Author Games: Red Room

Task Seven: Zion Contreras

The air felt like glass shattering against his skin. Each splinter dug deeper into his flesh, taking root there so it could spread its poisoned blossoms through his veins. Zion could feel its sweet burn, the gentle tug and the agonizing release as he plucked each one from its stem. The ground was gravel beneath him, rolling over the soles of his shoes and clinging to the mud beneath them just long enough to scrape against the pavement. Voices clawed at his ears, each one begging to be heard over the shouts of the rest. Still, his feet barely carried him forward— with no intention of moving faster.

Zion was a dead man born again, a broken messiah carrying the weight of a false message on his beaten shoulders. His follower, his only follower, clung to his arm as if it were the only thing keeping his feet on the ground. Tammy's shoulders trembled with the strength of his shiver, body just as blood-spattered and shaking as Zion's had once been. But now he felt clean. Whole. The broken back road to nowhere was the path to salvation.

And behind them, heaven burned.

Tammy shifted his grip, knuckles pulling on shredded cloth. "We have to call the police." The syllables cracked, colliding in the air like snowflakes merging into one unintelligible string of sounds. Zion's eyes stared into the distance. Marking each step his feet would follow, all the way down to where the horizon stopped. Forgive me, father. The spray of blood and brain matter still clung to his clothes. He had tasted death, only briefly before this night. Now, he devoured it like a glutton. "Zion, did you hear me? We have to call the po—"

"We can't."

Nobody could know about this. Nobody could see the things that they had. "What?" Tammy pulled him to a stop, feet digging into the broken pavement until Zion was forced to pause beside him. "No, this isn't some shitty-ass horror movie where I have no service." It was only when he released Zion completely that the boy could feel the shiver of cold around him. Shoving his hand into his pocket, Tammy pulled out his phone. The bright screen cut through the night, causing Zion to recoil as his eyes flinched. "I've got—" His hands were shaking, almost unable to operate the tiny machine. "I've got full service and a working GPS."

"I killed people back there." His voice was flat, staring at the boy he'd idolized for so long as if it was the first time he'd ever seen him. Tammy's hair had come free of its ponytail, a long scratch across his cheek and more around his hands destroying the perfect smoothness of his dark skin. Red lace had been replaced by streaks of blood, and though the color was just as rich his heart did not stir.

He'd never felt so powerful before. With his body straddling another, hand pinning down his throat while he pounded the handle of the gun into the cultist's skull over and over again. It was brutal. It was slow. And he relished in each shattered tooth until the face was unrecognizable.

Zion would tear through every body in his path as long as it meant he would live to see morning.

"That's enough, Zi." Zion's clothes were soaked with blood. Pain ricocheted through him over and over again, tripling with every breath that heaved through his broken body. He didn't want to stop. Not even when Tammy's hands grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him away. "Look at me," he ordered. In Tammy's eyes, Zion could see his own reflected. Under the burning exit sign, they were pools of blood. "You're in shock. I need you to stay with me."

But he was wrong. Zion had never felt more awake in his entire life.

Slowly, Zion shook his head, breaking free of the trance just long enough to wrap his arms around his torso "My fingerprints are all over the scene, I—"

"Anyone could see that was self-defense!" Tammy argued and in return, Zion gave him a dull, flat look.

"Not all of it."

The words were darker and heavier than the weight of the night sky resting on his shoulders. Tammy sucked in a breath, body shuddering with each piece he exhaled. Zion could see the gears in his head turning, torn between the impossible decision of coming with Zion or waiting alone for the police. "There's no way we can make it on foot," he tried in one final futile attempt to change Zion's mind.

He smiled, weary and aching. "We need to try," Zion told him. There was hope in his voice, even if there was none in the hollow tunnels of his heart. I feel like Dad.

Finally, the other boy caved, shoulders slumping as he stepped up beside Zion once more. Warmth flooded his body the moment Tammy's fingers met his bruised and beaten skin. Without hesitation, he pulled Zion's arm over his shoulder. "Let me help you at least." Protest was already on his lips before Tammy continued. "Zi, you look like you got hit by a bus." Somehow, that truth in the words was enough to let him chuckle gently. "I don't know how you're still walking." The blood on Tammy's hands was dry already— the aftermath of Zion's own destructive nature. But his own? It could do nothing but soak into the cloth of others.

"Thank you," Zion whispered. He rested his head against the warmth of Tammy's shoulder, letting his eyes flutter closed as the beating of the other boy's heart pulled a somber sigh from his lips. "I want to go home." Nothing had ever been more true. Nothing had ever felt more false.