That was the first time I ever saw the kid.
three
I looked at the kid for a second, holding my knife point angled toward him while the rain came in relentless blurring waves between us. And he stood there with that relaxed expression on his face, one foot up on the gunwale of his stupid boat, just rocking, watching to see what I’d do.
I put the knife away. Then I pulled the dead one out through the doorway by his feet.
“Shit on a sidewalk,” the kid said. “Did you kill that one all by yourself?”
I went inside.
I wanted to hit something.
I think I wanted to hit that kid.
“Fuck!”
I went down the hallway and threw myself onto the floor when I got inside the room, crazily tearing at my bootlaces and socks. Watery blood ran through the little hairs on my shin. One of the black things was snaking its way up my pant leg, so I grabbed the tail, but it slimed free of my grasp and kept going. I squeezed both hands around my knee, making a kind of tourniquet to block its path, and I tried pushing it back down. But the thing wouldn’t move.
That’s when the kid came in, holding the dripping spear in one hand while slinging his ridiculous red pistol over one shoulder. He seemed to be amused by what was going on, all gangly and gaunt, twisted up in a sodden tornado of clothes that were far too big for him.
“You are not going to win that one, Odd.” The kid put his spear down against the wall. “If I was you, I’d get out of them pants quick as shit. There’s probably one up the other leg, anyhow. Or two.”
I really wanted to hit him.
“Fuck!”
I clawed at my belt. My hand throbbed with pain. The pants were glued to me. I kicked and flailed, pale and wet, until I finally got all my clothes flung down. And the goddamned kid was right. One of the things was all the way up inside my thigh, right next to my balls. I pried the creatures off with my knife blade and cussed a dozen times while I hacked them to pieces on the floor.
“They’re pretty much dead, I’d guess, Odd,” the kid smirked.
“Fuck that. Stop calling me that.”
I looked like that tattooed dead guy in the sink, smeared and streaked all over from my crotch down with rainwater and blood. I grabbed a blanket from the floor and wiped myself clean, glaring at the kid the whole time I was doing it.
I picked up my pants, turned away from the kid. I shook my jeans as hard as I could and turned them inside out twice, then shook them again for good measure before slipping myself back into them, buttoning up. And I knew that kid was watching me the whole time, entertained. That made me even madder.
I could feel the heat and redness in my face like I was cooking from the inside.
“Fuck this place,” I said.
Then I sat down and put my head between my knees.
“You killed the shit out of that big one, Odd. You must be one hell of a fighter for being so scrawny.”
And I wanted to tell him to fuck off, that he was a good thirty pounds lighter than I was, even counting all the wet shit he was wearing, but I decided not to talk for a while.
Try to relax, Jack.
“What were you doing out in the water like that, anyway? Going for a swim? How dumb can you be, anyhow?”
I kept my head down. I wanted to punch myself, now, for thinking that all I wanted was to go home.
Awww… poor Little Jack wants to go home.
“But that other one never saw this shit coming at all. He probably pissed on you when that spear hit him in the throat. Ha-ha! I bet he did, too! Never seen shit like that. You ever seen shit like that, Odd? I damn near missed him altogether. That would have been a bad ending for you, Odd. A bad, wet ending. With suckers in it. In you! Ha-ha! I don’t think he’d have given me the chance to try again. You ever seen shit like this?”
The redhead proudly waved his red gun around in front of me, but I didn’t want to look at him. I realized I had the dead Hunter’s blood in my hair, inside my clothes.
“It’s a speargun, is what it is. Yep. When the Rangers came around taking all the guns from everyone at the beginning, I knew where my daddy had this one hid away. If Fent’s crew caught me with it, well, shit, I don’t need to tell you what they do to Odds with guns, do I? I bet I don’t. I lay that you seen it for yourself, what Fent does, ain’t that so, Odd?”
Fent is looking for you.
“Where’s the old man, anyway? You seen him? You know that old man with tattoos on his nuts and everything? Damn, I told him, I bet getting your rig inked hurts worse than dying. You seen that old man, Odd?”
“He’s in the kitchen.”
That’s all I said to him. I was relieved when he left, could hear him moving down the hallway, slogging over the junk in the living room. I kept my eyes on my feet. They were so pale, and I felt like I was never going to dry out.
The kid came back a minute later.
“You didn’t kill him, did you? No. I know you wouldn’t. I could tell just by looking at an Odd like you that you wouldn’t kill that old man. You can just tell those things about people sometimes, don’t you think?”
“There’s a little boy in there. Dead, too.”
“Dead? Shit, pretty soon there’s going to be none of us Odds left. Rangers, too. Even if they have guns, they can’t stop this shit. Every time you turn around, there’s fewer and fewer of them. Us, too. I think Fent’s and a few other squads is the last of the Rangers, but I don’t know. I never been anywhere else, just heard about all the other elses. That’s why it’s better to just be nobody. Like us. We’re the smart ones. That’s why that Hunter never seen shit like that speargun of mine. Well, I guess he did one time. And that was enough. Ha-ha!”
I really wanted the kid to shut up. I shook my socks, squeezed them out, and started slipping them onto my feet, trying to ignore him. I could feel him coming closer to me.
“How old are you, anyway, Odd? What’s your name?”
“You talk too much, kid.”
“My name’s Quinn Cahill and I’m fifteen years old, and I’ve lived right here for my entire life.”
The kid wiped his palm off on his pants and stuck it out to me.
“I don’t care about any of that, kid. I’m in the wrong place and I just keep fucking things up. I need to get out of here.”
I shook out my boots, felt all the way down to the toes with cautious fingers, and began tying them up again. The kid dropped his hand, but I still didn’t want to look at his face.
“Don’t you have anyone else looking out for things with you?”
I said, “Don’t you?”
“You ain’t got a shirt, then? What happened to it? I bet I got a shirt at my place you could have.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
I stood up, wavered a little bit. I wondered how much blood those things took out of me.
“Are you hungry? I bet you haven’t eaten in a bit. Looks like it, anyway. I got some food, Odd. Anyhow, I suspect you had a shirt at some time, especially if you’re the one that Fent’s been hunting for these past seven days now.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Seven days.
“Maybe you don’t.”
So I looked at Quinn Cahill.
I knew he was lying about being fifteen. He looked like a little kid, but there was still something in his eyes that showed me this boy was not at all uncomfortable with killing things, even if it was Hunters. And I also couldn’t help but think he was playing me for something, and he knew exactly what he was doing.
“Hungry, Odd?”
I didn’t answer him.
“Listen,” Quinn said. “Hear that? It stopped.”
I hadn’t noticed how quiet it was. Maybe my breathing had become louder than the rain.
“I need to get the boat back before the water goes away. I got to leave, Odd. You coming?”