Maurie and the Poison Ring Ch. 2: The First Use

Chapter 2: The First Use

It was late at night and all of the ugly, smelly, and dirty hobos were sleeping around a large fire that was made out of garbage that wasn’t edible. I crept around the large piles of junk, fire bouncing off my face as I held the ring in my sweaty fist. The crackling of the fire and the snoring of the hobos were loud against my pounding ears. I could feel my heart pounding against my chest.

“I can’t do this, it’s not right,” I whispered so quietly it was almost as if I was mouthing the words.

They’ve almost killed you before, said the evil side of me, remember the time when you found a piece of a bagel? That old man ripped it out of your hand and made you-

“Fall off of the pile of junk, I remember,” I said, just as quietly as before.

You’re lucky that you found that piece of cloth to wrap up the blood.

I sighed. I was very confused. Should I kill them? They’ve almost killed me, more than once, for that matter.

Just put it in the water bucket, said that evil side of me.

The water bucket was a big bucket of muddy water that the hobos drank out of. It sat next to the fire that the hobos slept around.

AAAAAAAAAAAA! JUST DO IT ALREADY! YOU’RE SUCH A WOOSE, YOU KNOW THAT? YOU’RE NOTHING BUT A CHILD! WHY CAN’T YOU JUST KILL THEM ALREADY? THEY DON’T DESERVE TO LIVE! THEY WOULD PROBABLY KILL THE REST OF THE CITY IF THEY WERE POWERFUL ENOUGH! IT’S FOR EVERYONE ELSE’S PROTECTION! YOU’RE PROTECTING EVERYONE ELSE BY DOING THIS! Said that disturbing side of me.

I grunted. My ego was right. I was going to protect everyone by doing this. I quietly tip toed towards the water bucket.

They never shared any of the water with you, My ego said.

“I know.” I whispered to myself.

I wondered if this was enough poison. Oh, well, it would probably kill a few hobos. I sprinkled the white powder in the bucket and tip toed back to my box.

Then, I thought, What if I could get more poison?

An idea came to my mind and, suddenly, I was off to a drug store.

*****

It was late at night, but the city was still awake. It wasn’t a pleasant town, so I thought that maybe the drug store would sell poison. Of course, I didn’t have any money.

Shoot them, my ego thought.

“I don’t have a gun,” I cornered.

I saw a guy in an alley wearing a black trench coat, seeming to be selling drugs to a tall guy. The man who had bought the drugs shoved past me and I crept into the alley.

“Wattcha want, kid?” Said the man in a black trench coat.

“Um, do y-you h-have, um, p-poison?” I stuttered.

“Yeah, I have lots of poison. Fifty dollars per bag. What type do you want?”

“Er, I don’t have money. Do you have anything for f-free?” I said, worrying he’d get mad.

“I need to make a living, kid. Nothin’s free. I tell you what. I work for a corporation. A certain type of corparation.." He looked at me and rose his eyebrows, as if trying to tell me something secret without actually revealing it. After a few seconds of silence he whispered, "Are you wanting to kill someone?”

I nodded; not knowing if nodding was good.

Nodding is good, it’s good. That ego of mine said.

“Okay, you come back here tomorrow at the same time so I can ask my boss to hire you, and I’ll give you poison. Free.” The man said.

I nodded, not wanting to know what I was about to do. He handed me a bag of white powder.

“That’s a lot of poison, so use it well. But, you gotta come back here, or else I’ll hire a hit man to get you.”

I nodded and ran off back to the junkyard. The sound of snoring, fire crackling, and my heart thumping returned to my ears. Before I could think of what I was doing, I dumped the whole bag of powder in the brown water of the bucket. I ran back to my box, crying in frustration.

*****

I awoke to silence.

That’s odd, I thought, usually there are sounds of the hobos looking for food. But then I remembered last night.

HAHAHAHA! YOU DID IT! GOOD JOB! YOUR FIRST VICTIMS! YOU SHOULD CELEBRATE! HAHAHA! The evil side of me said.

I got up and I went to see if I had really killed all of the homeless people. They were all around the died out fire, but they weren’t sleeping. They had all helped themselves to a drink of water, I supposed, and their petrified faces were staring at the sky. Their bodies lay motionless, dead. I fought back tears and laid down on the muddy, littered, landfill. I cried for minutes, possibly hours. Eventually, I fell asleep. When I woke up, it was night. I jumped up, hoping the drug man wouldn’t send hit men after me. I ran towards the city as fast as I could, my black hair whipping in the breeze. I went to a few allies until I found the right one. I caught my breath, and then slowly crept towards the man.

“Good, you came back. I'll take you to my work place. It’s called, ‘The Emerald City Incorporation’.”

The Emerald City Incorporation. That sounded familiar. I remembered now, it was a big corporation building that was green and was a business for houses, or something like that.

“Doesn’t The Emerald City Incorporation have something to do with houses?” I asked.

“Oh, it has something to do with houses alright, just not what you’d expect. Our disguise is a renovation business. But, our real business needs to be explained to you if you want to work there.”

I said, “I want to work there.”

I wasn’t sure if that was the truth.

“Okay, well, I’ll explain on our walk there. It’s about a mile away.”

He showed me out of the alleyway, and started to talk over the roar of the cars. “The Emerald City Incorporation is a business, we shall call it, where thousands, maybe even millions, of workers come together to kill people. It might seem harsh, but we ‘renovate’ their houses of all their stuff after we kill them. Rich people are pathetic. Always buying stuff, not caring for others. With their fancy things and fancy clothes. It’s disgusting. So the boss, who likes to leave his name unknown, created The Emerald City Incorporation, because his daughter, who’d been killed by a rich person, liked the Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz. That’s basically all you need to know for now, and the workers will explain what style we kill people and when you can start work.”

I gulped. I was a bit nervous. This wasn’t exactly your regular summer job. But before I had time to speak, or make a last decision, we were opening the doors of The Emerald City Incorporation.

*****

I smiled and laughed at how foolish I was back then. That was a frightening thing to me, at that very moment, but five years had passed, and I was a succeeding worker at The Emerald City Incorporation. I tapped my pointer finger, which had my poison ring on it, and felt the powder shake in it. It was my favorite poison, Mercury, the very same type of poison the drug man, or Nick, gave me on the night of my first killing. I was writing our schedule for this week. Mainly it was getting ECI (Emerald City Incorporation) members dating rich people. The type of “style” that we kill people is that we develop a relationship between them, and then slowly steal their stuff as the dating between an ECI member and a rich person goes on. Then we kill them, and empty their house of their things. Right now, I was dating a rich woman named Jessica Maires. This thought occurred suddenly, and I realized that I had a date with her tonight. It was the date. The date where I kill her. I looked at the clock. My eyes widened in surprise. My date with Jessica was in three hours!

copyright November 11, 2009 maegardens