The Killing Sands

by Rick Murcer

  “Listen to me. There’s a better way, but you’ve taken on too much stress to be thinking clearly.”

  The helicopter could be heard lurking in the distance. The beach was barren now; the onlookers had been forced away from the scene, leaving the two of them alone.

  “I have no past,” she said. “I have no future. All I have is right now. Do you understand?”

  “No.”

  “Of course you don’t. You’re Pollyanna with a badge.”

  “Sheila, you need—”

  “I don’t have your stamina for life,” she said, looking down at her protruding abdomen. “It’s funny. I could kill anyone on the planet without ever blinking an eye, but when it came time for me to have the abortion, I couldn’t do it.” She looked up at Barton with tears trickling down her cheeks. “Funny, huh?”

  Barton nodded. He wanted to hug her and tell her he’d make it all right, but she couldn’t make the feeling last. Her eyes became dark and dangerous.

  Sheila glanced over Barton’s shoulder and must’ve spotted the snipers positioned all along the cliffs above. Behind her, a vast barrier, like a giant wall. In front of her, a firing squad. The only thing which gave Barton hope was the fact that she kept stroking her large stomach with her free hand. Subconsciously or not, she felt something for that child.

  Sheila looked down at the waves running in and out between her bare legs. “I could swim for it,” she said, almost a question.

  “No, you’d drown out there.”

  “They don’t know how strong of a swimmer I am. I could go five or ten miles down the shoreline. They’d have a hard time tracking me at night.”

  Barton shook his head. “The Coast Guard would be on top of you before you could go a hundred yards.”

  Now, their eyes met, and she seemed smaller somehow, maybe even younger and more insecure.

  “I don’t want you to go,” Barton said.

  “I don’t have much of a choice,” she said with resignation in her voice. She clenched her lips together as if preparing for a vaccination. “You’re a good man, Michael. A little naïve, but nonetheless . . .”

  Barton sensed a softening in her tone. “Can we talk about this over coffee?”

  She smiled a sad smile.

  Behind him an ambulance siren approached. It seemed to snap the warmth from her tone.

  “That’s my cue,” she said.

  He held out his open hands. “Let me help you. I’ll speak with the DA. I can—”

  That’s where it ended. She raised her gun deliberately and aimed it at Barton. Every finger was wrapped around the handle. Not one was on the trigger. If she wanted to kill him, she would have fired immediately, but she didn’t. She was waiting for the snipers to put her down.

  “Take care of him,” she whispered.

  “No!” Barton yelled.

  The bullets came hard and furiously and seared through her head until there was nothing left. None of the shots hit below her neck. She collapsed onto the wet sand. A hideous sight.

  Barton froze. He was trained to handle anything thrown at him, but now he stood there paralyzed. A stinging surge of vomit spiked up into his mouth, and he spit it out. Precious seconds passed as he stared at her bulging abdomen. The baby. Sheila was now a skintight prison to the child. He rolled Sheila on her back and dragged her away from the rushing waves until he was on dry sand. He pulled her dress up over her stomach, then pulled her panties off and left her naked from the chest down. He felt her belly for any movement.

  None.

  The ambulance screeched to a stop on the street above them. Barton saw Jenson pointing to him on the beach and yelling instructions into his cell phone at the same time. The thump of the helicopters blades seemed to get closer as the two EMTs came rushing out of the emergency vehicle with black bags and followed Jenson’s instructions.

  The EMTs high-stepped it over the thick sand and dropped their bags next to Sheila. When they saw what was left of her head, they seemed to hesitate. Out of instinct, they knelt next to her and felt for a pulse and searched for something to examine. One of them stuck a laryngoscope down a passageway where Sheila’s mouth used to be. Barton recognized him. Nick McLane.

  McLane groped furiously around her chin and neck area. “There’s too much trauma,” he said to the other EMT. “We’ve lost the trach.”

  “What does that mean?” Barton said.

