The Knife of Never Letting Go

Feelings of fear.

I feel his fear.

Good.

My Noise turns red.

“Todd,” Viola says again.

“Quit saying my name,” I say.

The Spackle pulls himself slowly upright from where he’s skinning the fish. He’s made his camp underneath another rocky outcropping down the slope of a small hill. A good part of it’s dry and I see bags and a roll of moss that might be a bed.

There’s also something shiny and long resting against the rock.

I can see the Spackle picture it in his Noise.

It’s the spear he’s been using to catch fish in the river.

“Don’t,” I say to him.

I think for a second, but only for a second, how clear I understand all this, how clear I can see him standing in the river, how easy he is to read, even tho it’s all pictures.

But the second passes in a flash.

Cuz I see him thinking about making a leap for the spear.

“Todd?” she says. “Put the knife down.”

And he makes his leap.

I leap at the same time.

(Watch me.)

“No!” I hear Viola scream but my Noise is roaring way too loud for me to hear it as more than a whisper.

Cuz all I’m thinking as I take running steps across the campsite, knife up and ready, bearing down on the Spackle, all skinny knees and elbows as he stumbles heading for his spear, all I’m thinking and sending forward to him in my red, red Noise are images and words and feelings, of all I know, all that’s happened to me, all the times I failed to use the knife, every bit of me screaming—I’ll show you who’s a killer.

I get to him before he gets to the spear, barrelling into him with my shoulder. We fall to the less muddy dirt with a thud and his arms and legs are all over me, long, like wrestling with a spider, and he’s striking me about the head but they’re little more than slaps really and I realize and I realize and I realize — I realize he’s weaker than me.

“Todd, stop it!” I hear Viola call.

He scrabbles away from me and I thump him on the side of his head with a fist and he’s so light it topples him over onto a pile of rocks and he looks back up at me and his mouth is making a hissing sound and there’s terror and panic flying outta his Noise.

“STOP IT!” Viola screams. “Can’t you see how scared he is?”

“And well he should be!” I yell back.

Cuz there ain’t no stopping my Noise now.

I step towards him and he tries to crawl away but I grab him by his long white ankle and drag him off the rocks back onto the ground and he’s making this horrible keening sound and I ready my knife.

And Viola must’ve put Manchee down somewhere cuz she grabs my arm and she pulls it back to stop me cutting down the spack and I push into her with my body to shake her off but she won’t let go and we go stumbling away from the Spackle who cowers down by a rock, his hands in front of his face.

“Let go of me!” I yell.

“Please, Todd!” she yells back, pulling and twisting my arm. “Stop this, please!”

I twist my arm around and use my free one to push her away and when I turn the Spackle’s skittered along the ground–

Heading for his spear–

Has his fingers on the end–

And all my hate erupts into me like a volcano at full bright red —

And I fall on him–

And I punch the knife into his chest.

It crunches as it goes in, turning to the side as it hits a bone and the Spackle screams the most terrible, terrible sound and dark red blood (red, it’s red, they bleed red) sprays outta the wound and he brings a long arm up and scratches across my face and I pull back my arm and I stab him again and a long screeching breath comes outta his mouth with a loud gurgle and his arms and legs still scramble around him and he looks at me with his black, black eyes and his Noise filled with pain and bafflement and fear — And I twist the knife–

And he won’t die and he won’t die and he won’t die–

And in a moan and a shudder he dies.

And his Noise stops altogether.

I gag in my throat and I yank out the knife and paddle my way back along the mud.

I look at my hands, at the knife. There’s blood all over everything. The knife is covered with it, even all over the handle, and both my hands and arms and the front of my clothes and a splash on my face that I wipe away mingling with my own blood from the scratch.

Even with the rain coming down on me now there’s more of it than seems possible.

The Spackle lays where I–

Where I killed him.

I hear Viola make a choking and gasping sound and I look up to her and when I do she flinches back from me.

“You don’t know!” I shout at her. “You don’t know anything! They started the war. They killed my ma! All of it, everything that’s happened, is their fault!”

And then I throw up.

And I keep throwing up.

And when my Noise starts to calm I throw up all over again.

I keep my head to the ground.

The world has stopped.

The world is still stopped.

I don’t hear nothing from Viola but her silence. I feel my rucksack digging into the back of my neck as I lean forward. I don’t look over at the Spackle.

“He woulda killed us,” I finally say, talking into the ground.

Viola don’t say nothing.

“He woulda killed us,” I say again.

“He was terrified!” Viola cries, her voice breaking. “Even I could see how scared he was.”

“He went for his spear,” I say, lifting my head.

“Because you came after him with a knife!” I can see her now. Her eyes are wide and growing more blank, like they did when she closed up on herself and started rocking.

“They killed everyone on New World,” I say.

She shakes her head, fiercely. “You idiot! You stupid fucking IDIOT!”

She don’t say effing.

“How many times have you found out that what you’ve been told isn’t true?” she says, backing away from me even further, her face twisting. “How many times?”

“Viola—”