Should Have Killed The Kid

by Frederick Hamilton, R.

  'Why are they doing this?' Sally didn't sound like she actually wanted an answer but Marge was all too ready to provide one.

  'Fucked if I know. I repeat, since some of us don't appear to be listening. It's not like I fucking understand them. It has been millennia since there was contact and even then the things weren't like these creatures. Fuck, if you can see the pattern of what they are doing then you are a step ahead of us. It seems completely random. Leaving pockets of people alive. The way they're cutting through things. Some stuff completely demolished, other stuff barely touched. Look at Melbourne. It's in bad shape but they've levelled Sydney. As in gone, completely erased from the map. If any of it makes sense then feel free to explain it to me. The only thing I can think is that they're are resculpting the planet. I hate to head on back to the fucking tenant and landlord metaphor, but to me anyway, it looks like they are redecorating their apartment. Rearranging things for new tenants. Makes me think along the lines of forceful eviction. Sort of makes you wonder what we'd be making way for, doesn't it?'

  Silence greeted the conclusion of Marge's speech. It drew on and on as they all pondered her words. To Dave it felt as though there was a concept at play that he wasn't quite grasping. He could feel it there tickling away but it was like his brain wasn't interested in fully understanding what was happening around him.

  Maybe it's a survival thing, he thought. It was easy enough for him to picture his head exploding as full comprehension dawned. The way Marge had described it just seemed so... offhand.

  'But that's getting distracted from the task at hand. Also, it's really only fucking conjecture on my behalf... We need to be focused on what we know. And what do we know? Hmmm? We know what we need to do. We need to get that kid to the portal in Hent and get it sealed and then we can worry about all the rest later. What do you think?'

  The silence that followed made the previous one seem positively brief.

  Dave couldn't seem to stop swallowing as he nervously waited for the soldier to explode with self-righteous rage.

  In his head he pictured her leaping at the old lady and destroying their last hope at fixing things with a headlock that snapped Marge's brittle neck.

  'Have a drink, it'll help,' Marge added and the sound of rapid gulps filled the air followed by a gasp.

  'Okay...' After another pause that seemed interminable, the soldier finally spoke up. A quiet voice that still managed to convey a healthy dose of self loathing. 'What else are we going to do? It's absurd but there's... nothing else we can do. Nothing, nothing, nothing...' The soldier repeated it softly as though repetition would somehow make the whole thing more palatable.

  Dave found her words almost hypnotic and found himself mouthing along with them, the inevitableness and finality of them held comfort for him. Almost as though the decision was being removed from his hands. He felt a little of the tension that had built in his stomach start to leech away.

  Naomi's voice took it as a perfect opportunity to make a reappearance.

  So, just because you're forced to help kill a poor defenceless child, it makes it alright, does it?

  Dave quickly rushed to quash it.

  'So you understand then?' Marge's voice slipped up another notch of warmth and friendliness. Perversely the new tone had the complete opposite effect that it should have. It set Dave completely on edge and it took him a moment to realise why.

  But when he did, his brief relief vanished in a heart thudding moment.

  'So you understand what needs to be done?'

  Her voice is too friendly...

  'And you want to help?'

  She's taking the piss.

  'Excellent!' Marge's voice abruptly flipped back to the ice cold tone and Dave felt his stomach lurch.

  No no no no no.

  'Cause I was just going to get to that.'

  No no no no no, Dave tried to flip but his aching body hampered him. His muscles screamed and locked in place while he tried to yell a warning but only succeeded in unleashing a croak as he flopped around like a fish out of water.

  'Cause I really need your help.'

  'WHAT THE...' Sally shrieked, a shriek that died off into a scuffle and then a gurgling hiss that made Dave want to blubber.

  'NO!' He finally found his voice moments before his flails spilled him onto the wooden floor and his protest cut off as the impact knocked the air from his lungs.

  No! His brain made up for the lack of vocalisation as he locked onto the image in front of him.

