Ability (Omnibus) (24 page)

The seventh pair was Uncle James and his mother. When both were stripped, a whistle and a catcall sounded from the wall above. Jamarcus glanced up to see the blonde girl eying his uncle. Both guards stared at his mother for a little too long before motioning them to exit the pit. When the guards turned to Jamarcus and his sister, both of them raised their eyebrows. The right one motioned to them with his assault rifle.

Jamarcus clutched his sister’s hand and they both stepped forward. Kendra’s eyes were no longer wide, but her lips were still mouthing silent words.

“Get ‘em off,” the right guard said to Jamarcus. When he didn’t move, the guard became angry. “I said get them fuckin’ rags off unless you want to get ventilated.”

Jamarcus removed his shirt, pants, socks, and underwear. Another catcall from the wall reached his ears, but he didn’t look up this time. He refused to cover himself in shame.

“Get ‘em off, missy,” the right guard said to Kendra.

“You better help your girlfriend if she’s too stupid to understand English,” said the left guard, getting a chuckle from his partner.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Jamarcus said.

The guard on the right shifted his gun around and brought the butt of it up into Jamarcus’ jaw, then screamed and fell to the ground, clutching his own shattered jaw, blood pouring through his fingers. Jamarcus blinked, not sure why his own head hadn’t exploded in pain. The man on the left thought the giant black kid had attacked his partner, and brought his rifle up to his shoulder, sighting Jamarcus in, barely a meter away. Time seemed to stop as Jamarcus watched the barrel of the gun become level with his face.

“Say goodnight, asshole,” the guard said, squeezing the trigger.

The sound was deafening inside the pit. Blood erupted from the back of the guard’s head and sprayed the wall behind him. More gunfire rang out, mixing with the sound of prisoners being electrocuted, burned, and torn in half. A long, drawn-out scream came from the top of the wall as one of the guards tried to use her ability on Jamarcus. He paid no attention, grabbing his pants and shoes before snatching Kendra by the arm and pulling her down the entrance to keep them out of the line of sight of the guards on the wall.

Jamarcus stopped and put his pants and shoes on, then took Kendra’s arm again and ran out of the pit. He saw the naked prisoners that had been led out before him, most cowering in fear at the commotion. He spotted his uncle ten meters away, struggling with one of the guards. He frantically looked for his mother, but couldn’t see her. He dragged his sister along as he ran to help Uncle James. Ten meters from his uncle, Jamarcus shoved Kendra down to the ground and ran full speed at the guard, hitting him square in the back with a perfect football tackle. All three men went down in a heap, but within seconds the man was dead, his uncle’s hand holding a knife covered in blood.

They stood up to retrieve Kendra and his mom, but before either could take a step, Uncle James was whipped backwards as if he’d been been hit by a speeding freight train. A sickening splat sounded as Uncle James’ skull shattered on the metal skin of the school bus.

“Noooo!” Jamarcus screamed and turned around.

A fat man with a thick, sweaty beard grinned at him. The grin turned to surprise when the man’s obese body flew backwards with the same speed his uncle had, crashing through a knot of guards trying to maintain control with the few naked prisoners outside of the pit. The crunch of bones snapping mixed in with a chorus of screams. Jamarcus ran to his sister, snatched her from the ground, and ran back to the school bus. He shoved her inside and told her to lay down in the aisle. Kendra didn’t move, didn’t even acknowledge that she’d heard. He growled and stepped onto the bus and around her, dragging her down the aisle and laying her flat, wincing as her face came in contact with a puddle of congealing blood.

He exited the bus and went to find his mother. The scene was utter chaos as the remaining prisoners began to flood out of the pit. Two of the bus’s windows shattered behind him, causing him to glance back for a moment. Some of the prisoners attempted to run, but others, mostly men, ran toward the guards who were coming down off the walls to help. More shots were fired, a few of the prisoners falling, but most had reached their targets. Vicious hand-to-hand fighting broke out wherever no one had paired up with a juiced guard.

