Survival Of The Fittest

It had been over a week since this terror had begun.

Dicky’s stomach grumbled, his ankle ached, and his head pounded…but somehow, someway, he still stood. Standing itself seemed to be an act of defiance that out here was damn near priceless. With Darryl and Iris, he had established a routine. Hole up and playhouse with the homies. History didn’t repeat itself, but it echoed. Night one he had spent it tending to Iris after June had thrown her down, night seven he had done the same to June herself after the favor was returned. Iris was gone. June clung to life in a delirium that made it impossible for Dick and Darryl to walk away but equally impossible for Dicky to be optimistic. Still, she remained, alive and kicking after a day and night of struggle and with little medical relief.

Richard was a boy scout; he had helped out as an office assistant at his family’s pediatric practice. He wasn’t a doctor. Even Doogie Howser could only do so much on a frozen hellscape island in the midst of a death game and Doogie Dickie was not. Neither was Darryl it turned out.




They had turned the infirmary into another small-time fortress with priority being on ad-hoc defense and a quick escape if need-be. But it hadn’t been necessary. Darryl stood outside and on guard with the gun. June remained in bed, Dick at her side.

The announcement came and went.

Dicky could only sit by in silence, a forlorn look on a freckled face.

“No way,” defeat dripped on his tongue. News he had dreaded but never seriously expected. “Of-fuckin’-course.”

He had wasted so many days. Seven goddamn days. He had waited for such a long time. A whole friggin' week.

“She fuckin’ died.”

Darryl didn’t have anything for that news. A joke, while the easiest way to break the tension was obviously out. It wasn’t an acceptable time or place for an amateur comedy hour. It didn’t particularly matter how good he thought his tight five may have been.

At the same time though, and being perfectly callously honest about the situation, Chloé’s death hadn’t exactly lost them anything. Darryl winced internally knowing that his mother would have been appalled for him to have such a reaction to a persons death, but it was where his head was at.

If they had found Chloé, the resulting power struggle between her and Dickie over who had the least worst plan would have been a gravel pit, a big black hole that would have pulled everyone and everything nearby into it. If one of them had to die to solve that problem then well, sorry prez he would take the big homie any day.

But like he’d said, that was a dark ass line of thought and he’d had a patient to deal with. June’s arm was to be generous, fucked and he himself wasn’t exactly first aid trained in what to do in the event of a catastrophic break that you’d only normally see in a “WORST SPORTS INJURIES (GRAPHIC)” video. But they’d done their best and thrown some painkillers in her mouth. They’d said she wasn’t allowed to drink alcohol with them but they’d already used up their supply so that was one problem solved.

So yeah, shit was going great.

He left June where she was momentarily to go check on Richard.

He stepped into the doorway and knocked on the frame.

“How you doing?” He asked, “Y’know, given the news and all.”

"Who died?" she moaned in a half-voiced whisper.

She, he said. Medea had died a few days ago. K wasn't a she, he died just now.

She was supposed to care about the other names, this daily mass shooting they all endured day after day, but she couldn't summon the energy for it anymore. Medea was gone, K was gone.

No one else mattered.

((June Madison continues from Shawn's Marvelous Medicine))

How was she doing?

June wasn't sure if she'd slept. She'd closed her eyes for several hours yes, the thrum, thrum, thrum pulse of pain in her arm ever-present in the background. The painkillers had done nothing for her.

It was only now, in this frigid blue-tinted morning, that she had become lucid enough to even try to say anything. The pain was as vivid as ever, but she had become as acclimated to it as one could ever be.

Dick and Darryl were with her. They had immobilized her arm in a makeshift sling, set her down on a creaky mattress somewhere in the infirmary. People who hated her had also tried their best to treat her. What was she supposed to make of that?

She was supposed to be grateful, that was how a normal human was supposed to respond. But June had never had such impulses, it was just the way her rage-broken mind worked. Because, she was an obligation to them. They treated her because it was human impulse to not leave someone in the cold, as rare as that human impulse had become these past few days. They didn't like her, they just did it because they had to.

So, how was she doing?

All the people that mattered to her were dead. She was in a room with people that hated her, indebted to them. She had tried her best to make it up to Iris, to Medea, only to be broken for it. She was supposed to be better, but she was punished for it.

