Killing Down the Roman Line

around and marched him forward.

Back inside the truck, the three of them lined up on the bench seat. Emma felt her nerves jangled, anger pent up with nowhere to go. “Jesus, what is wrong with that guy?”

Jim turned the ignition, left the question unanswered.

“You shoulda kicked his ass.” Travis muttered, wedged in the middle.

Jim frowned. “And what would that accomplish?”

Travis said nothing, wanting to avoid a lecture.

“Nothing.” Jim wheeled out of the lot onto Galway Road. “Violence doesn’t solve problems. Right?”

Travis didn’t even a shrug. Jim and Emma took the silence for compliance and the Hawkshaw family drove home without saying another word.

~

Travis went straight to his room and closed the door, flopping into the chair and shaking his decrepit computer awake. Dead Moon was his favourite game, a horror/sci fi mash up about a haunted science outpost on the moon. It was fast, creepy and ultra violent. But more than that, Dead Moon was one of the few games that worked on this creaky old desktop his parents had gotten him for his eleventh birthday. Second hand and used up, like everything else on the farm. Just once he’d like something brand new, shiny and untouched by anyone else.

The game booted up and he was immediately attacked by a ghost astronaut, the glowing eyes of a skull under the cracked visor of a space helmet. Swinging his machete, he quickly decapitated the phantom and watched it crumple into a pile of bones. An assault rifle would make it easier to destroy monsters but that was the catch in Dead Moon; firing a gun risked perforating the station’s walls, sucking the oxygen out to the vacuum of space. Too many bullet holes in the walls and you got weak and died a slow death. Though why a machete would be found on a NASA lunar base, Travis didn’t question.

Three more ghosts shambled out of a darkened corridor and marched for him. Cosmonauts this time, the letters CCCP faded across the helmets, chomping teeth shrieking beneath the visor. Travis quickly turned down the volume, hoping his parents hadn’t heard the shrieks. His dad hated violent video games and banned them from the house. He snuck them in anyway, borrowed from friends at school. More second hand things, used up and discarded.

Dad and his non-violent bullshit. It killed him the way his old man just stood there and took that crap from Berryhill. Was his old man just a pussy? Worse, was his dad trying to turn him into one with his “violence doesn’t solve anything” crap?

He knew all about bullies and all that Sunday school stuff about turning the other cheek didn’t work. Brant Coogan was two years older and always pissed off and always coming down on Travis. Bodychecking him into the lockers, trampling him in the yard. Travis had no idea why. He had never done anything to him. The one time he had asked Brant why he was picking on him, Brant had said “cuz you’re ugly.” Kids said Brant’s father was a drunk, that Brant himself was beaten mercilessly by the old man. Like that made a difference. Made it okay. Poor Brant was a victim too. Boo fucking hoo. Travis had tried playing it cool, not making a big deal out of it because whining or snitching would only make it worse. He had shrugged it off the other cheek, thinking it would blow over, but that made it worse too. Made Brant hate him even more.

So, yeah, turning the other cheek was bullshit. Sorry Jesus.

The undead Cosmonauts went down one by one, skulls crushed and split. Travis moved on, venturing further into the depths of the haunted moon base. He wondered what a machete would do to Bill Berryhill’s thick skull. Or better yet, Brant Coogan’s fugly face.

Jim was also thinking about Berryhill as he leaned over the sink, brushing his teeth. The big oaf was always picking fights and getting into trouble. It infuriated him to be accosted like that, in front of his family, by a loudmouthed prick whose sole talent was to draw pay without putting in an honest hour’s work. As maddening as it was, he’d never stoop to Berryhill’s level. Ever. What bothered him most of all was the conversation afterwards with Travis. He could have handled that better. Discussed it openly. Asked Travis why he thought fighting back was the only answer. But he hadn’t.

Woulda coulda shoulda.

“Scooch over.” Emma squeezed behind him in their narrow bathroom, reaching for her own toothbrush. “I don’t know about you but I’m beat.”

“Busy day.”

“It’s the food in that place. It’s so heavy. It just sits in my belly and weighs me down.”

He nodded then leaned under the tap to rinse. She ran her hand up his naked back. “You okay?” she said.

“Yeah.” He looked at her funny. “Why?”

“I dunno. Just that nonsense with Berryhill. Didn’t that rile you? I wanted to kill him.”

“Bill’s a jackass who likes attention,” he said, splashing water over his face. “He’s not worth getting upset about.”

Emma scrubbed her teeth furiously the way she did, her hand still on his back. Her fingers strayed to the scar on his shoulder blade and, without thinking, traced its contours. She felt him flinch, knowing he didn’t like it being touched. Sometimes she couldn’t help herself, the way one puts a finger to a freshly painted wall, just to see if it’s dry. The scar he dismissed as a childhood accident but never elaborated further. Same with the bent finger on his right hand.

He dried his face, kissed her hair while she brushed like mad. Her palm slid to the small of his back and he felt her fingertips dip into his skin. A little firmer than the usual goodnight squeeze. He looked for her eyes but she was already dipping under the tap to rinse.

He swung into bed trying to decipher the fingertips. Was there a chance of them getting friendly or was it just the slow burnoff of a few pints? No matter how tired he was, even the slightest hint of sex woke him wide. Especially spontaneous schoolnight shenanigans. Jim scolded himself for getting his hopes up and reached for the paperback on his nightstand. Flipping back a few pages, trying to remember the plot to this potboiler. A ‘Walking Tall’ actioner about a war vet who returns home to find his neighbourhood overrun by Russian dope dealers. Or were they terrorist sleepers masking as dope peddlers? He scanned the back copy blurb, trying to orient the plot when Emma came into the room and peeled off her clothes.

A nightly ritual, one he’d seen a thousand thousand times but he always lowered his book to watch. Didn’t matter how tired or how not in the mood he felt, he always looked. Emma was stunning stark naked, despite every self conscious guffaw she gave when he told her so. She wasn’t a kid anymore. Neither of them were. Gone was the flat stomach and unblemished skin. She had a little potbelly and a few lingering stretch marks. Having a baby would do that but it didn’t diminish her in any way. The opposite in fact. It suited her and she wore it well. Like all the little scars she had crisscrossed against her flesh. The little misadventures of everyday life, tiny hatch marks that ran against the grain of her curves, accentuating them all the more.

He watched her pull on a threadbare T-shirt with a faded logo that barely read Dinosaur Jr. She slipped under the covers and fumbled for the book on her night table. They read for a few minutes, their legs touching. She yawned and he realized he had misread her earlier touch, misgauged her temperature. They closed their books and switched off the lights.

She curled into him, her palm flat against his chest and now all he could think about was her. Sleep chased away by her warmth, her body pressed into his. He was hard and it wasn’t going away anytime soon. How long had it been anyway? A week?

His hand scooped down the small of her back and pulled her closer. Touching his lips to her brow. A long shot but she responded. Her leg curled tight into his and her breath steamed against the skin of his throat.

She was hungry too.

4

THE STRANGER ROLLED into town early that Wednesday morning. A tabby perched in a window watched the