Survival Of The Fittest

(Fred Hobbes continued from Homecoming)

Fred froze, wide eyes darting between DeMarcus and Dominiqua as she took each ill-advised step towards him.

“What are you doing?” He finally blurted out, hissing between clenched teeth. “Let’s just go!”

DeMarcus was no friend of Fred’s, and he assumed not one of Dom’s either, unless she was more of an asshole than he remembered. But even if they’d been best buddies back in school there’d be better ways of rekindling their friendship on-island than sneaking up behind the gun-wielding maniac who’d just announced his murderous intent.

If Dominiqua had heard him, she didn’t take his advice to heart. Oh no, instead, she waited until she was just within pistol-whipping distance before speaking up. Fred slapped his palms to his temples in exasperation. There was no point in running; even with two good legs he couldn’t outrun the bullet that was almost certainly about to come his way.

Colm’s interjection drew a cold glare from Quinn, frustrated at his inability to simply allow her to handle this in the way that she knew was necessary. Now the newcomer was disbelieving of their story, filled with Colm’s cartoonish description of his “illness,” and basically said as much. How could Colm be so irresponsible?

Closing her eyes, Quinn took a slow breath in and out. Getting upset would benefit no one but their mystery assailant. Her expression softened as she looked to Colm once again.

“Colm, honey, I need you to trust me alright? We can talk about this more after, but I can promise you that I won’t do anything that isn’t necessary.” She spoke in a quiet, gentle voice. Quinn was sympathetic to his position, considering he had no way of knowing her underlying reasons.

“Please. We need to trust each other.” She asserted, her voice slightly more firm, though her countenance remained tender.

Still, there was some cause to reconsider her course of action at this juncture. The boy outside had seemingly not moved any closer to the infirmary, nor had he begun firing at them. Perhaps he truly didn’t have a gun, or at least was much more hesitant to use it than he initially implied. Depending on who it was, then, Quinn might not need to resort to killing another person.

She attempted to picture an alternate scenario in her mind, one where she would simply take their gun and possibly attempt to break their hand using Colm’s weapon. That would be merciful, she decided, but for some reason the image in her mind seemed so much more gruesome than the idea of simply killing the Oakley-shaped figure she imagined.

Quinn felt a little sick again. Clearing her throat, her attention turned to the doorway again.

“Just a bit! Colm’s been trying to keep up a good mood and that means some bad jokes. Sorry about that.” She called out again, voice faltering a bit at the end, much to her chagrin. Her voice grew quieter again, though hopefully still loud enough to be heard outside.

“It’s important for us to try to hold onto ourselves out here, right?” She glanced at Colm again.

Quinn turned to him and like a mother trying to comfort an errant child, she told him that he needed to trust her.

But she wasn't his mother, and he didn't trust his mother either.

His face set into a frown and he absently hooked his index finger on his bottom row of teeth.

Colm had woken up in an unfortunately poor position between a rock and a hard place and while Quinn's mirroring back the concern he expressed felt as genuine as a copy, she hadn't turned back around and swung on him with the axe, and DeMarcus had made a threat.

Her demeanour about the situation made him uneasy, but he couldn't deny her actions had an unspoken logical point to them.

"I trust you," he said quietly in response, with a whisper of visible and audible unease because he was afraid that some part of him meant it.

"Right," he said louder to continue their play act.

A voice rose up from behind DeMarcus that stole his attention so quickly and completely that he hadn't even heard the responses from the people in the infirmary.

Bolts shot through his spine as reflexes honed from exhaustive hours diving to cover and snap-aiming at simulated soldiers lit up his nerves. He whirled

stupid how the fuck are you so stupid

on the owner of the voice. Whether through compassion, or guilt, or even just the fact that virtual gunplay did not translate 1 to 1 to the real-world, DeMarcus kept the monstrous pistol in his hands from speaking for him. Still, it wavered as he pointed it toward the newcomer, a tall, slender black girl with her hands up.

There was a flash of very real fear in DeMarcus's eyes that he tightened down on while he set his feet. Said fear was fully dissipated by the time he snarled, "Who the fuck are you supposed to be?"

“Whoa! Calm down,” said Dominiqua, “My name’s Dominiqua. My friend, Fred, is hurt.”

DeMarcus had pointed his gun at Dominiqua, prompting her to raise her arms.

“We’re not here to fight,” she continued, “We need a place to rest.”

Dominiqua did her best to maintain her composure, but internally, she was panicking. If she didn’t find a way to defuse the situation, she or Fred, or both of them, could end up shot.

“Listen, if you put the gun down now,” Dominiqua began, “I’ll give you one these field rations I got. It might be more delicious than those energy bars they gave us.”

The bullet didn’t come, not immediately. DeMarcus did now have the gun now pointed squarely at Dominqua, but he hadn’t pulled the trigger, so maybe things could still be defused.