  Sally's legs beat a frantic tattoo on the floorboards while she flopped about in the arm chair. Her eyes wide as her head whipped from side to side in skittish uneven motions. A strange combination of emotion flitted by in her eyes: confusion, anger, fear. All of them forcing the lids wide, showing more and more of the whites until Dave thought they might burst from their sockets. Her lips moved silently beneath, mouthing gibberish. And even further down...

  The pulsing fountain of blood jetted through the fingers she held futilely clamped over the huge tear in her throat. It soaked down her front, sprayed across the floor, fell all around Dave in hot and coppery rain while Marge stood nearby watching, a glittering and blood-soaked blade held casually down by her side.

  'WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO?' Dave roared as he finally managed to suck in a breath.

  Marge turned and wiped at her brow, smearing a streak of red directly across it.

  'What?' she asked while behind her, Sally convulsed, pulsing out the last of her life blood.

  * * *

  The grin still creased Dean and George's face as George briefly scribbled on a bit of paper then slid it across to John. He read it over and cocked an eyebrow. 'Seems a very reasonable price,' John murmured and Jess felt excitement build that at last the interminable interview might be nearing an end. 'But I think I'm going to have to pass.' Jess's hope deflated.

  'I'm sorry?' Much as they'd arrived, the smiles fled both men's faces in unison.

  Jess himself stifled a sigh.

  'I mean if there is some issue with the...' George started but trailed off.

  'It is only a starting point,' Dean took up the thread. 'And whilst there are several mitigating issues that preclude too steep a discount, there is some room for leeway.

  'No,' John said again and his grin briefly spread even wider across his face. Something about the way it stretched just a little bit further than it should have didn't sit right with Jess. His felt his heart beat a little faster as his uncle parroted John.

  'No?'

  'No.'

  'No!'

  All three of them got in on the act and then abruptly lapsed into silence.

  'Can I ask wh–' George started after a long few seconds of sidelong glances. His words cut off into a yelp though. Jess didn't blame him. He, himself actually screamed as John abruptly burst into action.

  The chair went flying again, only this time it didn't merely clatter to the floor. Instead it rocketed across the room and exploded into slivers on impact with the door. John's transformation took place in the split second Jess's eyes traced the chair's trajectory. It was so abrupt that it seemed like the man teleported into position by the table, his body bristling with spikes once more as he leant across the wood making a strange hissing noise.

  It all happened so quickly that it took Jess a few seconds to realise the reason for the sudden movement but when he did, his previous scream turned into another. And then another. And another.

  The end of John's wrists had exploded out into blossoms of meat and gristle in a spray of blood that had misted the papers on top of the desk and painted the far wall red. From the mess that had previously been his hands, long, twisted spikes of bone cork screwed forward. One had been for his uncle, Dean. One had been for George. They were now embedded into the wall behind the desk, the length that had passed through the two slumlords' heads coated in a thick syrup of blood and brain matter.

  Both wore nearly identical open-mouthed expressions as they feebly kicked a f
ew times. Their hands scrabbled at the arm rests of their chairs before finally giving in to the mammoth trauma and stilling.

  Jess squeezed his eyes shut but when he opened them again, the horrific scene still appeared and he screamed again. Something he regretted as John's face seemed to pivot around one eighty, the bones of the man's neck grinding until his beaming visage greeted Jess. Still, he couldn't stop as he saw the way John's flesh undulated. Saw what looked like hundreds of worms wriggling beneath the skin.

  'Please be quiet.' The request seemed so out of place juxtaposed with the carnage behind John. Jess couldn't have obeyed even if he'd wanted to. Particularly as more spikes ripped through John's skin and raced across to pierce the two dead men, pinning their corpses to their respective chairs.

  He screamed even longer and louder until his voice blew out and even then he kept croaking and wheezing. In a blur of movement, John retracted the spikes and his uncle and George transformed into a whirlwind of flesh and blood that splattered across the dingy office, spackling every surface in a meaty layer of render.

