Murder Genes (36 page)

"I'm sorry!" she gasped.
 
"I didn't mean to!"

"Fuck, you could've killed him," Jay said.
 
He pointed his gun at her head and wiggled the barrel.
 
"Move away and don't touch the guns on the floor.
 
Tell everyone in there to come out."

"I thought you said you wouldn't hurt us."

"I won't," Jay said.
 
"I just want to be sure we're safe."
 
He put his body close to the wall as the woman sidestepped against the opposing wall him.
 
"Bitch, would you make sure the guns are out of the way?"

Bitch shook his head like he'd just waken up.
 
"Sure Jay."
 
He used a rifle from his bag and nudged the trapdoor closed.
 
He waited a moment before sweeping up the guns and jogging back to their corner.

"OK, now have them come out," Jay said to the woman, pointing his gun right where the emerging kids would appear.

She stared at him.

"I won't hurt them, I promise.
 
We just don't want a bullet in the back of our heads, that's all."

She nodded and wrung at her fingers.
 
"Kids, come out," she called.

Two tiny black kids wiggled out of the trapdoor.
 
A boy and a girl.
 
The boy was younger, he looked five, and the girl maybe seven.
 
They ran to their mother and she knelt and embraced them.
 
"Is that everyone?" Jay asked.

She hesitated.

"I said all of them!" Jay bellowed.

"Crap Jay, you're scaring her," Bitch said.

Jay ignored him.
 
"Now!" he said.

She didn't do anything.
 
Her lips got tight.

"Bitch, you have a grenade in there?"
 
Jay put his gun away, letting Bitch do the covering.

The woman gasped and put her hand over her mouth.
 
They didn't have any grenades, Jay knew, but hopefully Bitch would catch his bluff.
 
"Yeah," Bitch said.
 
"Right here."
 
A grenade was put in Jay's hand.
 
R
eally?
 
We have grenades?
 
Damn.

"They come out or I throw this in.
 
I probably will throw it in anyway just in case, so they better be out here when I do."

"We've explosives in there," the woman said.
 
"If you throw that in, everyone dies."

Smart woman.
 
Good excuse.
 
"I'll take that chance."

She stared at him again.

"If it helps," Bitch said gently.
 
What's gotten into him?
 
"We won't hurt anyone.
 
We just can't risk it.
 
Honest."
 
He even drew a cross over his heart as he said it.

The woman seemed to believe Bitch.
 
"Come out everybody."

Everybody?
 
The way it sounded...

A lot of people began coming out.
 
"Slowly!" Jay yelled.
 
"And line up on the wall."
 
They were women and children.
 
Lined up on the wall to the very end of the basement.
 
Bitch, thankfully, snapped back into the present and guarded the opposite end as a second line began forming in front of the first.
 
Forget it.
 
If they all rush us even without weapons, we're done for.
 
We can't monitor this many people
.
 
"Stop," Jay said.
 
They all froze and it looked like a fucking concentration camp, him and Bitch, the Nazis.

"Give them guns," Jay said to Bitch, putting the grenade away and drawing his gun again.
 
"Women first, kids second."
 
Everybody looked at him in confusion.

Bitch didn't move.

"We're not here to hurt you.
 
In these numbers we'll never be able to prove it to you, either.
 
So consider this an act of trust on our part.
 
Rather than killing you just to be sure none of you turn on us, I'll choose to trust you
first
not to kill us.
 
We could use your help."
 
Jay said it again.
 
"Give them the guns, Bitch."

Bitch didn't hesitate this time.
 
He unzipped the bag and began handing out the weapons.
 
More people emerged from the crawl space, quickly now and without the air of tension that had been suspended around them just seconds ago.
 
Jay handed the woman they'd first spoken to his own gun.
 
"Take this," he said.

She took it and pointed it right back at Jay.
 
Jay heard cocks from other guns turned on Bitch.
 
"That was damn foolish," she said, jerking her head toward the trapdoor.

Men hopped out, armed to the teeth.
 
Enforcers, five of them.
 
"Cowardly to hide behind your women," Jay said.

One of the Enforcers smiled.
 
"It was."

"Going to kill us now?
 
After we slapped your families with an olive branch?"

The Enforcer lifted his hand and lowered the woman's gun off Jay.
 
"Put your weapons away."

"I appreciate that," Jay said.

"I appreciate you not killing my wife," the Enforcer responded, holding an arm out to the woman in the nightdress.

Jay glanced at Bitch, but he didn't seem phased at all, he was still staring at the woman with the strangest look, a look of...familiarity?

"We could always use more guns on our side," the Enforcer said.
 
"Would you join us?
 
My name is Adan."

Jay said.
 
"I'm Jay."

"Actually," Bitch spoke loudly, still standing across the room, "He's
Gamer
Jay.
 
And we're after Korean dick."

Jay rolled his eyes.

Adan smirked.
 
"Really now?"

Jay saw a sudden movement in the corner of his eye.
 
He dove for the ground and heard a
BLAM
and crowded screams.

He peered upward and saw the woman in blue with a hole through her chest.
 
The gun began slipping from her limp fingers.
 
He whipped his body up and around, sweeping the gun from the woman's fingers as he searched with his eyes for the shooter.

