Killing Down the Roman Line Read Online Free PDF Page B

him off like this was somehow Jim’s fault.
    “Just fuck off, man!”
    Exactly who Doofus was cursing, Jim wasn’t sure and now Jim was angry, being thrust into the middle a drunken brawl like this. Not that he let it show. He never did.
    “Step up, princess.” Berryhill pressed in, thrusting his blocky chin at the outgunned kid in tattoos. “Where’s all that tough talk you had back in the pub.”
    The guy slithered around and put Jim between himself and the ogre. Jim now taking the blast of Berryhill’s beer breath. How the hell did this happen? He put up a hand to hold back the bruiser. “Knock it off, Bill.”
    Berryhill towered over Jim and Jim needed to get out of the line of his fire. “The fuck outta the way Jimbo.” Again, the nostrils flaring. “Her Highness needs to learn her manners.”
    Emma pulled Travis out of the way but the boy squirmed around, not wanting to miss anything. She watched Bill lean in further, almost inviting Jim to take a free punch. She wanted to knock him one herself but knew Jim wouldn’t. He didn’t lose his cool or even raise his voice.
    Hipster Doofus had clearly seized the moment and legged it. Vanished.
    “Grow up, Bill.” Jim elbowed Bill aside and led his family back to their pickup. As much of an asshole as he was, Jim knew Berryhill wouldn’t pull anything stupid in front of his wife and son.
    “Fucking pussy.” Bill’s parting shot, loud enough so they all heard it. Travis looked back but Jim turned him around and marched him forward.
    Back inside the truck, the three of them lined up on the bench seat. Emma felt her nerves jangled, anger pent up with nowhere to go. “Jesus, what is wrong with that guy?”
    Jim turned the ignition, left the question unanswered.
    “You shoulda kicked his ass.” Travis muttered, wedged in the middle.
    Jim frowned. “And what would that accomplish?”
    Travis said nothing, wanting to avoid a lecture.
    “Nothing.” Jim wheeled out of the lot onto Galway Road. “Violence doesn’t solve problems. Right?”
    Travis didn’t even a shrug. Jim and Emma took the silence for compliance and the Hawkshaw family drove home without saying another word.
    ~
    Travis went straight to his room and closed the door, flopping into the chair and shaking his decrepit computer awake. Dead Moon was his favourite game, a horror/sci fi mash up about a haunted science outpost on the moon. It was fast, creepy and ultra violent. But more than that, Dead Moon was one of the few games that worked on this creaky old desktop his parents had gotten him for his eleventh birthday. Second hand and used up, like everything else on the farm. Just once he’d like something brand new, shiny and untouched by anyone else.
    The game booted up and he was immediately attacked by a ghost astronaut, the glowing eyes of a skull under the cracked visor of a space helmet. Swinging his machete, he quickly decapitated the phantom and watched it crumple into a pile of bones. An assault rifle would make it easier to destroy monsters but that was the catch in Dead Moon; firing a gun risked perforating the station’s walls, sucking the oxygen out to the vacuum of space. Too many bullet holes in the walls and you got weak and died a slow death. Though why a machete would be found on a NASA lunar base, Travis didn’t question.
    Three more ghosts shambled out of a darkened corridor and marched for him. Cosmonauts this time, the letters CCCP faded across the helmets, chomping teeth shrieking beneath the visor. Travis quickly turned down the volume, hoping his parents hadn’t heard the shrieks. His dad hated violent video games and banned them from the house. He snuck them in anyway, borrowed from friends at school. More second hand things, used up and discarded.
    Dad and his non-violent bullshit. It killed him the way his old man just stood there and took that crap from Berryhill. Was his old man just a pussy? Worse, was his dad trying to turn him into one with his “violence