Moral Zero

by Set Sytes

  Now. Now then, Johnny said, straightening. I wonder where the third man is? His hands were on his hips but the two he looked at couldn’t answer because they were dead.

  He moved to a higher vantage point and shaded his eyes and looked out over the rocks. There was a figure way off in the distance, stumbling about like a man with fear and survival on the brain.

  Ah. Johnny smiled, and it was the smile of a new being.

  Johnny Black caught up with the last man on a terrain that had nowhere to hide. A store was just visible on the plain, far off. Too far off for this man, this last man of all vengeance visited.

  The bandit had been taking a leak when he heard the screams of his brethren and had dashed off through the rocks and scrub, ducking and diving as if under heavy fire. He had always been the fastest, always been the one ahead, the scout, the hunter, the runner. Now he hobbled, his leg blown out from a long range rifle shot that came out from the low hills. A steady dribble of murky blood was staining the stones, casting some rambling, drunken path behind him.

  Johnny took his time catching up. He made his progress slow, he allowed the bandit to look behind him time after time in frantic terror, to see that shadow bubbling in the haze of the sun come closer and closer, rising up like some dark beast to take over the land. He allowed the man to shoot wildly at range at this apparition, to use up every useless bullet and turn his weapon into a nothing, to make the man his own victim.

  He enjoyed that slowest of chases across the plain more than he could have thought possible. It stretched out as though it were some epic quest in itself, as though these two figures moving across this cruel and yellow world were enacting some journey with no end, that perhaps they were in themselves symbols of predator and prey, or brothers in contest, or the strong and the weak, the just and the unjust, the sins of man and his punishment, the mortal followed closer and closer by the sickle and shadow of Death. They appeared universal, that the land existed for them and them only, and that every little movement and stillness and strain of emotion was watched by the world.

  Johnny Black lapped up the terror like it was nectar. He drank it through the air in short little whistles, drawing the sugar past his pursed lips and clenched teeth.

  Eventually the man stopped, and sat down on the ground, clutching his leg and moaning, watching Johnny take the last amount of measured strides onwards, and eventually stop, looking at the man with no signal of emotion or words.

  The man panted for a while, and shivered despite the heat. Please . . . please.

  Please what? Johnny's voice was flat.

  Please . . .

  Johnny had shouldered his rifle, and now he took out a big, cruel knife that he did not have before.

  Why did you do it?

  It were just a cat . . . just a fuckin mog . . . for God's sake man . . . please!

  What does just a cat mean? You are just a human. Is that the right kind of “just”? Are you better? You? What is there to you, do you think there is anything inside you that ain’t meat and blood and bone and a gut of piss and shit? You are nothing and were always nothing.

  I'm sorry man, I'm sorry! I didn't know it were yours!

  It wasn't. She was her own. She existed as something independent from all this, as a bastion against all this fucking wickedness about us. You took that from her. For what reason.

  There weren't no reason man . . . it just happened. It weren't me . . . it were the others . . . they fuckin made me watch . . . I'm glad they're dead.

  My faith in your word will remain at rock bottom. Even if the truth were told, it wouldn't matter. You would still die.

  No, no . . . Have some fuckin mercy brother. The man reached out with trembling hands that Johnny glanced at in thinly veiled disgust.

  There will never be any mercy again. You gave up your right to that when you did what you did. I ain’t your brother. We ain’t even the same species. You are a foul shell, some corpuscular scab. You are the blight that will always be, until I, Death, come to end you.

  Killin me won't bring your mog back. The man fingered his gun, knowing that it was out of bullets but keeping it as some lonely reminder of safety.

  I never wished it to. May she be free from all this sickness forever. But, you see, this ain't even about the cat. It's about me. Me and you. And what's to be done.

  The bandit shivered again and his leg leaked out another pool of sticky thick blood. Don't kill me sir, don't you be killin me now. I'm on a new path now, seen the light. I'm good, I am now. I understand it all, everthin you say. I see what's right. Please. Lemme go. You done proved yourself, you have. There'll be only good and just deeds done on this slate of mine from now on, you got my word.

  I told you what I thought of your word. It is lower than your own shit. Now get up. Johnny Black beckoned with his knife.

  Naw sir, please sir, you gonna let me go?

  Any state of affairs can only come about from you being upright, can they not?

  The bandit sat for a second more, and then strained himself to his feet, his leg gushing out more blood and he whimpering out.

  Johnny had the knife at his throat. He leaned in so close the bandit could smell the murder of his comrades. Smoke and death, and hot blood. The noses were almost touching. Johnny started whispering, soft and rushing like some forest wind, trussed up and yet fervent as though words of gospel to the man.

  Do you hear him there, do you hear him? He's coming.

  H-hear who? the wounded man's voice was stretched thin and tickled hard by the serrated edge of the knife.

  Do you see him, by God do you see him? He's there, he's coming.

  Wh-what?

  Do you not hear him you sinner, you hopeless soul? Listen now, listen to the world and its noises.

  For a few seconds there was nothing but breathing, and Johnny was the first to start.

