by Mikael Aizen
His hand grasped air.
"Callie?" he asked again. Jeff smirked at him.
Her voice came out quiet and subdued. "You'd better go. You might get in trouble if Tim and Del finds you gone."
He refused to take his hand away, pushing it insistently at her. "I'm not going anywhere. Take my hand."
Still, only air.
"Get lost, before you get hurt," the older boy said, crossing his arms again. "Callie and I have things to talk about."
Kick like hell underneath. Kyle shot forward and slugged the boy in the face, like Jeff had hit Callie, as hard as he could.
Then he ran like hell.
"Run Callie, find some adults!" he screamed as Jeff bellowed and took chase.
Kyle sprinted straight for the road that Del and Tim would be driving up. If they could see him before Jeff caught him, they'd protect him. He knew they would. At least Del would. Kyle pivoted, cutting around a tree. "Too slow!" he yelled as Jeff barreled past. "I'll bet Callie runs faster than you!"
It was true, too. As big as Jeff was, he was slow as an ox. Not that Kyle had ever seen an ox run. But that's what people said. He grinned to himself and swerved as Jeff came plowing by. Kyle put his fingers in his ears, wiggling them and sticking his tongue out as Callie had done through the window.
Jeff let out another roar and with a sudden spurt of energy dashed out and caught Kyle's shirt. "Gotcha! Now you're gonna get it."
Kyle ducked out of his shirt. It tore a little as he wrestled out but he was free. He ran across the road, Jeff right behind him.
A blue car swung around the corner.
Kyle dove into the nearby leafage. He heard the screech of brakes. There was a yell of panic and a loud crunching sound and two thumps in succession. Kyle looked up and saw bloody splatter on pavement with a twisted body in the middle. A blue car was stopped right past it, red tracks trailing behind.
Kyle ran to the twisted heap and reached for what seemed like the thumb side of a wrist. He felt only a faint and weakening pulse, then it disappeared. He heard car doors opening and closing but Kyle was already at Jeff's chest, pushing on it up and down, right in the middle like Pa had taught him. Even though the head was turned to the wrong side of the body and all he could see was matted red hair. Up and down, up and down.
"Kyle!" Del's voice. "Oh, God." He felt her hands wrap him and pull him away, but he kicked and she let him go.
"He'll die!" Kyle cried. Push on the chest, don't stop. Can't stop.
A larger, stronger hand took him and pulled him roughly away. Kyle fought but Tim lifted Kyle straight off his feet, off of Jeff. "Del, call the ambulance. And the police."
Kyle blinked, trying to pull away again, but Tim held him tightly and dragged him toward the car. "No! He's going to die!" Kyle fought, twisting and pulling and kicking.
He saw her, standing at the edge of the road. Callie's eyes were wide and damp with tears, her jaw quivering. "I didn't mean to!" he yelled at her. "It was an accident!"
But Tim threw him into the car and shut the door. And though Kyle pounded on the windows, screaming at the top of his lungs, she didn't seem to hear him or even look. Her gaze riveted on her brother's body. She turned and ran back into the trees.
"Callie!" Kyle cried out.
Chapter 8
I am convinced that we all have the capacity to be murderers.
Killing is a part of nature, killing is a part of survival.
Those who kill, survive.
Those who survive, propagate.
We have survived, and therefore, we are all born with the same set of genes.
We are all murderers.
-Tell, Adran L. "Murder is our Blood." The New Yorker, Dec 18, 2016. http://NYT.com/2016/18
The center of Haven was illuminated with five large lamps casting five burnishing ellipses into the strange, glinty, crystalline earth. Around Haven's center were ruins. Stacked and broken stones that felt like he was a spectator in a Roman Gladiator arena.
Jay stifled a cough from within the concrete recess that hid him. The Enforcers had come into Haven's center in tight formation, guns searching and pausing with practiced rhythm. The Chief Enforcer was in their middle and he pointed, called out orders. The spaces immediately received tripletted shots. Warnings. One sparked light near Jay's hiding place. But he didn't move, and neither did anyone else.
