A story about... Overpopulation © 2000 Damon Diehl, Marg Frey, Greg Gbur, Bryce Graves-Hurst	BRYCE
			GREG	DAMON & MARG
				MARG & DAMON
			MARG	DAMON & GREG
				GREG & DAMON

I was about to step around her, when I noticed the sticky stain pooling around her abdomen.

"Christ. Not again."

I pushed at her shoulder with my toe. She was unresponsive. I knelt down and rolled her over. She retained her fetal position in a stiff and unnatural way. She was dead, and had obviously been dead for some time.

I stroked the clipped fuzz of her head sadly, and then stood up with resignation. "Somebody else's problem," I thought to myself, and then the guilt hit me. I flicked on the lights to a chorus of mumbled curses.

"Alright, which of you assholes did Tina?"

Everyone made incoherent, confused mutterings. The baseball bat was leaning against the doorway, and I picked it up and went along the row of beds, banging the bedframes hard. As I hit each frame, the residents of the bunks jerked more or less awake at the metallic clang the impact produced.

Now everyone was awake, and looking at me, some with raised eyebrows, some with bored, sleepy eyes.

"You all goddamn well heard me. Which one of you assholes did Tina?"

The room was silent for what must have been a full minute. Then, slowly, Alfonz raised his hand and pointed, carefully, towards Deitrich. As I started towards Deitrich, though, bat raised, Deitrich raised his arm and pointed at Hermann. Hermann raised his arm and pointed at another and, slowly, hands were raised all across the room, pointing at one another. The last person to raise his hand pointed back at Alfonz. No two people pointed at the same person.

I stood there, dumbfounded, not sure what to do. Suddenly, the entire room spontaneously burst into laughter. Everyone lowered their arms, sat up, and just laughed themselves silly. And after a while, I joined them.

"Who cares who did her, man?" Hermann breathed between guffaws. "She's dead, we're alive. There's more for us now."

It was hard to argue with that logic. I put the bloodstained bat back against the wall and headed back to bed, suddenly tired again. They were right; there was more for us, now. And it wasn't like the world was running out of people.

Once the last of those idiots stopped chuckling, I slept soundly.