Tiger Chronicles: Exodus
Chapter V: Their Stories Will Be Heard
…
You could have stopped this, Watterson.
…
Calvin had heard, in researching methods of torture to use on Moe back in his youth, about a method called Chinese Water Torture.
The process was simple- strap someone down so they couldn't move, and drip water, drop by drop, on their forehead. Eventually, they'd either do anything to make it stop, or they'd go insane.
Dregs wasn't worth the waste of water, so Calvin decided to take a different approach after reconsidering killing him directly.
He returned, repaired the car completely of all the damage inflicted, both by him and by Dregs as he desperately tried to escape.
Then he changed the locks on his front and back door while Dregs was meeting with a lawyer, necessitating a locksmith.
He broke in while Dregs was absent and rearranged the contents of his pantry and refrigerator. Then he started sabotaging appliances and furniture, so that flipping the switch for a ceiling fan caused an explosion and smoke, and sitting down in a recliner caused it to flop to pieces.
Every piece of electronic surveillance Dregs bought to catch proof of his burglar or poltergeist somehow broke beyond repair. When Dregs sought refuge in a hotel, he made the TV inoperable, stuck on a Spanish channel at full volume, with the air conditioner stuck on a sweltering 90 degrees. These problems ceased the moment he called a housekeeper to check on them, and when he tried to buy a soda to soothe his nerves, he was profoundly disappointed that his lemon-lime had been replaced with carbonated urine, the can of course replaced with a perfectly normal, opened soda when he tried to contact police about a stalker.
A simple, unaddressed note stuck in his door- with locks changed again, of course- read simply, "The Eyes of God Are Upon You". The rest of his house, including a collection of markedly underage-looking anime dolls, was untouched. The next morning, he awoke to find each of the dolls kneeling, holding their own decapitated head.
This would have been bad enough, if many of the dolls were incapable of bending their legs. Or if they were previously wearing expressions of sadness and disappointment. But now, they all knelt, the magical girl holding her severed head, cute face now tested into disappointment bordering on tears… a look of betrayal…
They were circled around a disturbingly accurate doll of him, crucified on an inverted cross.
Dregs didn't normally drink at 9 am in the morning, but waking up to that, and finding that the cameras he had exhausted his savings to buy and set up had detected nothing… that warranted some liquid courage, surely…
…except he found no courage, only cat urine. Warm cat urine.
If anyone witnessed all of this, and saw the conclusion of the hellish nightmare he had been put through- calling the police again, only to find that everything had been reset to normal, dolls, beer and all- they would have understood.
It would make perfect sense for Dregs to strip nude and run out into the street, screaming and clawing at himself, banging on a neighbor's door incoherently as the very police who came to his house rushed to intercept him, unable to articulate his request, "please tell me you're real".
It would be excusable that he be reduced to shuddering twitching and mumbling when, after being tazered and thrown in the back of a cop car, he came to the conclusion that God had dropped all pretense of being a bystander and had decided to actively drive him insane.
As there were no witnesses and no footage to suggest anything besides Dregs being on drugs or simply out of his mind, (who knew what the fuck went through child molester's minds, anyway?) he was thrown in a cell to sober up overnight. Out of mercy, they gave him a cell of his own, lest a morally outraged detainee decide that a child-molester like Dregs was better off dead.
He lay there, now 2 am, on a hard bed, strangely comforted.
Whatever was in the house wasn't here. Here was safe. Come what may, he was away from there, where the laws of physics/Satan/God/whatever had decided to actively wage war.
He closed his eyes to try and get some sleep…
There was a faint click of movement.
He opened his eyes to see his anime figures lined along the floor… with his head in place of the girls' original ones.
All of them were engaged, with little toy props, in some form of suicide. A magical girl dregs committed seppuku. A mecha-pilot Dregs held a pistol to his head. A Dregs with a fighting game girl's body prepared to hang himself…
It took seven hours, multiple injections of antipsychotics, and several sets of restraints before Dregs finally calmed down enough to accept that there had never been anything toy-related in his cell.
By the end of the next day, he had made a full confession of having planned April's humiliation month's in advance, having spied on her via hidden cameras in the girl's locker room, the bathrooms, in her classrooms. He openly divulged passwords to sites where people like him gathered, and freely disclosed his plans- not yet enacted- to use the series of photos of April he had entitled "The Breaking of A Rose"- as a bargaining chip to trade among like-minded pedophiles.
