fuonlyknew

Little Man tries to wait for the screaming to stop before he
enters the battlefield, but he can’t help himself.

The ice cream carts are tossed carelessly around the outside
of the bank that used to be Ice Cream Men’s Hydin Hole, as if giant hands had
been digging for toys. The Ice Cream Men are lying on the ground, just bodies
now. It’s a horrible, bloody mess, carried out by monsters. Little Man hasn’t
been so proud of himself since the first time he made a Giant.

One of those Giants stands next to him, breathing hard and
splattered in blood. Patrick. He used to be one of Little Man’s enemies in the
Cluster, but now he’s as loyal as he is mean. He’s also frozen in time by the
Making that will keep him from dying young, and that stimulates extra growth.
Seeing him plowing through the Ice Cream Men as if they weren’t there? That’s a
good day.

Stanford, his captain and Head of the Jocks, makes his way
through the wreckage, not looking down at the bodies at his feet. “A hundred
down on their side, Little Man,” Stanford says.

“And us?” he says. Not that he cares. He wishes he had been
able to bring the Last Lifers with him to jump in front of the Ice Cream Men’s
bullets, but the Cluster said it would be too much for this battle. They’re
still stung by the loss to the Kingdom only weeks ago. Little Man wasn’t
leading that one, but the Chosen has been coming to rescue him. The blame got
so intense that Little Man had to kill one of the captains of that attack to
shut them up.

“Six.” Little Man smiles.

The Cluster, the council that thinks it still runs the
Chosen, warned him not to do this. The Ice Cream Men were too important. They
provided too much food to the Chosen. What they really meant is they brought
all the delicacies and the pills the Cluster loves.

“How many guns?” Little Man says.

“Fifty.”

“There should be more.” Still, the Cluster will be happy. It
will give Little Man all he needs to launch the real war against the
Angelenos—and the Kingdom.

“We have some survivors inside the bank,” Stanford says.

“Start questioning them,” Little Man says. He doesn’t want
to kill them all, not yet. He wanted more weapons to make sure his war goes his
way. Everyone knows the Ice Cream Men held all their extra weapons and riches
in safe spots throughout Ell Aye, places they called Hydin Holes. It would only
take a few living victims to flush those out.

Blood coats the glass wall of the bank next to him. He steps
out gingerly among the bodies. He pushes down his revulsion. He doesn’t mind
this. He knows he’s looking at the beginnings of the Battle of Ell Aye.

The boys and girls lying on the ground are mostly dead. When
they’re not, he motions to Patrick, who casually stabs them with his lance.

He steps over a body—and sees the body stir. He looks down,
calling for Patrick. The boy beneath him rolls over, and Pico starts. He’s
never seen this boy before—but he has. This is the Ice Cream Man he saw in a
vision in the Haze, the one who traded with Jemma and Pico and Lady.

And he really wants to know where Jemma and Pico and Lady
are.

“Let’s keep this one breathing for now,” he says to Patrick.

Little Man squats next to the boy and drips water down his
throat. Gently. “It’s okay,” he says. “It’s all gonna be okay.”

“Doubt it,” the Ice Cream Man says. He’s right. Looks like
he’s been shot in the gut and the leg.

“How you feeling?” Little Man says. “Bet you’re a little
sore, huh?”

“You some kind of nurse?”

“Yeah. I’m a nurse,” Little Man says. Warm.

The Ice Cream Man blinks. He tries to focus on Little Man,
but his attention falls to Little Man’s arm, to the tattooed bars on the inside
of his wrist. He’s thinking what they all think: Three kills, on a kid who is
this small and this young?

The boy’s voice comes out as a croak. “You Little Man,” he
says.

Tommy is surprised, really surprised. “Normally people don’t
figure that out,” he says. “I’m easy to look past.” He’s usually just little
Tommy, small and nine and blond. Smart but harmless.

“I don’t look . . .” The Ice Cream Man stops, and forgets
what he was going to say. Maybe it’s the blood seeping out of his thigh.
Someone has tied it off in a tourniquet. “You come for our guns,” the Ice Cream
Man says.

Little Man nods. “Little Man meets the Ice Cream Man,” he
says. “You’re smart. I like you.”

“You a tiny little weird little dick,” the boy says.

“Well, now I like you less,” Little Man says.

How much time does he have before the Ice Cream Man bleeds
out? Five minutes? He has to get him talking.

“We got friends in common,” Little Man says. “The kids from
the Holy Wood.”

The Ice Cream Man seems to remember them. “Jemma . . . ?”

“I want to know where they went,” Little Man says.

“You gon kill em?”

Little Man shrugs. “I mean . . . maybe? But they know
something I wanna know. So I would probably want to talk to them first. Like .
. . this.” And he pushes his thumb into the Ice Cream Man’s stomach.

The kid can’t even scream, it hurts that much. The kid just
gasps until Little Man stops pushing. Little Man says, “They know things about
the End, I think, things that I should have known first. And Jemma can see
things.” He hates that she can see things. It was supposed to just be Little
Man.

“I ain’t gonna tell—”

Little Man moves his thumb back to his stomach. “I can make
your End as painful as you like.”

“She’s gon find the Old Guys,” the Ice Cream Man says,
seeming to want to pull the words back in. Everyone betrays their friends,
Little Man thinks.

“The Old Guys?” Little Man tries to be gentle again, but it
doesn’t come as naturally this time. He wants to know too much.

“She gon find all the answers there,” the Ice Cream Man
says. “They was there fore the End. They knows the way back. Don’t you knows
the stories?”

“I didn’t,” Tommy says, and an angry flush creeps up over
the pink skin. “Where do they live?”

“Fine. Don hurt me none. Stories say they lives in the Dead
Lands,” the Ice Cream Man says. “That’s a good place for you.”

“Let’s talk more about that,” Little Man says. “Let me get
you more water.” Trying to keep him alive just a few minutes longer.

When he turns back, something looks different. The boy has
shifted. Trying to get away that close to dead? Tommy’s impressed despite
himself.

Little Man crouches down. “Here’s your water,” he says.

“You believe in Man Jesus?” the Ice Cream Man says.

Little Man scowls. “I only believe in me,” he says. Then he
notices the egg.

All of the Ice Cream Men carry them, Long Gone bombs to
protect their carts from thieves, just like him. Tommy thought his soldiers had
collected all of them, but there’s an egg in the Ice Cream Man’s trembling
hand, fingers twitching under a pulled-out pin, just barely holding down the
lever that will release and kill them all.

The Ice Cream Man gathers himself up and throws the egg as
far as he can. Not much of a throw. Not much. But it drops at the feet of the
clump of Chosen ten feet away.

“Shit,” Little Man says. He sees the blur of a huge body in
front of him, feels a hand punch him in the chest, feels himself flying
backward through the air.

Three, two— He doesn’t hear the blast, just sees the white
swallowing them all. He has the most ridiculous thought: Hello, Man Jesus.

About Jeff Sweat:

 

He loves to travel and writes everywhere he
goes, even when there’s not a desk. He likes karaoke, motorcycles and
carpentry. He was once shot in the head with a nail gun, which was not a big of
a deal as it sounds. But it still hurt like crazy.Website | Twitter | Instagram | Amazon Author Page | Goodreads