Genblade gripped Rudy’s wrist from inside the cell, slowly pressing his palm against Rudy’s elbow until it snapped back the opposite way. The sound of cartilage cracking echoed through the halls for a brief moment before being drowned out by Rudy’s screams.
“Jesus!” Clarence screamed, jumping backwards eight paces before reaching for his Taser.
Genblade smiled, licking his jagged teeth and then squirting the blood from his tongue out from between pale, cracked lips. He pulled on the guard’s arm more, making him to scream loudly as tears started to roll down his face. His mouth was opened so wide that Clarence could barely see anything else on his face.
Genblade closed his eyes, as if enjoying the sound. He looked like some aristocrat listening to old vinyl’s of Beethoven or Chopin. A warm smile spread across his lips as he opened his eyes, locking them with Clarence’s.
Clarence pressed his back further against the wall. The Taser still trembled in his hands, but he would not move close enough to use it. Could not have even if he had wanted to. His legs felt like they had bags of cement tied to them. The only things he could feel were those eyes that had been burning a hole into the wall of the cell for the past three hours now burning a hole deep into his soul.
More guards came running down the corridor, training their rifles on Genblade’s head.
He barely noticed them at first, instead staring directly at Clarence as he pulled on Rudy’s fractured limb once more, eliciting another high-pitched wail and causing Rudy’s shoulder to squeeze in through the tightly spaced bars. He watched as Clarence’s face winced but did not blink or turn away, even though the man did nothing to stop it.
It was like he was testing his limits.
Rudy’s skin began to split at the shoulder as it pulled itself out of socket, blood staining his clean uniform. The guards prepared to fire, aiming at the grinning gargoyle that was Genblade. He caught the glimmer of a shotgun barrel in his peripheral vision, then turned toward them as if only now noticing their presence. He gave Rudy one final, powerful tug before letting go and retreating to the corner.
Rudy fell limp against the bars and one of the guards rushed to him, placing two fingers against the nape of his neck to get a pulse.
“I think he’ll be okay,” he said, hoisting him to his feet as they helped him towards the infirmary.
Clarence stayed pressed against the wall, finally letting his Taser slip from his fingers and clamber to the ground.
Genblade curled into a ball facing the corner, rocking back and forth like a small child being punished by a teacher with a dunce cap on. Suddenly he burst into an insane fit of laughter, turning to face Clarence. His cobalt eyes seeming to glow under the flourescent lights. The hairs of Clarence’s neck stood on end as he slowly moved away from the cell, his back still against the wall until it was out of view. He felt another cold shiver, even as Genblade’s hysterical laughter echoed throughout the building, his smile wide and fierce.
He decided working at the mall would be worth the pay cut.
Roxanne watched Xander leave the Factory as she wiped their table of gravy and melted cheese with a rag she’d pulled from her apron. It was closing in on dusk now and she guessed that she’d seen the last of the teenage crowd for the night, not that there had been many of them anyway. Randy Owchar and Calla McFadden had stumbled in stoned and loaded while Xander and Derek had been playing video games, but they’d sucked down their burgers in a heartbeat before leaving again. Calla had gazed at her with paranoid fear in her eyes more than once.
She’d felt like telling the child that in this town, getting caught being stoned was the least of your worries if you were out after dark.
She glanced at her watch and frowned. In about an hour and thirty minutes the college crowd would show up. They’d order pretentious drinks and throw things around when they were watching the game on the big screen and start fights. She sighed, her smile fading into a frown as she wondered if she’d have to call the cops on any of them again tonight. Last week had been like that, when one girl wouldn’t stop causing a fuss over someone hitting on her boyfriend. Or it could have been the other way around, she wasn’t completely sure.
Grinding her teeth, she started to pump her arm faster to try and work a glob of hardened cheese out of the porous plastic table.
“Sorry about that,” came a friendly sounding voice from ahead of her. That didn’t matter much around here though, she’d found the best-sounding of the college crew were often the worst-tempered.
She looked up and saw Derek grinning down at her, one hand shoved into his jean pocket.
She didn’t smile back, just let out a huff as she pushed a lock of her curly red hair from her face.
“You need any help?” he asked, gesturing toward the table.
She rolled her eyes at him, allowing herself a brief smirk before wiping it away. She couldn’t let herself be smiling when the older crowd came in. With them, a smile just made you a target. “Thanks hun, but I’m fine. Been doing this a long while.”
“Yea,” Derek chuckled, nodding. “Ever since I’ve lived across the way, at least five years.”
“Six,” she said with an air of cynicism, getting the last of the cheese off the table and shoving the rag back into the belt of her apron. “Took it figuring it’d help me pay my way through University... but you know how that
