FicWad

Fourth

I spat blood. Not a whole lot, but blood is still blood. It belongs on the inside of your body, not the out. I stared at the cold and harsh metallic floor, lit familiar blue along the corners throughout the whole hall, for what had blurred into a seamless infinity for me, though it was only a few seconds, if even. My eternity then came to a halt when I was picked up by the collar of my tee, and forced against a wall by none other than the very big, very strong, and very popular Gavin McCrady.

Big teddy bear Gavin pulled a fist up to my face, full of everything; miscount a pleasant bouquet of daisies, "I'm going to beat the shit out of you, John. I don't mean that figuratively either. When I am done beating you, there will be no shit left in your bowels."

About then, I should have, would have been thinking something akin to I didn't feel like getting beat up today, or If there won't be any shit in my bowels, then I can save a trip to the bathroom. Something sarcastic, or maybe bitchy. Instead, I had one exact thought. I wish Gray was here. I really really wish Gray was here.

My vision was already quite blurred, but after he punched me four or five more times, I couldn't see at all. I'm pretty sure the whites of my eyes were actually red. I couldn't speak, either. It was too painful to move my jaw, and I thought he might have taken a few teeth out. I don't recall having any thoughts when I was getting my shit packed in, though. It's sort of weird. You don't think when you fight, though I wouldn't have called this a fight. More along the lines of a beating, in my opinion. Maybe Gavin thinks different of it, now, though.

I might as well say so, that he was kicking my ass because of Gray. It was simple. He was obsessed with her, and I made a sarcastic comment about it, and he took it a badly. I say obsessed because it wasn't love. Love is passionate, and affectionate. He probably had a shrine of her in his locker, and a poster of her on the ceiling above his bed. It was a crush gone bad.

When Paul walked in, Michael walking against his left and Louis walking against his right, and pounded Gavin in the back of his head, forcing him to the ground, and then shoving his boot into the abdomen of my newfound enemy, I couldn't say I was as relieved as I was dead in the head. Michael and Louis grabbed me from my warmed spot along the wall, and dragged me around the corner. I waved toward Gavin on my way out, I haven't talked to him since then, so I don't know if he ever saw it or not. It would be funny if he had, I think.

When I did reach the corner, Gray was there. I couldn't see her very well, but I smelt her the second she arrived. Or, maybe a few seconds after she had arrived, it's hard to tell. I did get punched a lot. She was gasping, maybe even crying, though of that I'm not too sure, with her hands covering the lesser of her face. I was never going to hear the end of this. I still haven't.

"Hey, Gray," I managed to spit more blood, though I avoided spitting it in her direction, "how's it hanging?"

*

"Well, it looks to me like he fell in this gorge and bonked his head," inland colors lined across the armor that carried a military badge, "then dozed off and bled out."

Above the pig's grave, looking in, the sergeant gazed upon a dead body that didn't carry a curly tail and a snout full of flies. It was full of flies. Those flies just weren't occupying a snout. The body didn't smell too horrid, yet. Not in comparison to the swine. They smelt of something incomparable.

"We found blood on the patio in front of the house back there. He probably hit his head there." The second of the two sergeants walked up to the first, and pointed back to Lu's home. He then also stared into the pit, at the chapped corpse. "He was a smart kid, according to military file; I wonder how he got himself killed in such an obscure way."

"Well," the first sergeant spoke back, still looking upon the body, frowning in pity, frowning in shame that a life such as this military dog's was wasted, "I guess we should check around that patio."

The body had been laying there for a solid three months. Lu and Tom both became worried within the first day. Lu never even went to Electric City. She drove around a good few miles looking for him. She never thought to look in a grave though. Tom's the one who figured that, though he did so by accident. He came about to cover the pigs up with dirt, before their smell spread throughout the whole farm. He shoveled three piles before he noticed the body amongst the pigs. That is, before he noticed my body amongst pigs.

"Check? For what?"

The first sergeant turned to face the second, and then walked past him without even a glance, "For reasons why, of course."

