Richard Kadrey - The Kill Society

“Me love you long time.”

I finally shove her off me. Cherry slams into the wall, shaking the camper. She’s still laughing.

“If the house is rocking, don’t bother knocking!”

I sit up and check my leg wound. It’s deep, but not too wide, like the knife went straight in. It’ll heal in no time.

“Stark, what is going on here?” says Traven, then corrects himself. “Pitts.”

“Don’t bother, Father,” I say. “Cherry knows me. She’s known it was me this whole time. What I don’t get is why she didn’t give me away.”

Cherry sits up, takes her time adjusting her miniskirt and coat. I pull the camper door closed.

“ZaSu Pitts. That’s the best you could come up with?” she says. “And why the funny name at all? Every asshole in Hell is afraid of Sandman Slim. Don’t you want that? Fuck, you could probably kick the Magistrate out and take over. We could ride the havoc all over Hell. One big party till the end of time.”

Traven looks at Cherry.

“You’re not a real oracle?” he says.

Cherry rolls her eyes and shoves one of her high heels into my leg. Like all my dealings with her, it hurts.

“You have any smokes left?”

I find my coat and give her a Malediction. She sparks it with a gold lighter in the shape of a Crucifix. Cherry looks at me, then turns her eyes to Traven.

“Did prickless here tell you that he killed me?”

Traven starts to say something and I cut him off.

“I didn’t kill her. I just didn’t get to her in time to save her. Mason’s attack dog—a guy named Parker—killed her.”

“Details, details,” says Cherry. “I’m still dead and it’s still your fault.”

“I’m sorry. If you were any less annoying, I’d be even more sorry.”

She looks at Traven.

“See? He admits it’s his fault. And I just saved his worthless ass. Doesn’t he owe me one quick fuck for that, Father?”

Traven takes a breath. This madness is way above his pay grade.

“So, you’re not a real oracle? Does the Magistrate know?”

She swats away the question.

“No. I’m a real oracle. I learned the whole seeing thing from a Hellion street swami. He did it for cash back in Pandemonium, but after everything went to shit because of this one.”

She digs her heel into me again.

“The swami took off and left me high and dry. Of course, I’d already learned the tricks by then … and helped myself to enough of his toys to set myself up when some bleeding hearts gave me a ride out of the city.”

“Where did you meet the havoc?” says Traven.

“We left Hell altogether and lit out for the Tenebrae. I’d spent some time here, so I knew my way around.”

“But you didn’t count on the Magistrate showing up,” I say.

She sighs and puffs the Malediction.

“Everyone who didn’t join up … well, the pope there can tell you all about it.”

I nod to the oxygen tank.

“What’s with the wheezing gaff?”

Cherry puts the respirator over her mouth and makes a silly face at me. She lowers it and says, “I’ve been a few places and done a few things since the last time we saw each other, Jimbo. I couldn’t take a chance on anyone recognizing me.”

“That doesn’t explain why you didn’t rat me out to the Magistrate today.”

She frowns.

“I’d never do that, ZaSu. The world—even this one—is a lot more fun with you in it.” She taps her ash onto Traven’s floor. “Besides, if things go belly up here, maybe Sandman fucking Slim can step up and actually save me this time.”

She blows smoke at me. I wave it away.

“As much of a pain in the ass as you are, you know I would.”

She points at me, but looks at Traven.

“Is he all right? What’s with the Boy Scout act?”

“We’ve been talking,” says Traven. “He’s trying to be a better person and deal with some of his mental issues.”

Cherry stares at me, a little horrified.

“He’s nothing but mental issues. You can’t fix him. You do and you’ll fuck us all. But especially me. I killed for this piece of shit today. He owes me.”

I limp to the camper door.

“That reminds me. If it wasn’t Daja who tried to kill me, let’s see who it was.”

“It’s Megs,” says Cherry. “Didn’t you smell him? You burned him up good, Jimmy. He looks like a s’more that fell in the fire.”

I get out of the camper and look at him. Cherry and Traven follow me.

We’re at the far edge of the camp, away from anything important. A nice place for an ambush. I look at the pile of meat on the ground.

“It’s Megs all right.”

He moans quietly, leaking blood.

The ground leading back to the main camp is a flat surface, and the desert floor is too hard to leave footprints. Nothing useful there. I kneel down and look Megs over.

“You two have been around. Does Lobster Boy look like he could get here under his own power?”

“I doubt it,” says Traven.

“Definitely not,” says Cherry. “I saw him at center camp. He was a goddamn basket case.”

I reach back in the camper and pull out the piece of Megs’s arm that came off in my hand. Toss it down next to him.

“That means someone helped him here. Carried or wheeled him over. We would have heard a vehicle.”

Cherry gives Megs a light kick.

“Making friends wherever you go, eh, Jimmy?”

“It’s Mr. Pitts,” I say. “If you want rescuing when the time comes, that is.”

Cherry drops the Malediction and crushes it under her shoe.

“Speaking of the time,” she says, and pulls the respirator up over her chin. “Time for me to get back to the peanut gallery. There’ll be rumors about you by now.”

She winks and pulls the respirator up over her face.

“Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone what a shy flower you were in the face, so to speak, of free pussy. A rare commodity in Hell, Jimmy, but you’d remember that if you hadn’t gone soft living the good life back home.”

“I’m bleeding and I just got murdered, Cherry. Give me a fucking break.”

“Keep an eye on him for me, Father,” she wheezes in her mask. “If anyone’s going to kill him down here, it won’t be Daja.”

“It will be you?” says Traven.

Cherry gives us a fingertip wave and heads back to camp.

Traven looks at me.

“Well. That was unexpected.”

“That’s one word for it.”

He looks down at Megs. “What are we going to do with him?”

I reach down and snap his neck. He blips out of existence a moment later.

Traven turns away.

“Please warn me the next time you’re going to do something like that.”

“Sorry.”

He looks back at where the body was a second before.

“There’s a lot of blood.”

“We’re going to need to cover it up.”

I look around.

“We’re close to the base of the mountain. I remember loose soil down there,” I say. “I’ll bring some over and cover the blood when things settle down.”

“You’ll need help.”

I look around for something else to cover the blood with, but there’s nothing.

“You’re in good with the Magistrate,” I say. “I won’t fuck that up. If things go wrong, it should be me they come after.”

“That’s not fair.”

“We’re in Hell. I just got knifed by a charcoal briquette and molested by a witch. Talk to me some more about fair.”

“At least let me be your lookout,” says Traven.

“Fine. But not now. When most of them are asleep.”

We go back into the camper. Traven settles back down on his cot and I lie on my coat on the floor with a couple of pillows. It’s not exactly comfortable, but it beats sleeping anywhere else at this crummy summer camp.