Rare Air
Part Nine
Hands came in and started to pull at me and I had to swallow the first instinct I had to turn that knife around and see just how many of the ungrateful shitheads I could take with me. I didn’t need type two to steer my wheel. I could hear Kelly at that moment, laughing and leering, “You have a real knack for killing.”
I didn’t want to have that knack. I stopped myself from slashing and stabbing at those grasping hands and soon enough I was off of Drew and on the ground. I was disarmed, cornered and a few individuals who I didn’t even recognize were talking about quarantining me or stringing me up then and there. I heard one asshole actually say, “Not like there aren’t plenty of trees outside.”
That same asshole was also a fan of taking Drew’s corpse out and doing the same thing as “an example to others.”
Even now, freezing to death with the left half of my head feeling like soft, bad fruit, I can’t comprehend that moment were stupid and mean intersect to create the idea that hanging a plague victim for succumbing to the plague, is a warning to others.
Others, like what, plagues?
Hearing the asshole talk had me trying to get back up. No one was hanging a dead body for the sake of restoring the invisible veneer of order, not while I was still alive. More hands, pulling at me followed by kicks that time. I was regretting letting them take my knife away.
There were no less than three revolutions of that same disgusting circle jerk of people wanting revenge, people wanting to set examples, people just wanting the noise to stop, and most everyone else just standing around and watching me get pushed and kicked and not having the courage to stand up to a handful of loud voices in order to put a stop to it.
The mayor and a few other “officials” finally came on scene and I was allowed up. Someone was even stupid enough to hand my knife back to me. I looked down and noticed that someone had also wiped Drew’s blood off of it.
Someone next to the mayor asked for details and the asshole, someone who wasn’t even there, was the first to start ranting and raving.
I got busy checking my pockets and my bag to make sure everything was there. I was already making a mental check list of what I could grab from my personal tent, quickly, when other voices chimed in and still others after that. I was already through my list and thinking about what could easily go missing from HQ on my way out when the mayor pushed through and asked me directly.
“Drew killed two people and injured the hell out of a third. Plague took him, type two. I put him down.”
The mayor smiled that worthless, “all’s well” smile of hers and turned to the troubled crowd. “Tragedy as it is. This is life right now folks. Our sheriff did his job. Let’s take care of our dead and focus on the rest of the day.”
That wasn’t enough for the asshole “He knew, he bunked with him, he was in on this.”
Her words weren’t enough for me either. There was no tin badge but they had me wearing a red bandana tied around my arm to make note that I could be called on for community business. I pulled it off and threw it at the mayor. “I’m gone, anyone who wants to stop me is welcome to try.”