The Deadheart Shelters Read Online Free PDF Page B

go of my neck.”
    The man threw him down face first and Dirt hit without bracing himself. Dirt lifted his head and I could see his nose was broken, but then he put it back down because they started throwing rocks at him. Each time one would hit him there’d be a damp thud, and a slight shiver from him. I said nothing as I am used to saying nothing.
    “Non-human!” someone on the stairs shouted, and another was screaming through clenched teeth, half-restrained, like the death-shouts of a man in an electric chair. “You are a product of the twisted future!”
    “The twisted now!”
    “The puke of the mechanical animal!”
    “I can kill him because he has no feelings.”
    While they were working on murdering him, the man who held my face said quietly to me, “Is he your friend?”
    “I only met him today.” To disassociate myself. I am bred of the mindset that we all will get punished eventually. It is best to keep quiet if something you might say could get you involved.
    “They will kill him unless you want him to live. But if you’ve only just met him, let him die.”
    “That’s what you want?”
    “That’s why I’m here.”
    I looked back down at Dirt. He was speechless and shivering less, and I wondered if the cut they made in the side of his head was the reason for this, or if he got used to it. I felt a respect for him growing. Even the men throwing rocks seemed irritated to be throwing them so long without response.
    If a man is attacking you and knocks you down, get up. Each time, get up. He might kill you or he might let you live, but invariably he will respect you by the time he is finished.
    “Don’t kill him. A man can’t help what he’s born into.”
    The man nodded. “As you know too well yourself,” he said, though I hadn’t been thinking like that. He held up his hands and the men stopped throwing rocks. Only then did Dirt lift his hands to protect the back of his head and moan.
    “Why do you spare him?” one of the men on the stairs asked. I opened my mouth to answer but the question was not for me.
    “Because the escaped man asks for it.”
    “He’s unnatural. If we let none of them in they’ll have to go back to the old ways.”
    Dirt got to his knees and I could see he’d been crying, probably the whole time. He’s just a newborn baby, I thought, and I was surprised at my own urge to cry thinking this, for usually non-emotion comes much easier to me. It’s not out of protection but comfort. He wasn’t hurt too bad and had not been afraid of death; he hadn’t lived long enough to develop a fear of death. It was only the fear of not-understanding and nowhere-to-go. “I don’t remember this,” he said.
    “Listen to him talk about his fake memories!” Then the man on the stairs stared directly at him and Dirt stared back defensively. “You remember nothing but the walk here! You’re manufactured!”
    “Calm down,” said the man beside me. The men on the stairs calmed down and then it started getting dark. The turquoise clouds dissolved like pepper from a shaker thrown sporadic, so the dust of them powdered the rooftops, still-turquoise. Between our heads flew the slugs that take wing at night, leaving itches on whatever they touch, and I held my hands up against them. They always find a way in. Soon I was scratching myself incessantly.
    “They’re bad here, huh?” I said.
    “Who?” asked the old man.
    “The pests. You have a lot of them here.”
    “Oh yes. They’re urban animals. But in the forests you find the mosquitoes and I prefer neither.” His eyes wandered over my cheeks. “You must be used to mosquitoes.”
    “I wasn’t usually outside at night. Sometimes I’d get lucky.”
    He nodded. “Well now you’re here. You can stay outside until inside seems better and you can learn to ignore the bugs. But what are you going to do?”
    I shrugged, and on the ground Dirt stopped whimpering and looked up. “What do people usually do?”
    “They work, make