"I think so," he whispered back. "I hear something. Someone."
((Harry Hanely continued from Hanley's Bazaar))
((Emily Rose continued from Don't Know How to Have Fun))
It had all started so simply. A chance meeting in the woods, two lost and lonely souls stumbling into each other, Harry in the process of abandoning the tents and Emily the beach. It'd been the perfect mercantile bargain, as each fulfilled the other's need for a little company and conversation. They'd kept sane by talking with each other even as the rest of the island had so clearly lost its mind. It had been easy to pretend that they weren't in this crazy death match, that they were just out camping.
At least, it had been easy until the announcements. That was when Harry found out that Max Sawyer, the same Max Sawyer who'd made his way right past Harry's little camp-out, had killed quite a lot of people.
He'd tried to justify the decision he'd then made in terms of cost/benefit. He'd tried to tell himself that if they took down Max it'd set them up as reliable, as forces to be reckoned with. He'd get at least one extra gun, and that right there was a fine investment. He'd tried to tell himself that it would all help him survive in the long run.
The truth was, the thought of some guy gunning down everyone he came across sickened Harry, especially with the realization that he himself had likely only been spared because Max hadn't glanced in his direction. If not for that close call, he could've shoved it away, but dammit, that could've been his corpse floating in some swimming pool.
"Should we," he'd said, and then he'd swallowed against the dryness in his throat, "should we do something about Max?"
He'd almost hoped she would say no, that it wasn't their problem, leave Max to someone else. But she'd nodded, and he'd known it was the right choice. If everyone pushed off responsibility, nothing would ever be accomplished. Max, or someone like him, would run rampant, and would go home, and all the decent people would be nothing but rotting flesh on this godforsaken island.
They'd been lucky. Max's last known location was at the Hotel. He'd be heading to the Nuclear Living Site to collect his reward, and he'd probably try to mow down the others there. If it had just been Joachim, Harry would've said let them sort it out, but with Rosemary in the mix, things became complicated. Better to shut Max down early. Harry and Emily were already situated roughly between the Hotel and Max's destination. They'd simply found the clearest path, and had hunkered down near it, hidden behind a thick stand of young trees.
Harry held the Desert Eagle close to him. He'd read the instruction manual for it, though the gun still felt alien in his grasp. He thought he'd know what to do when the time came.
And maybe they wouldn't even need to shoot Max. Maybe they could just rob him and call it a day. If they held him up long enough, then he would miss his prize, and if they took his things, he'd be no further threat to anyone. Nobody would have to die. An optimal solution. And Harry would have conquered his fears, stopped the guy who might have killed him. Then he could go back to his mercantile ways. This was a one-time deal, folks. Don't get used to this kind of altruism.
But now, now he could hear someone coming, walking down the hill towards where they were perched. Harry felt sweat forming along his brow. Last chance to bail. He looked at Emily. Her hands were shaking, the floodlight wobbling. When she saw him watching, though, she steadied and nodded.
Well, no chickening out now.
Harry waited a few seconds longer, and then he saw his mark. There he was. Exactly who they'd been waiting for.
((Max Sawyer continued from Hollow Stars))
Max Sawyer looked like just another kid, and for a second, that threw Harry. The guy even seemed to have taken some blows; his face was notably bruised. Could there have been some misunderstanding? Was this the right thing to do?
But the expression on Max's face told Harry what action he had to take. It wasn't a mean expression, or an angry or hurt one. It was normal. Banal, almost. The long gun he cradled in his arms looked natural there. Max didn't see anything wrong with where his life had gone.
Harry was, once again, looking into the face of death.
With his left hand, he snapped his fingers.
Emily jumped from her hiding place, clicked the floodlight on, aiming the blinding light straight into Max's face. At the same time, Harry also rose, slightly more slowly due to his knee, and leveled the pistol at Max.
"Stop," Emily shouted. "Drop your gun. You're—"
But Max was in motion right away, and dropping the gun seemed the furthest thing from his mind. In fact, Harry saw it swing around. His breath caught as it passed him, as he looked down the barrel, but Max clearly couldn't see him past the light, because he kept right on going. The report of the shotgun echoed, nearly masking Emily's scream and the explosion of the floodlight.
