Free Should Have Killed The Kid by R. Frederick Hamilton Page B

away any mirth, transforming it into unease.
    Dave quickly turned away and took another swallow of his pint.
    Fucking nutter.
    7.
    Dave was on his fifth or six pint when he made the mistake of talking to Monty.
    Things were starting to get a little hazy, though it was not the fun-filled drinking blitz Dave had pictured earlier. Each successive pint had grown sourer as Naomi's voice had looped over and over in his head. I don't like the way you act when you're drinking. It's uncomfortable. You think you get happy but you don't...
    Rather than talking to the locals – a group that had swelled to a surprising level for how uninhabited the surrounding land appeared – Dave had done a passable impression of Monty instead. Staring down at the bar as all the fights they'd had over the past five years played through his mind. Lined up like that it'd been hard to miss the common theme. It saddened him even as he indulged in it to fight that very sorrow.
    The only thing breaking up his reflections: the occasional trip out into the chill night air for a cigarette.
    That was until, over the babble of the crowd, he heard Monty mutter something that sounded like, 'Yeah, you know what it's like,' and turned to see the old man staring at him again, nodding away.
    Dave didn't know why he bit but he did.
    'Sorry?' Regret followed the second the word exited him mouth but it was too late.
    Monty latched onto the invitation and slid across the two barstools that separated them. He leaned in close enough that Dave could smell that his earlier surmise about the man's clothes might very well be correct.
    'Gets you down, doesn't it?' Monty smiled, showing a hint of yellowed teeth. The grin did nothing to set Dave at ease though. It did not alter the lunatic gleam in the old man's eyes one bit. If anything, it enhanced it. Dave had to remind himself that he was in a room full of people. He's not going to do anything with such a crowd about, Dave reassured himself. Surely not.
    'What do you mean?' Dave winced at the buffet of fumes that spewed out with Monty's words. He leaned back a little as Monty leaned in closer.
    'All this,' Monty slurred, his grin spreading wider and sloppier. Dave realised that the man was a lot drunker than he appeared.
    'All–'
    'Everything's changing and it shouldn't be.' Monty cut Dave off, his slur suddenly transforming into a vicious whisper. 'They're ruining everything. Fucking everything. Lived here my whole life and everything is peachy but now these dumb cunts want to come and fuck everything up. They don't even know what they're playing with. That don't even fucking comprehend the scope of what they're toying with. Just fuck up their pretty city and when that's done, come out her and fuck that up cause they can no longer cope with the stench of their own fucking shit.'
    Dave wilted beneath the intensity of Monty's gaze. He tried his best to find something of deep interest at the bottom of his pint but it was like his eyes were hypnotic. No matter how many times he looked away they dragged his gaze back.
    'I–' He flailed for an answer but Monty was already talking again. Dave was not a fan of how each sentence seemed to draw the man closer and closer.
    'Look at this fucking place. Used to be a nice pub, this one. Sure a little run down but nice. Homey. The old guy who used to run it, he understood things. Knew there was stuff that you just didn't fuck about with. Poor fucking bastard’d be turning in his grave if he could see his place now. See what these prats are fucking doing to it.' Monty paused for a long swallow from the pint that had migrated across with him. 'And this is just the start. I can tell you that. Just the first inroads. No, the cunts won't be happy until the whole place is just another fucking tourist trap. Till it's all cleared and redeveloped. Till they've fucked everything.'
    Dave slugged from his own pint as Monty degenerated into indecipherable mumbling for a second. He stared around the