Sins of the Father by Mitchel Scanlon Read Free Book Online Page A

bugged out of their sockets, the taut skin of his face growing ever more taut. Leonard squeezed harder. He felt the bones of the man's neck grinding against the palms of his hands. The man's face was flushed and red. Leonard saw the man's eyes staring at him in fear and panic, his mouth working soundlessly as he gulped vainly for air. Briefly, Leonard felt almost sorry for him. He squeezed harder.
    The man's neck broke with a crack. The body went limp, a puddle forming on the floor beneath it as the bladder let go.
    It was over. Easing the dead man gently to the floor, Leonard found he felt no great sense of triumph. He had killed plenty of people before: maybe fifteen or twenty of them, if you counted Gila-Munjas as people. Life was hard in the Cursed Earth, and the needs of survival or plain angry vengeance meant sometimes Leonard had been forced to kill without thought of conscience. But he had felt no fear or hatred towards this man. It seemed to make things different somehow. Leonard wasn't quite sure why, but it felt like for the first time in his life he had committed a murder. He had killed a stranger in cold blood, strangling the life out of him just because that was what Daniel had told him to do. Daniel had said this was a bad man. He had said James Nails deserved to die. Looking down into the dead man's blank and lifeless eyes, Leonard hoped he was right.
    "It's not enough," Daniel said. He seemed calmer, now the man was dead. His voice was hollow. As he stared at the body of the dead man in front of them, he seemed dissatisfied. It was though he was still angry at the dead man. "People should know he was a bad man and that was why we killed him. There has to be some way we could tell them."
    Daniel fell quiet for a time. Standing beside him, waiting for his friend to speak, Leonard was struck by how small the boy was: even if he had stood on the tips of his toes, his head would have barely come up to the side of Leonard's hip. At the same time, it felt like Daniel was bigger than him somehow: as though something dark burned inside his frail childish body and lent him power.
    "We should leave a message," Daniel said at last. He turned to look at Leonard, his little boy eyes filled with an almost frightening intensity. "Leonard, you carry a knife, don't you?"
    "Sure," Leonard answered. Fumbling in the pocket of his greatcoat, he pulled out his clasp knife. He had had it for years. Back in the Cursed Earth he had used it to cut up his food, trim ropes, skin and gut animals; he had even killed with it once or twice. Most often these days though he used it to cut open boxes at the warehouse where he worked.
    "Good," Daniel said. "I want you to write something for me. A message. Don't worry, I know you can't read. I'll tell you what to write and how to make the letters. And I'll tell you where to write it.
    "I just need you to do the cutting."

THREE
     
    ACTS OF JUDGEMENT
     
    The baby was crying. Its high-pitched wails spread across the dusty interior of the derelict factory, echoes rebounding from the rusting junk-pile landscape of broken munce-grinders and disused conveyor belts. Sitting on a metal staircase to the side of the old factory floor, Lucas Verne tried to soothe the squealing infant. He rocked it gently in his arms, back and forth. He cooed at it. He made funny faces. His efforts, though, were unsuccessful. Lacking any real experience of babies, he had hardly any idea how to handle one, much less finally persuade it to stop its screaming.
    The baby had been crying, on and off, ever since he had grabbed it from the block crèche. The sound was relentless. It seemed to drill into Lucas's head, creating a build-up of pressure at the back of his neck and behind his eyes that made him want to moan in pain. Abandoning his fruitless attempts to console the child, Lucas reminded himself of the reason he had kidnapped it to begin with. The knife lay on the step beside him. The blade was keen and sharp. He only had