They were there, though. The other teams watched from hiding, just like Jay. The Enforcers brought supplies: boxes marked with medicine's red cross, barrels rolling moist lines, containers labeled food, clothes, and 'charity' ...charity. A way for people who didn't care to act like they did.
They called charity boxes "Misk" boxes, like miscellaneous abbreviated. Because you never knew what you'd get.
Led by the Chief, the Enforcers put the boxes in small piles in the center of each lamp's light. Then they stood guard, wary and watching. Another Enforcer entered. With him were two teenagers in gray uniforms, like the one Jay wore his first day.
They were obviously frightened.
The blond-haired girl clung the brown-haired boy, hanging off him with both hands. The boy had an arm around her but his eyes bulged sheer panic.
The Enforcers had come all together. Perhaps they'd learned it was no longer safe to deliver new citizens of Morir alone, even if they lacked the manpower. At the thought of Paul, a ball of guilt choked Jay's throat. He swallowed it away. Quickly. Smoothly.
The Enforcers were leaving.
The girl reached out, grabbed the sleeve of the Enforcer who'd led them in. The Enforcer shook her off roughly, pointed at the very center where the surrounding lamps crisscrossed light, forming a pentagon-ish brightness. Even from where Jay was, he could see the shaking in her legs.
Then the Enforcers were gone, except for the Chief Enforcer.
His voice rang out like an ominous chant, echoing, his words bounced into every hidden hole of Haven. "Hide Jay. Hide, because if anyone brings your corpse to me, I'll give them a place in my Kingdom. In my Casa." The Chief Enforcer scanned the darkness and he left.
A bounty had been placed. He expected the bomb tied to his neck would go off at any second.
The girl in Haven's center wilted toward the ground, but the boy held her up and raised a shading hand, peered about, trying to see into the darkness--where all waited.
Many minutes passed. Jay noticed a silhouette shift within a small cavern in the surrounding ruins. It retreated, but moments later Jay saw another shadow rush across the steep surroundings with animalistic grace. Another moment and a brutal scream mixed with another of desperation. Jay pulled deeper into his own recess, but not enough to lose sight of the couple below.
The girl hid her face in the boy's chest. He took her protectively in his arms, and words were spoken--too faint for Jay to hear. The boy huddled her--took a step away from where the screams had come from.
Immediately a cheer arose, loud and angry.
A man with deflated eyeballs strung together as necklace and bracelet stepped into the light. Jay knew he was the Gamer of team "Fate's Eyes." Jay's 'team' was called the "Toothaches." Lame, but fitting.
Three other Gamers seeped into the light, between the stacked boxes of supplies. Freckles, Jay's Gamer was without his gun. The other two, a Gamer with earlobes around his neck and one with fingers as earrings would be the "Whisperers" and the "Finger of God" teams. With names like these, Jay wouldn't be surprised to see someone souveniering noses and calling themselves "Sniffers," or "Snuffers." The laughable names made the situation only more sinister.
Eyeballs crooked a finger at the girl, wiggling it for her to come. She didn't. He laughed, a raspy laugh, unzipped his pants and pointed at his already engorging penis. It looked like a horse's dick, or an extra arm.
She screamed and huddled tighter to the boy. Eyeballs chortled. When the boy tried to step in front of Eyeballs, the three other Gamers seized him, restraining him. He fought, and when Eyeballs approached the girl, the boy cried
out right along with the girl's screaming. It was useless. A sick part inside Jay saw the events and gave a humorless, grim smile at how pathetic it seemed.
Freckles spoke to the boy and gestured at the girl. The boy shook his head and screamed her name, loud enough that Jay heard it clearly. "Adri!" It echoed around Haven.
Silence was the reply from the hundreds that watched.
Freckles shrugged, pulled a knife, stabbed the boy in the gut. Jay bit his palm as the boy collapsed to the ground.
Eyeballs began to rape the crying girl.
And Freckles knelt. Using the hilt of his knife, he began knocking free teeth from the dying boy's mouth. The boy twitched once, twice, at the impacts. Then just lay, unmoving. Only the *thunk thunk thunk* Jay mentally heard as the hilt lifted, dropped, rhythmic and precise. Freckles used a finger to pull the boy's cheeks back like a dentist as he worked.
