Round 3 Lynch - It hit the fan alright

The official IF dictionary describes 'lynch mob' as: a mob that kills a person for some presumed offense without legal authority. One could presume that the adults had foreseen the confinement of children turning into a futuristic Lord of the Flies. Of course to presume meant: to assume as true in the absence of proof to the contrary or to undertake with unwarrantable boldness.

Graff could stand there and pull mental descriptions of words he would use in his report all day. In the end he was still in a bit of a pickle. He was in charge of what appeared to be (what most certainly was) a lynch mob. Maybe this was a result of a godless culture, of incredible pressure on such young minds, or maybe he and the rest of the leaders of the world had simply made a mistake. Smart, brilliant children weren't children at all. There were students at Battle School whose respective IQs soared easily beyond his. There was something that Graff thought they lacked, these intelligent children from vast corners of the earth - from rich families to no families at all.

They lacked the ability to clean after themselves.

Graff, Dimak and Dap stood stoically over the mangled mess of one Ezekial Rainsfeld, age thirteen - hailing from, or did rather, Saskatchewan, Canada. What he was doing down here, no one knew – Graff’s best guess was that he and the others had agreed to meet in secret, and Ezekial had been murdered for his trouble. There were signs of a struggle in the room; dented metal and nail marks on plastic. Odds were, Ezekial was alive when he hit that fan. But really, what Graff wanted to know couldn’t be uncovered by forensics. What had made his fellow classmates think he was responsible for the heinous crimes? The beating of Teresa Sol or the snuffing of one angry Michael Edwards. Or maybe they blamed him for Lynn’s…what were they calling it now? Accidental murder? Yeah, and Stormie had died falling off her bunk.

Dap seemed to be thinking along the same lines, as he asked in a disquieted tone, 'Why would they single him out?'

Dimak made a face and added, 'No Canadian would mass murder people!'

'Have you been to Canada?' Dap replied. Graff hastily ignored the rest of the conversation, opting instead to look down…and around…and up…at the body.

Ezekial's honey blond hair could be seen under the bloody mess of what looked like a kidney. The mess being located in the bowels of the school, where the air and water was recycled for reuse. It looked as if he had been pushed into the rotating fans that cycled the air and the result was...icky.

'The least they could do is not make so much of a mess.' Graff muttered and looked over at his colleagues.

Dimak winced at the comment while Dap made a gurgling noise and bent over to vacate his stomach. An annoyed Graff looked down at his now vomit stained shoes and rolled his eyes. Vomit: the matter ejected in vomiting.


~*~*~

Their faces were chillingly empty; it was downright unsettling. As if Dimak needed more fodder for his nightmares. He wondered idly which it would be tonight – cold, blank stares, or bloody unidentifiable masses running down the walls.

They were well and truly stuck, the teachers. Battle School had been tainted, and they were chopping off arms and legs to prevent the infection from spreading. Except limbs were expendable, if you didn’t mind some discomfort.

Children were not. At least, they weren’t supposed to be.

Dimak had been lying for days. He was getting very good at it, and he was getting very tired. He’d told them as little as possible. These children had had accidents. These children weren’t dead at all; they’d been sent home. He thought they had been so quick to clean up the messes, but it seemed these geniuses saw through the attempts at cover up within minutes. He couldn’t figure out how, but they were getting to the truth.

Dimak wasn’t so sure that these children knowing the truth was a good thing. Not any more, not when he had seen with his own eyes what they did in retribution.

He didn’t know what to say. He practically slept through his own speech, though not before he observed that the kids were barely listening to him. And why would they? He had no useful, honest information to impart.

That night he dreamed of innocent children luring one of their own to his death. The children were all wolves with human faces.