by Brett Riley
Thornapple stood guard over Raymond and McDowell as they searched for Raymond’s gun. They both looked as if they might puke or pass out at any moment. The others needed to get here soon. Thornapple had only one shell left.
Turner found the gun as Frost arrived, carrying several boxes of shells. McDowell managed to stand and take a box. Her hand shook. She and Raymond reloaded. While Frost gave Thornapple some shells, guns fired from the other side of the trucks. Salt struck metal and glass. Raised voices spoke words they could not make out.
I’m going to try and get the rest of this to the others, Frost said.
Thornapple grasped his shoulder. Stay out from between us, and whoop every now and then so we know where you are.
Frost nodded and ran into the gloom.
Then Thornapple saw movement, a grayness, from the corner of his eye. He turned and fired, not bothering to aim, and the Kid winked out again. But from somewhere in the darkness, Adam Garner cried out. Thornapple went cold all over. He had just shot someone.
Stop shootin, goddam it! LeBlanc yelled. You’re hittin us!
Thornapple turned to Raymond and said, Oh, hell.
Thornapple disappeared into the rain, searching for Garner and LeBlanc. McDowell looked pale and wan and scared half to death. Raymond handed her the shotgun and said, My good arm’s about wore out. Can you carry it for a second?
She held it in front of her like it was radioactive, the barrel pointed straight up. Raymond pushed it down.
I don’t know that I can hit the broad side of a barn, especially with one arm, McDowell said.
Don’t even try. Just let me rest a minute.
They set off after Thornapple, Raymond calling out to the others every few feet. They slogged until they found Garner on the ground. Thornapple stood over him, apologizing. The trucker was trying to sit up.
Hey, y’all okay? McDowell asked.
Garner spat out muddy water and winced. Just scratched me. My left side’s on fire.
He struggled to his feet. And just then, behind him, the Kid appeared, his empty eyes glaring. The big man must have sensed it, because he started to turn around.
Duck! Raymond cried.
Then he yanked the gun out of McDowell’s hand.
Frost located Johnstone, who had swung south of the vehicles. She plodded along, wiping water from her eyes. Frost pulled the boxes of shells from under his slicker.
You seen it yet? Frost asked, breathing hard.
Not since I came over this way. What happened over yonder? Who got hit?
I think it was Garner.
Johnstone glanced in that direction as she reloaded. Frost tried to watch her back. He saw nothing but rain and the outline of the Dead House, looming like a hill made of human bones, radiating eeriness and dread. Full dark had fallen, but the nearby streetlights had never come on. Frost shivered, and not just from the rain’s chill. Just then, the downpour slacked off a little. Visibility improved.
Oh, shit, Johnstone said.
Some yards away, Garner stood ankle-deep in muddy water, holding his wounded side. Raymond and McDowell were nearby, the medium carrying Raymond’s gun. Red Thornapple stood in front of them, perhaps three feet from Garner.
The Piney Woods Kid ghost floated directly behind them.
Raymond cried out. Garner started to turn. Raymond yanked the shotgun away from McDowell, nearly toppling her as Thornapple looked on, seeming stunned. McDowell skidded about, flapping her good arm for balance, holding the other one close to her body as Raymond crooked his own injured arm and laid the shotgun on top of his cast, aiming at the Kid. Frost had just enough time to think, He’s going to hit Garner. But Raymond never got a chance. The Kid drew, his speed so blinding that he seemed not to move at all, as if his arm had always been cocked at that same angle, the gun unholstered and fired before Garner could even complete his turn. Frost felt that odd sensation of hearing the report with his mind, like the pulse of a migraine. Garner fell to his knees in front of Raymond and McDowell, clutching his gut, grimacing. Then he flopped face down in the mud. Raymond let loose a strangled cry and sighted in. The Kid stared at him and McDowell, those eye sockets now empty like the barren windows of the Dead House itself.
Frost forgot all about Joyce Johnstone standing right beside him with a loaded shotgun. He dropped the rest of his shells and ran straight at the Kid, shouting, Leave them alone! Look here!
LeBlanc covered the ten yards separating the buildings and the vehicles as everything happened: the Kid’s appearance, Raymond grabbing the gun and nearly knocking McDowell back into the mud, the gut-shot that felled Garner, Frost’s suicide run. The Kid rotated toward the professor as if he were standing on the world’s axis and the rest of them were part of the scenery. Johnstone pursued Frost, who waved his arms and screamed, Here! Leave them alone! Look here!