Then he stood up, undid his belt, knelt over the boy's head.
Jay stumbled backward into his hiding place, fighting back the need to hurl. His injured leg suddenly screamed at him. Fucked up bastard's hell. He wanted to help but it wasn't even close. Wasn't even hard to choose. His own life was more valuable to him than both theirs, not that he could have helped. The denial humiliated him and the guilt was worse than killing Paul had been. He couldn't swallow it away.
He blocked out the sounds and sat, putting his head between his propped elbows and fingering the crushed bell at his neck. Freckles said he forgave Jay for smashing one of the bells because he had earned it, he'd killed the Enforcer after all. He'd killed an enemy.
It didn't matter if Jay felt guilty now or before. Guilt didn't factor into the equation. Jay was 'justified' in preserving his own life. And he bet that next time wouldn't be much different. He'd chose his own life above another's.
After far too long, the sounds ceased. Jay clambered tardily to his feet, supporting himself on the sharp, rocky wall, keeping the sore weight off his leg.
After a deep breath, he looked at Haven's center again. The girl and the Gamers were gone. Only the boy's body remained in a pool of bright, red blood. People "too valuable to die" were entering into the light and Jay felt as if he watched some sick theatrical performance.
This indeed was a Game. It was the only way a world like this could exist.
The emerging people were 'Valuables.' People like Karah, worth more captured than killed. Many were medical professionals, some engineers and specialists, a few were Morir's equivalence to sex slaves: women and men that could be traded as commodities...like the girl "Adri" would become.
The Valuables held flags high in the air as they approached. The flags meant immunity. Each flag's color represented a supply. Green for food, blue was water, red for medicine, white for materials. Black for charity. The Valuables walked into the open space, nervous caution in their gaits. When they came close to the supplies they dropped their flag and took a case. Just one. Like the rules said. Then they drug it, rolled it, wrestled it back to hiding and safety.
On more than one occasion a fight broke out between Valuables. Freckles had explained it like he had explained everything. Action and consequence. If someone, for example, brought back a charity box and there was nothing of use within, there would be consequences. No one really knew what was in each box, but like a fight for the biggest White Elephant gift--grass looks greener on the other side.
In Jay's case the grass really was greener on the other, any other side.
"You will play the Game and follow orders. If you 'forget' again, the bomb I've strapped to the back of your fucking neck will remind you," Freckles had said after he'd finished with Karah. Served Jay right for making such a pathetic excuse. "I forgot" didn't work on Gamer any more than it had from Kyle.
But it was his newest and favorite response that really got him in trouble. "Fuck you," he'd responded. He realized that Karah had saved him, but he also realized that he was going to die in Morir, anyway.
And he was never going to see Kyle again.
He was bitter.
That's when Freckles pushed the button and twenty-four hours began. Twenty-four hours to get a blue flag and kill the poor bastard who happened to be holding it. Course, Jay was likely to be the 'poor bastard' who actually died, what with the bells and the blinking beacon at the back of his head. Aim here for fireworks. What fetish did Gamer have that kept putting head and explosion together, anyway?
Gamer took 'headshot' to a whole new level.
Jay tightened the cloth wrap he'd covered the bomb's blinker with. It'd at least dim the light so that his surroundings wouldn't glow every two seconds. The last of the Valuables was dragging at a box. She was a tiny woman with tiny arms wearing a necklace with someone's ear strewn on it. Team Whisperers. She could hardly move the box and she threw her frail weight at it with a determined set to her jaw. It slid--if slowly--and then into the night she was gone. No one else appeared for minutes. Left in the center of Haven was stacked enough supply for four or five times what had been taken today.
Game on.
Whoever got the supplies without getting killed kept them. The flags would be swept up first as they represented next week's drop. And they were easier to retrieve compared to the bulky containers around them. Flags could also be used to trade and barter between teams until the next drop.
Except none of that mattered right now. Because standing in front of Jay, was the biggest bare-ass naked man he had ever seen.
Bondsman! Jay thought as the huge man jingled forward.