The walk from the corpse, me, to the house was rather silent. The dirt made more noise than the people walking on it. It was always like that up north though. The people were quiet, and the ground, air; they were the ones that made up for it.

When the sergeants did arrive back at the grounded mobile home, they both immediately became attention to the stain of, call me cliche, crimson amongst the planks of worn timber. What then followed was their observing of the smudge, the way it sat, from what angle, what direction. It held that for those twelve minutes, fifteen seconds the duo, if even that and not just two investigators handling the same case their very own way, looked at a spot of blood, and thought about it.

After all twelve of those minutes and fifteen seconds had elapsed, something different came from this investigation. The first sergeant, reaching the bottom of the bloods flow, and then looking to the small patches of grass amongst gravel in search of more spots directly below, found something much bigger. He found an extinct coyote, and the next word out of his mouth consisted of four letters.

*

It's silent out, and the sky is colored a blue shaded grey. Or maybe it's Gray that is shaded the blue. My eyes flutter themselves open, and I slowly notice that, though my dream was only half true, my cloud-like substance that I'm rolling about on is indeed dead pig. I open my lips, yawning, breathing in a fly, and tearing chapped, dead skin from my lips all in the process. I cough; choke on the fly, before rummaging around in corpses. I feel like a corpse myself, like I should be dead.

Maybe I am dead. Maybe.

After struggling for a few minutes it seems that all I can do is sink. So I do. I sink, and eventually, after sinking into death for quite a bit, I seem to stop sinking. I seem to rise, actually. I have held my breath for a while since my awakening, in case of flies swerving into me, in hopes of laying eggs. As my fist hits gravel free of any corpses, I breathe, and it feels as if I've been born again.

Wheeze, wheeze. Air has never felt so good. Not since I've been reborn. I rub the back of my head, and catch dried blood. Shit, that's no good. The probable answer is that I am, or was concussed, though I can't remember why. The probable answer is that I am, or was concussed, though I can't remember why. I'm starting to get a sense of deja vu, even. I catch myself praying that this isn't serious. Then begins the short trek to the house trailer thing. I build myself up too much though. This "trek" is more so hobble, seeing as though the fall into the ditch was a good fifteen feet, or about. My ankle is definitely sprained, if not broken. It's possible that my calve is smashed altogether.

When I arrive at the house, I stare for a moment, trying to remember what all went on that night. It seems to be just a blur, which isn't outside the norm. Reality and my dreams almost mix everyday, and I can't blame them. Not now that I've ended up here, on a farm, temporarily stripped of my rank, and separated from the closest thing to a family that I can remember having, which is a troop of soldiers in the military, sadly enough...or maybe that's just the dent in the back of my head that I can't remember my real family.

A sudden spike of memory, flashes of what occurred the night prior this damp morning, and I jump to action. I feel the dew swing 'round in the toe of my boot, and the mud clump up on the rocky terrain ready soles, one foot swinging after the other, as I run like a Clydesdale towards the steps to the deck. In front of those steps, my objective. Two planks, tied together by two rusty nails, all of which possibly centuries old, and all covered in grass and weeds that were never paid enough attention to to be taken care of. I jump down on my hands and knees, peering at, or even into, the nails. I scan them over and over again, but still see nothing but the rust. No shadows or words from the night prior. A mystery becomes this, as I try my hardest to remember.

There's that nasty word again.

As I stand up, and dust my pants, I turn around and just barely see a window shade move back into position, and a silhouette walk away from it. The room the window belongs to is the "arts" room, which is packed full of many many things, and is a trouble to even get into. I head into the back porch, shrugging at one of the geezers early arrival. I creak the screen door open and the older actual door as well, not worrying of subtlety, before discarding my muddied boots and frayed jacket, both of which, along with my whole remaining outfit, smell of dead pig and the like, on the counter next to the microwave, before proceeding to the kitchen.