  'Come now, there's no need for all this racket.' John's body pivoted to face the same direction as his head and Jess felt his bladder let go. The hot liquid spread across his groin and down his pant leg as, behind John, the lumpy remains of George and his uncle started to lift from their brief resting place. The organic cloud swirling behind the advancing John like a storm gathering strength. 'There's nothing to be concerned about,' John said as the flesh and blood started to flow into his own body. 'Now that I've finally located such a remote spot I didn't want anyone being able to track me there. Sort of defeat the purpose, now, wouldn't it? And sadly, as good as these guys are, they do still insist on some paperwork and I can't be leaving any evidence behind now, can I?'

  Jess bowels quickly followed his bladder as the last of the fleshy storm was absorbed into John's body and he took another step forward, spikes emerging and receding back into his flesh.

  'But you don't have to worry.' John grinned and Jess felt a faint stirring of hope build. That he'd be spared. That he wouldn't suffer the fate of his uncle and his uncle's partner. He was already promising himself that he'd return to his mother a changed man; that the acting up was a thing of the past. That from now on he'd be the pinnacle of good behaviour.

  Then the little fragile bubble of hope burst.

  '... This won't hurt that much.' John smiled wider and tears tracked down Jess's cheeks as he saw the needle points the man's teeth had transformed into.

  * * *

  INTO THE DARK

  23.

  During the drive with the soldier, there had been many awkward silences but nothing like the one that permeated the Volvo as they puttered down the highway with the old lady behind the wheel.

  Dave had endured hours of it now. Hour after hour as they ate up the miles. It gave him ample time to replay the callous murder over in his mind.

  Over and over and over, Sally convulsed as she bled out on the furniture.

  The bitter taste of vomit tickled the back of his throat when he looked down at the two jars nestled on his lap. Old Kraft mayonnaise jars that Marge had collected from the kitchen – though it definitely wasn't that condiment that sloshed about inside. Depending on the angle, it either looked like sunshine or like blood. Dave felt the bitter in his throat grow as he watched the liquid dance between the two states.

  A life gone for what? he asked himself as he fingered the two bits of masking tapes affixed as temporary labels. All that remains of Sally... Dave read over Marge's hurried scrawl. The jar on the left read "shield". The one on the right "bomb". ..A couple of jars that may or may not be useful...

  The thought made his brain want to melt and Dave quickly looked away.

  Marge's words in the aftermath still rang in his ears. The callous way she'd spoken after Sally had finally grown still.

  'What? What the fuck are you complaining about?' Then the sticking point that he was still mulling over. 'What does it matter if she's dead? How exactly does that fucking impact you?'

  Dave had been building up quite the head of steam until he'd hit that stumbling block. Why did he care? What had he really known about Sally? Except that she'd looked like Naomi when she smiled? It wasn't like they'd bonded in the few days they'd spent together. In fact if Marge hadn't shown up, Dave was pretty sure she would have been sending some violence his way in the not too distant future.

  What did it really matter to him what happened to Sally?

  If he was willing to kill the kid then really it was a small price to pay. Comparatively.

  Yeah right... No matter how often he tried to convince himself, Dave couldn't succeed. Even though he'd fallen mute and grudgingly watched while Marge had set to work in the wake of the soldier's death, none of it had sat well with Dave. Particularly once she'd emerged from the kitchen with the two jars and set about filling them from the trickle that still seeped from the soldier's neck. Clearly overkill had been involved. For the amount of blood she collected, the wound the old lady had inflicted had been way over the top. Dave couldn't help suspecting it was just because she enjoyed it so much. There was no doubt in his mind that the old lady was a nutcase. It made him wonder if the corpses tied to the rocking chairs at her house had really been as necessary as she'd claimed.

  Or as voluntary.

  'Now don't you move an inch,' she'd winked at him once she'd finished collecting the blood. 'I'm going to go whip a little something up. You sit there and rest.'