He had finished signing the confession, typed up as fast as the D.A. could possibly process it, under the condition that he be put in solitary confinement, away from vengeful convicts and away from traitorous dolls.
No evidence was ever found to support his statements about his house being tampered with besides the obvious vandalism.
…
"My parents dropped me off at my uncle's farm on the first day of spring break, a week before my birthday. They had promised me a nice party, dinner out, nothing elaborate, but I was looking forward to it."
"Then Uncle Jay started whining that he needed help immediately, that his workers had quit on him, that his wife had left him, and that he needed me, of all people. I'd never milked a cow, never done any farm work, so I was confused."
"Then he started hitting me and quoting Malefides, and it all made sense. Why his wife left him and took both sons, and why I was there."
"The farm work was just gravy for him, he wanted someone to beat on. And he did- his favorite thing was to drag a bullwhip through horse manure and use it to flog me for hours."
"I only escaped because one of his workers came back to drop off some equipment and saw him beating me. I spent nearly three months in a hospital undergoing treatment for sepsis. Fun little fact- having shit-filled wounds scrubbed with hydrogen peroxide isn't fun."
"When I was finally released, mom and dad… mom and dad told me that Uncle Jay was just… ill. That he needed understanding. That he didn't mean to really hurt me."
"He promised them he'd get help if they'd just drop the charges. Mom and dad told me if I didn't agree to it, they'd kick me out of the house and make me repay them for the hospital stay."
"The last straw was them saying I needed to go back, to show Uncle Jay I had faith in him."
"He beat me with a whip covered in shit and they wanted forgiveness. I found someone who was coming here because their parents beat them for getting a B and a C, hitched a ride and now… I'm just waiting for the end."
"So now I've got scars everywhere, I'm homeless anyway, and he gets off with… nothing. Mom, dad, if you're listening to this: Great fuckin' birthday present. Really showed how much you love me."
-Rebecca Johnson, attendee at New Exodus.
…
James "Jay" Johnson had no room for slackers on his farm. You either got the work done, or you didn't. And if you didn't, there were consequences.
For his workers, consequences meant no pay. It didn't matter if something broke, it didn't matter if your partner was late, it didn't matter that a crop failed, quotas were quotas, and not filling quotas meant consequences. Some balked at being docked a day's wages enough to quit on the spot. Others knew they'd just have the same problems elsewhere.
For employees closer to him on the family tree, however, he could use more… inventive methods of motivation.
No dinner. No sleep. No shoes. 10 lashes with the bullwhip for the first offense, 20 the next, then 30, and so on. It worked well with his sons, and he only gave a few reminder lashes now and then to make sure they remembered just how much it hurt.
Then his wife had left him in the dead of the night. She had no money- he'd taken precautions to never give her more than the bare minimum she needed- so the chance of her lawyering up was almost nil, but that was two workers- two workers he could push harder than anyone else- gone along with his nightly recreational activity of choice.
He needed to go into town for more feed. The farmhands he had were working tirelessly to pick up the slack caused by the recent batch of quitters- planting, cleaning, and repairing broken equipment for the seventh time.
He walked over to a pair of young men working to clean out the barn of manure and dirty hay. "Have it done before I get back, or no pay." He said gruffly before walking off.
It was an impossible task- the barn would take half a day to be complete to his satisfaction and the trip would take two hours, tops. Add to the fact he knew those two boys were living paycheck to paycheck, and he would feel inclined to almost feel sorry for putting them on the spot like that.
Going hungry never killed anyone. Besides, he had a reputation to keep.
He counted his blessings as he turned out onto the road, a rattling beneath the pick-up reminding him he'd eventually need to get an axle fixed… along with the seat belts, long wore out from being used to tie down hoes and other equipment. There was time safety was a choice, not a mandate…
He'd gone too far with his niece. The intent was to break her down so she would be an obedient part-time worker and instill some much needed humility in her- who the hell let a girl wear make-up at that age?- but he had just…
It was like potato chips. You would tell yourself five chips, no more, and suddenly the bag was half-empty. He told himself five lashes, no move, and suddenly he's dragging the whip through manure just to get the point of who was boss through her head.
He was going to have to dock a lot more wages if he was going to pay his brother back for her hospital stay, part of their agreement in return for not pressing charges.
