Free Nightrunners by Joe R. Lansdale Page A

my head and it's hard to put into words, but I can feel it, goddamnit, I can feel it. Time has come when we've become too civilized, overpopulated, so evolution has taken care of that, it's created a social mutation —
    Supermen like Clyde and me.
    Clyde, he's the raw stuff, sewer sludge. He gets what he wants because he doesn 't let anything stand in the way of what he wants, nothing. God, the conversations we had the last couple of days . . . See now, lost my train of thought. . . Oh yeah, the social mutations.
    You see, I thought I was some kind of fucking freak all this time. But what it is, I'm just new, different. I mean, from as far back as I can remember, I've been different. I just don't react the way other people do, and I didn't understand why. Crying over dead puppies and shit like that. Big fucking deal. Dog's dead, he's dead. What the fuck do I care? It's the fucking dog that's dead, not me, so why should I be upset?
    I mean, I remember this little girl next door that had this kitten when we were kids. She was always cooing and petting that little mangy bastard. And one day my Dad — that was before he got tired of the Old Lady's whining and ran off, and good riddance, I say — sent me out to mow the yard. He had this thing about the yard being mowed, and he had this thing about me doing it. Well, I'm out there mowing it, and there's that kitten, wandering around in our yard. Now, I was sick of that kitten, Mr.
    Journal, so I picked it up and petted it, went to the garage and got myself a trowel.' I went out in the front yard and dug a nice deep hole and put that kitten in it, all except the head, I left that sticking up. I patted the dirt around its neck real tight, then I went back and got the lawn mower, started it and began pushing it toward that little fucking cat. I could see its head twisting and it started moving its mouth — meowing, but I couldn't hear it, though I wish I could have — and I pushed the mower slowlike toward it, watching the grass chute from time to time, making sure the grass was really coming out of there in thick green blasts, and then I'd look up and see that kitten. When I got a few feet from it, I noticed that I was on a hard. I mean, I had a pecker you could have used for a cold chisel.
    When I was three feet away, I started to push that thing at a trot, and when I hit that cat, what a sound, and I had my eye peeled on that mower chute, and for a moment there was green and then there was red with the green and hunks of ragged grey fur, spewing out, twisting onto the lawn.
    For as I knew, no one ever knew what 1 did. I just covered up the stump of the cat's neck real good and went on about my business. Later that evening when I was finishing up, the little shit next door came home and I could hear her calling out, "Kitty, kitty, kitty," it was all I could do not to fall down behind the mower laughing,. But 1 kept a straight face, and when she came over and asked if I'd seen Morris — can you get that, Morris? — I said, "No, I'm sorry, I haven't," and she doesn 't even get back to her house before she's crying and calling for that little fucking cat again.
    Ah, but so much for amusing sidelights, Mr. journal, I guess the point I'm trying to make is people get themselves tied up and concerned with the damnedest things, dogs and cats, stuff like that. I've yet to come across a dog or cat with a good, solid idea.
    God, it feels good to say what I want to say for a change, and to have someone like Clyde who not only understands, but agrees, sees things the same way. Feels good to realize why all the Boy Scout good deed shit never made me feel diddlyshit. Understand now why the good grades and being called smart never thrilled me either. Was all bullshit, that's why. We Supermen don't go for that petty stuff, doesn't mean dick to us.
    Got no conscience 'cause a conscience isn't anything but a bullshit tool to make you a goddamned pussy, a candy-ass coward. We do what we want, as