“…Hey, man. Wuh- whaddup?”

Fred had a short-lived plan where he envisioned stepping protectively in-between DeMarcus and Dominiqua, but she’d gotten so close to the guy and his damned gun that he would have practically had to ingest the barrel to make room, and his courage failed him about halfway there anyway. He tried to look cool by sticking his hands in his pockets, then realised that could look like he was reaching for a weapon so he flung them above his head instead. In hindsight, such an alarmingly sudden movement wasn’t a much smarter plan for not spooking him. Luckily Dominiqua was doing a better job of keeping her cool and proposing peace terms.

“Yeah, p-put the gun down and you can have, uh…”

Fred racked his brain for anything he actually had to offer DeMarcus. No weapons or extra supplies. In his years of sucking up to various bullies, he’d never been able to offer daddy’s money or a cool hangout place or homework services or anything. He mostly got by volunteering as a lacky, but even that wouldn’t work here. Someone to laugh at your mean jokes could be useful to an insecure middle school bully. A limping, unarmed and scared boy had nothing to offer a gun-toting SOTF player.

“…her rations, yeah.”

Quinn waited in silence for a response from the outside which never seemed to come. She could hear… something outside, but it was difficult to make out and certainly didn’t sound like it was coming closer.

Had the other party gotten wind that something was up after Colm cut in? If so, that would mean trouble down the line, as they would likely turn their sights upon more helpless targets. However, it did seem possible to Quinn that a bit of discussion might have gotten the outsider to second-guess their approach.

She could hope.

Relaxing her posture ever so slightly, Quinn turned to face Colm more fully again, taking a slow, steady breath.

“So, what do you think?” She asked in a lower voice, assuming he would catch her meaning.

There was no response.

Colm took a deep breath and tried to let out some of the tension in his body with a sigh.

They waited a moment in near silence. There was some farther off noise that he couldn't place, but the faintness meant it was not meant for them specifically to hear.

Another moment passed. He looked at Quinn, illuminated by the light coming from the window which no longer had curtains up. Little dust specs floated around them, disturbed by their movement after who-knew-how-long without visitors.

He looked at her as if staring at her long enough would eventually tell him what she was thinking, like she was a Magic Eye poster holding a secret message.

"I think we need to go," he finally whispered back. "Someone hostile with possibly a gun knows we're in here."

DeMarcus knew they were inside and might have gotten distracted by something, or maybe he was setting something up. Either way, Colm didn't want to chance staying, equally for their sake as well as DeMarcus's since Colm felt he had a good idea of Quinn's preferred method of conflict resolution in this case.

Colm shoved the blanket from the bed into his bag, zipped it up, and made sure the bag was securely on his shoulder with a quick check. Then, he leaned his tall frame out of the doorway.

Clear.

He stepped out into the hallway before Quinn could protest and choked up on the curtain rod, nodding for her to come out and then motioning with his head towards the exit.

There was a guy with the chick, one that DeMarcus hadn't noticed in the initial shock of being snuck up on. Unconsciously, DeMarcus's chest puffed up in the presence of another guy, especially one so slender and fucking beta-looking. However, the idea that they were willing to appease him managed to defuse his ire. Somewhat. They'd have to kill him to get him to hang up his hand cannon.

He made a show of looking the both of them over, head tilting this way and that as if he needed to take in their every detail to make a decision. The gun seemed to be following the trajectory of his eyes. He sucked at his teeth.

"It's a start." He said. "Weak start, but a start."

The people in the building momentarily forgotten, DeMarcus set on his new targets with gusto. "I wanna see what weapons y'all got. I showed y'all mine. For all I know y'all are just waiting for me to turn my back."

“The rations are my weapon,” Dominiqua responded.

Dominiqua briefly looked over to Fred, then back to DeMarcus.

“Fred had a weapon,” Dominiqua continued, “But, it was pretty impractical.”

Part of her was slightly regretting throwing away Fred’s weapon, even if it was probably useless.

Fred dimly recognised the gun as it followed DeMarcus’ gaze towards him. It was a Desert Eagle, star of many a video game and action film. He thought back to his own weapon in the moments before Dominqua mentioned it. Hardly seemed fair. Wasn’t this supposed to be “Survival of the Fittest”? Fred might not have been in much better shape than DeMarcus, but that was a moot point since human fitness peaked a while before it could cancel out the advantage a Deagle gave you. Dominiqua was by far the fittest of the three of them, and she’d been given snacks. The terrorists probably didn’t give a shit but the random ‘weapons’ seemed to fly straight in the face of the literal name of the game.

What if they had given him a gun? Could he, would he have used that? Even in self-defence, Fred wasn’t sure. He’d never been good at sticking up for himself. No, surely he wouldn’t have shot first, put a bullet in DeMarcus’ back as they approached him from behind. Sure, they’d be in the nice warm infirmary by now, rather than being held at gunpoint, but Fred thought back to all the times in his life he could have helped himself and others by just taking action. The precedent was clear.