His brother was always a softie and a moron, and sure enough, he'd managed to wrangle 'one more chance' with Rebecca later this summer. So he couldn't use the whip- Rebecca didn't need to know that part of the agreement, and just the threat would be enough to convince her to perform other duties that needed doing… urgent duties, unfulfilled ever since his wife cut him off.
The rattling under the truck started getting louder. It figured that of course something else would break when he was strapped for cash.
There was a crunching noise, and Jay decided then and there that screw it, he'd take it to a part shop first thing when he got to town… he stepped on the gas, determined to make it before the whole damn thing fell apart.
His steering wheel suddenly jerked sharply to the right, pulling the truck, now going 60 on a 40 mile road, headlong into a ditch.
In a split second, he realized the barbed-wire fence parallel to the road was now directly in his immediate path as he was hurled through the shattered windshield…
…
Ms. Butcher, finally out on bail, parked in front of her apartment, and let her head lay on the wheel for a few precious seconds.
She'd gone too far, this time, and unlike the other idiots involved in this debacle, Christina Butcher could read the writing on the wall.
Klein High School as they knew it was finished.
The teachers that were not involved in the framing of Jeremy Duncan had left in disgust. Thorn had tried to rein in the rebellion of students openly decrying the injustice by making all grades zeroes. That had accomplished two things: pissing off the students and their parents even more, and leaving them with nothing to lose.
They had not collaborated a solid story. The idea was that several adults all saying 'he did it' would be enough for any jury or doubter. Witnesses and cellphone cameras had made their story crumble, and their own surveillance equipment only served to damn them even further- showing a confused Jeremy Duncan arriving at Ms. Butcher's classroom, opening the door a brief second, and then leaving just as quickly.
Jeremy had taken one look at her, remembered nothing good ever came of being around her, and left without so much as flipping the bird.
Ripping at her clothes, running out the door half a minute later, and screaming rape was her attempt to salvage the situation, and for a few days, as Jeremy was beaten by parent and police officer alike, she thought it had worked.
Then some asshole named Pierce had given the press a photo of Jeremy attempting to eat an entire cheeseburger in one bite, coincidentally catching a clock that indicated if Butcher's story about how Jeremy had mercilessly assaulted and violated her for hours was true, then Jeremy was also a time traveler.
It was supposed to be simple. Ruin Jeremy's life. Teach a lesson. Make Jeremy thank her for ruining his life. Then laugh when his compensation was revealed to be the life lesson and a GED test at 24 or 28. Maybe she would have been generous and let him keep the change when she patronized whatever burger joint he was forced to work at.
His parents had refused to sue the school on his behalf- after all, they had agreed to the idea- but that wouldn't stop him from finding a pro bono lawyer and suing everyone. The fines from the police and the city over the false report were going to put her on a ramen diet for months alone. Fortunately, he had stormed off to that damned New Exodus thing- that would give her time to think.
She got out of her car, trudged up the steps to her apartment, fumbled for her keys. A nap would clear her head…
She opened the door to an empty apartment.
Stark. Barren. Clean.
She closed her eyes, opened them, repeated the process several times, not believing what she saw… or didn't see, as the case was.
Everything was gone.
…
April Patterson saw the news on a laptop, saw the newscast… but she couldn't believe it.
"Holy shit." An Xiao exclaimed softly as they read together.
Dregs had gone down. Hard. Apparently someone had devoted themselves to making his life a living hell, doing everything from sabotaging his home to swapping his drinks with urine, which eventually had drove him to run out into the street, screaming and naked, raving about ghosts and his doll collection losing their heads.
Her abuser broken mentally, witnessed naked and raving in the street, pleading to be sent to jail and believing vengeful spirits were attacking him. That was good news, no matter how you looked at it.
Loud laughter over by another group of teens, huddled around another laptop, got her attention. What was unusual was that Jeremy- who had been sullen and depressed since he'd arrived, was doubled over with laughter, tears streaming from his eyes.
She and An left their group of mostly girls to go see what was so funny- An could probably use the laugh more than anyone else.
She approached Jeremy, who was frantically trying to compose himself enough to breathe. "What's so funny?"
"Butcher… everything… gone." He got out, holding up a hand, taking a few deep breaths. "Someone… someone got into her apartment and took everything."
April blinked. "Like, her TV and jewelry?"
