Simon Spurrier - The Culled

"Uh-uh." He shook his head. "'Til this nigger stole it." He kicked Nate's ruined foot, drawing-up another round of tortured screams.

Then he lifted the hypoderm to his neck, still staring right at me, punched through the skin and squeezed the plunger. His whole body went tense, cords straining.

"What is it?" I said, morbidly fascinated, watching the liquid vanish inside him.

His lips peeled back.

He hissed, like a boiler reaching critical mass.

Then grunted.

Then he yanked out the needle with a girlish giggle and chucked it away, letting it smash on the floor.

"The fuck knows?" He said, voice abruptly smooth, body moving with a weird liquidity. He stood up straight and peeled off his glasses, ignoring the tiny dribble of blood hanging on his neck. "Gave up reading labels years back."

His eyes were almost red. So bloodshot that they bulged, capillaries swollen and angry, pupils dilated to swallow dark irises that brooded at the heart of hot, insane scarlet.

It took me a moment or two to find my voice.

"Good to see there were no adverse effects, mate."

He giggled and winked. It looked painful.

"Now then," he said, moving slow. "You recall the Secretariat? You recall before the Injun arrived?"

"What about it?"

He grinned. And then carefully, letting me see what he was doing every step, he tucked the pistol away in a holster inside his robe and cracked his knuckles.

"Let's… pick up. Hm. Pick up where we left off?"

The first lunge was almost too fast to follow. Maybe I was still groggy.

Maybe I was just too slow.

It didn't matter, really. I knew it'd be a feint before he'd even started, and was ready when he blurred left-right-left – confusing and showy – then sent a foot arching down towards my shins.

Looking flash, playing dirty. Trying to break my ankle, the arrogant fuck; that or push me backwards, keep me on the defensive, box-me against a wall.

Best form of defence is -

I stepped forwards, through and under his guard. Took the force out of the kick with a sideways swipe of my right hand and rolled with the weight, down on one knee – letting fists strike uselessly at the air above my head. My left hand snapped palm-open, thrust forwards with a tiny snarl on my lips.

There's no word for what happens when you hit someone as hard as you can in the balls. It's like… it's like somewhere between a crunch and a squelch. It's like hard-and-soft altogether, and you can barely do it without wincing in sympathy.

What I did was: gripped.

Fact: it's possible to kill a man this way.

We must've stood like that for a second or two. That shocked sense of calm after a flurry of blows and kicks too quick to be handled intelligently. You just react. You just let it flow.

I waited for him to crumple.

And waited.

And looked up.

He winked again, then laughed.

And then his fist was slow-mo-ing and my cheek was all white light, and I was on my back, and the world came back bit-by-bit.

He stepped back and shook his arms, like an athlete warming up. Like there wasn't a great bloody stain oozing through his robes around his crotch.

"Round two." He giggled, every muscle shivering. "When you're ready, limey."

Fuck.

I stood up carefully, overplaying the grogginess. Hamming it right up. I swayed on my feet, waving him forwards with the punch-drunk bravado of an amateur. Trying to be clever about this… He was quicker and stronger and meaner, but if he was as dumb as he looked maybe I could Now.

And he was on me again. Expecting it to be easy; an elbow thrown out at my cheek as he spun past, a low leg orbiting at the edge of the curve. I took the elbow in both hands and wrenched, letting his weight overbalance him, chasing him down so the roundhouse arced uselessly. I fucking pummelled him, knuckles mashing on cheeks and lips, knowing it did no good but enjoying it anyway, leaning my arms on his chest as his back hit the ground, forcing the air out of him and feeling his ribs crackle, then planting both fists in his guts.

Hard.

Trying to get the shithead bleeding inside. Emptying him of oxygen. Playing it carefully, thoughtfully. Not a brawl but an amputation, not a fight but a fucking dissection. He coughed blood and tried to lever himself up, sucking back air, and I broke his nose with a smile and kept hitting, sat astride him; pounding away until my fingers felt broken and my arms ached from wrist to shoulder.

Intelligent application of force.

Yes.

Yes, you fuck.

Controlled violence.

Thwap

Thwap

For Rick. For Malice and the others. For Bella, you shit.

Yes.

For Jasmine.

I took him apart, little by little, and no brain-surgeon was ever as precise as me in that glorious flurry of aggre Snuk

My fists stopped moving.

Cy smiled through teeth smeared with bloody spittle, gripping my hands in mid-swing as if he'd caught a pair of tennis balls, then sat up in a single continuous movement and nutted me on the bridge of my nose. Something snapped.

Fact: It's possible to kill people like this too.

I went over backwards. A fist in my eye helped me down. Warmth spattered off my lips and chin.

And I lay there panting as he dragged himself out from beneath me, and stood with no obvious aches or pains, spitting the blood away and clearing each nostril with a viscous rasp of snot and gore. He rolled his head as if he'd fallen asleep in the wrong position; jumped up and down in his spot once or twice, then gave me a great, bright smile.

"Let's go." He said.

Fuck.

It took a long time to pick myself up. Every inch a mountain. Every movement a defeated consolation.

I couldn't win. This… this thing wasn't even human any more. With his veins clogged-up with freaky narcotic shite, nothing would work. Clever fighting. Precision and stealth. Fuck it. Fuck it all.

I've seen guys on PCP. I've seen guys go psycho on Yaba crazy medicine. Twenty bullets, major organs shredded. Doesn't matter. Takes the body longer to realise it's dead than it takes to kill whoever's killing you.

Cy was worse.

Cy soaked it up then smiled sweetly. He didn't rush. Didn't race to squish me before the wounds caught up on him. He just…

Enjoyed it.

So what happened was, my brain went away.

The conditioning shivered somewhere deep, unflexed like a great squid-thing, untangling from the murk. I'd held it down too long. Let it grow in the dark.

It took a hold of me and blurred-away all those insignificances, all those useless extremities of thought and intelligence. Sharpened me as it blunted me down.

The trainers at the SIS would have been proud.

Good little soldier. Good little killer. Good little machine.

The wolf came out from its shadows, and its eyes glowed in the gloom, and I stopped thinking. Let the instincts take over.

Don't you fucking give up, soldier!

Sir, no sir, etc etc.

And this time when he rushed me I was already hitting him, and when he scooped at the air to knock me back I was ducking into his belly with a knee, and when he snarled and spun and kicked-out I let him, and enjoyed the pain in my hips because it meant I was close, and hungry, and I lamped him so hard in the ear that the skin on my fist popped.

Chased him down to the ground.

Snapped his shin with my boot.

Took out his eye with a finger.

Caught a hold of his jaw as it flapped open and yanked down so hard something shattered and tore.

Grabbed a handful of his neck and balled my fist 'til the skin broke and the cords underneath moved in my hand.

Punches raining on my face.

Like I care.

And I locked my fingers round his throat, bloody and slick and crackling down deep, and squeezed.

His eye bulged and bled. He gurgled.