You call this fate?

Chapter 35

Frank's smile was broad and encouraging. "And did you think you could be a valuable member of our community with your work?"

"Yes, sir." McKenzie wasn't stammering anymore. Funny how just a sweet word from your employer made you feel so light. I knew just how he felt.

"And tell me, McKenzie, did you break any rules?"

The large man's smile dropped. A dead giveaway if there ever was one. Fear ran rampant in my body and crawled over my skin. What had I done? "R-rules, sir?"

Now Frank's smile was broader than ever. He had everything so neatly lined up, it was comical. "Yes, McKenzie, rules. Like, not to talk to the prisoner, not to tell him, or her," he added graciously, nodding at me, "anything, not to engage them in conversation, make sure they not harm themselves...You know, rules?"

"I—she isn't hurt, sir," McKenzie said, desperate. He could probably feel the danger in the air, just like I could.

"I asked you if you followed the rules. The answer to that comes in simple yes or no, my friend." Frank inclined his head.

"Y-yes, s-ir."

Frank sighed. "I hope you aren't lying to me. Filthy habit, this lying. So immoral and degrading, don't you think? Absolutely not what a respectable man should do."

McKenzie had foam on the corners of his mouth. He knew now what was happening, like the rest of us did.

"So, my friend, are you lying to me?"

McKenzie didn't answer. How could he? What could he have said? He was cornered perfectly between a cliff and a wall. If he said yes, then he would accept he had been lying. And if he said no, then he absolutely was lying, which Frank knew. The question of breaking the rules wasn't even relevant anymore.

By now all of us were staring at the blubbering man. His knees were shaking profusely, knocking into each other so hard one could almost hear a sound. His face had gone deadly pale. The foam in the corners of his lips was trailing down in one thin line. "S-si-si..." was all he was capable of saying. Enough feeling came back to me that I felt like crying.

"Oh, McKenzie," Frank said, shaking his head, "it was such a simple thing to do. The difficult part hadn't even come yet. I am afraid you cannot be a part of us anymore."

McKenzie fell to his knees. He was whimpering, holding his hands up in helpless supplication, weeping and moaning, drool running down his chin. There were pieces of bread in his saliva. Go, I yelled at him in my head, He's letting you go, you idiot! Get lost! Run! But he didn't run. He just sat there.

Until his head blew off, that is.

Bang!

The shot rang out so suddenly I didn't have time to turn my face around, to not look. Suddenly, where only seconds ago I had been looking at McKenzie's bowed head, there was nothing.

And then I looked down.

The man had been shot straight in the middle of the forehead. The back of his head had blasted clean off, till it was so easy to imagine there had never been a head at all, only the mask of a face. Blood oozed out of the cavity, along with chucks of other material that surely wasn't blood. There was a look of shock in his eyes, which were open wide, just like his mouth. Blood ran in thin streams into said eyes. His body didn't even twitch.

"Please try to get me actual human beings to work with, Zach. That was such a precious bullet wasted. I had other plans for it."

I had only just started to scream when a stinging slap jerked my face to the side hard enough to make my neck twist. I could feel my mouth swelling up.