Should Have Killed The Kid (4 page)

They’re coming. They’re COMING. THEY’RE COMING.

Growing until he’d felt paralysed. Unable to move as what he’d witnessed of the shadows in action played through his mind. All the deaths he'd seen, both up close and with the aid of his television screen. The inky blackness running them down, swamping them in its dark embrace. Then the glinting flash of the claws in motion and the spurting blood as the rent bodies toppled to the ground. Barely even recognisable as humans anymore.

If it wasn’t for the fear of missing his water rations, Dave would have probably stayed frozen there even longer. As it was he’d still found it a nerve-wracking trip back down the stairwell. He’d started at every shadow. Kept catching glints out of the corner of his eye no matter how much he tried to tell himself that wasn’t possible. That the alarm would have been raised if the things had got into the building.

And his nerves weren’t helped any by what he did witness when he finally made it back to his cubicle. He’d been frazzled and jumpy to start with and the last thing he’d needed upon turning the corner was the perfect view of Brendan Toohey’s skull being split apart by the butt of a soldier’s rifle.

But that’s what he’d got.

Just like that. Gruesomely perfect timing. He’d arrived just in time to see Brendan’s face cave in like an eggshell. See blood and other gloopy pulp leak out across the carpet. Frozen in shock, completely unprepared, Dave almost vomited at the sight of Brendan sprawled on the ground, twitching feebly as the soldier stood over him. His two comrades putting up a pretence of looking the other way as the soldier hit him again.

And again.

The head crumpling beneath the blows as the soldier put everything into them. His neck and arm muscles corded. His face twisted into a snarl as the first red flecks started to dot his face and Brendon’s body jerked in response to the impact.

Over and over and over. Until Dave could see the moment stretching out forever in front of him. See the butt falling over and over in its metronome beat.

But it wasn’t to be.

‘I think he’s learnt his lesson, mate,’ one of the other soldiers finally interceded. His voice didn’t show any real concern though. It was casually sardonic as he’d calmly studied the remnants of what had once been Brendan’s skull, now mashed into the carpet. ‘Guess that’ll be the last time he loses his head, huh?’

The blood speckled soldier stared at the other one for a moment, his eyes still blazing as he panted heavily. For a second Dave thought he was going to take it even further and attack his comrade. A very long second it was as he imagined the bloodshed that a shooting spree between the two would cause with so many people cooped up together.

Then the soldier had flinched and a smile slowly split his spattered face as though he’d just got the other one’s joke. ‘Yeah, you’re right there.’ The grin turned to a chuckle as he slapped his comrade on the arm. ‘Come on let’s get this fucker out of here before corporal diligence starts giving us shit.’

It had been a long, long breath he’d held for the few seconds it took the soldiers to drag Brendan past him. The pulped mess of his head had left a narrow streak of gore along the carpet behind them that Dave couldn't keep his eyes off – as if he could read it like tea leaves and yield some sort of explanation from the grisly mess.

Although after a few more seconds had yielded nothing but nausea, Dave had admitted defeat. He'd headed to his mat in the cubicle to find that, at the very least, Brendan’s death had distracted the others long enough for him to claim the half-filled bottle that had been tossed on top of his blankets.

He’d eventually got the gist of it from Sandra, the mousy blonde who was tucked into the corner of the cubicle opposite.

‘He wanted more,’ she said as Dave gulped down his meagre dose of water and tried to ignore the tics and spasms shock sent rippling through her face. ‘That was all. His bottle was short and he just asked for more and it was like the soldiers snapped. Just clubbed him and dragged him off. Then… they…’ Sandra had dissolved into sobs that had still continued as Dave had crept out of the cubicle after finishing his water. Although a small part of him had been thinking that it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, most of him was just sick to the stomach.

The sick feeling that had followed him to his current perch, nestled in amongst the jungle of office furniture that filled the stairwell – he hadn’t the energy for another trip up to the roof – and was still there, twisted into a knot in the pit of his stomach as he tapped his pen on the pad he’d found in a desk drawer and tried to think of what to do.

The soldier’s treatment of Brendan was another thing to factor into his already confusing calculations. With the rapid rate at which things were degenerating around him, Dave could feel even the lacklustre safety of the skyscraper slowly fading.