Harry screamed, too, maybe out of anger or sadness or fear or all three, as he pulled the trigger of the pistol. He watched Max jerk, a blossom of red appearing on his left shoulder. The boy coughed, staggered, blinked, and for a moment Harry thought he'd won.
That moment was too long for him to drop his guard and get away unpunished. The boom echoed again, and Harry was falling, crashing to the ground, his chest and upper arms burning. It felt more like dropping ten feet onto concrete than toppling to the soft dirt floor of a forest.
"Emily?" he mumbled. No response.
"What the fuck?" Max's voice wasn't calm, and neither was his face, now. "I can't walk half a mile without someone popping out of the bushes and trying to kill me?"
Harry didn't know if he was going to keep talking. He didn't care. He raised the pistol and fired, again and again, three or four shots in Max's direction. Only one of them connected, but that was all it took. The slug smashed into Max's sternum, and the boy collapsed and said no more. Was he dead? Just out of it for the moment? No way to tell.
"Emily?" Harry tried to say again, but he heard nothing. He called her name once more, shouting this time, but the ringing in his ears was too loud.
He pushed against the ground, levered himself upright. There was Emily, lying in the dirt.
Half her face was gone.
G011, Emily Rose: DECEASED
Harry didn't say anything else. He'd pulled himself to his knees, but he felt a wet sensation along the entire front of his body. If the shotgun had done that to Emily, what had it done to him? He didn't know. Didn't want to. He didn't look down.
This wasn't how it was supposed to go. Harry was a businessman, one with perhaps a single altruistic bone in his body. He was no martyr.
He tried to stand, but the weight of his own body dragged him back. Instead, he scooted along the ground, to lean against one of the nearby trees. The world was fading in and out of focus. He let it.
"Hey," someone was saying. "Hey. You okay? Oh god. Oh no. What do I do?"
It was a big kid, leaning over one of the bodies. It didn't matter. He wasn't checking the one that mattered. He'd somehow missed the interesting one, just like he'd missed that Gabriel had been following him for quite a while.
((Arthur Wells continued from Come on Everypony! Smile, smile, smile!))
((Gabriel Lee continued from Poor Unfortunate Souls))
It was lucky, really. Gabriel had been kicking himself for leaving the sword untouched when he fled the group. He'd been nervous, but then he'd heard about how many people were killing. If he didn't get his hands on something, he was fucked.
And now, he'd stumbled into a jackpot. Here was Max Sawyer, laid low on the ground in front of him, neither moving nor breathing.
B079, Max Sawyer: DECEASED
And here, in Max's cooling grasp, lay a shotgun. Gabriel pried it loose, paying little mind to the boy tending to the corpse.
Next, Gabriel searched Max's bags. He found a veritable treasure trove of food and first aid kits and weapons. There was even another gun in there.
So that was that. Gabriel was set. He had all the food and weapons he needed to sit the game out. He could go hide somewhere, like he'd been doing this whole time, shoot whoever the other person standing at the end was, and go home. A winning strategy if ever he'd heard one.
"Hey," the voice called. "Hey, you, is he okay?"
Gabriel recognized the guy, upon taking a closer look. Arthur Wells. Decent enough sort, which in this case meant no real threat.
"Nope," Gabriel said. He turned, though he kept the arm holding the shotgun at his side, out of site. "Pretty dead. Looks like we missed the party."
Arthur looked a little green around the gills. Gabriel had a crazy urge to laugh, but held it in check. Looked like he wasn't the only one getting to know the darker side of the island.
"Y-yeah," Arthur said. He paused, wiped his nose and then said, "Can you help me bury them?"
"What?"
"B-bury—"
"No," Gabriel said, "I heard you. I guess I meant, what the hell would we bury them for?"
"I was with a group," Arthur said. "We were burying everyone we could find. Just showing a little respect to our friends."
This time, Gabriel didn't restrain himself. He let out a low chuckle.
"Respect?" he said. "They're just gonna dig everyone back up at the end anyways, probably. Can't let the government pick apart the collars. You wanna show respect for people who died? I don't think they'd want you doing it by wasting the little time you've got left."