  McLane stopped and looked at Barton, who had both hands on Sheila’s belly.

  “It means we can’t intubate her,” McLane said. He must’ve noticed the blank stare on Barton’s face, so he added, “We can’t get her any oxygen.”

  “Which means?”

  “Which means,” McLane looked down at Sheila’s belly, “she’s not going to make it.”

  “Of course she’s not,” Barton said. “Now let’s cut her open and get this kid out of there.”

  The two techs looked at each other. McLane said, “We can’t.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t.”

  “Look, Mike, we’re EMTs, not obstetricians. We can’t do C-sections.”

  “Look at her,” Barton said. “You can’t save her.”

  Sheila was missing half of her head. Her nose was an open passageway to the lower part of her brain. McLane reluctantly withdrew the laryngoscope from her severed mouth and nodded. He looked at his watch to denote the time of death.

  The helicopter approached from over the cliffs. It hovered much higher this time, avoiding a sandstorm, while it beamed a large searchlight over the scene.

  “All right then,” Barton said. “Let’s get this baby.”

  “I’m telling you,” McLane said. “We have no training for that. The best we can do is get her to the hospital. Hope for the best.”

  “She has no family. There’s nothing to lose.”

  His words had no effect.

  Barton’s hands trembled. He couldn’t feel any movement inside of Sheila’s taut belly.

  “How long can this child survive in there?” Barton said.

  McLane shrugged. “Maybe a couple of minutes.”

  Barton found himself panting. It had been longer than that since Sheila went down.

  He heard the other EMT say, “I’m sorry.”

  Barton’s head spun with unbearable thoughts. “Sorry? About what?”

  “The baby’s gone,” the man said, avoiding eye contact.

  From all sides, sirens approached. Flashing lights swirled around them as police vehicles stormed across the beach from the south. The local cops swarmed the scene while commanding voices barked a perimeter.

  Barton stared at Sheila’s belly. He was just inches away from saving an innocent life, and yet, he might as well be on the moon. The child didn’t deserve to go this far and fall short. He fought back the urge to vomit again. McLane closed his black case and came to his feet.

  “Give me a scalpel,” Barton said.

  McLane didn’t move.

  “Give me a damn scalpel now!” he demanded.

  McLane unzipped his bag and handed Barton a slender package with the number 15 imprinted on the outside. Barton ripped open the paper packaging and grabbed the scalpel by the handle. The spotlight from the helicopter was his only true illumination. He had to move aside to avoid his own shadow from covering the sight. With a shaky hand he pressed the blade to Sheila’s stomach.

  He looked up at the EMT. “Like this?”

  McLane made a half-shrug. “At this point, I don’t think it matters.”

  Barton pressed the blade straight down the length of Sheila’s stomach. He created a long, deep laceration, but he couldn’t see anything but tissue and a straight line of blood.

  “Harder,” McLane said. “You’ve got muscles to get through.”

  A group of uniforms surrounded them, but Barton’s focus was the scalpel twitching between his fingers. There was no time to worry about injuring the baby or fictitious lawsuits. He had to cut deep and fast.

  He plunged the blade
down until he felt it break through a barrier. He yanked hard and tore through tissue and muscle until Sheila’s belly split open like an overripe watermelon. He pulled apart the two sides of her abdomen and fell back as a clear fluid spilled out onto his pant legs and muddied up the sand. That’s when he finally saw the baby huddled up into a ball. Even in the dark confines of his womb, Barton could see the baby boy was blue. He wrapped his right hand behind the baby’s head and slowly pulled the child from his death chamber. The infant was limp, slimy, and unresponsive. The umbilical cord kept him from getting too far from the womb.

  Barton cradled the fragile lump of flesh, but had no idea what to do next. The two EMTs, however, finally had someone to revive. McLane slipped a forceps onto the umbilical cord, and the other EMT cut the cord with bandage scissors. McLane began pinching the child’s toes. The other guy ruffled the boy’s thin hair, trying to get a response. Barton had the sense they were guessing a bit.