"No, no… EVERYTHING. The furniture. The bed. The toilet. The lights. Everything! God I wanna shake the hand of whoever did it, that is awesome-"
"How?" An interrupted.
Jeremy blinked, and the other boys around him stopped laughing as much. "How what?"
"How did they do it? I mean, her apartment probably had cameras or something, right? Someone had to see someone breaking in and taking everything out…"
April had to concede that everything suddenly vanishing made very little sense. The owner of the laptop, a red-haired, chubby boy, clicked and typed. "…so far, the police don't have any clues." The boy said, amusement turning to puzzlement. "…but that doesn't… you would have to hear or see something like that. Moving a bed and fridge isn't a covert job."
"And for those of you who hadn't heard-" came a voice from behind them, and she recognized Kyle's voice before she saw him, "-Rebecca's uncle is in the hospital with severe lacerations and sepsis, courtesy of being hurled out of his truck, through a barbed wire fence, and into a very well used cow pasture."
April winced. Granted, Rebecca's story was harsh and gut-churningly outrageous, even compared to her own, and the fate that had befallen him was a just desert if ever there was one, but holy hell, that was harsh.
"Kinda odd how these all happened one after another, isn't it?" Kyle mused. "Then again, maybe not."
Without another word, he strode off, leaving behind multiple confused teens.
…
In the past few days, what had begun as a plan to reinstitute some semblance of order, even if through fear, in what was quickly becoming a chaotic time had turned into an upheaval.
Her son had not accepted the explanation that the humiliation and pain would be controlled; that no more would be used than absolutely necessary. He had capped off a tirade of the blackest, foulest insults with a single, cold-as-a-December-gravestone dismissal:
"You both are dead to me."
The wisdom chants kept the depression at bay, but it was always there, seeping through cracks, making her doubt herself. If only they had used better methods. If only they had used a fictional strawman. If only they hadn't recruited Ms. Butcher.
Connie Duncan had a lot of 'if only's.
She had thought the years of exaggerations would have made him more inured, but instead the past hyperbole about him parking on the roof or being ungrateful had only served to finalize Jeremy's decision to try his luck elsewhere, despite the protests and demands of his teachers, principal, and his father.
Now, as her husband's dental business floundered due to the scandal, and they both bore the full brunt of a neighborhood that saw them as monsters, where Malefideism had once given total clarity as to the best way to utilize her wisdom-wisdom wonderment, she had doubt. Fear.
According to Malefides' holy wisdom-wisdom wonderment, 90% of children were beyond saving in this day and age. Connie knew deep in her soul that meant there was a very good chance Jeremy wasn't one of the ten percent.
Even now, in the midst of fellow Malefidians at a weekly Wisdom Gathering, doubt plagued her.
"…what's stopping anyone… anyone… from just taking a few guns over to Newden and filling the Liemaker full of holes?" asked one burly Malefidian. "I mean, come on, he's just one kid."
"I'd agree." Piped up another spry looking newcomer, "but let us remember- Liemaker that he is, the truth is that many have gone after him, and those people are dead now. We may not be dealing with a normal kid."
Silence followed. There were… rumors… that Calvin Halgins wasn't just rebellious, but a genuine, bonafide, murderously crazy psychotic whose body count could be attributed to the fact he was so unpredictable that no plan of attack worked on him.
There were also rumors that he could disarm bombs and call lightning down out of the sky, so she wasn't too worried.
All this being said, the facts were plain to see. Calvin Halgins was repeatedly cited in the holy texts as a deceiver of men, a slayer of innocents, and an agent of chaos. Even the media that presented him in a positive light was forced to note that dozens of men and women had died trying to take him down.
"What's interesting to me," noted one usually quiet member, a bachelorette, blonde hair, early thirties, "is that he's not at the New Exodus camp. Nearly every other time these sorts of things have happened, he's been noted to be on the scene, even in cases it didn't make sense. Now, he's apparently just instant messaging people."
That… was odd. Or at least, it didn't fit into the psychological profile that nearly every Malefidian had of Calvin- a glory seeking idiot who would throw himself into the middle of anything noteworthy, then shoot his way out when it was obvious he was in over his head.