Jamarcus ran toward the naked men and women that had preceded him out of the pit, seeing only four left standing. He couldn’t tell if his mother was one of them or not. Just as he reached them, the two closest to him exploded in a spray of blood, drenching him completely. He heard the blonde girl’s laugh before he spotted her, one arm wrapped around his mother’s throat. Jamarcus wiped the blood from his eyes and walked toward the girl.

The blonde girl waved him forward with her other hand, as if challenging him.

“Let her go,” he demanded when he stopped half a meter in front of the two women.

“I don’t think I will do that,” the girl sneered. “I just wanted you to watch me kill her.”

The skin around his mother’s neck crackled as it burned at extreme temperatures everywhere the blonde girl’s arm made contact. His mother gave him one last look before the light went out of her eyes. Jamarcus screamed in rage, not moving, not thinking, unable to do anything except fall apart inside. The girl removed her arm from his mother’s neck and the body crumpled to the ground. She began to giggle at the expression on his face.

Jamarcus’ paralysis broke and he rushed the girl. She had time to wink at him before he reached her, grabbing her by the neck with one hand, reaching down to grab her by the waistband of her jeans with the other. The girl’s giggles turned into gales of laughter as he brought her up over his head. The laughter turned to screams an instant later when she tried to ignite him. The screams turned into shrieks as she applied more force to the heat. Her shrieks died along with her when Jamarcus threw her, head-first, into windshield of an old car. Smoke rose from the half of the girl’s body that was still outside of the car.

He turned back to his mother, his rage broken, now uncontrollable sobs. Jamarcus knelt down next to her, cradling her in his arms, repeatedly telling her how sorry he was that he hadn’t been able to save her. The sand next to him exploded at the same instant the report of a handgun met his ears. Another shot, this one followed by a long scream of pain made him look up.

A man rolled around on the ground five meters from him, blood soaking his shirt below each arm. The man wheezed loudly once, then got to his knees, left hand covering his right side, right hand picking up the silver pistol from the sand. He pointed it at Jamarcus, a bloody grin forming as he pulled the trigger again. The man’s chest erupted in blood and he collapsed.

Jamarcus turned back to his mother, held her in his arms a few moments until the ringing in his ears lessened enough to hear the frantic battle going on around him. He kissed her on the forehead, laid her head in the sand, and rose to his feet. He spotted five men and a woman in a semi-circle near where crushed cars formed crude steps that led to the top of the pit wall. Two were waving their arms toward the mass of combatants below in front of them, the other four aiming wildly into the crowd, firing their weapons whenever a clean shot presented itself.

He headed straight for the group of five, noticing that just as many whites fell from being shot as everyone else. One of the men pointed at Jamarcus, and the other four turned their attention to him. The one closest to Jamarcus fell to his knees before keeling over onto his face, blood pooling in the sand around his head. One of the men without a gun howled then let out a strangling, gagging sound before falling over. Another crack from one of the rifles produced another casualty, the guard dropping his rifle as he clutched at his guts.

The lone woman snarled and unleashed a black wave of some kind at Jamarcus, immediately shrieking as her skin sloughed off in clumps. The woman tried to run, the shock and fear of her own ability turned back on her destroying her sanity. She collapsed a few meters away, her legs kicking and scrabbling in the sand until she became still.

Jamarcus didn’t pause as he kept up his approach, now ten meters from the two remaining armed captors. The man on the left went to one knee, brought his assault rifle to his shoulder, waited two seconds for Jamarcus to get closer, then pulled the trigger. His face caved in, the rifle clattering to the ground as he fell over backwards. The last man, Dale Stoner, scrambled backward until his legs met the crushed car steps. He never took his eyes off the approaching tower of death as he climbed three of the steps. He felt his bladder let go, the warm urine soaking the left leg of his khaki pants.

Jamarcus stopped at the base of the steps and stared at the man. Dale began to cry as he aimed his rifle at Jamarcus’ chest. Jamarcus stood as still as a statue, waiting for the man to pull the trigger. Dale almost pulled the trigger, but his brain finally made the connection to the five around him that had died and the tall black kid below him. His hands shook violently as he turned the rifle around to his own face. He gave a shaky smile of triumph to the kid before he blew out the back of his skull.

