Ability (Omnibus) (23 page)

Jamarcus felt like he’d been kicked in the guts. “They’re going to murder us. All of us.”

“Probably so,” Uncle James said, looking through the window as the two females turned down the walkway and approached the front door.

“Probably so? They’re going to kill us! After they make us slaves! After they rape Kendra and Mom!”

“Listen up, kid,” Uncle James said in a voice Jamarcus had never heard before. “This is a shit deal. We came out on the bottom, just like we always do. You can die right now, made an example of, or you can wait for your chance and take at least one of them with you. Those are your only two choice.”

Jamarcus began to cry. He felt like a baby for crying in front of his uncle, the man who had raised him after Jamarcus’ father had been “accidentally” killed by sheriff’s deputies during a robbery when he was two. His uncle was normally tough as nails, but Jamarcus could see the fear in his eyes. He watched Uncle James’ hands clench into fists repeatedly as the two girls came onto the steps. The short blonde one knocked on the door with more force than Jamarcus thought possible from such a tiny little thing.

“Ten seconds, or we’ll just burn you and your shack down.”

Jamarcus held his breath. The one that had spoken, a taller redhead, was Cindy Mellon, the girl that sat behind him in Algebra, and two seats to his left in History. The girl that he’d been dating for the last two months.

“Go get your mother and sister,” Uncle James said, making it clear there was to be no argument.

Jamarcus turned and went into the back bedroom, hating himself for being the one to lead his mother and sister to a life of endless pain and suffering. He didn’t know what the whites were planning to do, but if the scene in the street was any hint, it was going to be worse than unpleasant. A thought crossed his mind that the best thing to do for his mother and sister would be to kill them and then himself instead of having to watch them be enslaved, humiliated, raped, and murdered. The next thought was anger that everyone else seemed to be able to do crazy things like shoot fire or lightning from their bodies, but he’d been denied.

“We have to go,” he told his mother and sister.

“What’s happening?” Kendra asked, cowering in fear behind her dresser.

“We have to go,” he said again, his voice hard and tight. “They’ll kill us if we don’t go right now.”

He grabbed his sister’s wrist and pulled. Kendra obeyed without struggling, their mother following silently behind, tears flowing down her cheeks. When they walked back into the living room, Cindy was standing inside the doorway watching them. He looked past her, watching the blonde girl lead Uncle James to the curb.

“Why are you doing this, Cindy?” he asked.

“Shut your mouth or I’ll melt it shut,” she said, but there was no hate in her voice.

“Don’t do this!” Jamarcus hissed as he came to a stop in front of her. He towered over Cindy, his two meter height making her seem frail and insignificant.

“Shut up,” Cindy said, looking past him at Jamarcus’ sister and mother.

“I thought we were in love!” he shouted. He wanted to add that he was sure of it after she’d let him touch her in mysterious places, places only his eyes had experienced on the net and in holos, but his mother was less than a meter from them.

“If you say one more word,” Cindy said, her voice finally full of emotion, “I’ll kill you where you stand.”

Kendra reached out and grabbed his arm, pulling him away from Cindy. She gave her brother’s girlfriend a look of pure hatred. Cindy began to cry silently, tears streaming down her cheeks. The four stood in the living room for almost a minute until Cindy regained control of her emotions. She stepped back to let the three walk past her. She gave Kendra an apologetic look, getting another hateful glare in return.

The scene outside was chaos. Uncle James was kneeling on the sidewalk, hands tied behind his back. Jamarcus looked up and down the street and saw the same scene playing out, all of the men handcuffed or had their hands tied behind their backs, all kneeling on the sidewalk, facing the street. The blonde girl gave Jamarcus a cruel smile as he walked up next to his uncle. She ran her finger down his chest, then over her own crotch, licking her lips in a seductive way that would have made him hard in an instant if he hadn’t watched the same girl engulf the Williams’ house in liquid flame a few minutes earlier. She gave Jamarcus a squeeze through his pants then motioned for him to kneel next to his uncle. He felt Cindy behind him, half a second before he felt cold metal handcuffs secured around his left wrist.

