“You are one ignorant slut, you know that?”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“Only you, Hamilton, would have the balls to say that to someone pointing a gun at you.”

“You wish you had these nuts.” He grabbed himself and stuck out his tongue at her.

“Shut up!”

“All the times I raped you, and you never ran away, it’s been months, and you keep coming back for more. I think you like it, Karina.”

“I’m warning you, asshole!”

“Way I see it is either way you’re crazy. Whether it’s that you can’t bring yourself to admit you’re a bad person, so you live in denial, or you’ve fucking snapped and get off on being a victim-”

BLAM!

The blast from the pistol rang out and caused Karina to temporarily go deaf. The bullet fired from the gun blazed a hole 8 millimeters wide through Hamilton’s head as he dropped dead to the ground. The ruckus stirred Warren awake.

She grabbed him, “Come with me.”

“Where are we going?” Warren shook his head.

“We’re getting out of here.”

Samuel walked out of Marcus and Annie’s room changed into a yellow Tommy Bahama shirt. Before they figured out a way to escape the belltower Harold had a quick chuckle at Doctor Chase’s choice in wardrobe.

“You guys were kept in there?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Before this they had me in ‘the hole.’”

“Sorry to hear that, Samuel.”

“Let’s find my son and get the hell out of here.”

“Then you’re gonna want to follow me, Sam,” surprised Malcolm, “I have something to show you.”

Malcolm brought Samuel and company out beyond the gate which led to Route One south. There they ran into Karina and Warren. They all drew their guns on each other with Malcolm in the middle.

“No! Wait, wait, wait,” he screamed, “she’s with me.”

Samuel, Marcus, and Harold pushed up on him, questioning, “What are you doing with her?!”

Warren panicked and hid behind his father with Annie. Malcolm did not understand. He saw their faces and none of it added up.

“Malcolm!” Annie tried to reason, “she just tried to cut Samuel’s head off.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“That wasn’t me,” Karina informed them, “That was Hamilton.”

They all looked at each other like they had seen a ghost.

“What are you doing? You don’t believe them do you? I just shot that bastard in the head, you can go back and look at the body if you don’t believe me.”

He pointed the gun back at her.

“I thought you all would be grateful I killed him,” she begged.

“Show me your license!”

“Your driver’s license…do you have it?”

“It’s up in my room in the belltower, but what does it matter?”

“I want to know what your last name is,” Malcolm concluded.

“My name? My name…” Karina felt a deep tread in her nerves, she mumbled back and forth, “My name.” Her eyes twitching in and out of focus as she tried to make heads or tails of the implications.

Samuel walked up closely beside her, he had seen this kind of behavior before. It was all so clear to him now, so he dropped his guard.

“What is your name, you poor girl,” he consoled Karina.

“It’s Karina. Karina Hamilton.” She stood back, the pistol still in her hand.

“But I can’t,” she stuttered. “I can’t be. I can’t be. No!” She cried. “I can’t be- I just can’t be.”

Malcolm got closer to Karina on her other side.

“I can’t be him,” Karina remembered back to the first day, how she was dragged into the belltower, how he violated her. And then she remembered it a different way, the zombies scratching away on the other side of the doors. She knew eventually they would get in or she would be forced to go out there. Karina knew the only way to take control was to lose control. She had to become somebody else entirely and so Hamilton was born.

“I killed him. I can show you the body.”

“Put down the gun, Hamilton.”

“Don’t call me that!” she raised it at them.

Samuel and Malcolm closed in around her as she came to terms with losing her mind.

“I did. I killed him, Malcolm. I swear it!” Karina looked at Malcolm and he could not believe this scared young girl was the center of all this controversy.

“Don’t you believe me?” she cried.

The shadow of truth crept out of the back of her mind. Suddenly there he was again, as clear as day. He walked out of the belltower along the side of the road toward them with a hole in his head the size of a Georgia peach. He smiled at her. Karina closed her eyes. She knew it couldn’t be real. She opened her eyes and there he walked behind them, the blood dripping to the ground from the hole in his forehead. And that smile, how it corrupted people, the thin welcoming venire with the cruelest intentions behind it, intentions like publicly murdering people.

Karina then began to remember the execution a different way. Her speaking with Malcolm up top, who scurried off, and then going down to sit with Warren on stage while everyone waited quietly until she yelled, “Then swing away, Mister Executioner!”

Hamilton stood there beside Warren, and he laughed. He laughed as only Hamilton could laugh. He pulled up his arm holding a pistol. The same one she was holding. Hamilton pretended to lick Warren’s ear and then pressed the barrel of the gun against the kid’s head.

“NO!” Karina yelled refusing to believe, firing off her pistol until all her demons were vanquished. Only one shot was fired off before Malcolm and Samuel dove in. Malcolm wrestled Karina to the floor, exclaiming, “This is not what was supposed to happen! This is not what I wanted to show you!”

Samuel did not go for Karina. He went for the only other body that dropped. Samuel held the lifeless body in his arms and looked for a wound. The bullet went right through his chest. The boy was dead. Samuel held his son’s dead body before the road south. That was it. With Warren dead in his arms his entire family was now gone. Samuel was finally lost, his failure complete. He thought he knew what to do with this life that was hurdled at him. Keep his son safe. He thought he was the master of his own fate, and he ended up losing everything.

Samuel let himself go and tried to die with his son. He was done trying to make a life worth living in a world that would never stop trying to kill them. Samuel finally had nothing left. When he looked up with tear-filled eyes he saw some long lost things that belonged to him. Atticus and Rebecca were before Samuel, standing on the road south to Florida, and holding the bag filled with his three time travel devices.