He bolted awkwardly, scrambling away up the mound of brick and concrete. The Bondsman caught Jay's ankle and hefted him down to the ground. He slid on his stomach, his skin ripping and tearing across the jagged stones. Pain. He rolled just in time to miss getting his head kicked in. "Wayt Wayt Wayyt!" he screamed, holding his hands out. He tore off the cloth covering the bomb around his neck.
The other bondsman hesitated, a human finger swung at the giant's earlobe. From here, Jay could see that there were three of eight bells still intact around the Bondsman's throat. Yup, around, not through. Damn Freckles.
He jabbed his finger at his neck and scrambled limpingly rose to full height. "Thiss is an bomb. If I diey, bommb goes off. If I pull offf, bommb goes off. If thos whatching think I'm bwreaking fucking rules... Bommb. Goes. Off. AND I'll bwet if they think you'rre close ta me, what dew you think happendds?"
The Bondsman held up his hands and backed away.
"Tha'ts wright," Jay muttered. "...bear-buttcheeks outa my face." He picked up the cloth to rewrap the bomb.
A rock the size of his head flew through the air, it had a foot long re-bar protruding from it. "AHH!" Jay slammed to the ground. The bar grazed the back of his shoulder as it past and the rock shattered on the wall behind him, dust sparkled around him. He heard a clang as the bar fell.
Jay twisted and grabbed the bar and sprinted, his leg unresponsive and jabbing at him, toward where the rock had come from. As he ran he swung the bar into a nearby wall, chipping off concrete still attached. Move, move, move!
The bomb blinked again and another rock came flying from the darkness, Jay barely ducked in time. How easy could Freckles have made it? He stumble-charged again, wielding the bar in front of him and using his other hand with the crumpled cloth to try to muffle the light. *Blink* Jay hurtled to the side, an explosion of chips, more sparkles. Cool air chilled the front of his body.
He froze, breathing, anxiously repositioning the cloth over the bomb. Kyle Kyle Kyle Kyle Kyle, his mind chorused.
What could he do? Run outside? Where everyone on any team could see his blink-blink... SPLAT? Seconds passed, and he let himself breathe just a bit in slow silence. No blink. Jay carefully tucked the re-bar under an arm and went to work retying the wrap, fumbling a bit.
Jingling. Right behind him.
Jay abandoned the tie and seized the re-bar. He swung the bar around him. It cut air. A foot kicked him in the stomach and an empty breath locked up his throat. Ja
y collapsed, trying to breathe and scramble away. Huge hands grasped him and he was lifted. His fist smacked into the wall and he lost his grip on the bar.
"Aaaarrrgh!" the bear man roared, charging the open entrance.
Then Jay was flying.
Down the steep valley-esque side of Haven--towards the light. His legs and arms pumped air as he fell maybe fifteen feet, he barely got his feet under him as he hit the ground.
His legs buckled and he was rolling. The back of his head struck hard against something. A high sound pitched. "Shittt!" Jay screamed. He reached back and clawed at the strap around his throat, trying to unlatch the belt buckle-like clasp. He yanked desperately, pulling, tearing.
The strap broke. Jay threw the bomb as hard as he could.
Boom.
Barrels of water, stone, wood, and colorful stuff exploded around him. He was thrown back, wetness and then scorching heat flashed his chest. A vacuum descended around him and he lay still, trying to breathe. To think.
Gradually, dulled screams and yells and sounds of primitive warfare enveloped him. He groaned.
His body refused to move but his mind flitted through thoughts, processing at a thousand miles an hour. He opened his eyes. Above him, wood boards and clothes covered him. Muted impacts pressed painfully on his body and he realized that he was buried and people were running, fighting, and whatever, directly above him. On him. He probably could have grabbed a leg if he reached through the debris. Jay managed to turn over. He had to get out before someone unknowingly dug him out.
Jay crawled forward. Somehow, he moved through the ache. Somehow he burrowed like a worm, downward. It was like swimming though a pool of webs. His ears were still pitching, and he felt wetness in one. He touched it, tasted it. Blood. His hands touched earth, earth that felt like it had been paved with broken glass. His leg didn't seem to hurt anymore. Nothing seemed to hurt. He felt light. Endorphins flooded his system.
