Free Kill Baxter by Charlie Human Page B

Perfect.’
    ‘Just get the fuck out of here,’ the goth says. ‘Go jerk off to your diagram of the Hero’s Journey or something.’
    Hekka clenches his fists. ‘I’m the Chosen One. You and this freak are nothing.’
    ‘You know why men become big heroes?’ the goth says.
    ‘Please tell me,’ Hekka says.
    The twins walk over until they’re standing right in front of him. ‘Because they have tiny penises,’ the goth says with a smile.
    Hekka punches the wall next to her and then stalks off down the corridor.
    ‘You OK?’ the cheerleader asks.
    ‘Yeah, thanks for that,’ I say, rubbing my neck.
    ‘Stop staring, dildo,’ the goth says.
    ‘I’m really sorry, it’s just …’
    ‘Yeah, we’re conjoined twins. Thanks for pointing that out. We wouldn’t have noticed otherwise.’
    ‘Technically we’re dicephalus twins,’ the cheerleader says. ‘Which means two heads and one body.’
    ‘Thanks for that, brainiac. I think he may have noticed,’ the goth says. ‘Anyways, saving your ass has been real but I’ve really got to go and smoke a joint.’
    ‘Bye!’ calls the cheerleader as they saunter off down the corridor.
    I stare after them. I haven’t even got to Hexpoort yet and already my phone has been jacked by the Chosen One and I’ve been saved by a knife-wielding set of conjoined twins. Fucking great.

    We disembark at a small station that’s not marked on the map that I have. It looks like it could be any part of small-town South Africa, a confluence of churches, petrol stations and well-aged shopping centres.
    I shield my eyes against the unpleasantly bright sun. A fleet of rusty buses wait for us in the dirt. Nom and Stevo help me carry my cases to an old maroon clunker driven by an equally old grey-haired woman. She’s built a small shrine to Elvis on her dashboard, paying tribute to the plastic figurine of the King she has stuck above the speedometer with shells, beads, feathers and hair.
    The bus is crammed with teenagers in various stages of inebriation.
    ‘Everyone’s just getting it out before we hit the Poort,’ Nom says as we find a seat at the back. ‘The school term can be a bit brutal.’
    ‘What’s it like?’ I ask. ‘Hexpoort?’
    ‘Oh,’ he says with a grin. ‘I don’t want to spoil it for you.’
    We drive for about an hour through a wasteland of dirt and dust. The driver puts on an old Miriam Makeba album; the tape is stretched, giving the recording a warped, hallucinatory quality that does not play nice with my depression. I stare listlessly at the desolate landscape outside. Even the few farm kids that we pass look menacing. The bus judders and shakes as we hit an orange dirt road that leads up into a series of stark hills.
    ‘Beautiful,’ I say with a sigh. I lose track of the time as the brown landscape streaks by.
    Eventually we grind to a halt. ‘Welcome to the Poort,’ Nom says with a grand gesture.
    I crane my neck to see through the windscreen. Hexpoort squats against brown canyon walls, an old Dutch granite fort in the shape of a pentacle, surrounded by a perimeter of electric fencing and razor wire.
    ‘The points of the star are Malpit, Donkergees, Bokveld, Wintergat and Skaduwee,’ Nom says. ‘You’ll end up living in either Malpit, Donkergees or Wintergat depending on what clan you’re in. I’m in Broken Teeth, so I stay in Malpit.’
    ‘How do they decide what clan you’re in?’ I ask. ‘Some kind of magical choosing thing?’
    He shrugs. ‘Nah, dude, I think it’s more a logistical thing: space, beds available, et cetera.’
    I stare at the high granite walls and the razor wire.
    ‘Looks like a prison,’ I say.
    ‘You can, and should, judge a book by its cover.’ Stevo smiles. ‘But don’t look so glum, Bax. It’s not all bad.’
    ‘Yeah,’ I say, but I don’t believe that for a second.
    Hexpoort smells of woodsmoke and herbs. I breathe it in and try to imagine myself staying here. It’s difficult.
    We’re let through