He barely even noticed that he’d started scrawling a circle around the Ciamantti’s logo until his pen started to tear through the pad.

A jumble of words and images somersaulted through his head. The gun butt crashing down. Over and over. Overlaid by Monty’s lisping voice: you need to do it now. They’re coming. Then the soldier’s smile on the roof. I already know you’ve chosen a possible child. Why do you keep lying to yourself that you haven’t? Naomi’s tattered body leaking all over the parquetry floor that was her mother’s pride and joy.

Then something else bubbling up out of the depths: old debts require old magic to keep them in check. The oldest there is. The most powerful of all. Sealed in blood.

Another chestnut from Monty. Some of the last words he’d said to Dave in the flesh. Just before Dave had clubbed him and the cops had kicked the door in.

After events had so quickly spiralled out of control.

But I could put it right. Dave’s pen froze in mid-scrawl as the image of the boy he’d chosen flashed into his head. The boy from the cubicle two down from his that he saw every day on his trips to and from the foyer. It would be easy enough to do. Mother’s sick. Shock or something. Down for the count. Boy’s not going to last long anyway, fending for himself. Couldn’t see any of the others lending a hand. Just another mouth to feed…

He even looks like the other one. The original… Dave’s thoughts stalled as another flash hit. Of him, down on the ground with a cop kneeling on his back – it was hard to blame them, at that point they’d had no idea what was going on – his nose pressed into the sticky bluestones as they slapped the cuffs on and the weeping boy was carried from the room. The cop screaming something in his ear as Dave twisted his head to see three cops were playing stacks on with Monty even though the old man was still reeling on the ground.

A snapshot from just after he’d made the worst decision of his thirty two years.

And although he tried he wasn’t able to clamp down on it this time. Instead, as the pen clattered to the floor beside him and his hands flew to his temples, Dave felt himself going backwards as it all rushed in.

Back past the slaughter in the streets and the panicked shepherding of survivors into the skyscrapers in Melbourne’s CBD. Falling fast. Past the horrified news reports as they shifted from rumour mongering to outright doom saying. The first hints appearing. The first of the disappearances. Past the all too brief flurry of adulation he’d received for his heroism during events at Hent. Back past there even. Before the horrific day itself, back before he even pulled the Tiida into the car park of the Gallo’s Hotel in the pouring rain.

And Dave gave it one last burst of his familiar lament: should have killed the goddamned kid, as he went right back to the very beginning. Where everything had gone wrong…

… When Naomi had turned and said the last words she’d ever spoken to him before she stormed out of their flat. You’re a fucking cunt. A fucking poisonous person.

It had been a night of firsts for Dave.

First time he’d ever heard her yell.

First time he’d ever heard her swear.

First time it dawned on him that there’d be no forgiveness this time.

The first time he'd honestly felt like his heart had just fragmented into a million different pieces.

The first time that words alone were enough to send him weak at the knees.

Everything had gone awry so quickly afterwards that Dave often wondered how different things would be if that night just hadn’t happened. If, for once, he’d just said no when Timbo had made the glasses up gesture from across the office. He’d been on the verge of refusing – the blow up the previous week being front and centre in his mind – but then he’d seen that clock hit five thirty and the smile spread across Timbo’s face.

He clearly remembered thinking: a couple of pints, that’s all. Surely she can’t object to a couple of pints, what’s the harm?

What possible damage could a couple of pints do?

Dave had to shake his head ruefully from his position in the hoarded office furniture.

Only unleash a fucking apocalypse.

It sounded ridiculously ridiculous but he could link it back.

Minus the pints and he wouldn’t have travelled to Hent alone. Minus the pints and he wouldn’t have been holding up the bar in some bumfuck bar when the old geezer with the crazy eyes had stepped in. He’d have been wrapped up all nice and snug in the bed with Naomi.

Minus the pints and he wouldn’t have had to choose.

* * *

...'Trouble?!' John parroted George's words. 'Trouble?! What the fuck is this?!'

The abrupt change in John's demeanour caught everyone off guard.

