Murder Genes (10 page)

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.