  He is closer now, do you see him, do you hear him? Feel his coming, can you feel it? Can you see Death? Can you hear him come now, can you feel his presence?

  A tear dropped down the man's face, and it withered itself into the cracks into his leathered skin. It was soon followed by more.

  He calls for you! You! Can you not feel Death? Despite the heat of the day the warmth of Johnny's whispers burned into the man's own breath, and he took every word right into his own lungs, to rustle and clamp around restlessly.

  Yes, he replied softly, and none of his own words or breath were taken in by Johnny, for they were weak and without power.

  Can you hear him now? Can you hear him call to you, that dark angel, that beckoning, that ghost's whisper?

  Yes.

  Say I do, say I do now.

  I do.

  Louder, you speck of nothing! Johnny Black's voice rose up, hard and bristling and spitting.

  I do! I see, I hear! The man's voice was pathetic, obedient and clutching at the last straw of hope.

  Tell me what he looks like!

  I – I don't know.

  The knife pressed harder into the man's throat, and the tears that had fallen to his neck mixed with lines of blood. Tell me what he looks like by God! Johnny Black's voice was a storm in this desert of cruelty, and if it wasn't for the hold of the knife the man would have dropped to his knees and begged and wept and prayed to everything there could be or never be.

  He is dark! the man cried.

  Is his hair black like the night? Johnny raised his other hand up into the air as if to call down spirits from the sky.

  Yes!

  Are his boots black like a shadow?

  Yes!

  And is his hat black like a raven?

  Yes!

  And do you love him?

  Yes!

  Johnny Black laughed, wild and crazed and yet also jubilant, and the knife ripped through the voice box of the man like shredded wheat. It stabbed back, and in and through, and tangled itself in a gristled mess that it did its best to work out of, to the tune of chokes and strangles and wet, bubbling sounds and the
n nothing except the sound of the blade and the meat, whilst the whole world watched and offered no judgement.

  CITY

  Red sat down on the girl’s bed and looked around while drinking more of whatever cocktail it was she’d given him. It was an ever-changing hypnotic swirl of colours, and it tasted like sweet tropical suicide.

  Her room swayed about him, jumping out at him occasionally from under a blurry curtain. Everything felt heavy and unstable. His body felt like it was on auto-pilot, and any thoughts of control his brain tried to formulate his body just laughed at.

  There was an overabundance of pink . . . and garish posters. There were stuffed toys on the bed.

  How old are you again? He turned his head from side to side and tried to make sense of things.

  Does it matter? The girl was reapplying her hot pink lipstick in the mirror.

  Kinda.

  I’m old enough for you.

  Are you . . . legal?

  She laughed girlishly. What century are you living in?

  Red took another drink and attempted to get up, but failed and came back to the bed with a thump. Your room is . . . nice, he managed. And I will be . . . goin now. Each word seemed like an effort.

  Don’t be silly, you haven’t finished your drink.

  He looked at the glass in his hand and was surprised to find a lot more than he had expected. Had she filled his drink back up? A whole party of people could burst in the room and run out again before Red would notice, and even then confusion and self-doubt would be the kings of his perspective.

  I have a . . . girlfriend, he forced the words out through his half-numb lips.

  You said. Several times.

  I should go.

  You haven’t finished your drink.

  Red looked back into the spiralling depths and tried to take a sip, but failed. The liquid wet his lips and then flowed back down into the glass. A discomfort in his jeans made his hand slug its way over, and it was bemused to feel a hard lump that lay like a dead snake on his thigh. His hand felt it and squeezed it, as if discovering the cause under its own artificial volition.

  I don’t think you really want to go at all. She was suddenly right in front of him and smiling. Her chest was thrust out in his face and she wasn’t wearing much, but then she never had been. The rest of her room faded into pink obscurity and the pink-orange-white of her flesh became the world, full of curves and full of youth and desire.

  It took a minute for him to realise that she had replaced his hand with hers, and continued the movement, the rubbing.

  Does that feel good? she breathed. She was bent over at a right angle, her ass stuck out behind her, her big hanging breasts almost falling out of her top.

  Uh huh, he murmured, and his head fell back. With a tremendous effort he pushed it forward again. Her hand did feel good. The pleasure cut through the fog around him and acted as the focused centre point on a swaying world.

  She fiddled with the belt on his trousers.

  Uh . . . no, he said. He stood up, god knows how; it seemed that suddenly his body was obeying him, or at least humouring him to see what would happen. He downed the rest of his drink and dropped it to the floor, the final drips leaking out onto the carpet. He stared at the door in front of him and willed his legs to move.

  There are beautiful things, he murmured, so very quiet. I just don’t know where they are.

  The girl – what was her name? – stood in front of him and, strangely, turned her back to him.

  Red made an indistinguishable noise.

  She bent a little so the cheeks of her ass bulged out from the flap of her microskirt. With a glossy nailed finger she hooked her white thong to halfway down her thighs.

  Red’s dull gaze took in the squeezed and shadowed rivulet running down the centre of her ass. He watched like a zombie as she parted her cheeks and bent down further.

