To lay the land desolate;
And He will destroy its sinners from it.”
It was mid winter, below freezing, the wind blowing in off the Rockies cold enough to freeze an unprotected human to death in minutes. Snow covered the red rock like a layer of frosting, providing uncertain footing for anyone foolish enough to be out in it.
Sam didn’t notice. He ran with his shirt off, heart pounding as he ate up the miles. The cold didn’t seem to affect him as it did others. He felt the chill and the icy bite of the wind but only like a human would notice a mosquito bite — slightly annoying but essentially harmless. Much like his cap. Hikari made sure he wore it. His master wasn’t stupid. He knew Sam liked to run with his sweatshirt off and so made sure the boy at least wore his cap. Sam fought a constant battle with it. Annoyingly, it wanted to fly off his head with the slightest breeze.
It got dark early in winter. He liked this time of year — he could begin his evening regime earlier and there were far less people around. The solitude appealed to him as much as the cold terrain. Hikari had only just started letting him venture further out at nights and he welcomed the new found freedom.
He ran on. Devil’s Garden was just ahead. He passed underneath Pine Tree Arch, his moon-shadow racing ahead of him and disappearing just before he entered the welcome darkness beneath it. He followed the path, his pace steady, easily avoiding any uneven patches, his shinai clutched firmly in one hand. Passing through another arch he left the path, heading for one of his training areas.
He leapt from rock to rock, his nine year old body displaying an agility and strength both surprising and unnatural in one so young. He crossed over another arch and then down into a rocky gully. This training area — one of many — was one of his favourites. He and Hikari had just finished it a few nights earlier and already, he’d used it more than any of the others. It was a simple enough affair: a series of bamboo poles buried in the ground at different levels designed to simulate a variety of attack angles. He liked it because of the privacy afforded by the gully, but also because the walls enabled him to leap off at adrenaline-pumping heights.
He was almost there when suddenly he froze. A sound. Something wasn’t right. He listened carefully, cocking an ear like a dog. Voices carried aloft on the wind. Young voices. Boys in all likelihood. He dropped into stealth mode as Hikari had taught him, inching his way along one step at a time, choosing his footing carefully and letting his weight settle before he moved again.
There was a rocky out-crop ahead of him, partially illuminated by moonlight but mostly in deep shadow. He crept towards it, silent as death. Beyond it, the voices were louder. The boys had found his training ground. He crouched in the shadow of the outcropping and listened, feeling the sweat starting to cool on his naked torso. By the sounds of them, there were three. He didn’t recognise the voices but that was hardly surprising — he had very little contact with any of the other boys in Jacob’s Ladder.
Judging from the tone of their voices, they were young. Probably his age or slightly older. He had become very adept at assessing such things. Whenever he got the chance, he watched humans, fascinated by everything about them, following their movements, listening to them. Apart from Hikari and Aimi, it was all the human interaction he normally got.
The boys were talking, moving about his training ground as they did so. He heard their sneakers crunch on the snow. It was unusual for boys this young to be out as late as this — especially in winter. The terrain around Jacob’s Ladder was unforgiving at this time of year and more so in Devil’s Garden. One slip in the snowy conditions could lead to serious injury or even death.
The cold was potentially deadly, too. The temperature was dropping rapidly. Visibility was poor, the moon a poor substitute for daylight. Conceivably, the boys could be lost. Even if they weren’t, it was still an hour’s walk back to town.
Sam considered these factors and then adjusted his cap, ready to step out and offer to guide the boys back to the path at the very least. And then he stopped. Something in the boy’s conversation had finally registered. His name.
“Who?” one of the boys was saying.
“You know, Sam — the kid that lives with Aimi and her father,” said a second voice.
“Oh, him,” said the third, snorting. “He’s a retard.”
“Probably,” replied the second voice, laughing. “You hardly ever see him and when you do, he’s wearing that stupid sweatshirt with the hood always pulled up. It’s always the same one, too. Doesn’t he have any others?”
The others laughed. Sam felt something shrink inside. He didn’t really care what he looked like, but clearly it was important to these boys and so maybe he should take more notice. It was things like this — other than his heritage — that made him different. Maybe if he wasn’t so unusual, these boys would be friends with him.
There was something about their tone too that was starting to upset him. They were laughing at him and he didn’t like it.
“Yeah,” said the third voice, “and why doesn’t he go to school? He must be retarded. Maybe he goes to a special school for retards.”
All three laughed again, and a tight core of anger began to unfold its wings in Sam’s stomach.
“So what makes you think this is his?” asked the first voice.
“Who else?” said the second. “It’s either his or that Japanese guy’s. No-one else in town plays around with this sort of stuff.”
“We’d better get back,” said the first voice. “I told Mom we’d be back before dark. We’re gonna be late.”
“Wait,” said the third voice. “Let’s leave him a surprise.”
“What do you mean?” asked the first voice.
“Let’s knock over some of his poles.”
Sam surged to his feet at this suggestion, his knuckles turning white around the shaft of the shinai. Anger coursed through him, burst into flight, anger that yearned to be satisfied with violence. His whole body trembled with it. Something whispered inside him then — a voice he wasn’t entirely sure was his own but one he claimed regardless. Whose voice could it be but his own? The voice would only be satisfied with bloodshed — with the blood of these boys.
Kill them. Kill them now. No-one will know. No-one need ever know. Kill them out here amongst the rocks and the cold and the snow and the darkness and their bodies will never be found. Not ever. You won’t get caught. You can do it. You want to do it. DO IT!
Sam felt his body begin to move towards the boys, eager to satisfy the voice inside his head. He watched the arm clutching the shinai raise up of its own volition. He felt violence start to boil in his veins, all too keen to be unleashed.
A rock under the heel of one sneaker shifted. The scraping noise was easily heard in the still night air of the gully. In that one moment, it was like a spell had broken. The incredible rage he felt suddenly drained away like water as if it hadn’t existed, to be replaced with a kind of numbness.
He shook his head to clear it, confused. Sure, it was like him to get angry, but not to the extent of really wanting to kill others. And he had felt like killing them. Really wanted to. He could still almost taste that desire. It was like someone else or even an unknown part of him had for one moment been in control of his mind and body. Strange.
He cursed silently. He had let his anger triumph once again — something that both he and Hikari had been working hard to suppress. It was too late though; the damage had been done and he swore again, aloud this time.
There was silence in the gully. Then: “What was that?” asked the third voice.
“I don’t know,” confessed the second voice, and Sam’s keen hearing detected uneasiness in it. The boy was scared.