Mary laughed. “Don’t tell me ya forgot ‘bout it!” Kevin felt tears well in his eyes and the nausea return. Suddenly a thought occurred to him that made him break out into a cold sweat and his stomach churn. Before he had time to think he voiced his thoughts.

“Did you kill him?” he asked her fearfully, his voice barely audible.

Mary shook her head with a casual smile. “Nah, he was like that when I got here. Someone else got to him first; that’s how it is here. Everyone kills, it’s a game. The weak ones don’t make it for long.”

Kevin stared at her in disbelief. “Watch this,” Mary said. He watched in horror as she approached the corpse and brought back her leg. He whipped his head away just as she brought her foot to the side of the corpse’s head with a deafening crunch.

Mary let out a sick laugh and kept kicking. Kevin’s teeth chattered, his eyes wide as he looked in the opposite direction. This girl is crazy, he thought.

Suddenly her face came back into view. Her eyes were wide and crazed, and she was out of breath. “Give it a try!” she urged him.

“No!” he shouted, flinching away from her so his back hit the wall.

“C’mon, don’t be such a wuss!” she chided. She stepped forward and when Kevin saw the gun glint in her hand he was sent into a reeling panic. He completely broke down, bursting into tears.

“Please don’t shoot me, please don’t shoot me!” he wailed, pleading.

Mary rolled her eyes. “I’m not gonna shoot ya.”

“My mom is still at the gas station, she needs my help!”

“She’s prob’ly dead,” Mary said dully.

“No she’s not!” he half-shouted, half-sobbed.

Kevin continued bawling and Mary sighed exasperatedly, as though she was dealing with a child throwing a hissy fit. “What a waste,” she grumbled. “However…”

She stared long and hard at Kevin. He squirmed in her gaze, feeling extremely uncomfortable. Something about the way she was looking at him made his skin crawl, but he couldn’t quite place as to why. It looked like there was fascination in her eyes, but also…?

Suddenly Mary reached out with her grimy fingers and tilted Kevin’s chin up. She smiled eerily at him. “Yer somethin’ of my taste,” she said, licking her lips and rubbing her thumb along his bottom lip.

A single tear rolled down Kevin’s cheek and he shuddered when he finally realized why he found her staring so disturbing: there was lust in her eyes.

She put the gun to the side of his head. “Yer comin’ with me.”

***

For the next several days Kevin was forced to travel with Mary through the town. They moved through dirty alleyways — which were littered with dead bodies — in an attempt to avoid the large, powerful gangs that moved through Galen.

Mary explained that murder and other crime was rampant throughout Galen, as the town was inhabited by a community of murderers. These killers committed crime for fun, and formed gangs to increase their influence and dominance in the streets. Mary informed Kevin that she was part of no gang, but bragged that she was still a notorious killer in her district. They had been traveling for a few days together but Kevin was still just as afraid of her as when they first met, and this just put him more on-edge.