  Wishful thinking. With Sally's corpse directly across from him, the frozen eyes fixed on him accusatorily, there had been no rest. He'd been wide awake when Marge had emerged with the two glowing jars, fuck knows how long later, and told him to rouse the kid. And of course the kid's first words when he rubbed the sleep from his eyes had been: 'Where's Sally?'

  Shit, didn't even know he knew her name, Dave grimaced when his eyes drifted back to the jars again.

  He couldn't help it though. The way the liquid sloshed was nearly hypnotic and with the kid zonked out in the backseat and the uncomfortable silence stretching out between him and Marge, there wasn't much else to focus on. In fact, as the driving had dragged on and the scenery around them had started to change from paddocks that Dave vaguely remembered being full of sheep on his previous visit to long stretches of scrubby forest then back to mountainous paddocks, a strange thing had started to happen.

  Dave started to get bored.

  He'd been brooding so hard on the last trip up that he'd forgotten how long and straight the Calder was as you headed into the northern parts of the state. Only the occasional farmhouse broke up the monotony, and now even they were mostly just mounded rubble. He only had a vague memory of what lay ahead too. Glimpses stolen through the rain soaked windshield. He remembered a railroad running parallel to the highway, wheat fields that seemed to stretch on forever before finally giving way to grapes and orange trees up closer to Mildura. Small towns that always seemed to be preceded by a large grain silo. A couple of larger ones... Sealake, Ouyen... A few names floated up to him, but Dave was buggered if he could put them in any form of order.

  Fortunately Marge seemed to know exactly where they were going.

  Unfortunately that meant Dave, relegated to passenger, had nothing to draw his attention.

  He closed his eyes and sighed but little more than a second passed before they were open again and scanning across the countryside.

  He'd clearly reached the point where he was too overtired to sleep. Even though his body screamed for rest, he couldn't seem to turn his brain off. Every time he closed his eyes, a myriad of horrors awaited behind the lids. The echoing voices drifting up from the depths, barely audible at first but, even so, Dave had the impression they were amassing. Naomi, Monty, Sally, even the fucking rat-faced John Franks and Brendan Toohey from the cubicles seemed to be festering down there. Burbling away as though they were just waiting for the perfect moment to launch their attack.

  To m
aximise the damage... Dave thought then blinked as he realised how mad it sounded. His eyes were back on the jars and it was all he could do to resist from winding down the window and hurling them outside. It helped that the word "bomb" was taped to one of them though even that was starting to sound a little tempting now.

  Quick finish, Dave thought and let it linger as he stole a peek across at Marge.

  Seated, hunched over the wheel, it was difficult to believe she was an utter psychopath. One that made Monty look like a pleasant man – Dave shuddered to think what her bluestone room looked like. Her lips were pursed as she whistled softly to herself, looking like the very stereotype of an old lady on her weekend outing for bowls. They even travelled at the same stereotypical grandma speed.

  Her appearance made it hard to fathom why the urge to leap out of the car and take his chances outside had come and gone throughout the drive.

  Yeah, maybe it's because I'm sitting in the very seat that she'd killed her husband in, Dave reminded himself and shivered, remembering how Marge had unceremoniously booted the remaining husk of the man to the ground to make way for Dave.

  'Take a fucking picture, mate.' Marge's profanity and icy tone helped to banish any last shreds of his stereotypical grandma thoughts. Dave quickly turned to peer at the kid in the backseat. Will still slept; his head nestled against the glass and his mouth slightly open, blowing a spit bubble as he breathed.

  A quick flash of what lay ahead and Dave only had one thought.

  Yeah and she's the fucking psychopath....

  Dave started as the kid's eyes fluttered open and locked him in their baleful glare.

  'How's it going Wil–?' Dave choked on the last word. Somehow knowing the kid's name made what had to happen infinitely worse.

  Will didn't answer and Dave quickly turned back around and returned to his appraisal of the jars. Inside he tried to rationalise it.

  He would have been dead anyway. If I hadn't taken him, he would have been pulped like his mother. Torn apart by the shadows that flooded the skyscraper.