"They're forming an uprising." Snarled an elderly man. "First, they separate. Then, they state grievances. Then, they want equal rights. Next thing you know, they'll be robbing us at gunpoint and calling it 'active wealth redistribution' or some nonsensical jargon. We need to get up there and start reminding them who's boss, and we need to have done it several days ago, before Calvin started spreading videos of them whining."
There were angry voices of assent.
In what she called 'moments of weakness', and former friends deemed 'moments of clarity', Connie Duncan knew that 'reminding them who's boss' would mean a body count. The official doctrine of Malefideism said that while intense physical discipline was often necessary, cold-blooded murder was not.
Unofficially, however, Malefideism taught that there should be two distinct parties for 'Purges' conducted by Concerned Elders. There were the Purgers, whose job it was to single out a child or multiple children for termination as well as keep interference at bay- quick terminations of a target were frowned on, to be done only in extreme emergencies; it was better that the death be prolonged and painful. The other group was the Celebrants, white-robed members of the Purging Party that would perform the Wisdom chants and dance to honor Malefides' holy and perfect judgment.
She could say something.
All it sometimes took in a group of Malefidians, James Malefides himself had warned, was one voice of dissent saying "wait, we're talking about fucking killing kids here. There's something seriously wrong with that."
At the very least ideology like that could shake a potential Purge Party's resolve. Other times, it could dissolve a group altogether. If she spoke now, it might dissolve whatever bonds they had, or they would excommunicate her. Either way, she would lose the closest things she had to friends after-
That's how Malefideism gets you, Connie! You made a bad choice, and rather than admit you messed up, you want to hang around people who told you that the worst decision of your life was actually pure genius, and
Stop.
-you don't want to fix things, you don't want to apologize, you want everyone to tell you how great you are, even when you know, deep down, that you have gone too far
Stop. It.
-your son, Connie! How could you do that?! How could anyone think framing their child for rape and then beating them senseless was a good idea? Are you completely
How wonderful and wise I am! How wonderful the world will be,
-you need help, honey, but until you realize that, we can't walk down this road with
When everyone can understand the wonderful wisdom within me!
-I know a good therapist, she can help
HOW WONDERFUL AND WISE I AM HOW WONDERFUL THE WORLD WILL BE
-Connie please
WHENEVERONECANUNDERSTANDTHEWONDERFULWISDOMWITHINMEHOWWONDERFULANDWISEIAMHOWWONDERFULTHEWORLDWILLBEWHENEVERYONECANUNDERSTANDTHEWONDERFULWISDOMWITHINMEHOWWONDERFULANDWISEIAMHOWWONDERFULTHEWORLDWILLBEWHENEVERYONECANUNDERSTANDTHEWONDERFULWISDOMWITHINME
Connie please just listen!...
HOWWONDERFULANDWISEIAMHOWWONDERFULTHEWORLDWILLBEWHENEVERYONECANUNDERSTANDTHEWONDERFULWISDOMWITHINME-
"-we can't afford to hold back just because some of our own might be caught in the crossfire. Agreed?" the head of the Malefidians, Brice Whethers, looked directly at Connie Duncan, the one person who had family on the campgrounds they were planning to attack.
"Absolutely." She agreed without hesitation.
As they discussed where to buy what they'd need for such a massive attack and whether to ally with other groups of Malefidians, she realized that she'd thrown her son under even a greater bus.
It got easier each time, she'd found.
You started small, a fabricated story where your child was the bad guy, careless or ungrateful.
Then you graduated to blaming them for more and more things, then punishing them for those things, even when they were completely beyond their control.
Finally, one day, you're signing your son's own death warrant, because he is saying what you did- conspiracy to frame him for a rape that never happened- was wrong, and you just can't accept that.
…
"I know you've heard it before, but the reason I'm here is this forgiveness bullshit."
"I'll try to keep this short. For five years, I've been dealing with these neighbors. Their son, Jacob Knots, went to the schools I did. Jacob is an… asshole. There's no other word for it. He started out by practicing those professional wrestling moves on me when he was 11 and graduated to kicking me down stairs and pelting me with rocks."
"But they have a little kid, she's six, now. And about the time I'm thirteen, they need a babysitter. I say no. Jacob's mom and dad do this "please please please" chant over and over and over, and I finally cave in."
"Worst job I ever took. She screamed non-stop, shat everywhere. They stiffed me on pay, saying money was tight. Then their son kicked me out the door- literally- and they laughed. And my parents made me go back when they said they needed sitting again."
