Free Set Me Alight by Bill Leviathan Page A

to the kid and began saying, “God dammit, Kevin. You better hope they aren't springing up to hit an alarm.”
    “I-I'm sorry Pim, I-I didn't mean to.”
    I turned to both of them, “Keep it down you fools. They don't know what's up yet. You three head up there and hope there aren't too many to corral.”
    The three of them started up the stairs, not taking stealth into consideration after the cover was blown. I slowly followed, keeping an eye out by looking out the windows for police lights. I then heard a shriek and a thud, and bolted up the stairs after the kids.
    When I got to them, they were in a bedroom with a man, woman, and two young kids. The woman was holding her shoulder, her hand over top a big red mark. The little dumbass named Kevin was holding a bat.
    “What the hell is going on in here?”
    “She made for this bat, Pete, so I grabbed it from her. She wouldn't stop trying to take it from me, so I hit her to get her to back off.”
    “Jesus Christ, kid. We're just here to ask these nice folks some questions, not to beat them bloody.”
    “Oh man, what do we do, Pim? What do we do?”
    “Calm down, Steve, Pete has some questions to ask these nice people. He'll take care of it.”
    Great. I just got battlefield commissioned to the leader of their pretend organization. I don't even remember why I had to be here in the first place. It was all part of Pim's and his stupid organization's conspiracy theory. All I wanted to do right then was sit on my ass and drink myself into oblivion. Maybe it was my destiny. To take charge of some snot-nosed brats and terrorize a family into telling me where they got their water. Thanks a lot, Universe. You picked a great one for me.
    “Ok, mister and missus, we're not here to hurt you. I just need to get one little piece of information out of you, and then we will go. No one is going to get hurt from here on out, I promise.”
    “P-p-please, just let the children be. You can do whatever you want to us. Just let them go. Please!”
    “Alright, alright, don't worry. Hey, Kevin, drop the bat already and stop standing over the kids like some God damned Gamorrean.
    “Now, to the thing I need to know from you people. You get all your water delivered, correct?”
    “Yes,” the man answered.
    “You don't use water from the tap for anything?”
    “No, of course not. We don't have any taps in this house. I don't see what this ha-”
    “Don't worry about that. Just listen to me and answer my questions, ok? Now, why is it that you people don't drink anything from the tap?”
    “Uh, because that water is no good. It’s basically poison. Why are you asking this?”
    “What's wrong with the regular water?”
    “Are you serious?”
    “Yes, I’m serious. Now answer the question like I’m a God damned know-nothing infant.”
    “Uh, um, well, the mining companies have been dumping all their waste into the rivers and lakes around here for years. The water from the tap isn't even suitable for cattle to drink. I wouldn't water my lawn with that crap.”
    “How do you know that?” Pim piped in.
    The man turned to Pim with a look of abject confusion, “Well, I mean, I work for the mining company, but who doesn't know about the waste dumping?”
    “No one outside those gates seems to know.”
    “You people aren't drinking the water from around here, are you?” the man asked.
    I leaned in close to the man's face, enough to see how perfect and spotless his skin was even when just pulled out of bed in the middle of the night. “Of course we drink the water. It's all we have, and no one seems to think it's worth telling us it's filled with God knows what you and the mining companies put in it. Kevin, I take back what I said earlier. Pick that bat back up, and swing for the fences.”

Chapter 6
    To think, I had spent all that time beating myself up over how I was destroying my health with all the alcohol I consumed, and instead what was killing me was the water. That had to be