  McLane placed a tiny plastic mask that molded around the infant’s nose and mouth and pumped the bag that fed into the bottom of the mask. He was introducing oxygen into the child’s lungs while the other EMT continued to pinch and ruffle.

  Barton felt helpless holding the wilted life in his arms. The poor kid was so close to making it. Barton could feel a tear drip over his left eyelid and trickle down his cheek. His hopes faded with every unresponsive pump of the resuscitator.

  He looked up and realized that there were at least thirty law enforcement officers of varying rank surrounding them and staring at the lost child. The only sound was the constant thumping of the helicopter. Nothing else. A deep, morose mourning spread over the crowd as McLane pumped the bag with less and less enthusiasm. Barton’s eyes were blurry with moisture.

  Then it happened. A high-pitched scream that pierced through the night like the call of a wild animal. Barton wasn’t sure if it was the final wail of a dying infant or the beginning of life right there in his arms. He wasn’t sure, that is, until he heard a juicy sniffle next to him and saw McLane wipe his eyes with the back of his hand.

  “You did it.” McLane choked.

  Barton pulled the child close and watched him grasp for newfound air with every new scream. He was no longer blue, and his limbs moved in concert with his cry. It was the dance of life. He’d never seen anything more beautiful. Barton felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see his partner smiling down at him.

  “He couldn’t be in better hands,” Jenson said.

  They both stared at the beautiful boy with ten beautiful fingers and ten tiny toes, and Barton said, “Welcome to the world, buddy. I’m going to make it a safer place just for you.”

  About the Author of Lethal Connection

  Gary Ponzo has been writing short stories for almost fifteen years and has been published in some highly popular literary magazines, including Amazing Stories and Potpourri. Two of his stories have been nominated for the very prestigious Pushcart Prize. He is also the author of the award-winning novel, A Touch of Deceit.

  His Nick Bracco series includes A Touch of Revenge and A Touch of Greed. Gary is working on the next installment in the series, where FBI agent Nick Bracco uses his mafia cousin to track down terrorists.

  Gary currently lives in Chandler, Arizona, with his wife Jennifer and two children, Jessica and Kyle.

  Bullet River

  by Dani Amore

  ~~~

  For life and death are one,

  even as the river and the sea are one.

  - Khalil Gibran -

  ~~~

  1.

  Just before I found the dead girl in the river, I had been thinking about how strange it was to get a sunburn just a few days after Christmas. Ordinarily, back home in Michigan, I’d be dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and a thick sweater. And I would be fairly pale, with that washed-out, pensive expression people in the Midwest get when they know the worst of winter is yet to come.

  But right now, I wasn’t wearing a sweater. In fact, I wasn’t even wearing pants.

  Instead, I was floating on an inflatable lounge chair, a beer in my hand, my pale skin turning bright red. The best part was the beer was by no means my first. Which meant the pain of the sunburn had yet to actually register. I figured it would hit me tomorrow morning along with any aftereffects of a half-dozen Heinekens.

  I’d been in Florida for a week now, ever since I’d helped a young woman escape from the clutches of one of my former clients: a dangerous and vindictive law firm in Detroit.

  They had sent me after her, claiming she was a lawyer at the firm who had stolen highly sensitive information and was now blackmailing the partners. Turned out not to be the case. The woman was an honest lawyer who the partners had invited to take part in their money-laundering operations. She declined and went to the Feds, but the firm tried to kill her, so she ran.

  Once I figured everything out, I took her away from a couple of bad guys and got her to Arizona. A buddy of mine who lived there was an expert at helping people disappear. The last time I saw her, she was happy.

  The guys back in Detroit, though? They hated the Garbage Collector. That’s my nickname, by the way. At first, I didn’t really care for the name all that much, but after a while, it kind of grew on me.

