Gallows Humour | Watty's 2023

The Prize Bullet

Keep walking, the road snaked out into an abyssal horizon. Their ears held onto the ringing from the gunshot and the specks of the stars, now brighter in the sky than they ever had been while civilization thrived, were all smeary. It got worse when they blinked. They blinked a lot.

Keep walking. The village had to be here somewhere. They wouldn't know until they were right on top of it. And what were the chances a shadow dweller would pick them off before they got to a house with a lock? Pretty high, they figured. They held the gun out in the open to scare off the more fearful and the more intelligent ones. But eventually someone would take the risk.

Radio was certainly bolder now than it had been. It chose to walk next to True, just out of reach but always in sight.

"Are you really a shadow dweller?" they asked.

Radio walked out a few paces without answering. It was too dark to make out the expression on its face, but eventually it lifted its arm and nodded both its fist and its head.

"Huh."

Well that was... something.

"You've eaten people?"

Because that was what it meant to be a shadow dweller. That was what they chose over starvation. An even longer pause, then, nod the fist, nod the head.

"Huh." Too tired to do or say or think anything else.

They crested a hill. No sign of the village anywhere ahead. They clomped into a patch of woods. How much damn farther was this place? It felt like they had been on this road for six thousand years. They tripped over their own boat at the bottom of the hill. They tripped over their own boot at the bottom of the hill. Good thing only Radio was officially there. It couldn't tattle on them. It did tap their elbow and point to a tall, branchy tree.

There was an idea. Out of sight, out of mind, right? It was better than nothing and more appealing than one single farther step on that cursed serpentine road. Stepping off the highway, they dragged themself up appropriately high, onto a place where many thick branches sprang away from the central trunk. Heaving in lungfuls of air, they flopped their pack across the branches and slid down between the pack and the trunk.

They waited for Radio to scale the tree, too, and when that didn't happen they turned to look down at it.

"Hey," they whistled to get its attention. "No snacking on me while I sleep."

Radio held up its pinky finger, a promise. In the last moment before True rolled over, it switched. Middle finger. Sassy shit. Maybe they should kill it now, before it killed them. The idea flickered brief and bright. They couldn't trust a shadow dweller, they shouldn't let their guard down with one lingering below.

Then again, Radio'd had plenty of other opportunities to eat them, they told themself as they dropped suddenly, steeply into sleep.

It was still night, still dark. Not much time could have passed since they'd closed their eyes, but they were wide awake. Very abruptly. Their hand flew to the gun before their brain was fully operational. The empty air they came up with shot rocket fuel into their senses. They jolted up. The thief pressed them down again, hand over their mouth.

"You hush," a thin, scratchy voice accompanied Eliza's narrow face above them. She held the gun in front of their face. "Move, and three of these bullets are going in your friend."

True bit their tongue until they tasted blood. Eliza glared down at them for several more seconds. At last, she lifted her hand. She balanced readily, a food on the branch on the other side of their pack and a knee on the trunk, straddling them. Her hands worked quickly, click-clacking all the bits of the gun that clicked and clacked. The magazine popped out. She wedged her pinky nail under a single bullet and slid it free. Left three behind. It glinted in the moonlight when she held it up to examine it. Evidently satisfied with the bullet, she tucked it in her pocket and clicked the magazine back.

"Good listening," she said to True's glowering form. She held the gun up where she knew they could see it and thumbed the safety. Stretching up, she shoved the gun in a crevice, out of reach. And, wordlessly, slid down the trunk and vanished into the night.

True stared after her long after the faint sounds of rustling faded. Heart in their throat. Slowly the sounds of the night returned. Crickets chirping, frogs croaking, the faint rustle of nocturnal beasts moving through the underbrush. Faint snoring. They peered down at the empty place where they'd last seen Radio. It was out of sight, but its snoring carried on. Exhaling long and slow out their nose, they leaned back against the trunk.

Get the gun.

Don't get the gun.

They flip-flopped on the decision. Not that it should have been a question. They needed to get the gun before someone else snatched it, or it rained, or some other bullshit.

In five seconds, they would get it.

Five seconds.

Four.

Three.

Sleep banged its shutters down around them.