Raymond made his move, but as he shifted his weight, his feet slipped out from under him. He fired high, skidded backward, and tripped over McDowell. They both crashed into the murk, screaming as they jostled their injured limbs.
The Kid seemed not to notice.
Johnstone tackled Frost from behind. The two of them hit the water on their bellies, Johnstone’s gun skittering away and disappearing as they hydroplaned into Garner. A moment later, another gunshot, followed by Thornapple’s near-hysterical voice: I got you that time, you bastard.
Raymond and McDowell sat up as Frost and Johnstone scrambled to their knees and searched for her shotgun. LeBlanc slid to a stop nearby. Holy shit, he whispered.
Adam Garner moved. He forced himself to his knees, then stood, both hands still holding his gut, blood dripping from his open mouth.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
September 16, 2016, Storm’s Apex—Comanche, Texas
Raymond sat up as Adam Garner staggered to his feet like a zombie. The big trucker’s lips moved as if he were involved in a conversation only he could hear. Thornapple said something to LeBlanc. Then he went to Frost and Johnstone, who were digging through the mud. What had happened to them? From somewhere behind Raymond, McDowell moaned through chattering teeth, and for the first time, he felt the cold in his bones. He scooted backward, his ruined and outraged hand screaming fire and murder, his teeth grinding. Garner trudged along, staring straight ahead, eyes wide, sockets as hollow and haunted as the Kid’s, his shotgun forgotten in the water. LeBlanc followed him as Thornapple helped the apparently unshot Frost to his feet. The professor spat out water and coughed. Thornapple pounded on his back as Johnstone fished out her weapon. I hope the goddam thing still shoots.
Betsy, you see my gun? Raymond asked.
No, she rasped. I’ll feel around for it.
It’s been submerged twice. We might be in big trouble here.
McDowell and Raymond needed help, but LeBlanc had to back Garner. If only he were back in New Orleans, watching the sun set over the river as he enjoyed a glass of red wine whose name he could not spell. All their plans had gone to shit, and now they were scattered from hell to breakfast, no one knowing what to do, because the Kid kept zipping in and out, forcing them to run and dive and shoot in all directions. Everyone was confused and terrified and muddy and cold. Who still carried weapons? Who was defenseless? Only Garner moved with purpose.
LeBlanc fell in beside Garner as he trudged on, step by shuffling step, covering inches at a time. His lips moved.
Adam, LeBlanc said.
Garner did not reply. He did not even turn his head. LeBlanc put his free hand on Garner’s shoulder, but Garner shuffled onward. If he noticed LeBlanc, he gave no sign. He seemed headed for his truck. He coughed, and long ropes of blood-thickened saliva spewed from his mouth, but his pace never wavered.
Good, LeBlanc said. Go to the truck. That’s right. Maybe the hospital—
But when they reached the vehicle doors, Garner kept walking.
&nb
sp; Hurts, he muttered.
LeBlanc turned to the others. Y’all get over here. I think Adam’s takin a shot at the Dead House.
Time seemed to stretch out, every one of Garner’s steps weighty with hope and dread, everyone’s movements furtive and slow, as if the very fact of their motion would bring ruin down upon them. Raymond had found his gun and was struggling to his feet, as was McDowell, who left her sprayer lying in the mud. In the intermittent flashes of lightning, her face still ran pink with blood and rain. They all came together and followed Garner, five feet behind the trucker’s steady pace. If their guns were operable, they had a chance. Thornapple dabbed at his shells and hammer with his shirt.
What are we doin? Johnstone asked.
No idea, LeBlanc said.
Johnstone nodded. Then, too fast for him to shout a warning, the Kid appeared behind Thornapple’s party and shot her in the back of the head.
Thornapple saw LeBlanc’s expression change, his eyes widen, his mouth fall open, and without even turning or hearing the shot or acknowledging the chill running up his back, the newsman knew the Kid had returned. And in the split second before the shot, he knew one of them would die, that he could do nothing to stay the final irrevocability of that fact.
He planted his feet and tried to turn anyway, wanting to look the ghost in whatever passed for its eyes before it happened. But hearing the shot meant he would live at least a little longer, take a few more steps, keep drawing breath, perhaps even make it home again, just as he knew none of it mattered, because the shot, the splash that followed, signaled the end of his life.
