Survival Of The Fittest

(Jesse Jennings continued from Nessun Dorma)

Jesse backed through the doors to the lounge dragging the dead body of Summer Simms; Chris Harlin followed behind him.

Hell of a way to make an entrance, he thought.

"OK. Alright. OK. Alright."

He was talking both to Chris and himself, repeating things a few times to calm down a bit because oh yeah, he was hyped now. And this was only gonna be the beginning. He was destined to go through this plenty more times to get what he needed. But it would get easier after the first one. That was common sense.

Besides, if anyone deserved this, it was fucking Summer, who'd gone and killed Naomi Bell before Jesse'd even gotten the chance to meet up with her and get their shit together to get off this island. He coulda done something with Naomi. Not to mention a whole bunch of other kids who'd been read off on the announcements the last few days.

But no, instead fucking Summer Simms and those other select students had actually said, sure, let's go out and kill everyone we've known for years, why not? Jesse'd been wrong, he admitted it. Not about everyone of course, but still. What did he fucking have that they didn't? Besides his good looks, and the fact that he'd been brought up fucking right, and sure, a couple of swigs of the whiskey he'd brought along all the way from the clubhouse back on day one.

Damn, day one. That felt like a long time ago. But hey, Jesse was smarter now; he was wiser now; he knew full well that he'd been just a bit too optimistic and and believed a bit too much that this was all gonna blow over as long as they kept their cool. Flash forward, and Carmina had been dead for days, Brianna was dead, and fuckin' Chris, who was a good guy don't get him wrong, but when Chris was all he had left then Jesse had to admit that maybe things hadn't 100% gone to plan.

Didn't matter. Jesse was someone who learned from his mistakes. He was still alive, wasn't he? Summer wasn't. She was dead, and recently too. Chucked a grenade, it looked like. That was a good thing. It meant she probably wasn't gonna stink too bad. And because she was already pretty cut up, it made it just a bit easier for Jesse to push all those disgusting thoughts about what he was doing a bit further back into his mind as he dropped her body to the floor and took a look around.

The bar.

"Perfect," he said, then looked over at Chris. "I'm gonna toss her behind the bar. Get her out of the way. Just... guard the door for a few minutes, alright?"

Jesse had given Chris the hints. Explosives, man. And how was he going to get them? Oh, he had his ways. Jesse hadn't spelled it out aloud, because come on man, microphones. Not that this specifically was going against the rules. Hell, he could do it in plain daylight, but then, THEN my friends, then Danya and the fuckers would be prepared for when Jesse DID go against the rules. You see? Jesse was the what you'd call always one step ahead. So he was gonna do this nice and quiet and quick behind the bar, where the cameras sure couldn't get a good view, and hell, it wasn't like they were watching every room at once, and even if they were, fuck them. They didn't see.

"OK. Alright. OK. Alright."

Jesse tossed Brianna's bag behind the bar, then grabbed Summer's arm and dragged her the rest of the way, leaving a streak of blood from the stump of her leg behind. She didn't feel that heavy; maybe it was just the adenaline getting to Jesse, or maybe--

"Lost some weight, huh bitch? Fuck you. Fuck all of ya."

Letting go of her arm, which hit the ground with a soft thud, Jesse stretched himself, then looked past the bar at Chris.

"Hey Chris. We're gonna get out of here. Trust me. Just keep guard. It's been good having you here."

Turning back, Jesse breathed deep a few more times.

"Alright. Alright."

He zipped open the bag, and considered the glass shards inside. Oh yeah, they were gonna be sharp. Needed to protect his hands.

Jesse stripped off his shirt, then his T-shirt. He didn't know how messy it was gonna get anyway, so might as well prepare for any splashback. He wrapped the T-shirt around his open palm, grabbed one of the shards.

He smiled down at Summer. Her eyes were closed. That was good.

Then he brought the glass down and started sawing through her neck.

Jesse didn't expect to throw up quite so fast.

But after he'd cut Summer's throat open, what came out wasn't the bright and consistent flow he'd prepared for but a bunch of of purple, half-clotted globs that slipped out of her neck one after another alongside dark reddish blood that hadn't yet congealed. They plopped hideously on the ground, and Jesse lost his fucking lunch right then and there.

