never seen before. Both of them were filthy and dressed in rags. They looked like something out of a post-apocalyptic Mad Max style movie, except they lived in a green wilderness rather than some kind of wasteland. Psycho Island was in its thirteenth season, and I had vowed that I would begin watching the new season as it aired rather than waiting for it to come out on KBR as I usually did. Instead, I’d been out wasting gas and time on a sixteen-year-old little psychopath that I should have chucked off a bridge.
Everyone in the lounge laughed as the character Grieves punch-lined some kind of insult that went over the other character’s head. Psycho Island was much, much better than it used to be. When the first Shepherds finally found their cultural foothold and ended up trapping more wolves than they could possibly kill, they started filling up the old prisons with them. But even in America there were not enough prisons for all the psychopaths (one in a hundred out of seven billion, you do the math), so they ended up dumping the worst ones on an island. Financing has always been a problem for Shepherds, so someone had the idea to place cameras all over the island. Thus Psycho Island was born. The first few seasons were little more than random clips of desperate psychopaths trying to scam or kill one another. Around season five they started using better cameras, plus they found psychopaths that audiences liked seeing and followed them. A narrator even helped the audience keep up with the various dramas that followed in the wake of these monsters.
During the last season, season twelve, the producers took it a step further. They equipped the strongest gang, Community, with medieval weapons and plenty of food. The Community no longer had to farm, and could spend their time bullying the other gangs. But then, in an amazing season finale, the producers air-dropped a load of medieval weapons in the territories of the weaker gangs as well. One of my favorite psychos, Solo Billy, gave a speech right out of an ancient presidential playbook and united the other gangs against the Community. They swore revenge against their oppressors.
Fortunately, it looked like they were going to drag things out, which was not uncommon on Psycho Island. It was common for them to end on a really suspenseful note, but then just mess around with the opening episodes of each new season. So I hadn’t missed any huge battles, but now I was left with the question of whether or not to jump into season thirteen without having seen the first episode – or, once again, wait until the whole season came out on KBR.
I dragged Ferris toward a detainment area, a dark little cubbyhole with rotting chairs.
“Sit your ass down there,” I said.
“If you guys are going to kill me, why don’t you just get it over with?”
“We’re not going to kill you. Just sit down. I’m going to look for a place where we can stick you.”
Ferris fell into a chair and crossed his arms. He looked sullen and pouty as he considered whether to work up more tears or play it defiant.
“Can you watch him?” I said to a servitor, a young Shepherd in training.
“You got it, boss,” said the youth. He turned back to refilling the snack machine.
I crossed the hall and came to a row of aging computers. I looked up institutions that housed psychopaths, but I was distracted about having missed the new episode of Psycho Island. As if on cue, I could hear everyone in the lounge break into laughter. I could dimly make out that MacReady, one of the characters that everyone hated, was freaking out over something or other. I was mentally kicking myself, then I kicked myself yet again when I saw that the only facility with any room for wolves who didn’t come from money was all the way in Oklahoma City. Unless a van was already heading there with a mess of psychos tied up in the back, I wasn’t going to be able to afford that much fuel for the ride.
Another Shepherd, a short man built like an ape, came in. His name was Clives and he had been one of my mentors. He was a fatherly, kind old man with a gentle soul, and he had killed more psychopaths than anyone else in our time as far as I knew.
“Amos!” he said, looking at his papers. “You brought in that wolf Ferris, did you?”
“I did, sir.”
“Good, good. Okay, let’s see, looks like you get pay for a small-head, minus two finder’s fees, so that makes the total…”
“Two finder’s fees?”
He stared back at me. I must have looked like I’d seen a ghost.
“Yeah, two,” he said. “One guy worked on the video, but he got the video from another Shepherd. That’s two finder’s fees going out of your pay.”
“Damn,” I said. Then the emotion bubbled over, and I shook my head and gritted my teeth. “Damn it all, man, shit,” I finally let out.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, nothing. It’s fine. It’s fine.”