"It... doesn't matter," she groaned to Darryl.

Nothing mattered anymore.

“I-I-I-I’m,” Dickie sputtered and found it hard for his engine to start.

There was a lot of emotions going on. The reaction to Chloe’s death, the self-critique and guilt at his own decisions, and the desire to keep a public face and smile all mixed into a cocktail of feeling that was impossible to swallow and burned bright going down. His desire to smile couldn’t hide his instinct to frown. He wasn’t thinking about SOTF when he thought about Chloe, not when he listened to his heart instead of his brain. It wasn’t so political or noble or survival focused. Big Dick was just a teenage boy and Chloe had just been the teenage girl he had a crush on. Richard hadn’t loved Chloe, but he had liked her. Not in a complicated way, but in the simple way that a boy liked a girl. He thought of her in the hallway and daydreamed about holding her hand and kissing her soft lips, of dancing slow and putting his hands too low on her hips.

But at the end of the day, Big Dick didn’t do shit.

“I’m fine.”

Daydreams were just dreams and Dickie was quick with a pinch. For all his posture and performance, he couldn’t slay that specter of self-esteem. Richard didn’t ask Chloe out to homecoming even though she was the one he liked, he asked Iris instead. He didn’t follow Marshall in search of Chloe, he stayed with Iris again. Now Iris was gone, and Chloe was dead. What had Dick done but lose fights to the doubts that lived in his head? If he had really cared so much about Chloe, why didn’t he look for her in earnest? His feelings felt dishonest, and he felt his heart bleed and callus.

“She’s right” he said after a moment, “it doesn’t matter.”

Richard got up from June’s bedside and walked up to Darryl at the doorway. He placed his hand on his friend’s shoulder and placed his head down and looked toward the ground. What could he say? What could he do?

“I just need a minute,” he mumbled, “like five, ten minutes. I’m just gonna step out for a second.”

He walked outside and for five minutes he sobbed, for three minutes he prayed and for two minutes he tried to compose himself. He failed at all but the first. Then he wiped his face on his dirty sleeves and went back inside and tried his best to pass the time.


The hours had churned, and the day quickly turned to night. They had moved themselves further into the infirmary. June remained bedridden and Dickie and Darryl remained at her side. At the moment, the other two were "sleeping" and Richard stood guard, gun returned to hand. They were all close enough to one another so that any warning would be quick, and any response would be unified. The same would be for any retribution, especially with an automatic weapon. Still, they were in it together, for good or ill. For all the safety that came with being in a group, Dick couldn’t get comfortable. He was emotionally and physically exhausted and his pistol felt heavy in his palm just as his eyelids felt heavy on his face. Every minute or so, he’d feel his body shake and he forced himself awake. Whenever he got tired, he thought of his friends, and he thought of food. The problem was that stomach grumbles and grief were quickly becoming white noise. The problem was that every day out here felt like a month and Richard hadn’t eaten or slept properly in a week.

The problem was that he wanted to stay awake and the only thing he seemed to stay was weak.

((Iris Waite continued from Ladybird, Ladybird))

It had gotten dark some time ago, and Iris was nothing short of miserable by the time the squat, blocky outlines of the research station's buildings appeared against the night sky. The snow never let up a bit, and even through her coat, she felt like she was soaked through with how it had layered on her as she trudged along the road. Her fingers were almost numb, locked around her flashlight and sweeping the beam across the road in front of her.

Almost there. She was so close. She could dream of a warm reunion, but at this point she'd give her left leg just for shelter.

The infirmary was identifiable by the corpse out front. Iris jumped a little when her flashlight landed on it, and her stomach twisted unpleasantly. She wondered for probably the thousandth time whether Evie was still alive. Whether June was, or the boys. Anything could have happened in the couple of days that she was away.

She trained her light instead on the closed front door of the infirmary, took a step towards it, and then hesitated. Anything could have happened. Anyone could be in there now, or it could be standing empty.

As badly as she wanted to get out of the snow, Iris opted for caution, and made her way around the building in search of the back door. What she found was rusted and almost frozen shut, but with some effort, she forced it open.

There was a single, brief squeal as the door opened, and Iris froze, heart pounding. But there was no immediate noise from inside of anybody rushing to confront her, so she clicked her flashlight off and slipped inside. Pure darkness and immediate relief from the elements washed over her, and she let out a long, slow breath as she eased the door shut again behind her.