"Oh," Arthur said, "You think so? I mean, I just think that we should bury them. It made sense to me."
That was about when Gabriel decided to kill him.
It was a really logical choice, when he thought about it. He had to kill at least one person to go home. This guy was intent on being a waste of space, wandering around and stuffing corpses into holes. Nobody would miss him.
"I saw some of my friends die," Arthur was saying. "Hansel caught them, and I wanted to do something, but I ran. And Theo killed Xavier, and..."
But Gabriel wasn't really paying attention. He was really getting used to this idea of killing Arthur. It meant he wouldn't even have to off the runner-up. Maybe the guy would get himself torn up in the finals, or shoot himself. Hadn't the second place guy last time shot himself or something? And Gabriel sure as heck didn't want to go through this all again. No way. He won, he wanted to go home. Everyone would forgive him one little misdeed. Call it stress.
"Hey, Arthur," he said. "I'm sorry, man, but I really don't care."
He turned fully, raising the shotgun.
"Oh," Arthur said.
"Yeah," Gabriel said. "Sorry, man. I wanna go home, though. You know how it is. Gotta get my one sometime, and, hey, you're doing a good thing, right? Helping me, like you wanna help your friends?"
Arthur opened his mouth. For just a second, Gabriel considered listening to what he had to say, but he'd hyped himself up for this and letting Arthur establish himself as a person, that would just mess it all up. Gabriel stood and took three steps forwards, so that he was point blank. No way to miss. He hissed out, "Sssh."
Arthur shut his mouth. Gabriel pointed the shotgun and pulled the trigger.
The gunfire sounded a lot louder from so close, and the recoil was something Gabriel hadn't counted on at all. The shotgun flew from his grasp, wrenching his wrist, and he barely managed to stay standing. He was, in that moment, very glad he'd decided to give shooting someone a go when his life wasn't on the line.
As for Arthur, he crumpled to the ground.
B042, Arthur Wells: DECEASED
Gabriel couldn't help but smile. He'd done it. He had his kill. He looked at the body in front of him. Okay, it felt a little bad, but now he could go home. With this many supplies, he was golden.
He glanced at all the bodies around him, the girl with her head blown apart, Arthur in a thickening spot of red, Max crumpled over his bag, the other guy against the tree.
The guy against the tree had his eyes open. They were locked straight to Gabriel's. In his hand was a huge ass pistol.
Gabriel opened his mouth, but this time he was the one who was cut short, as a bullet passed neatly through his left eye.
B081, Gabriel Lee: DECEASED
Harry watched the blurs, heard the words, followed the conversation as best he could. It was a distraction from the pain. Not a good one, not a total one, but enough. Anything helped.
And so he learned about Arthur. He learned what the boy had been through. He learned his plans. It wasn't much. Harry actually found himself agreeing with the unknown voice. It was a pretty stupid thing to do, but at least it was a stupid thing to do for somewhat decent reasons. He knew how that felt. Knew how it was to get punished for it, too.
When he figured out what was about to happen, he forced his eyes open and tried to lift the gun. He was pretty sure he had at least one bullet left. He could do something, at least. Leave one more satisfied customer in his wake.
Everything went black for a second, and when the world came back, he was too late to save anyone.
No. No, he was too late to save Arthur, but there was a killer in front of him, less than ten feet, standing still. He couldn't say if it was Max again, risen from the dead, or if it was Theo, or if it was one of the few people whose names he didn't know. It didn't matter. He forced his hand to steady as much as he could, and he pulled the trigger.
The figure crumpled, and Harry smiled. Well, shit. There went playing it smart. Poor investment all around. No payoff.
As the gun dropped from his fingers, he tried to take some solace in the fact that Max wouldn't be collecting his prize. There were a few less maniacs with guns running around, and a few less decent kids, too.
Did that change the balance?
He thought it did. At the end of the day, there were a handful doing the wrong thing, but so many more doing what was right.
It was what he liked to believe. It would have to do.
He closed his eyes, just planning to rest for a second. Once his consciousness faded, though, there was no coming back.
B026, Harry Hanley: DECEASED
