Frightened Boy, Scott Kelly [book suggestions .TXT] 📗

then you need to fill out the proper paperwork to reflect it. Frankly, I’m getting tired of both of you, and I think I’ll let a Warden settle this. Please step in line behind me and to my right.”

He motioned us to a much shorter line over his shoulder which led to an office door.

The Warden deported people. I'd end up on a train heading out to the wilderness where I'd be killed by bandits, soldiers, or Strangers.

A shadow began to creep across Erika’s face, a shade I was very familiar with. It crept in the cracks of frown and frustration lines of every face in the city—the skulking specter of desperation. The arm leading into her purse became stiff.

“I can’t see the Warden,” she mumbled to me. “You let me die once. You owe me.”

I gripped Erika’s suspiciously tense arm with one hand and began to drag her backward to the exit. “I have the forms at home,” I said loudly as I used my free hand to push between the tightly packed bodies that formed various lines. I didn’t want to end up in the Case Warden’s office any more than she did. "We will sort this out and come back, sorry to waste your time."

Uniformed officers were closing in on us. The door was in view, only a dozen feet away but blocked by hundreds of pounds of milling, unhappy biomass.

A shoulder checked my chin, and a belt buckle scraped the small of my back as I forced my way through. My only connection to Erika was my grip on her arm, and I heard her cursing as she was crushed between bodies.

A police officer stepped in front of the exit and pointed at us.

I gulped.

Erika tried to jerk her arm out of her purse, and for a second, I almost let her. I knew there was a weapon down there.

“Don’t do it,” I hissed. “It isn’t worth dying for.”

“In here or out there, I'm done for,” she whispered back.

“Well, thanks for taking me with you,” I said. “Jesus, what is your problem?”

“There’s no place for me anymore.” She tugged at her arm again, trying to pull her hand free. I barely had the strength to stop her.

“I have a plan,” I said. “Trust me. Just let go of the gun and take your hand out of your purse. Please. It isn't worth it. I will tell them you're staying with me."

I felt the muscles in her forearm go slack, and she lifted her empty hand from her bag. An officer reached through an opening in two bodies, grasping claw aiming for Erika.

I took a deep breath and tried not to think about what I was about to do.

I gave the man nearest the cop a hard shove. He slammed into the bodies in front of him; by the time he untangled himself from the resulting mass of angry limbs, I was gone. He shoved the man who'd been behind me, while I began squeezing through more bodies, trying to distance myself and Erika from the reaction I set into motion.

Where one man was shoved, another turned and shoved him back. In the crowded space, no one was innocent. A man’s wife received an accidental elbow to the face, and her husband delivered a punch to the mouth of the offender. Entropy begat entropy. The thin veneer of civilization was pulled back with one simple act of aggression.

This was Banlo Bay.

I slipped around the ensuing onslaught and managed my way behind the policemen, who were now struggling in the melee.

I slipped out the door with Erika, then pressed myself against the brick wall of the building, cold sweat forming around my face, hands shaking. “Jesus,” I said. “Let’s go, now.”

I gave one last look at the door that contained the growing energy within the City Center, developing from a slow roar to an explosive show of force as the engine of chaos I had ignited reached full steam. As Erika and I walked as quickly and inconspicuously as we could away from the disaster we’d created, the door finally burst open as tumbling, tussling bodies scrambled over each other to fight or flee.


2. White Cat

“What the hell is your problem?” I huffed as we put the building behind us.

“I’m not usually like this, I promise. I just…” she said as her voice cracked, eyes watered. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t have anything. I don’t have anywhere to go. They were going to send me into the Red! I'm sorry. I shouldn’t have gotten you involved. I’ll go. I’m so sorry for what happened.”

Erika Bronton turned and began to walk away.

She was a beautiful girl, and I hated to see her cry. Even more, though, I hated the way she’d almost gotten me exiled from the city. I decided to let her keep walking.

Except, before she was more than ten feet away from me, she stopped and turned back. This time she was smiling.

“Wait,” she said. “Maybe it is a sign. Maybe this means something, you know? Like fate.”

“There’s no fate,” I said. “It’s getting dark anyway, and I need to be getting home.”

Erika walked back over to me and looked directly into my eyes. We were about the same height. I diverted my gaze to her full, curvaceous mouth, glistening where her wet, pink tongue rose from her warm depths like a shark fin to lightly caress and moisten her top lip.

