To Die For- Rise of the Morty

To Die For- Rise of the Morty

"Well…you finally did it" Checkers grinned. I looked up at him with shock. Why wasn't he coming over to beat me up? Had the idiot finally gone soft in his old age? There was no sign of sarcasm that I could see. He walked up and down the room slowly, eyeing me, watching me. I could feel his eyes burning into me, trying to weed out any potential weakness I might hold.

"So. Do you want to learn or not?" Checkers asked. While I didn't know what he meant- I thought he had been teaching me quite a few things over the last few weeks, I guess he had more in store. He looked as though he had quite a bit to say on the matter.

"Yeah. What do you want me to learn?" I said, until Checky cut me off.

"How to fight. I'm not lettin' you run off killing' people without knowing how to punch and fight. It's not all guns and stabbing, you know. Sure, you can randomly stab or shoot people. But when someone else is calling the shots, how can you even think of doing what you like?" After a few minutes of lecturing me, my mind started to wander. So many months had passed since I had proper blood on my hands, and Checky was still talking about punching people. Still, I did get quite a nice rush from hurting him. It was a bit disappointing when he just grinned, but it's just something that I would have to get used to.

"Do you want to become a fighter and a killer?" Checkers asked. When he put it that way, and when I had an uncontrollable assassin standing in the other room, drinking and throwing things at the TV.

"Of course." I said in a low voice, worried what Checkers would do to me.

"Excellent. Then we shall waste no time at all!" he said in a fake-British accent. "Starting at 5am tomorrow, I shall WHIP YOU INTO SHAPE!!" I wanted to point out that he had already been doing that for the past few weeks. So after that, I didn't do much, just ate and watched some weird killers on the rampage movie with Ida. We giggled a lot, especially since the chick in it was just like Ida. It's weird, like there was someone out there watching every move we made and then wrote it down. I don't know what it was, but that creped me out a little.

Night came. I don't know what it was, but I felt a slight chill in the air as I tried to sleep. Every time that I tossed and turned, the bed creaked. There was something about this place that made every noise seem louder and everything seemed to have its very own creak. I could see the outline of the peeling blue walls from my bed and I started to wonder what Checky meant by training. Would I finally be an assassin after all these months? The idea of having my own money thrilled me.

"RISE AND SHINE!" Checky called from somewhere outside my room. I woke and sprang into the singlet and shorts that someone had so thoughtfully given me. I dived under my bed and found some sneakers underneath the dust. I put them on and they fit perfectly. I thought of Checkers and Ida shopping for shoes and had to stifle a giggle. Within seconds, I was out of the door and standing in front of Checkers.

"Straighten your back!" he ordered, pressing back my shoulders and raising my chin. Our eyes met for a moment and I was reminded of how much he intimidated me. Sure, I managed to hurt him, but there was something dangerous about him that I could see in his eyes. My back hurt after Checkers had fiddled with it.

"Now I'm gonna time you as you run around the house. Today I want you to go round… five times." I had barely finished tying my shoelaces before I was off and running. The first two times round was fine, but by the fourth I was breathing hard, desperately wanting water and sweating like a pig. I glanced at Checkers while I was running around, as he was lying down with a cold glass of lemonade in his hand. Prick.

"Good boy!" Checkers exclaimed as I slowed down. He opened a tatty notebook and wrote something in between its pages. I wanted to ask what he was doing, but it was best to keep your mouth shut around Checkers. Afterwards, Checkers made me go on the bag for half an hour. It felt quite nice to be actually doing this voluntarily, without any collars or death threats surrounding my thinking. Somewhere behind us, Ida sat watching us, spread out with a packet of Tim Tams resting on her belly. There was something inside me that felt like going asleep the second that I saw her. Even though Ida would never be a supermodel, she did have an air of sexiness around her, and I wondered how she stayed so thin when she ate so much garbage.

"Break time!" Checkers yelled, as I stopped to wipe the sweat off my brow. I went and threw some cold water on my face and down my throat. My muscles were still spasming a bit, but Checkers had that look on his face again. He was up to no good, and I was both dreading and looking forward to what was coming up. As I sat down on the couch next to Ida, I saw Checkers disappear into his gym. I lay back, with Ida putting her legs over me. She was watching some trash talk-show, the kind where they show fat Americans bashing the crap out of other fat Americans for sleeping with their cousin who's really their father, or some crap like that.

