. “That night the twelve leaders had cars, but the other escapees didn’t, at least at first. A few saw the mountains in the distance and went toward them on the theory that forested high country would hide them. But the mountains look much closer than they are because they’re so huge. Quite a few inmates have learned how to hotwire a car, and these prisoners saw the other cars that belonged to dead guards and workers. There were forty-two guards and ten civilians there that night, and eventually the forty other cars in the lot got started and driven off.”

“Where did they drive to?”

“Whenever an inmate got one started, five or six others would pile in, sometimes even more, and the first place all of them headed was to town. They wanted the same things the first escapees did—civilian clothes, money, food and water, credit cards, keys for the cars that were parked in people’s garages. And by the end of an hour, the first escapees on foot began to arrive. As I said, there were about twelve hundred men in all. They were like an invading army.”

“What do you mean?”

“They came in waves. They broke windows and kicked in doors and stormed houses. The ones who had taken guns from the prison armory shot householders, but even the ones who hadn’t gotten guns found things to use. Every kitchen had kitchen knives. Many of the houses had guns in them. But anything would do—there were claw hammers, monkey wrenches, hatchets, and axes.”

“How many?”