"Tell me about yourself," she said. "Come on, I will walk with you."

I didn't really want her walking with me. First, I didn't know the area very well. Second, she might figure out where I lived.

Erika turned and pressed her shoulder into mine. She took a step forward, and I did too.

"I am a security guard, sort of. At Tasumec Tower." I pointed at the skyline of downtown Banlo Bay. "That big grey building."

"The tallest one?"

"That's the one."

"You must be very brave, to be a security guard," she cooed.

I laughed; at first reflexively, then again at the notion I might be brave. "You are the first person ever to think that. I just watch the security cameras all day, I don't even have a gun. What do you do?"

“I’m an artist,” she said, sounding very serious about it.

“I see."

“Some people don’t think it’s important anymore, the way things are,” she lifted her hands and presented Banlo Bay and its tenuous grip on order to me. “I think it’s even more important. If we forget about art, what do we have left?”

Our lives, for one.

She looked at me expectantly, so I asked her for more information. “Alright, so what kind of art do you do?”

“I’m a Situationalist,” she said. “You know, a performance artist—an actor. It’s like being in a play except everywhere is the stage and everyone is a performer whether they know it or not."

“For instance?” I asked.

“For instance, once I covered myself in fake blood and lay in an alleyway for two days straight. And then another time, I dressed up like Santa Claus and passed out toys straight from the shelves of department stores.”

“Sounds crazy,” I said honestly.

“I was involved in a sort of protest with my art once, and I got arrested for it. That’s why I had to give them a fake name. They won’t let me live here otherwise.”

“A protest?” I asked.

“It was noble, I promise. So, where do you live?"

Gulp. "Y'know, over there. What about you?"

"I'm homeless, since yesterday. Tonight will be my first night on the streets, you know. I hope I survive."

I sighed. Here it came. I tried to cut her off preemptively—I hadn't survived the collapse of the civilized world by falling for simple cons. "You know, I am barely surviving on my own. Probably going to lose the place soon, I just can't afford it. And it's a bad neighborhood, you know?"

We crossed another street. We were moving away from downtown, which meant things were getting progressively more dangerous. I never strayed; this girl was trouble.

Erika stopped walking, folded her arms. "I guess I'll just sleep here, then."

The brick building to our left was abandoned and boarded closed. Trash strewn the streets, and only bent and huddled figures clad in filthy clothes scurried in and out the alleys surrounding us. A far cry from the gleaming cleanliness of downtown, where I worked.

She turned and stepped over to the building, sitting down and resting her back against it. "This is home now." Her voice cracked.

"Well, good luck," I said.

She scoffed in disbelief. I turned and began walking away.

"You would just let me die out here?" she called. "What kind of man are you?"

"A survivor," I said.

I heard the dual click-clack of sandaled feet behind me; I thrust my hands into my pockets and kept walking forward. Not even sure where I was anymore, but I couldn’t go home with her following me.

"You just inspired me," she said, as though that meant something. I felt her shoulder rub mine again. "I have an idea for a Happening."

I sighed. "What's a Happening?"

“A piece of art that I do. Sometimes they last for months. I’m going to start a new project, and I need a subject. The way you saved me in there, the way you asked me to trust you—and then the way you abandoned me…I had this moment of inspiration, this divine spark. I know what my next piece will be, and you’re going to be it,” she said.

“No way. The spotlight is really not my thing, trust me.”

“No, look…just hear me out. I think what I want to do is, I want to pick one person—that's you—and just worship them for like half a year."

"Worship them?" I asked, not quite sure I wanted to understand what she was talking about.

"Yeah, you know, I'll believe everything they say or do must be absolutely correct, because that person will be God. Because maybe all that's important is devotion, you know? Hundreds of different types of believers across the Earth, and they all feel good about it. Maybe I can prove it doesn't matter who God is. Then, after it’s over, I'll write about how it worked out—I have to have publishing rights to the whole thing, not you—and bam! Good story, right?”

I fumbled through her feed.

“I’m trying to prove the act of believing in something is more important than what you believe in,” she offered.

“It’s a cool idea, I guess, but I’m not your guy. I’m not omnipotent—hell, I'm not even potent. Worshipping me is a terrible idea.”

She reached for my hand, squeezed it. I froze.

"You know what I am saying, right? I will do whatever you want. Anything. For months. Please, just don't make me sleep out here."

"Will you leave me alone?"

"Please, Clark. The police are going to find me, they're going to send