"Ida, how can you watch this shit?" I cried. It was like looking at a bunch of Ida clones, except Ida has all her teeth and would stab them in the knees instead of bringing them on national TV. As the show jumped to an ad break, I was surprised. I thought that Ida had been watching a DVD, but apparently we were actually watching a live show.
"Ida. Since when have we had TV here?" I said, looking at her from the side of my face.

"Since I put it in" She replied, getting another smoke and putting it in her mouth. I didn't remember seeing any aerial or satellite dish outside, but that didn't mean much.

"Morty!" Checkers yelled. I stopped talking to Ida before it even started, and ran off to join Checkers in the gym. I didn't want to keep him waiting, not while he held the power of life and death over me. I ran in and stood to attention, feeling like I was in the army. Checkers looked me up and down suspiciously. I don't know what he thought I had hidden underneath all my clothes, but I would soon find out.

Before I had even stepped in the room, I could feel the fury of Checkers' fist crash down on me. I hardly had time to react before I saw Checky looming about me. The next time he aimed a punch, I ducked while looking for something heavy to hit against his head. I curled my hands into fists as I aimed one right at his stomach. I could feel it connect, but Checkers didn't seem too fazed by the whole thing. He just laughed and kicked me in the hip. I swived around and grabbed onto his leg, pulling it down. He tried to punch me, but I moved his leg again, causing him to lose his balance for a few seconds.

Wasting no time at all, I buried my knee in his crotch. I grinned as Checkers let out a strangled squeak. I kneed him several times, just to make sure that he wasn't going to strike back. Checkers stumbled. Sure, it was low, but it's the only thing that works. He looked at me wordlessly, wondering why he even bothered to put the gloves on. I thought he should take up a sport that meant that he learnt how to fight without his gloves on.

Ida walked in. This time, I wasn't scared of her. I was fucking unstoppable.

"Morty, what the fuck are you… OH WOW!!" Ida exclaimed, as she went in the room to pick up the sprawled Checkers off the ground. I looked at my hands and still wondering how the fuck I managed to pull that off.

I picked myself off the floor as Ida stood above me, cackling with delight. I dusted myself off, wondering what exactly was wrong with that woman. Normally teenagers who beat up grown up trained fighters and killers got a little more thanks than this. But Ida was probably drunk as usual and didn't know what was going on.

"C'mon. We're comin' into town. I think you deserve a little treat." I looked at Ida worried and excited about what she had in store for me. There was one thing I could count on though- I wasn't going to be bored that afternoon.

I followed Ida as she moved quickly through the house. She was dressed in her Sunday best singlet. I quickly put on a pair of thongs before she led me out to her car. I noticed that the mismatched doors had all been painted white, which would make it just that little bit harder for people to catch us now.

I stepped in and we drove though the countryside. I squinted as we rattled down the dirt road to try and see if there were any famuilar landmarks.

"What ya lookin' for?" Ida grunted, as she noticed my head darting off. I rushed to open the window as soon as she put a cigarette to her lips. I liked breathing fresh air, and it was bad enough that Ida smelt like a walking brewery without having a smell of stale smoke swimming around her.

I left the question unanswered, as her high-pitched voice started up again. "I figure it's time for you- to put the skills you learnt into the real world" I grinned. I guess this means I'll be learning how to beat up wannabe Mike Tysons or learning how to drink without vomiting. But I did have needs that needed to be fed. Beating up didn't go far enough..

"I know that look" Ida looked at me with a certain leer on her face. "Don't worry. I'm a lot more fun than Checky's shitty exercise program. We turned onto an asphalt road, the first sign that I'd seen of civilisation for several weeks. We drove past a sign with the word "Braidwood" on it. Heheh. Now I knew where I was, meaning it would be easier to plan my escape. If I wanted to. All I had to do now was keep my eyes open to make sure I didn't fall into any Ida-traps and keep my eyes and ears open.