  So now I’m known in Detroit, Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles as the Garbage Collector. Which means I retrieve people and things that are usually tainted, illegal, or just downright dangerous.

  I have a real name, but I keep that to myself, thank you very much.

  So, not wanting to head back to Michigan and find out what those nasty lawyers might have planned for my homecoming, I got in touch with a friend here in Estero, Florida, who put me in touch with an old Italian couple, also from Michigan, who were heading to Italy for the winter. It hadn’t been a part of their plan—most come to Florida in the winter and go somewhere else during the uncomfortable, blazing heat of summer. But according to my friend, apparently something had happened back in Italy that required their attention, and they wanted some security for their house.

  That’s where I came in.

  The house was very nice. It consisted of three floors. The top was the master suite. The middle level was the living space, which consisted of a great room, kitchen, dining room, and two bedrooms with two bathrooms. There was also a two-story, screened-in lanai with an outdoor sitting area that overlooked the pool below. Just down from the pool were a dock and the Estero River.

  The lower level was the pool, the garage, and a small apartment. I’d agreed to stay in the apartment and provide security for the main house. Apparently, someone(s) had broken in last year. They had vandalized a few rooms, stolen very little, and then helped themselves to the swimming pool for a few days. They had apparently also brought along their dog and let it swim in the pool. The homeowners figured that out when the pump and pool heater stopped working, and they traced the problem to about three pounds of dog hair stuck in the filter.

  So this time, the couple refused to leave their place unattended. What my friend had told them about me, I wasn’t sure. Probably that I was a security professional with an impeccable background. Which was half true.

  The long and short of it? I agreed to spend a few months in Florida, stay in the apartment for free, and receive a monthly stipend for my security services.

  I figured no one back in Michigan would miss the Garbage Collector. It might also be enough time to let the lawyers cool down and reconsider arranging any payback for yours truly. Cooler heads would realize just how bad an idea that could turn out to be.

  I was honest with the old Italian folks, though. Even though there was a private investigator’s license in my wallet with my real name, I didn’t show it to them. I also didn’t tell them I was known as the Garbage Collector and that my specialty was collecting undesirables: people who skipped bail, blackmailers, runaways, thieves, and miscreants in general.

  Not to sound egotistical, but the folks liked me.

  Hey, first time for eve
rything.

  •

  My Heineken was empty, so I paddled to the shallow end of the pool with my free hand, slid off the lounge chair, and used the steps to climb out of the pool.

  The reflection in the apartment’s sliding glass doors caught my eye. Not bad. You couldn’t make out the slight gray at the edge of my temples, and the silhouette of my body was good enough—broad shoulders, narrow waist, dimmed scar on my shoulder, and the old bullet wound in my leg.

  A beauty contest trophy would never be in my future, but I didn’t have a problem with that. I had once rescued a former beauty queen who’d gotten hooked on crack and was being abused by her drug-dealing boyfriend. Her family hired me to bring her back, which I did. She went into rehab and is doing fine now. But in my opinion, that whole beauty-contest industry can really fuck people up.

  The big towel with the University of Florida logo went around my waist, and I padded into the apartment. It was a simple set up: a single great room broken up into a small living room with a couch and television set, and a dining room with a blue dining table and four chairs. The kitchen was next to the dining area. It was small: a fridge, a stove, a dishwasher, and sink. A few cupboards. There was a hallway off the kitchen that led to a small bathroom with a shower, and further on, two bedrooms—one a bit bigger than the other. The smaller bedroom had two twin beds, and the bigger bedroom had a queen.

  I was sleeping in the big bedroom.

  The empty beer bottle went into an empty six-pack case. I pulled two more beers from the fridge, changed out my swim trunks for a pair of cargo shorts, and walked down to the small dock.

  There was a boat hoist but no boat. Just a kayak locked to the dock’s support posts. I worked the combination, sprang the lock, and freed the kayak along with its carbon-fiber paddle.