 
Another woman, with strawberry hair and green furious eyes aimed her rifle at him.
 
Jay lifted his gun even though he knew he wouldn't be fast enough to stop her.

A hand came up behind the woman, holding a knife, cutting her throat.

When the woman fell to the ground, Bitch was behind her, grasping a knife.
 
He was panting hard and had a wild look suspended on the woman in blue's fallen body.
 
He stalked toward Adan's wife and dropped the knife before he broke down crying, holding her hand.
 
Adan's gun hand lifted and pointed at Bitch's head.

Jay immediately aimed his gun at Adan.
 
No one else moved.
 
"What do you think you're doing?" Jay asked Adan.

When Adan looked at Jay, it was a dull look of a man in shock.
 
"What the hell is his problem?
 
She's
my
wife."
 
He didn't pull the trigger.

"Put the gun down," Jay said.
 
"Bitch, what the fuck are you doing?"

Bitch was mumbling something through his tears.
 
Jay leaned in close.
 
"Ma, oh Ma...I'm sorry...we didn't mean to...come back...back...Ma..."
 
Bitch suddenly looked up and bolted toward the dead woman with strawberry hair.
 
He snatched the blade from the ground and dove on her body, straddling her corpse.
 
He lifted the knife and plunged it down, screaming.
 
"This is your fault Ma's dead.
 
Your fault!"
 
Stab.
 
Stab.
 
Stab.
 
"Why!
 
Why did you do make us do it!"
 
Stab.
 
Stab.

Blood and gore spurted and mothers hid their children's eyes and turned their own faces away, horror-stricken.
 
Adan's gun tracked Bitch the whole time.
 
"Do it and I blow your head off," Jay said.

"He's crazy, isn't he?
 
He's insane!"

Jay looked at Bitch, who was stabbing the woman's now unrecognizable face.
 
The knife caught on a bone, and Bitch hollered as he ripped it free with both hands.
 
He kept stabbing.
 
"Yes," Jay answered.
 
He didn't understand what had just happened with Bitch, but right now he needed to protect him.
 
Crazy or not.
 
"Aren't we all?" Jay said.

Adan's gun hand dropped.
 
"You killed Paul and Mike, didn't you."

Jay put his own gun hand down and tore his gaze from watching Bitch's maniacal assault on a corpse.
 
"Yeah, I did."

Adan pointed with his chin at the woman whose hair had been strawberry blond, red now.
 
"She was Paul's wife."
 
Adan knelt by his wife.
 
His shoulders began shaking.

Seemed Paul would haunt Jay to the end.
 
Karma would have its way with Jay, someday.

A few women had found corners, vomiting.
 
Most had their heads turned away.
 
"I'm sorry," Jay said to Adan.

Adan looked up with wet eyes.
 
"I think you should leave.
 
We'll survive without your help."

Jay nodded and went to Bitch.
 
He picked the kid up by the back of his shirt and leveled a gaze at Bitch.
 
"Let's go," he said.

Bitch blinked slowly, his hand still grasped the knife by the fingertips.

"Keep the guns," Jay said to Adan as he left.

Chapter 24

The American Eugenics Society (AES) was a society established in 1922 to promote eugenics in the United States.

It was the result of the Second International Conference on Eugenics (New York, 1921). The founders included Madison Grant, Harry H. Laughlin, Irving Fisher, Henry Fairfield Osborn, and Henry Crampton. The organization started by promoting racial betterment, eugenic health, and genetic education through public lectures, exhibits at county fairs ea., but under the direction of Frederick Osborn, started to place greater focus on issues of population control, genetics, and, later, medical genetics. In 1972 the AES was reorganized and renamed in "The Society for the Study of Social Biology"

-American Eugenics Society. (2009, September 6). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
 
From http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=American_Eugenics_Society&oldid=312214591

Del had asked him where he'd gone, she said she was worried.
 
Kyle told her that he'd gone for a walk.

She didn't believe him.

He didn't care that she didn't believe him because she wasn't real and caring about fake things was stupid.
 
Caring about fake things IS stupid.

But he
did
care about Del.
 
Even if she was fake and lying.

 
Kyle made his plans to run away and escape so that he wouldn't have to see her anymore and Callie's father wouldn't be able to have cameras on him anymore and he could live normally without being tested even if he wouldn't have a place to stay and food to eat.
 
He would find a way to start his life over somewhere else, somehow.
 
He just had one thing to take care of first.

"Tim?"
 
Kyle knocked on the door.

"Kyle!
 
What are you doing here?"
 
Tim spun in his chair, holding on to a stylus like he'd stopped writing in mid-stroke.
 
A cup of coffee steamed on his table.

"I wanted to talk."

"Of course!
 
Come in, son."
 
Tim rolled over to a nearby chair and patted it.
 
"Where's your Mom?"

"I walked," Kyle said.

Tim frowned.
 
"I'm pretty sure your mom will have a mouthful after she knows you snuck out of the home after sunset to see me at school.
 
Something bad could've happened."

"I know.
 
But I had to talk to you."
 
Kyle peeked at Tim's desk.
 
There was a newspaper clipping on his deskscreen about the recent fire.
 
"I know you've been worried," Kyle said.