“Don’t,” she whispered in his ear when he refused to let her pull his wrist behind his back.

Every instinct in him screamed to fight, to run, to do something, knowing the moment the second handcuff clicked into place, he would be unable to stop whatever horrors these people were about to bring upon him. As the second cuff bound his wrists together, the blonde girl stepped forward and ran her hand over his chest again, doing the same to his uncle.

“I’ll get my turn,” she said, her cruel smile turning once again suggestive.

She stepped away when a man approached. He looked at the captives for a few moments before nodding his head and walking down the sidewalk to the next house. Cindy grabbed each prisoner’s elbow and helped them to their feet. The blonde girl collected Jamarcus’ mother and sister, and the six of them marched down the street toward a school bus that had been parked at the intersection.

“Where are you taking us?” his mother asked.

“To a hole in the ground if you don’t shut your goddamn mouth,” the blonde growled, giving the woman’s arm a hard jerk.

Two men with assault rifles stood guard at the bus doors, though from what Jamarcus had seen, the rifles were next to useless against the types of weapons being wielded. The doors opened and Cindy shoved Uncle James forward to board the bus. Just as he put his foot on the first step, a powerful boom sounded from halfway down the street, followed by an intense flash of light that made Jamarcus see spots. A second, even more powerful blast rocked the neighborhood hard enough that windows shattered up and down the street, and those closest to the explosion were thrown backwards.

Jamarcus turned and looked to where the eruption of noise and light had come from. He heard screams, then what he thought was the sound of something crackling, as if it were burning. Seconds later, three more booms in succession rocked the neighborhood, the last one flinging two halves of a body out into the street. His heart began to race, the fear of his situation being drowned out by his fear of whatever insane powers these people had. A high-pitched whistle began to blare, making everyone in the street cover their ears. It cut out seconds later with a final blast, this one accompanied by bluish-purple flashes of light, followed by a massive gout of flame that shot from the ground into the sky.

Three badly burned humans stumbled out into the street, two of them collapsing, the third raising his arms above his head. Jamarcus couldn’t tell for sure if it was a male or female with the amount of burnt skin hanging from the body. A purple ball of rippling fire formed between the human’s hands, growing larger by the second. The sound of rushing air snuffed out the ball of fire the same instant it ripped the body into pieces.

“Get your ass on the bus,” one of the armed men said, shoving Uncle James through the doorway.

His uncle stumbled and fell forward, his forehead colliding with the edge of the driver’s seat. The other guard stepped into the bus, grabbing James’ arm and jerking him up before shoving him down the aisle. Jamarcus followed, keeping his balance when shoved, doing his best to not slip in the blood that coated the floor. He was worried that his uncle was bleeding heavily until he realized that almost every third face that looked at him with fearful eyes was covered in varying amounts of blood.

He sat down next to James, and watched as his sister and mother were seated near the front of the bus. Jamarcus looked around, noticing that only men were in the rear half of the bus. None of them made any sound, all of them too afraid at what might happen if they did. All of them had seen too many unbelievable things already. They waited in silence, the only noise coming from a few of the women at the front that were unable to squelch their sobbing.

Half an hour later, every seat full, all of the occupants black or mixed race, a man in camo pants and a U.S. Marine Corps t-shirt stepped onto the bus. He looked around the bus as if doing a head count. After he’d finished, he stood at parade rest and spoke to his prisoners.

“You’ve seen what we can do. You’ve seen that you are roaches to be exterminated if you don’t do exactly as you are told. Obey any and all commands of your white superiors. Do not touch any of your white superiors. Do not talk to your white superiors unless asked a specific question. Do not talk to each other. Do not attempt to escape.”