"My parents never stood up for me. Not once. I told them about the assaults, about losing teeth when Jacob swung a chair into my face, but all they would say is "he has emotional problems" or "they're going through hard times, and they need help, please, honey, please, honey, please please please…", and every time I thought things couldn't get worse, they did."
"Because you see, when I wasn't babysitting a shrieking hellspawn and getting stiffed for it, or being assaulted by Jacob the ape, I was at home with two sisters, one older, one younger, who both made life a living hell for me. Brittney, my older sister, 'borrowed' my computer I bought after mowing lawns, infected it with a virus that wiped out all my files, then when I repaired it, she threw a fit until Mom and Dad let her keep it. Princess… no, seriously, that's her name… Princess took my 3ds and microwaved it as an 'experiment'. And mom and dad grounded me for not keeping it hidden AFTER they had forced me to let her play with it. Selective memory, I guess."
"So one day, Jacob breaks my arm with an armbar, and I finally call the cops and a pro-bono lawyer to just… get one set of horrible people out of my life forever. That's when dad goes… fucking nuts. He throws away my crappy laptop that I bought with money I earned working part-time at a computer store, forces me to quit that job, then tells me I'm going to be spending the summer both doing chores for the Knots family and overnight stocking at the grocery store for half what I was earning at the Computer Store. He just kept getting worse and worse, waking me up in the middle of the night and making me run, or do push-ups on my bad arm, and one day he tells me he's decided I'm going to go into the Marines, because he wants an Marine son."
"I can't deal with two families trying to kill me, man. I just… I just can't. Derrick, if you're seeing this, I didn't want to quit, my dad forced me to and beat me with a belt when I said no."
"Mom, dad, sisters, the fucking Knots… if you're watching this…"
"Burn in hell. All of you. Especially your goddamned little shit-factory."
-Brian Teller's interview with Calvin Halgins.
…
Kyle Creekson rolled over in his sleeping bag. It wasn't the first time he'd slept on a hard surface; innumerable times his parents, in fits of anger, had decided he wasn't fit to sleep on a bed and had locked him in the garage, no pillow, no blanket.
Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
"Shut up." He snarled.
You're stronger than this.
He opened his eyes. He was in a brightly lit field, not in a tent with two other boys as he was when he'd laid down to sleep. Stupid dreams…
I can help you-
"No." He snapped, getting out of his bag and walking in the opposite direction of the voice.
He will use you. He will drain you dry, and then he will cast you aside when he has no more use for you. The voice wasn't coming from one direction, it was as if it was being broadcast from around him.
"Well, 'he' actually did something for me, so as long as I take your fan club down with me, that's fine with me."
This isn't you, Kyle. The voice was calm and reassuring. I know you're angry. I know you're hurt. But this-
"SHUT UP!" Kyle yelled, slapping his hands over his ears. "JUST SHUT UP!"
You're lashing out in anger. Let me help you-
"Help me?" Kyle said in disbelief, dropping his hands. "Help me? You had SIX FUCKING YEARS TO HELP ME!"
Kyle-
"No! FUCK YOU! I was beaten by that… cunt for laughs, and you weren't there. A grown man beat me bloody, held me down, and fucked me in the ass, and those were the mild games, and you weren't there. I was framed for something that never happened, everyone bought Ms. Jennings bullshit because it was convenient, and you. Weren't. There."
Like a torrent of hate and rage, the accusations spilled out of him. Supposed omnipotence be damned, he would have his say…
"I WAS BEATEN THREE TIMES A WEEK FOR SIX YEARS, AND YOU WEREN'T THERE! I WAS HATED AND SPAT ON, AND YOU WEREN'T THERE! I SLEPT ON A HARD CONCRETE FLOOR, TRYING TO GET SOME SLEEP BECAUSE I KNEW THEY WERE GOING TO SEND ME OVER TO A PEDOPHILE'S HOUSE FOR 'DISCIPLINE TRAINING', AND YOU. WEREN'T. THERE."
The voice was silent.
"So take your message of mercy and forgiveness and shove it up your ass. Hell, I'll even do you one better than Mr. Mallory did me and let you lube up first."
There was a long silence.
I'm sorry.
He awoke with a start, the soft snoring and breathing of the other boys evidence they hadn't heard his rant.