“Yeah, they gave me a rope with like, old scalpels on it. If you want it though, I left it in a rockpool down by the sea. Over that direction.”

Maybe, if DeMarcus was really stupid, he’d leave them alone and saunter off back the way they came to add it to his collection.

“Could be useful if you ever, uh, run out of bullets.”

Colm’s response wasn’t exactly what Quinn had hoped for, suggesting that they should quit the scene simply because there was a gunman outside. However, if the outsider remained set on attacking them, then it was all the more reason that Quinn could not simply abandon the infirmary. Even if she and Colm managed to flee the area without taking a bullet, the gunman would simply wander the island and likely create another situation which would result in another death, which she could not allow.

Regardless of what she wanted, though, Colm seemed ready to move with or without her. In spite of herself, Quinn found the frustration situated deep in her gut began to boil as the boy continued to act against both their best interest, and the best interest of the rest of their classmates.

Still, she would have to swallow that for now. There would have to be a talk later, of that she was certain.

“Alright.” Was all she gave in reply, her voice a whisper as she followed him to the infirmary exit and opened it just a bit.

Quinn’s body locked up.

Outside, she saw that there was indeed a gunman, and though his back was turned to her, he had his weapon now trained on two others. Her grip on Colm’s weapon tightened further, to the point where her fingers ached slightly.

Her first impulse was to sneak up behind gunman, to attack and take him out before any harm befell these other two victims. However, such a move might lead to him escalating the situation and firing on the pair, killing one or both. Those deaths would be on her hands.

And so Quinn remained still, her expression one of horror and vexation, eyes wide and jaw clenched.

The adrenaline sped through his blood, the blood rushed in his ears.

The two skulked down the hall and for the first time, he exited the building.

Colm couldn't see very well from the window that had been in his room, but it was indeed snowy and wooded out -- it could be mistaken for the ski resort they had been destined for.

Outside was DeMarcus with a big fuckin' gun, holding up two people.

Colm looked to the side and saw Quinn's saucer eyes fixed on the scene. They had melee weapons and DeMarcus would hear the crunching snow if they tried to advance. He took about 3 seconds to decide what to do.

Colm grabbed the girl by the wrist and started sprinting.

"HEY!" he yelled out. Hopefully that would at least give the two a moment where DeMarcus would be distracted and what they did with that moment was up to them. He ran with Quinn in a zig-zag in case DeMarcus tried to take the shot.

And hopefully, maybe, with his attention divided in two and with a human hesitation for violence, all parties would make it out alive.



If this girl doesn't turn me into sausage when we stop.

((Colm Forsyth and Betty Quinn continued in Percussion ))

Cards on the table, as far as he knew. Both his new buddies had gotten shit draws. They were in an IRL battle royale and the chick had dropped with food? His eyes glanced down to his own gift. It felt like divine providence, that someone like him that knew what to do with the Deagle was the one to get it. The rope the dude was talking about might have been worth something, but DeMarcus was willing to bet it was a low-tier weapon in the grand scheme of things.

"Y'all two got fucked." He said, and let the words hang in there. He shook his head.

He was about to tell the girl to hand the ration over (extra food was extra food, after all), when sudden movement and a shout startled him into whirling back toward the building. His finger found its way to the trigger, shocked into it, and this time he wasn't able to stop what came naturally.

The Desert Eagle introduced itself, a thumping, powerful cough that shattered the air as it spat a heavy slug. DeMarcus hadn't aimed and had barely pointed the weapon in the fleeing pair's direction as they left the area, probably why nothing had come of it but a wasted round. The gun almost jerked its way out of his hand, he was so unprepared for the kick of the weapon. He stared, wide-eyed, from the gun to the fleeing pair, cowed into momentary silence by the unexpected power of the weapon.

"Holy shit..." He muttered. Then he was looking back at the two who were still with him.

"I got...I got a whole clip of those if either of you two try to fuck with me." He said, but little of the acid or steel from before was in the threat.

”Y’all two got fucked.”

“Yeah, don’t remind us,” Dominiqua snarked back.

That’s when she noticed two people exiting the infirmary. DeMarcus then spun around and his gun made a loud, powerful, bursting pop! Dominiqua was so surprised, she yelped, shut her eyes, and covered her ears.

After a few seconds, she opened her eyes and glared at DeMarcus. The fleeing pair were nowhere to be found. Looks like DeMarcus was a lousy shot from a distance. DeMarcus tried to sound threatening, saying he’s got a whole clip left if they tried to screw with him.

“Right,” said Dominiqua, “I ain’t trying to.”

She brought out a ration from her bag, as proof she was serious about her offer.