Jamarcus turned back to the violence still going on behind him. The prisoners had turned the tables, with heavy losses, and were helping others double and triple team the remaining captors. A flash of white light flared from his right, blinding anyone that had been looking in that direction. A girl’s scream overpowered the ringing in his ears as he walked toward where the flash had originated. He rounded a pickup truck to see three black men on the ground, all of them moaning and rubbing at their eyes.

Sitting on the ground with her back to the side of the pickup truck was Cindy Mellon, her shirt half-ripped from her body, covered in blood that contrasted with her pale skin. She was crying, furiously rubbing at her eyes with one hand, the other stretched in front of her as if to ward off any other attackers. Other men arrived within a minute after they finished off the remaining captors. Most were bloody, one held a broken arm to his chest, more than a few sporting severe burns of one kind or another. Jamarcus was the only one without a single scratch, though from the amount of blood and gore covering him, he looked to be the most severely injured.

“Step aside, boy,” one of the men said, coming forward.

Jamarcus turned to look at the man. The speaker was older, gray hair making its first appearance around the man’s ears. One of his eyes was a ruin, along with a large portion of his face on that side. Burns covered the older man’s arms, half of his clothing fused into his skin in a number of places.

“I said step aside. I’m going to kill this bitch myself.”

“This one is mine,” Jamarcus said.

“Jamarcus?” Cindy called out loudly, reaching both hands toward his voice.

“Fuck no,” the man said. “You ain’t saving this bitch. If you don’t move, I’ll move you. I don’t give a shit how big you are.”

“I said, this one is mine.” Jamarcus’ tone had a finality about it that sounded like a tomb door slamming shut.

The angry man was about to step forward when another man next to him reached out, gently grabbing the aggressor’s arm. The man whispered into the other’s ear, then both of them stepped back. The rest of the gathering crowd stepped back as if Jamarcus would burst into flames.

“Marcus,” Cindy called out again from behind him. “Please, Marcus. Help me. I didn’t have a choice.”

“I know,” Jamarcus said, kneeling down next to her.

She flinched when he laid a hand on her shoulder to let her know he was there. He grabbed her bicep and put his other hand under her other arm and stood up slowly, helping her off the ground. When he turned around, the crowd took another step back, unsure of what the blood-soaked teenager would do. Jamarcus began to walk toward the school bus where he’d put Kendra, praying that she’d been safe from the chaos.

The crowd parted to let them through. Cindy stumbled, almost falling to the ground. Jamarcus held her up, patiently waiting for her to get her feet back under her. He saw his sister sitting on the ground near the bus doors, and gave her a strained smile. Her eyes were still wide, but her mouth no longer moved of its own volition. Kendra rose to her feet and approached her brother.

He let go of Cindy’s hand and enveloped Kendra in a bloody hug, kissing her on the cheek. Neither said anything for minutes, the only sound left in the junkyard was the occasional whisper or moan of pain from the survivors, and Cindy’s sobbing from behind him.

“Mom?” Kendra asked. She’d already knelt beside Uncle James to see if he was still alive.

He shook his head. Kendra’s tears finally flowed, her body shaking hard enough to make Jamarcus’ teeth chatter until he clamped his jaw shut.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered over and over into her ear.

Kendra wiped her nose on her dirty, bloody sleeve, smearing snot and blood across her face. She let go of her brother and stepped back, then to the side to look at Cindy.

“Kendra…” Cindy said through her tears, her sight finally beginning to come back. The young black girl in front of her was barely a dark blur on a bright background, but as the seconds passed, the image became clearer. Kendra stepped forward until her nose was centimeters from Cindy’s. “I’m so sorry, Kendra,” Cindy began, feeling the girl’s hot breath on her face. “I didn’t have a choice. They made me do it! You don’t know what they did to the girls that refused!”