Soft Targets by Carson Winter

Author:Carson Winter [Winter, Carson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: epub, ebook, QuarkXPress
ISBN: 979-8-9859923-5-9
Publisher: Tenebrous Press
Published: 2023-02-24T00:00:00+00:00

13

THE FIRST WEEK was bad enough. Kev had made sure that Ollie and I were entirely separated, like two children who couldn’t be trusted near each other. This was insulting, but it also opened our minds to just how crushing boredom could be. In addition to entering long strings of numbers totally meaningless to us into a huge spreadsheet—also meaningless to us—we now had to read and revise the work of our peers. This was Kev’s doing. Something to do with the accuracy of our work.

So, every so often, at Kev’s will, we’d share files and stare hopelessly at rows and columns filled with numbers, and somehow, we were supposed to find errors, then correct them.

Oftentimes, I wondered if this was all a big joke. And I thought back fondly to the night I killed Kev, to the feeling of sickness I felt after. Because back then, I had felt something. And now, I only felt a dull humming in my head. How could any day feel unreal when all of them felt unreal? In the back of my head, I wondered if when the day arrived, I’d be able to even trust it, such was my detachment. Would I be able to recognize those stupid quirks that somehow made a day not real? Or would they pass over me like everything else? Maybe that was why they passed most people by unnoticed.

Each day I tried to escape further into my own head. And each time, Kev’s timer beeped and forced us into a new task, one that required as much attention and immediacy as it required tedium.

Ollie felt about the same as I did.

At night, we’d talk.

“I don’t know if I can make it another three weeks.”

“If you call out, I’ll call out.”

“No, I can’t call out. Not now.”

“Why is that?”

“Just stuff. Reasons. Need the money. Who the fuck cares?”

Ollie had been getting touchier lately. I assumed for the same reasons I had. I changed gears, cracked a beverage. “Now that the office is all fucked up,” I began, “how would you do it?”

Ollie raised an eyebrow. “How would I do it? Shit, dude.”

“Think about it.”

“Okay,” he said, and I knew he was brightening up now. “Alright, so I think I’d start by showing up early. That’s when Kev shows up, right?”

“I hear he shows up an hour before the drones. Probably to jack off to the melange of despair.”

“And of course, who wouldn’t?”

“Kev probably makes a whopping forty-eight-k a year. He’s essentially made it.” Things felt easier now. Better.

“Alright, so I think I’d want to start with Kev, before anyone else gets there. And this time, I’d do it quick. I’d have my gun and I’d just be waiting at his desk. Blow the fucker’s brains out. Or better yet, no—neck shot. Have that fucker just gushing blood down the front of his painfully white shirt.”

“Neck shots are underrated,” I said sagely. “Do you think, with a high enough caliber, or a shotgun or something, you could decapitate

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