Hurry Back

[Dr. Nic*]

[Boy #14 - Alex White. Continued from Into the Pit I Stare.]

He'd been there for a while.

He wasn't exactly sure what time it was when he showed up, but he'd been lying in that cold, empty house for a while now. He changed his bandages and used just about every antiseptic he could find in the first aid kits to treat his leg. He managed to save a bit of iodine and something called benzoin, but neither of those would last long. He wouldn't last long. He knew what was wrong and knew enough to figure that his chances were iffy at best. All he could do now was keep an eye on his body and just wait it out. Keep himself alive and wait until it was over, one way or another. And this cold, empty house was a fine place to rest. So that's what he did. He spent the night there, and sat upstairs in the dusty hall, watching out the window as the sun rose.

Would today be the day he died?

He didn't sleep well, or much at all. An hour here and there, but some noise in the house would wake him. Some crack of wood settling, the scurrying of critters in the walls, the howl of wind through broken windows and the crack under the door. It was unsettling, being in such a huge house like that completely alone. Sleeping in a place where he should be cold, yet doing nothing but sweat the entire time. He tried to clean himself off, but he had no more clothes to change in to. The ones he was wearing weren't even his, and the bag with any possible replacement was probably still lying in the parish right about now. The clothes and the cord and the rope. That army helmet that never quite smelled right.

Despite all the bodies he'd seen in the past week, he couldn't get over that smell. Or his own.

He reeked. It had been a while, a long while, since he'd bathed. Changing his clothes every few days helped, but he didn't have that option now. He couldn't even stand to put his shirt back on after getting cleaned up there in the bathroom. It sat in the trash somewhere, and he sat without a shirt on. With nothing to cover him, he marveled at the damage he'd taken over the past week. Sure, they were just small scrapes and discolored, healing bruises for the most part, but he'd never looked as bad as he did then. He'd gotten into fights but never had anything more than a bruise to show for it. Now his arm had a long pink line running up the length of it and his leg wasn't doing much better, still scabbed over and mostly red where Ray had managed to cut him.

He'd carry those scars for the rest of his life. If he lived through the next few days, that is.

He didn't care to listen to the announcement, and only paid enough attention to make a note of where the danger zones were. Much of his map was blacked out now, areas crossed out and filled in with ink. The map of the island was getting smaller and smaller. As far as he could tell, they were shutting down the island to drive whoever was left closer to one another. End the game. There were over two hundred dead on his list. Two hundred dead. He had to think about that for a while. They took over two hundred of them and dumped them on that god forsaken island, and there had to be only a handful of them left. Just a handful of people he had to outlive.

Or kill.

He didn't do much that morning. He ate his bread, drank his water, and finished off his crackers. He rooted around the cupboards to find something, anything, that he could eat. But there was nothing there. For a while, he thought about punching a hole in the wall and catching whatever it was crawling around in there, but he was in no condition, or mood, to go chasing rats and mice. Besides, the mansion was damaged enough already, he didn't need to go making it worse. He thought about digging through the remains, find something useful, pocket it for later. But what good would that do him now? If he ran into anybody, he wasn't about to try and stab them to death with a framing nail or something. He was just going to shoot them. Plain and simple. Put those guns of his to good use.

Easier said than done, but he wasn't going to hesitate again. Even if he is bleeding like a stuck pig. Especially if he is bleeding like a stuck pig. That's the best time to shoot to kill and defend himself. Strike before being struck. That's what he needed to do from now on. Shoot first, and don't even bother with the questions.

Kill them all and let god sort 'em out. He didn't know where he heard that originally, but it fit now. It fit all too well with what he had to do to survive. The only ones left were the ones who managed to survive. The lucky ones, the tough ones, the killers and the manipulators and the ones who just had what it took to survive. He doubted anyone was left who hadn't killed. He doubted anyone who was left didn't have it in them to kill someone at a moment's notice. No, if anyone like that was left, they weren't going to last long.

They were monsters, one and all. And Alex fit in perfectly.

"All monsters need to die at some point."

And if anyone was going to die at the end, it wasn't going to be Alex. He was determined to survive this. He promised to survive this. He was going to be the last man standing.

The last monster.


Time to hunt.

[Boy #14 - Alex White. Hunting in Rule the World.]