My first thought I found lying in the doorway, and soon as I picked it up I felt confident in it. That thought was to put an ice pack on the back of my head, which I immediately do, and am soothed by. That cool, that damp, that perfection after being so chapped in a pile of dead things. I gasp, sigh, then pitch myself against the fridge. It's relaxing after such a long, forgettable night such as mine. I'm so relaxed, that I don't even notice Tom on his desktop until he addresses me.

"Morning."

I jump, and spin 180. "Oh, hey."

"You were looking at our parking lot." He's calm, Average Joe like.

"Yeah, I uh," forgot what I was about to say for a moment, the few following it filled with more "uh"'s, until continuing after replaying the three sentence exchange through my head, "I meant to ask you about that."

"Well, I don't know what you'd want me to tell ya. That little angle was there when we bought the house." I give a confused look, which he doesn't acknowledge, his back turned to me. "I think your mother made it, but I couldn't say for definite."

Acceptance of this knowledge arrives quickly, and after unwrapping it, I stow it away in my mental closet for future use. Hopefully I don't lose it in all this mental malfunction. "Well, thanks." I say, walking away with my piece of cold bliss.

"Anytime." I hear, mumbled.

*

There were only short flashes, this time. Just of what I had missed while I was out. Messages left not conveyed until just then. My memories returned, in a sort, or manner that I felt stupid for forgetting them, and then forgot that I had ever forgotten them. The only flash that I could say was graphic, that I could properly describe, was that of the Coyote, whom spawned it's final breath on my face. I remember, specifically, the teeth and the snarl. That moment I would look back on multiple times in the future as the moment I became a murderer.

Then, that pooch talked, in waves of flashes, moving pictures. It said to me, in the happiest, calmest way, "Wake up. Wake up, or we'll miss the race."

*

"It's a two and a half hour drive, and it's already three in the afternoon." Lu happily informs me, sitting upright in her chair. I'm still envisioning her face as that of the coyote I murdered last night.

I wipe over my expression with my dried palm, and clear my eyelids, "What time is it?"

"Three something," she glances at the ticking tower that is my personal insomnia, "Three eleven."

"You go. I'll catch a ride with Tom. I've got some things to do before I leave."

"Things?" She asks, and I nod. "What things? Can't they wait until we get back? You've got a whole week until you have to head back into 'duty'," She quotes the word duty with her fingers, almost scoffing.

"No, no. It's the principle of the matter. I said I was going to do this thing today, before we left, and I'm going to do it. I'll head out with Tom, it'll be fine."

"Okay, I guess..." Silence. Awkward silence, that I wish I could fill. "What things?" she asks, once more.

I shake my head, awkwardly as the silence that it follows, if not more, "Oh...just, uh, things..."

*

Here I am, pouting again. This time I'm trying to get back up to the pigs, dead coyote in hand. However, I find evidence that it rained in my absence, in the form of a giant, dinosaur footprint shaped puddle that has made it's home on the trail up "almost John's grave" hill, which I've now humorously dubbed it. I sniff, wish I could wipe my nose and eyes, before turning around and taking the area in, asking myself, "Where's a good place to bury an extinct animal?"

After a half hour of looking like an idiot, crying with something furry taking space in both my arms, I run across the now abandoned second pig barn. Behind this barn is a wide puddle, though not as wide as the dinosaur track, with glistening flies covering the surface. The puddle itself is, in light of a murky blue, a filled brown instead. The flies are flapping their wings so fast, that midday sun is reflecting off of them.

I conclude my secluded time reserved for staring at this, such a fascinating collection of flies, and decide that it's the best spot I can find in such short notice, and throw my shortly lived new pet into the back end smelling puddle. The flies zoom away, and then recollect on their new home, gift or whatever you would like to call it. The shit that splattered all onto me failed to force a flinch. As he sinks into his grave, I cry even more than, though I manage to stop my lip from quivering long enough to utter a final sentence, before letting my tears loose and walking back to the house, in anticipation of a well deserved shower.

Goodbye, Sparky.