Florida Reclamation Zone 2138
Just twenty seconds ago, Charles thought, as he stood almost deafened by the sound of his own pounding heart.
Just twenty seconds ago my life was fine. Well not fine. But...fine.
But twenty seconds ago his father
ranting as always,
ranting about females,
about witches
Medea
ranting and ranting...
Twenty seconds ago, his father had joked gleefully about killing his own daughter
called her a ...
called Elizabeth a ...
And, ten seconds ago, Charles had picked up the gun.
There would be no more ranting now.
"I killed him," Charles said aloud, almost to steady himself, because the world refused to stop. "I actually killed him."
All that planning, the scheming, the elaborate revenges, lovingly designed and redesigned as he drifted off to sleep each night...
All the accusations he had planned, all the confessions he had planned to extract...
...and, in the end, he'd just lost his temper.
More seconds were passing.
And Charles had to do something.
He had to start trying to save his own life.
Since childhood, Charles had grown used to surveying piles of garbage with a magpie's eye. He had, in the year since Elizabeth's death, accumulated some materials - stray bits of plastic sheeting, tape, a tattered tarpaulin, an old tent. He'd stowed it all in a rotting cardboard box, behind a pile of scrap metal. Stowed it for someday.
Someday had come.
He wrapped, he hauled, he cleaned.
He watched his mother's closed bedroom door.
It never opened.
Then, he got in his boat - got in with the plastic wrapped, tarpaulin wrapped, tent wrapped... thing - coaxed the engine to a marginally effective splutter, and guided the boat along the bayou, toward old Shem's glade.
Charles seemed to remember he'd once heard that 'gators did not particularly like the taste of human flesh. That, when disposing of a body this way, it was best to sweeten the deal with some ham, or with quail. But Charles didn't have any ham, or any quail. Or any money to buy ham, or buy quail. Or enough time to turn enough tricks to get the money for ham, or for fucking quail.
He would just have to hope that times were as tough for old Shem as they were for everyone else.
Charles offloaded it - the body - as close to the bank as he dared. He couldn't see Shem anywhere, but he reckoned that he could sense him, sense those ancient eyes upon him. Then, he backed the boat off a'ways and waited, waited as the light faded.
Mosquitos began to bite him, but he didn't care. Charles wondered whether he was going about this all wrong. Whether he should have fed himself to old Shem instead.
Eventually, there was movement in darkness, a quiet splash of water, and Charles reckoned that the deed was done.
Exhaustion had enveloped him - more thoroughly than the darkness, more mercilessly than the mosquitos - and he wanted nothing in the world except his own bed.
To his surprise though, the porch light was on. As he trudged closer he saw a figure. No, multiple figures, Imperial lictors. A squad of Imperial lictors standing around his mother.
She looked up and saw him. And then, slowly, she raised a finger in his direction and began to scream.
