The Pyrrhic Days
Chapter Seven
Who wants to see our favourite superheroes getting roughed up? Anyone? No? I don't care, I'm gonna do it anyway!
I don't know how to make a bomb and I don't want to know.
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A thin blue flume of smoke floated from the barrel of the shotgun. Clark's gaze was drawn to the flume, and try as he might he couldn't look away. At any moment a shower of bullets could spill out of the smoking barrel and end his participation in The Program forever. He felt beads of cold sweat collect on his bow, and even in his panic he prayed to God that Diana would stay quiet and keep herself safe.
"Clark! Where are you?"
God wasn't listening.
The holder of the gun turned at the waist to stare off into the distance, towards where Diana was. His gun stayed where it was.
"This is it," thought Clark. "He's going to shoot me, and then he'll shoot her because she can't keep her goddamn mouth shut."
But when the shooter turned around, he was smiling. The smile was more amused than sinister. When he spoke, his voice was gruff but he sounded like he could burst into laughter at any moment.
"You'd better tell your girlfriend to keep her voice down. Anyone could come after you," he said.
He threw the barrel of the gun casually over his shoulder and walked away towards another copse of woods. Clark watched him leave, too stunned to do anything else. A moment later, Diana came crashing out of the same brush he had fallen through moments before
(when Adam Jameson was still alive)
and ran towards him.
"Clark, are you okay? What the hell happened?" she asked, her voice almost hysterically loud.
Clark rose slowly to his feet and brushed down the front of his uniform. His fingers brushed a warm wetness that only barely registered with him as Adam's blood. Amazingly his rucksack was still hanging off of his shoulder. Diana peered at him, confused.
"Clark?"
He looked at her so coldly that she shuddered.
"Keep your goddamn voice down. Anyone could come after us," he hissed at her.
He began walking towards the same copse of woods that Bruce had disappeared into. After a moment, Diana followed him.
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"Tate, what are you doing?"
The face of the man in front of Harley holding the gun was familiar, but it wasn't her wonderful boyfriend Tate. It was someone else, some demon that was using his face. Tate would never point a gun at Harley. Tate loved Harley!
"Get out of here, bitch!" the demon-Tate hissed at her. He brought the gun closer to her face.
"Tate, what are you doing?" she cried. Fat tears were welling up in her eyes, distorting Tate's image even further.
"Get out of here or I'll kill you! Think I'm gonna take care of you? Think again!" he roared at her.
She burst into tears. She was beginning to understand a little. Maybe Tate did love her, but nowhere near as much as he loved himself.
"Don't you love me any more? Why are you doing this to me?" she howled.
"Love you? Yeah right! I was the only guy who would look twice at you and you hopped into bed with me! Think I'll risk my life protected an easy little cow like you? You're lucky I haven't pulled the trigger yet! Now scram!"
She didn't move.
"Didn't you hear me? I said scram!" he roared again, bumping her forehead none too gently with the gun.
"I'm not going anywhere," she whispered, so quietly he almost didn't hear her.
"Then I'll shoot you," he whispered back.
"Go ahead," she sobbed. "Without you I've got nothing. So go ahead and kill me. I don't care."
His finger squeezed the trigger, ever so gently. She had her head bowed. She held her breath, waiting to feel the bullet enter her skull. Tate had made her happy. So what if she was going to die? The barrel of the gun trembled at her head. Why hadn't he pulled the trigger? Suddenly the cool metal left her skin. There was a light whistling sound and then Harley was pulled forward into Tate's arms.
"I'm sorry," he sobbed into her neck, "I'm so sorry! I love you…"
She hugged him back. Tears rolled down her own face too, and suddenly things weren't so scary any more. He'd thrown away his gun. He loved her, he really did. He loved her as much as she loved him.
"I just got scared Harley! I thought you'd be better off without me! I'm sorry," he cried in her ear.
"Ssh, it's okay. I know. We'll be okay," she soothed. They would be fine. He loved her, she loved him, everything would be all right…
BANG!
Tate's noisy sobbing was cut off, and Harley felt a warm gush of fluid pour down her upper torso. She pushed him away from her, only to find a large red hole where Tate's left eye had been. The hole was dribbling red liquid. She heard a shrill, piercing noise and wondered what it was, unaware that it was her own screaming. Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the screaming was cut off. The two bodies fell back into the wet grass, his on top of hers.
Ivy O Hara glared at the bodies. She hadn't liked Tate (pimply and perverted) or Harley (fat and a fashion victim). She had hidden when she heard them talking, but was fortunate to have had Tate's gun practically thrown at her feet. She felt no remorse when she killed them.
Their deaths were as ugly as they were.
(Boy #10 Tate Jones: Dead. Girl #8 Harley Quinn: Dead. 20 to go)
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Wally was jogging lightly. The panic hadn't hit him still, even though he was hearing loud noises coming from various parts of the jungle. There were loud bangs coming from two different directions, glass smashing quite nearby, rattling like machine-gunfire from far away and he thought he heard a girl screaming coming from one of the hills.
He stopped frequently to catch breath, but never stayed in the one place for more than five minutes. He travelled in a zigzag fashion, avoiding the trails. That was how he came across Samantha Polley.
She was, to put it bluntly, a mess.
The left lens of her glasses was cracked. Her lower lip was cut and bleeding, and she was biting down hard on it. Her skirt was torn and covered with mud. Her hair, which had been wound into a tight bun, was sticking up in frazzled peaks, making her look like the snakewoman from Greek mythology. Most troubling were her eyes. They were bloodshot and opened so wide they were almost ready to pop out of their sockets.
"Samantha," he began, "are you…"
He was cut off in mid speech when a bullet whizzed by his ear.
" I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die…" she was muttering.
He was a lucky guy. Samantha was a terrible shot. She raised her gun and fired again, and missed again. Wally didn't test his luck. He took off sprinting again into the forest and left her behind in a matter of minutes. When he finally stopped running, he could still hear her screaming.
"I don't wanna die!"
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Lex Luthor had sulphur. He'd found it in a barn. He had taken a lighter from Seth Merchant's pocket. He had gasoline, some cloths, some shock absorbers taken from an old car.
He was going to make a bomb. Some of the fools on the island were bound to band together. He needed to save his bullets for the ones that went alone. Then he could drive the last few into a corner like sheep and blow them up in one fell swoop.
The sun was starting to rise. It was as red as fresh blood.