sland
By Kyle B. Stiff
Copyright 2014 Kyle B. Stiff
Updates for Kyle B. Stiff’s writing projects, including Demonworld and Heavy Metal Thunder, can be found here, here, and here:
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Psycho Island
Psycho Island
My name is Amos. My story takes place thirty or so years after your time. My world looks much the same as yours, and I sometimes wonder what I would have been in your world. A cop? A soldier, maybe? Or maybe a vice principal always on the lookout for bullies? I guess it’s no use speculating. Today, in my world, I carry a gun and a fancy badge and I’m currently hunting down a young man – a boy, really – who has been marked for death.
You see, in our time we solved a problem that you did not. The news on the television is no longer an endless series of frenzied pronouncements about the decline of mankind. We took care of that. We solved the problem as mankind has always solved problems: Through hard work and the spilling of blood. People rest easier now, but they only rest easier because of people like me.
I drove thirty miles per hour down a highway in the middle of a losing battle against entropy. I continually glanced at my gas gauge. That’s one difference between your world and mine: Gas is prohibitively expensive, a luxury rather than a necessity. It’s not the end of the world, but we’ve had to change the way we get to and from work. There’s still plenty of oil sitting underground, but the bike business is booming all the same.
I pulled into a residential area and made my way to a playground. The shadows were long as the sun set early this winter. School had just let out and kids were everywhere. I could see many of them walking alone, and even though it would be dark in a few minutes, the streets were safer now than they’ve ever been in all of human history.
I slowed down to a crawl as I scanned their faces. I worried that I’d lose my target in the crowd, but fortunately my intel was good and I saw him standing by the swings with his little sister. Apparently they did this every day after school. The falling sun was red and angry and it framed the boy with his reddish-brown hair tied back as he looked directly at me. His little sister continued swinging, oblivious as I pulled the car onto the grass and gunned the engine. It’s been my experience that you can’t pussyfoot with a wolf; they only respect you if they fear you, and the only thing they really fear is death.
I braked in front of the boy and stepped out. His eyes slipped to the gun at my side before they settled back on mine.
“Are you Ferris Black?” I said.
The boy’s eyes stabbed through me. His little sister’s swing came to a gradual stop.
“Who are you?” he finally said.
I didn’t need confirmation of his name. I already knew good and well that he was Ferris, but I wanted to see his reaction. I wanted to know if he was going to play it defiant, or fawning, or obtuse, or any of the other predictable strategies that wolves like him use over and again. I ignored his question and pulled out my badge. I flicked it open and I saw the orange and gold light reflecting on my wrist, and I knew that the sight of the eagle insignia hologram was a lightning bolt of pure terror striking Ferris’s heart. His jaw clenched and his eyes darted here and there. If he was going to run, he’d do it now. I was more than capable of running him down. I could have also pulled out my gun and killed him right here, in front of his sister and everyone else, and it would all be perfectly legal. He knew that, too, and he was wondering if running would be smarter than biding his time and looking for an opening.
“I’m a Shepherd,” I said, ending our staring contest. “I’ve been cleared by the people to bring you in. Get in the car, son.”
The little sister began crying, a soft, long wail with eyes tightly shut. Ferris saw an opening and said, “Sophie can’t get home without me.”
“Your uncle’s a teacher. You wait out here every day for him to get off work and give you a ride home. She can wait for him without you just fine.” I tried to put enough force into my voice to let him know I wouldn’t put up with any delays. A wolf will find any chink in your armor and exploit it; that’s what they do. I opened the back door of my car and looked back at him.
Ferris looked at his little sister, whose head was buried in her hands with her little shoulders shaking quietly. “You’re going to just leave her here alone?”
I looked at the back of little Sophie’s head, and I understood that she had already been imprinted, as we called it. Ferris had manipulated her in such a way that she truly believed she loved him. She had no idea what he was, had no idea that he was not like the rest of us and would never be like the rest of us. I wasn’t trained to break imprinting, but I certainly didn’t want her to feel any worse than she did now.
“Put her in the front seat,” I said. “You get in the back. I’ll give her a ride home.” I stepped away from the car and put one hand on my gun. I wanted him to know that he wasn’t pulling anything over on me. I wanted him to understand that he might still die within the next few minutes if he got out of line.
The little monster did as he was told. I got in the car and noticed a long line of children watching us from the distance. They did not protest, nor did they cheer, but only watched. I’d seen that time and again, too. They weren’t like me, and they weren’t like Ferris, either. They knew to stay out of our way as we went through the ritual that sustained utopia. Ferris only stared ahead as I pulled out of the playground and rejoined the road.
I turned my siren on. It was the opposite of a policeman’s siren, which is usually a loud alarm designed to tell people, “I’m going somewhere important, stay out of my way.” A Shepherd’s siren is a slowly rotating green light accompanied by a dull, bass-filled hum. We only turn our sirens on after we have our prey. It is strangely comforting, because it effectively says, “I am carrying something dangerous so that you no longer have to. Do not interrupt this process.” People stopped on the sidewalks and watched. Some waved, and some even cheered. They didn’t know if I was carrying a rabid murderer handcuffed in the back or a good-looking, charismatic serial rapist. They only knew that I carried something that should not be among other people, and they were glad.
“What’s this about?” Ferris said suddenly. “I don’t even know what’s going on.”
“Don’t play dumb,” I said, then I shook my head, disappointed that I’d let him engage me. If he was older and his tools were sharpened by experience, communicating would be a big mistake on my part.
“I seriously don’t know!” he said. His voice squeaked in imitation of childish panic.
“You remember crossing Tilley Memorial?”
“What?”
“The bridge.”
Ferris paused for a long time, then said, “I used to all the time, when I went to a different school.”
“Well, we’ve got a video of you throwing a cat off that bridge.”
There was deathly silence. He knew I had him. I glanced at Sophie and saw that she still held her face in her hands, but she was obviously listening. She didn’t protest, and I knew it was because, on some level, she had to know. On some level beneath her conscious awareness, she knew that her dearly beloved brother was a wolf.
“How can you be sure it was me?” said Ferris.
“We’re sure.”
I trusted the other Shepherds who did their homework. The guy who passed the intel on to me had footage from a security camera that was a couple of years old. We didn’t have a huge database or anything like that; it was only by luck that someone passed the video on to him, and that it was even analyzed, because we mostly went after higher priority cases. But I’d seen the video my
self. It clearly showed Ferris crossing the pedestrian bridge with his little Spider-Man backpack. He passed by a kitten that was hanging out on the bridge, and the two didn’t even appear to notice one another. Fifteen minutes later, Ferris returned and stared at the cat. He left again, but returned yet again two minutes later, looked left and right, then picked up the cat and threw it off the bridge. He watched from one side, then crossed to the other side and watched from there until he was satisfied, then he left.
“You’re kidding,” said Ferris. “This is retarded. You’re kidding me! You’re going to send me to Psycho Island because some idiot threw a freaking cat into a river!?”
“You won’t go to Psycho Island,” I said.
“How can you possibly know that!”
“Because you’re too young. And you don’t stand out. Only big personality-types go there.”
“This is retarded. This is beyond retarded, man. I’m not a psychopath, I’ll tell you that much right now. In fact… you know what? This is just stupid.”
“It’s not stupid,” I said. “It’s just the way it is.”
I may not have presented a great argument, but I was right – it wasn’t stupid. This was what our civilization was built on. It was why people could feel safe at night, and why the news wasn’t terrifying, and why people no longer felt that politicians and corporate executives and celebrities were some kind