The man turned on his heel and ducked out of the bus. The two armed men entered and took up positions at the front. A third man sat in the driver’s seat and started the engine. After a few seconds, the bus pulled into the street and made its way to the next intersection before turning left, then left again to get back out onto US 27. The bus took them north on US 27 until it merged with 441. They headed north for another ten minutes, barely avoiding being struck by a flying projectile that looked like it had been formed out of fire the color of midnight.

The bus turned into the Fruitland Park Auto Salvage and wound its way through a maze of cars stacked three meters high. It shuddered to a stop alongside another wall of crushed cars. The doors opened and the driver and one of the armed guards exited.

“Two at a time, women first, exit the bus and enter the pit,” the other guard said, stepping aside and pointing at the first row of women.

One of the women was almost catatonic. The guard glared at her as the woman next to her did her best to drag her partner down the steps of the bus. The guard jerked his thumb at the next two. Three minutes later, Jamarcus and James walked down the aisle. Both of their hearts fell into their stomach when they looked beyond the doors.

The bus had stopped at an opening in the walls of the a giant circular pit made out of flattened, cubed cars. The pit was barely twenty meters across, with white men and women patrolling the tops of the walls, keeping a close eye on their charges three meters below. The stench of fear and rotting corpses assaulted him as he stepped off the bus and through the narrow opening into the pit. An overpowering odor of urine, vomit, and shit nearly made him lose control of his own bladder and bowels.

“Hold it,” a gruff voice said as he passed out of the passageway and into the pit proper.

Jamarcus and his uncle stopped. The man stepped behind them, and within seconds, the handcuffs were off Jamarcus’ wrists, his uncle’s wrists free of rope soon after.

“Go on,” the man said, giving Jamarcus a rough shove. “Get your asses in there.”

James found his sister and niece, and Jamarcus joined them. His uncle led them into the middle of the crowd, explaining quietly into Jamarcus’ ear that it would be safer until they knew what was going to happen. By the next afternoon, they knew what their immediate fate was to be.

Fruitland Park, Florida - January 17, 2046

“Line the fuck up, you animals!” Tommy screamed at the crowd below him. “Two wide, face the gate.”

Jamarcus let go of his mother and let Uncle James stand next to her while he kept Kendra beside him. The mass of people were in a panic. The few that were able to keep their wits about them struggled to get everyone to comply. Some in the crowd shouted insults, calling the ones trying to organize everyone “Uncle Tom” and “traitor.” A scuffle erupted ahead of Jamarcus. He pulled his sister back and down to the ground just before multiple shots were fired into the pit.

Screams of pain and panic infected the crowd, made worse when one of the combatants began to shriek until his throat was bloody. As one, the crowd moved away from him. The man’s skin bubbled and melted, falling in drips from his body, hissing when it hit the sandy ground. Jamarcus covered his nose to filter out the stench of broiling meat. He looked over at Kendra. His sister was in shock, her eyes wide and unblinking, her mouth making little movements as if she were repeating a prayer over and over.

The burning man finally died to the cheers and hoots of the guards on the walls of the pit. The men who weren’t cheering were laughing like they’d been told a funny joke, or they were shouting insults at the wounded. The crack of rifles ended the suffering of two women and a man that had been shot in the first volley.

“That’s your last warning!” Tommy warned them. “One more fuck-up and I’ll waste all of you myself. There’s plenty of you fucking spooks left hiding out to hunt down. Ten seconds. Line up or die.”

The prisoners in the pit lined up in an S-curve, avoiding the dead bodies on either side.

“Shut the fuck up!” another guard shouted, annoyed at the wailing and crying going on below.

The barrier that had been placed at the entrance to the pit was removed, and two armed guards stepped in. They motioned for the first couple in line to come forward. Jamarcus watched the guards strip the man and the woman, an older husband and wife. He steeled himself for the expected molestation of the woman, but none came. The guards weren’t interested in an old black woman with a few extra pounds hanging from her body. The guard on the right jerked his thumb back toward the pit entrance, the left guard prodding the woman with the barrel of his assault rifle. The couple held hands as they walked through the entrance. The left guard grinned at his partner before turning to the next two in line and winking at them.