  The succubus hole. The tempter. The provider. The Great Satan.

  Can you remember how I dragged you here in the first place? the girl said from some infinite distance behind the heavenly Hell Red was transfixed by.

  Nuh.

  You were so interested when I told you how much I loved to get fucked in the ass.

  Uh. The words coming from his mouth were now just instinctual and primal, turning man to ape.

  We talked so much about all the things we were both into. How we both liked degradation. And assfucking of course. Taking it . . . deep . . . in this tight, dirty ass . . . Her voice had grown husky in its femininity, and with each word she bent over more and spread her cheeks wider.

  Red felt the surge within him as though he was conducting magmatic lightning. All that power, all that lust and frustration and anger. That desperation. That love. A need so intense he felt as though he could collapse right there, and float unconscious past the edges of the universe.

  Years had sailed by him without respite and now all the rage of his wild, doglike mind came gushing hot and fast to the surface. His primordial thoughts were simple and unformed, making neither words nor reason. They were grunts and thrusts, a wordless, simian language which inside him built a volcano.

  His belt was already on the floor, somehow. His jeans and pants were next to follow and kicked off beautifully without falling over. Within seconds the girl’s breath was warm and humid on his hardness, a half moment later and he had jammed in her mouth, and it was so . . . fuck . . .

  He crumbled and became lost. He retched loudly and the girl tried to pull back but he kept her there and grabbed her hair like a fistful of dirt. She choked and spit bubbled around her lips and he slapped her face again and again and a-fucking-gain so it was the same red as his volcano and her mascara had already began to run like black treacle.

  I love you! his body spoke, and as his mind heard it, played back as if on some slow motion tape, a tear fell down and hit her lips, but the salty taste was left undistinguished.

  He threw her off and by her hair slung her to the bed.

  Yes! she cried, but her words could have been anything and they would have reached his ears the same.

  He got behind her and spit on his cock, and then rubbed it in the rich wetness of her pussy.

  Fuck my ass! the girl yelled, or something like it.

  Shut the fuck up, he growled, hitting her ass so hard she shrieked.

  He got his member in hand, and at that moment it had never felt harder, never felt bigger, never felt stronger or more capable of all the destruction in the world. He positioned it right, and as he sunk in he exhaled in a manner so fierce and anguished and relieved that it could not be determined whether it was a sigh, a cry or a roar.

  He knew from the first moment that it hadn’t felt as good, that it wouldn’t be worth it, that it couldn’t ever match up to the caged pleasure of his fantasies. But he drove in anyway, shouting out names to her in attempts to push the experience further, calling her a bitch and a dumb slut and daddy’s fucktoy and a stupid cunt, and she lapped it up and cried as though he was glorifying her, validating her sexual existence, giving her the root of his energies and she was bathing in the blossom of it all, all the leaked excess and imperfect fucking life.

  He fucked her like he might kill her, and in those moments he felt so alive that he could have sworn that he was not a human being at all, that he was just some wild animal and nothing more.

  WASTELAND

  Johnny Black stomped down the slope, dragging the corpse behind him. The sandblasted rocks skittered away from his boot as if they were terrified of his presence. He made his way to the small olive-skinned kid standing outside the shack, his shadow stuck out like a blackened ghost. Johnny laid up the blood-spattered body over a boulder and kneeled down to it, his eyes focused on the kid.

  With diligent care, his steely gaze never leaving the child, Johnny held up a dead arm and serrated through it with his knife. The work took a few minutes for the blade dulled on the bone, but eventually tendons snapped and gristle came shorn away, and the knife came ou
t into the clean air on the other side.

  The child had barely blinked.

  What’s your name kid? Johnny said, wiping the bloody metal on the corpse’s shirt.

  Dunno.

  Do you think I’m a bad person?

  Dunno.

  Do you know what morality is?

  Yes.

  Do you know what law is?

  No.

  I just cut off a man’s arm. Johnny lifted up the arm of the corpse to prove his point. The red weeds slopped out the cut and trailed like snakes. Johnny gave it a shake and the snakes slicked and shook.

  I know. You want my mother?

  Why would I want your mother? Johnny tickled the red fronds with the point of his knife, and then finally, sighing, laid the arm across the top of the body and tucked away his blade.

  She’s in there. The olive-skinned child pointed to the shack thirty feet away.

  Do you want to see your mother raped? Johnny stood up and lifted his hat a notch, eyeing the shack like an eagle.

  Already. Three times in last year.

  Fuck. By who?

  One by woman. One by man. She cut off cock. One by four men, friends of last man. Held me there.

  Johnny exhaled. I take it all these cunts are alive and kicking still?

  Yes.

  Why did they do it?

  Because they can.

  Johnny shifted his weight about. The olive child kept affixing him with that dead stare.

  I’ll go see your mother then, he said at last. The sun was cutting through the air like hot knives and leathering his skin like a prune.

  You gonna rape her?

  Johnny looked back down at the little olive boy with eyes like a rattlesnake, and knew he was going to grow up to kill.

  Yeah, I am. I’ll be back in a bit.