Alex sighted along his rifle, as Julius began to glow softly, and scream. He squeezed the trigger, and the shot was dead on. It froze in the air, glowing as it approached Cliff. He tossed the rifle to the ground, and pulled out his handgun sprinting forward. The guy seemed to be some sort of telekinetic, and Alex would see how much he could handle.

He unloaded half the clip, eight bullets at the guy. All of them slowed, and became a spinning halo of light in front of his hand. Alex got close, and drew his combat knife in the other hand. Cliff frowned at him, and then launched all the bullets at Julius. The scattershot hit him in the chest, and sent Julius rolling across the pavement. The glow around Julius disappeared as he rolled away. Alex saw blood, but it wasn't the moment to worry about Julius.

He stabbed forward with the knife, but as he lunged he lost momentum. He let go of the now glowing knife, and kept his trajectory, punching Cliff in the gut. Cliff doubled up, and Alex put the handgun up to his head. The gunshot sounded weird, and nothing seemed to happen. He pulled the gun away, and saw a glowing bullet in the muzzle. He couldn't risk firing again, with the bullet floating in the barrel, so he went with something else.

It seemed to take longer to affect an object depending on its size, Alex guessed. From what he had seen with Julius, the knife, and the bullets, that was likely. Flipping the gun around, he pistol whipped Cliff across the face, feeling a crunch. Cliff went to the ground, and Alex tried to get on top of him, to continue the beating. A strange sensation flipped his gut, and he couldn't move. He struggled to look down, and saw he had begun to glow.

Cliff with a broken nose, laying on the ground, cackled. With his mouth open, Alex could see the glowing line shifting about in the back of his throat. The pain came all at once, as every muscle in his body was strained, and Alex felt himself lift off the ground. The glowing had effected his eyes now, and blinded him with light. He was trapped in a prison of white light, pain exploding through him, and a terrible pressure pushing from inside his body. He could feel when the pressure grew too great, he would be torn apart, or maybe explode. Alex started screaming.

Eventually, he realized his screaming had joined a symphony. Alex wondered if the pain had driven him mad, or if Cliff had gotten Julius too. Then he recognized the screaming, as it had been with him for the last two days. It was the sound of thirty pigs, pissed that they were tied up to each other. In an instant the light and pain disappeared. Alex fell a few feet, landing on something warm and hairy. He looked around with blurry vision, and saw he was on top of the herd of pigs.

He saw Cliff a few feet away on the ground, with pigs trampling over him. The pig on top him would start to glow, but before long it would be pulled away. Then a new one would be crushing Cliff. Cliff started trying to untie the knots, making quick work of them with telekinesis. However, the pigs were tied with half a dozen knots each, and he couldn't spot the ones that actually did something. Alex just held on tight to his pig as the herd moved. They carried on past Cliff, and Alex watched as the skiff ran over Cliff. It dragged him along for a dozen feet, before it went over him. Alex crawled from pig to pig, till Julius grabbed him. Then helped him to his feet. “Thank God you're alive,” Julius said, hugging him.

“More like thank the pigs,” Alex replied. In truth he didn't hurt to bad. Everything hurt actually he corrected, but nothing felt damaged. He pushed Julius away, and looked at his bloody chest. “Are you okay?”

“The bullets didn't go much past the skin, I should live. You?”

“I'll be okay, but do you have a painkiller?”

Julius pulled a pill bottle out, gave Alex one, and took one himself. “This will really eat into the profit margin if we get hurt all the time.”

They walked over to Cliff, and stared at him. “Do you think he's dead?” Julius asked.

In answer Alex grabbed his pistol from the ground. Then unloaded the rest of the clip into Cliff's head. “He is now... I hope.” They sat down and rested a minute. They had to stand when they noticed someone running towards them. Alex put a fresh clip in, and hoped the town wasn't full of crazy psychics.

“Thank God, you killed him!” The person yelled.

“It would seem so.” Alex shouted back. “Who are you?”

The man came close enough to talk normally. “I'm Eric, I live here. That used to be Cliff. After everyone woke up he was calling himself a god and asking for tribute.”

“So everyone was hiding from him?” Julius asked.

“Every day he would take someone from their house. He would drag them to the police station, where he was living,” Eric explained. “I've got to tell everyone,” he announced, and ran off. Alex bandaged up Julius, and gave him a clean shirt to wear, feeling it would be a long day. Julius shooed the pigs away from Cliff's corpse, worried about them getting infected with something.

Soon enough a crowd had gathered. Eric seemed to have been put in charge of talking to them. “So what we do with his body, and the body of the person he infected?” He asked.

“What do you mean infected?” Alex asked.

“Every day he would take out a piece of that, thing inside him, and put it in a person. It would kill them, when he took it back out it would be larger.” Eric explained.

It must have been a way for him to grow more powerful Alex thought. “I need some people to start digging a hole. Ten feet long, five wide, and let's say, ten deep,” Alex answered the original question. “Then I saw a construction site on the outskirts, send some people to get cement mix.”

“And that will work?” Eric asked.

Alex hesitated, but Julius jumped in. “Sure, I guarantee it. Just make sure no one touches Cliff or the infected persons body.”

“Okay, got it.” Eric went to get people started on the work, and Alex shot Julius a look. He just shrugged, but Alex had to admit it would be best to reassure the people. After some people went off, Julius went on top of the skiff, and called out to the crowd. “I know some of you might have heard my calling on our way in, but I came to Crikside to sell pigs. I have four breeding pairs, and twenty-one males good for eating. Also, I have sturdy boots of all sizes that are fit for life in these days. I am happy to accept barter, but will make quick trade for opiods, as they have become the currency of the new world.”

The people turned to look at the herd of pigs staring at them. “Or I suppose you could buy them all together, as some sort of defense force,” Julius joked.