June slept after the announcements.

All her life, there'd always been some sort of pulse within June, pushing her forward. She needed to get up to help Mom with chores because she still had a bad leg, she needed to study for that test the next day, she needed to check her phone when the signal got better to see if there were any news on that election in Asia, she needed, she needed, she needed. Always some sort of anxious energy, something to look forward, something to worry about.

But, she didn't have any phone to look at now. She didn't have any test to do. She didn't have any chores to do. She didn't have any friends to look for anymore. All her goals were past, and she had failed them all. No burdens.

Good riddance.

So, when she could, when her body finally allowed it, she spent her free time lying motionlessly, wordlessly, sipping on some water.

Or resting.

The sleep she entered was one she couldn't even remember. One moment it was blue morning, the next it was pitch black.

Had she heard something? She wasn't sure, but there was the aftermath of a sound, if that made sense. But, had she heard something, or was it the last memories of a dream slipping away? June thought she had dreamed something, but she couldn't remember it anymore. Had she heard something?

Directly facing June's bed was a closed door, somehow even blacker than the darkness around it. And June stared into it, heart pounding.

His grip was loose around the pistol, his eyes were thoroughly lidded, and his chin rested awkwardly against chest.

Dick was supposed to be standing guard, but he didn’t notice Iris enter. It had been over a week, and he was very weak. When he was supposed to be standing guard, he instead sat asleep. Snoring. He was supposed to be protecting his friends, reliable Richard, the captain, Homecoming King and Veep. Instead of doing that, Dickie dreamt of shooting free throws in TD Garden during Game 7. Except he was butt-ass naked and the basketball had transformed into a raincoat halfway through his shooting motion.

Big Dick shuddered, shook and snored louder.

Iris took slow, deep breaths as her eyes swept over the dark interior of the infirmary. Her vision adjusted without the help of the flashlight, but not much of her surroundings resolved itself into clarity. She rested one hand on the wall to guide herself as she moved; the other reached into her bag to withdraw one of the two remaining flashbangs.

Throwing one and running had worked the first time. It felt a little better just to have the insurance in her hand. She probably wouldn't even really need to use it.

Nobody had come to investigate the noise from the door, and she didn't hear the sounds of anyone moving around in the dark of the building, skulking away from her. It was probably empty. Richard and Darryl and Shawn had probably moved on to somewhere else safer, and June... June had gone somewhere too, probably. Maybe with them, though Iris hoped not.

The possibility of them going somewhere else specifically so that she wouldn't be able to find them crossed Iris's mind, but she shoved the thought away. Maybe that was the case, maybe not. She... she just wasn't going to dwell on it right now.

Even working to convince herself that she was alone, and that alone was safe right now, Iris took pains to stay quiet as she crept along. Her hand trailed over the wall and into the empty space of a door left slightly ajar. She breathed a soft sigh of relief; a bed was just within reach, and she was ready to collapse.

She pushed the door open, wincing as it squeaked on its hinges but less tense now as she peered into the room.

The door revealed an inky black. And from it, emerged a humanoid figure, hand in bag, short in stature, lopsided hair, lopsided stance.

She blinked, shook her head. Her breathing was getting quicker. She was scared, but she didn't know why. She wanted to call out to Darryl and Dick. Her head turned, but they were both laid down elsewhere in the room, snoring even. She couldn't get any help from them. She was the only one actually awake to see this person enter. She was alone here.

June's eyes began to fully adjust to the darkness, and she noticed a pale white bandage wrapped around the person's forehead.

The last dregs of sleep washed away from June. Her head was throbbing, her arm was throbbing, her heart was throbbing. And she realized something.

Iris had come back to kill her.

June began to hyperventilate. She pushed herself up with her right arm, scrambled backwards into the metal headboard with a clang.

"No no no no no NO NO NO NONONONONONO—"

Her shrieks reverberated all across the infirmary.

The darkness of the room resolved itself into something both more and less. Something rumbled. A shape she could just barely see moved.

Someone screamed, and it pierced her heart.

The voice broke the silence, broke Iris's calm. As always, her brief feeling of certainty and security disappeared in a flash.