And again, can you blame him? This had not been what Jesse Jennings signed up for. Like he'd said, Jesse was brought up right. He hadn't been brought up to fucking cut up corpses while shirtless. Jesse Jennings had been brought up to be a success, to be a winner, and his family, they'd proved that their whole lives. And Jesse was no goddamn different. He used what he fucking had to get ahead. He didn't make stupid decisions; he was a goddamn Global Visionary, remember? This wasn't a dumb decision; this was just something he needed to do. The dirty work. And Jesse was not someone you could ever fucking accuse of being unwilling to do the dirty work. Even when it involved cutting up corpses. Hell, deep down Jesse knew that if it really came down to having to kill someone else at the end of this game to live and keep moving forward? He could do that. He totally could.

But it wasn't gonna come down to that.

"It's OK man, it's OK!" he called back to Chris, then turned back to the body, spat, and kept on going. And it did get easier as he went. A bit. There wasn't that much to cut, after all.

The spinal cord took a minute or two to hack through, but once he got between two of the bones and sawed at the cartilage or whatever with a new piece of glass, it came apart and then Summer's head just kind of rolled an couple inches to the left, falling to its side and suddenly looking for all the world like a cheap movie prop.

He stared for another few seconds, reached down, and with only a bit of difficulty, worked the collar free from Summer's neck. Some disgusting yellow-green stuff oozed out of the hole. Jesse ignored that.

Because he'd done it.

"Yeah. Yeah!"

Jesse got up, his head suddenly swimming like he was about to faint, and turned away from the body. He grinned wildly, and was just about to thrust the collar up in the air when he remembered the plan, and held it to his chest instead, hastily grabbing his discarded shirt to cover it. He took a few steps out from behind the bar, back into the lounge, lifting the shirt just long enough to show Chris his trophy.

"We got it, Chris. I got it, and we're gonna get more. There's like three more bodies in the lobby, let's drag them in."

You want to talk about being a visionary? Now the visions were coming through Jesse's mind so fast he couldn't process them all. Visions of sneaking into the aircraft control and knocking out communications, visions of finding some engineering geek and getting straight to the heart of the collar's secrets, hell visions of the power plant and an explosion so massive that every satellite within this time zone would see it and call in the troops.

"It's OK buddy, I can do this now and once we've got enough we can--"

bebebebebebebebe-

Jesse saw himself being saluted, he saw his family in the crowd, he saw it all, and before he could even identify that sound Summer's collar blew up in his hand, sending a torrent of shrapnel into his chest. The fragments pierced through his heart and lungs in a dozen places. He didn't have enough time to wonder what had happened to his fingers. He didn't have enough time to smell the smoke. Jesse faltered momentarily, then reasserted himself, and stumbled one step forward before falling onto his side. He coughed twice, turned over onto his back, then his grin resurfaced and that was all.

Good looks intact, knowing full well that his plan was going to go over like gangbusters, knowing that he was going to be a goddamn legend, and you don't like it? Well, then fuck you very much.

Jesse Jennings died with a smile on his face, those pearly whites of his only a little stained with blood.


B023: Jesse Jennings - DECEASED

The blood hit Chris in the face, next came the shrapnel which slashed his cheek and forehead as it flew past him. Jesse fell to one side and coughed before rolling over and stopping to move entirely. Chris just stood there, shell-shocked. Jesse's plan had failed. The collar had exploded in his hands, blowing a gaping hole in his chest. Blood was slowly leaking out of Jesse's body as Chris stood there trying to comprehend what had happened. He was on his own for the first time he could remember. He shivered at the realisation and felt something wet run down his cheeks. He was crying, eyes wide and full of fear.

Then like a deer caught in the headlights Chris broke and ran. He ran to the bar and looked for Brianna's bag. It was near Summer's body. Chris almost vomited when he saw it. Having to retrieve it along with Jesse had been one of the worst things he'd ever had to do and it had all been for nothing, because the plan had failed and Jesse was dead. All Chris could smell was the blood and Jesse's vomit.

Chris saw Brianna's bag and snatched it up from the floor. Everything had gone wrong, Brianna was dead, Jesse was dead and that meant he was on his own. Chris didn't know what to do but he knew he had to get out of the hotel. He had to get away from what had just happened. If the terrorists felt like it they could blow his collar up and kill him. He had to get out before they decided to do that.

After picking up Brianna's bag Chris remembered they'd filled it with shards of glass. He dropped it onto the bar and opened it, knocking all the glass shards out onto the floor. Some of them cut his hand as he did so, but it was only minor stuff. He kept the sharpest looking one just in case and then he sprinted for the door. Not even stopping to look at Jesse.

Running back into the lobby Chris didn't slow down. He nearly slipped over as he turned towards the main doors but he kept his footing and kept moving. He burst through the doors and out into the open air. He didn't know where he was running to, but he ran all the same.

((Chris Harlin continued elsewhere.))