Clives cut me a check and I immediately made my way to the dead room. If I counted the amount of money spent on gas driving little Sophie home and added in the chunk that went out for finder’s fees, it practically put me in the hole. There was no way I could jerk around tomorrow hunting down small-heads. I was in a bind, no two ways about it.
I dug around in the fridge and found a vial of Mortenol, then found some syringes and filled one. With syringe in hand I stopped by the snack machine and got two drinks.
I returned to the detainment area, where Ferris was still sitting with his arms crossed.
“You want a drink?” I said, handing him a can.
“What’s that? You’re giving me a shot?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Good news. I found you a spot, but it’s way out there. They’re going to hold you in Fort Worth a while, then fly you out to an institution in Catalonia. You’ll like it, it’s full of people like you.”
“Catalonia? What’s… uh…”
“It used to be a part of Spain. Like most of Europe, Spain’s still run by psychopaths. But Catalonia is one of our places. There, they call people like you vampires. They call Shepherds, um, Caçadors, I think. That means hunter, as far as I know.”
Ferris took a sip from his drink, and I added, “But I have to give you this immunization. They got diseases out there that we don’t have here. You know?”
“Okay. Whatever.”
I rolled up his sleeve and was done with the injection before he knew it was in. I threw away the syringe, then sat across from Ferris. He watched me. I opened my drink and took a sip with my eyes on him the whole time.
Some time passed in the small, dark room. Ferris had enough time to realize that he was not getting out of this. I kept my eyes glued to him, and finally the transformation came over him. I’ll never forget the first time old Clives had showed it to me. It was horrifying and fascinating, like a mask coming away. Ferris watched me, and shadows caught in the hollows of his eyes. His features went slack. His mouth fell at the corners, and his eyes became like black portals. They were no longer windows to the soul, but openings leading down to endless darkness. It was clear beyond any doubt that he was not human. He was an empty thing, an angry husk, a ghoulish creature forever cut off from the rest of us. At best, he could have looked forward to a life as a middle-management stooge who sucked the life out of his underlings and licked the boots of his superiors. Had he molested his sister and sworn her to silence yet? I wondered. Had I gotten to him in time? Or had he already left a mark in this world, a scar that would never truly heal?
“You know what, man?” said Ferris. Even his voice sounded different. He was tired. He might have even been relieved that he no longer had to hide among normal humans.
“What?” I said.
He shook his head as he stared at me. “If I could take your face and just… just fucking smash it, man… I really would.”
“I know you would,” I said quietly. “I know you would.”
Ferris pulled his lips apart in imitation of a smile. His teeth looked long and hideous, the gums a pale afterthought. It was a wonder to me that normal humans could not see him for what he was.
Then the Mortenol kicked in. His head fell back and smacked into the wall with a dull plu
nk. He was dead.
I sat with him for a moment and finished my drink. It was cold and the bubbles made me feel clean again. When I finished, Stacey returned.
“You’re going with us, right?” he said. “Big hunt, baby, big-heads, you know? Crazy payola.”
“Yeah, I’m going,” I said. “I’ve got my own armor, but do you think I could borrow a rifle from someone? Or a shotgun, even.”
“Oh-h-h! Going in heavy, are we?”
“I have to,” I said. “I’m running tight on money this month. I ended up driving this stiff all around town and now I don’t think I’ll make rent.”
“Shit, man, clearing these wolves out that we got cornered – mmn, damn! I won’t have to hear you bitching about rent all year.”
“Yeah, that’s what I figured, too.”
Stacey stood in the doorway. In the glare of the light from the outer hall, he looked like an angel of the lord armored for war against a plague of demons.
“Okay, spill it,” he said. “I just got you a seat on something that’s gonna make you a legend, and you look like your girl just up an’ left you. What’s up?”
“It’s really messed up, man.” I sat in silence for a moment, shaking my head. Finally I bolstered my resolve and said, “I was meaning to start watching Psycho Island with everyone else instead of waiting for the KBRs. But I messed up and forgot the season premiere was tonight. I need the money, but if I go on a hunt with these guys,