A second and a wind-up throw later, and everything else in the room did too.

He woke to girlish screams and a blinding flash. There wasn’t time to think, there was only room to react. Dickie’s fear forced a suddenness, and the shock created a jolt that shook the entirety of his nervous system. His response was quick, but it was not measured nor was it mild. Its purpose was protection. His job was to stand guard.

He didn’t have to use the pistol, they just had to know he had it.

It didn’t matter, he didn’t think, he couldn't think. He woke up and pulled the trigger twice. Big Dick couldn’t see. When the gun fired, Dick didn’t aim.

He didn't need to aim. Iris was already backpedaling when she was blinded and deafened by her own grenade, but she was still in the doorway, and there was nowhere to zigzag or dodge.

Two impacts, one in her ribs and one almost squarely in the center of her chest.

Iris's knees buckled, and she collapsed backwards into the hall. Another impact.

A moment or an eternity later, all the pain from those three impacts caught up to her. A cracked, maybe shattered rib, a catch in her breathing, the taste of hot copper in the back of her throat. Iris was only barely aware of her head rebounding off the floor again in comparison to those.

She tried to breathe, but each attempt at an inhale brought only stabbing pain and more blood in her throat. She could feel it soaking the front of her clothes, and she weakly scrabbled to undo the buttons of her coat, as though that would bring her some relief. Coughed, tried to clear her throat, and it made her whole ribcage rattle with agony.

Iris spat out a mouthful of blood onto the floor and then finally mustered the breath for a gurgling cry of pain and confusion.

Darryl was awoken like a dog on New Year’s Day. His dreams interrupted by a sensory overload of light and sound.

Whatever dream he’d been having was wiped out as in a white hot light as the flash bang went off. Exploding head syndrome multiplied by one hundred, the light penetrating through his eyelids as if the sun had decided to come inside to say hi.

“Yo what the fuck?” He yelled, dimly aware of Dickie sending shots into the darkness. Whatever got the job done he supposed.

A girl was screaming, probably June, so she hadn’t died in the night at the very least.

They had that.

“Dick the fuck’s going on?” He called out, trying to make himself heard over the fireworks.

“I don’t fuckin’ know!”

Richard’s voice was desperate and filled with panic. He couldn’t see, he could barely hear, and his heart rushed and ran like a racehorse in the Kentucky Derby. With a glue-truck right behind it. Shit had hit the fan. The storm had finally come. There was no choice but to sail through the rough waters. Richard had shot first, he had already made the decision to ask questions later. He couldn’t be upset with answers now. Dick blinked and shook his head and through spotted vision and blinding light the world became somewhat clearer. The pistol remained in his hand, hot and smoking in the cold night air. His blue eyes stung and teared as the room came back into focus.

Then he saw who had been responsible for the flash.

Then he saw who he had shot.

The pistol hit the ground as he stumbled and sprinted towards the doorway.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Holy fuckin’ shit! No! No! No!”

He was speaking only in exclamations and exaggerations. Dickie moved and rushed towards the prone form on the floor. In a panic he gripped at soft, bloodied hands. How could this happen? How could this be happening? What had he done to make such a horrid mistake? Why did someone else have to pay the cost for his quick-finger and his slow-mind? This couldn’t be real. It shouldn’t be real. But Richard knew that it was. He had been here over a week.

“Iris! Hold on! Shit! Fuck!”

"Wh- hgh..." No matter how Iris gasped and strained, she couldn't force words out. Every muscle in her body had seized up, fluttering only in ripples of pain that radiated from where she'd been shot. She tried to roll onto her side, curl up in a ball and hug herself until it stopped, but she couldn't move.

Someone grabbed her hands. A familiar voice broke through the ringing in her ears, a familiar face formed in the darkness. Even through the tears in her eyes and the spots in her vision, Iris knew whose face that was.

Was- had Richard shot her?

No no no no no. The echo of June's scream in her head. That couldn't be right. It wasn't right. She wouldn't believe it. She couldn't consider an alternative either, her thoughts rapidly spiraling down into no no no and help and please.

No, this isn't happening, please tell me it's not happening, tell me there's a mistake please-

"Please," she whimpered, voice thick. She jerked and coughed again, and blood welled up over her lip, rolling down her chin.