Jess gasped as he blinked and abruptly John was standing while the chair clattered across the floor. The sheer speed at which he'd moved took Jess's breath away.

'Whoa!' George held up his hands placatingly while Jess stared in disbelief at John, narrowing his eyes.

Is that something moving beneath his skin? Is it–

He didn't get time to finish his thought.

'WHOAH!!' George repeated a lot louder and a lot more panicky as splatters of blood and flesh sprayed across the office and spikes abruptly exploded from all over John's skin, reducing his skin into fleshy curtains of tattered flesh as they emerged. Jess couldn't stop staring at the bony protuberances that bristled all over the client's body. Particularly the glinting barbs they all seemed to end in.

He's one of the bonded! The realisation hit Jess like a fist and suddenly the deference his uncle had shown made perfect sense.

John leant forward over the desk and the other two nearly tripped over themselves getting out of their chairs.

'Easy, John, Easy. Fuck, he didn't mean nothing.' Dean's voice was so far removed from his usual gravel that for a second, Jess was certain his uncle was taking the piss. 'Come on, he was just making conversation.'

John hissed something in reply that Jess couldn't quite make out. Obviously it was a step in the right direction though, judging by George's reaction. His uncle's partner carefully maneuvered himself from behind the large coffee ringed desk, cooing away, 'Easy, easy, easy,' while his shiny shirt gleamed beneath the fluorescents above.

John stared at him for a long second. Jess felt certain he was about to attack the man as George lent over and picked the chair off the ground before setting it back in place. He had to choose his steps well to avoid squelching through some of the larger sprays John's transformation had unleashed.

'I was just making conversation.' George reinforced the message as he made a show of dusting off the fallen chair. After another long second, John abruptly sucked all the spikes back in.

It happened so quickly that a blink of an eye was enough for Jess to miss the majority of it. He got a brief glimpse of flesh knitting back together; the splattered fragments that dotted the office rising and flying across to be reabsorbed by John as though caught in some extreme gravitational pull.

Then blink! and John was back to his usual unassuming, chubby, crazy-haired appearance.

He still looked a little surly while he stared around the office but George and his uncle shared a relieved glance as the older man returned to his chair. From his perch in the corner, Jess did his utmost to draw as little attention as possible toward himself.

'I'm sorry if he offended you,' Dean chirped up, breaking the silence that had just started to drift into awkward territory. 'I assure you that wasn't his intention. I mean, you know the motto we stand by here: Ask no questions. Always take payment in advance. As long as it's paid for whatever the client does with their leased property is their business....'

Jess shook his head as his uncle launched into the spiel that he'd already heard one hundred times that week. The one he'd already come to think of as the slumlord's creed.

Of course he'd never say that to his uncle's face. He was inordinately proud of the script that ended with:

'...essentially put, we don't care.'

After another second of staring John's face suddenly split into a bright smile as though nothing had happened in the preceding couple of minutes. He threw himself back into the chair with a casual, 'Sorry, it's been an edgy couple of days.'

'That's fine, that's fine. Let's just agree to move on now, yes? I think it would be best for everyone.'

Dean nodded emphatically at George's words, John gave a slight incline of his head and even Jess found his chin bobbing. He'd had his first glimpse of a bonded person in action and he found himself wishing for nothing more than to never see its like again.

'So... instead let's talk details, yeah? So far we've got out of the way and off the radar but what else are you after?'

'Well, I haven't really thought about it too much. Something not dissimilar to the last one would be good. But whatever, really. I mean I have always enjoyed a bit of renovating.'

Jess blinked slowly from where he sat, his heart still beating fast and heavy. The abrupt turn of the conversation was difficult to fathom. Veering from rage to polite discussion in the space of a minute. He rubbed at his temples. He could feel a headache coming on.

'Well there's a few doing the rounds at the moment.' Dean paused in mid spiel and unleashed a high-pitched whistle that did nothing to help Jess' brewing headache. 'Make yourself useful, boy. Cupboard on the right there.' Jess hopped off the bench and opened the indicated cupboard beneath. An interior coated in an inch of dust was revealed. 'Top three folders, if you please. Snappy too, if it's not too much to ask.'

* * *