Kyle turned over, trying to get comfortable. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he felt a… satisfaction.
It bothered him briefly, then he fell asleep, smiling at a vision of a sobbing, desperate Mallory trying to escape an infinite prison that flooded with lava, burning again and again.
…
"What would Jesus do?"
"I dunno, what would Jesus do? Maybe he'd tell our parents, our teachers, or whoever is currently trying to kill us to back off. Maybe he'd heal the hand one girl got chopped off by her uncle overseas when he thought she stole something. We don't know, do we? I've heard a lot of stories from all of you, and not one of them ends with 'and Jesus came down and fixed things'."
"Now I'm not stupid. That phrase means act like Jesus. Forgive. Be kind. Be understanding. The trouble is, that phrase and Jesus' name are used too often by the wrong people for the wrong reasons."
"What would Jesus do when daddy or mommy throws you down the stairs, or when hell, a random stranger who just got an erection from reading Malefides' book decides to take a chair and crack you over the skull from behind and pummel your prone body until he's dragged off? The insinuation is forgive. Forget. Accept the offender needs your help."
"Pardon me if I don't want to use someone who can shrug off crucifixion as an example for my life. I don't get better after three days. My wounds get infected, and then my dad likes to pour rubbing alcohol on them, and make a few new ones for good measure. But hey, I'm not trying to disrespect the guy. I mean, if everyone acted like Jesus was said to act, we'd have no war, no poverty, no conflict. Problem is, the people who ask this question rhetorically are content to keep acting like Satan while expecting others to act like Jesus."
"You all know the argument that it makes no sense to expect Jesus behavior from someone you treat like a convict, so let's move onto using his name- or any other religious figure's name- as a rationalization for Malefidian-style punishing."
"Myself, even before I got accused of stealing, what was and was not 'godly' was used way too often to exclude me from things other kids enjoyed- yeah, you're all nodding already, you all know the drill. Video games were ungodly. Halloween was ungodly. Cartoons were ungodly. Comics were ungodly. Sodas were ungodly. Pizza was ungodly- Yes, I shit you not, my parents insisted the delicacy of the gods was a tool of Satan. The internet was ungodly. Writing stories was ungodly. The list went on and on."
"But beating a kid until they were lying on the floor, black and blue, unconscious with open wounds? Totally acceptable."
"And I used to wonder, just how the hell they took a religion about redemption and mercy and turned it into a justification for beating the ever-loving shit out of kids, and finally, finally after so matter years of waking up in a pool of my own blood and piss, I think I have an answer."
"The Father, Son and Spirit are a farce. Allah, Buddha, whoever, they're just things to mask their real holy trinity- the hand, the rod, and the belt."
"I'm willing to wager that you've all come to the same conclusion I have- someone who uses assault as a first resort as often as they can has no place to talk about forgiveness."
-Kyle Creekson
…
The news reached April fairly quickly that some anonymous donor had dropped off several large crates of food and drink.
Which was good, because as justified as she felt in getting the fuck away from her parents, the fact was that no one had really planned ahead- or had been able to plan ahead for, with their limited resources- food for a bunch of disenfranchised teenagers.
Now? There were pop-tarts, hot pockets, sodas, veggies, everything they needed and more to hold out a little longer.
A line had formed. Someone had the foresight to start campfires and started using flat stones to cook some of the food.
Her stomach rumbled as the aromas wafted her way. Soon, she assured herself. Soon.
"Awesome, man, we have supporters-"
"Gotta be a billionaire, maybe that Wayne dude-"
"Guys, they didn't send only food, they sent guns-"
"Gotta protect ourselves…"
April was so busy mentally planning her feast that she almost neglected those last two lines of chatter.
Wait, what?
She blinked. Even she believed guns + teens = bad things, especially when a lot of them were pissed off…
It suddenly occurred, either out of distrust or paranoia, that maybe someone who sent teens a crate full of guns might not have their best interests at heart.
…
Kyle really, really wanted food. He really needed it, having lived off starvation rations at home, even after being found innocent- giving back 'too many privileges at once' would only lead him down the path of rebellion, his parents said, and privileges included a menu beyond mostly bread and water meals.
But the voice said wait. And the voice had not steered him wrong before… why was it doing this now, starving him when food was in reach?
He watched enviously as others gathered around campfires, eating, drinking, laughing, convulsing, screaming…
Oh.