Johnstone fell on her face. Thornapple whirled and fired from the hip, screaming without words, his throat burning, his eyes filled with rainwater and tears. Nothing was there. The Kid had vanished again.
Frost was already on his knees, turning Johnstone over. Her eyes were open. Blood trickled from them, from her nose and ears. And as LeBlanc bellowed somewhere near the vehicles, Thornapple turned away and vomited, somehow managing to hold on to his gun, hating himself for it.
Garner trudged on through the gruelish mud, the drizzling rain. Sheet lightning flickered in the clouds. Thornapple moaned and sniffled as he fell in beside the rest of them. He sounded like a wounded cow, lowing and stomping, lowing and stomping. LeBlanc wished he had the words. I hope somebody covers him. I hope Ray can still shoot with that hand and waterlogged shotgun. McDowell was hurt, and Frost had no experience with guns. They were running out of people. Yet there was no sign of the Kid, as if the specter understood the gut shot would be enough. And it would. Garner coughed blood, his hands clenching his abdomen. The internal organs would now be so much macabre soup. It was both mystery and miracle that Garner could walk.
They reached the rear of Garner’s truck. Thornapple stared straight ahead, his eyes bulging and unblinking even in the misting rain, his jaw clenched. He lowed deep in his throat and gripped his shotgun as if he were strangling it.
Garner grunted as he opened the tailgate and dug under the blue tarp, pulling out a five-gallon gas can with one hand, the other still pressed against his midsection. He opened his mouth and spat out black blood, which splattered on the tarp and rolled into the truck bed like thinned tar. Then Garner turned and marched toward the Dead House.
Jake, LeBlanc yelled. We’ll need ammo.
Raymond, Frost, and McDowell had not left Johnstone’s body. It seemed cruel, inhuman, to abandon her to the mud. Frost had never seen a gun fired in anger before yesterday, and now four of his compatriots had been shot, two fatally. All the incidents had happened in seconds, but with Johnstone, it seemed even more sudden. He could scarcely credit the inert thing lying in the mud was the same woman he had spoken to only moments ago. Was he in shock? Raymond shivered. McDowell swayed on her feet. Raymond handed her his gun and bent down, taking one of Johnstone’s arms in his good hand. He looked up at Frost, who made no move to help.
Come on, Raymond said. We can’t just leave her like this.
Ray, McDowell said. Raymond did not look at her. His eyes were fixed on Frost’s, his jaw set.
Ray, there’s no time, Frost said. The others—
I said we can’t fuckin leave her like this!
Frost recoiled. McDowell stared at Raymond. When no one bent to help, Raymond tried to hook his casted arm under Johnstone. He tugged, but the body did not move. He fell to his knees and grabbed her again, dragging her toward the parking lot, inch by inch.
McDowell turned to Frost and nodded.
All right, said Frost. We won’t leave her.
Together, Raymond and Frost dragged Johnstone’s corpse toward the concrete lot. McDowell followed, carrying Raymond’s gun.
Then LeBlanc yelled something about needing ammo. Frost looked up. The others were marching on the Dead House.
Frost glanced at Raymond, who seemed to have noticed none of this. He kept tugging on Johnstone, his eyes far away, his teeth clenched against his own pain and outrage. The lot seemed miles away.
I can’t, Frost said.
He dropped Johnstone and took the shotgun from McDowell. It felt alien in his hands. He had seen Johnstone feed shells into the little slot on the side. Could he do that under fire? Frost pumped the gun once. A perfectly good shell ejected and spun off into the mud, but if it worked like he thought it did, another had taken its place. Good.
Raymond looked at him with haunted eyes.
Sorry, Frost said. The others need us more than she does. We have to let her go.
Let her go? Raymond asked.
Frost did not answer. He ran toward the vehicles. When he reached them, he opened the rental’s trunk and grabbed three boxes of ammo.
Raymond and McDowell dragged Johnstone’s body halfway to the slab before their backs and abused muscles gave out. They had reached the paved walkway, so they laid the body face up in the shallowest of puddles. Together they looked back at the scene—the vehicles, the Dead House, the others following Garner’s excruciating pace. Frost had left them behind to provide Johnstone whatever respect they could. He had done it for the best of reasons, but he had still abandoned them. Raymond wanted to smash his teeth in.
Then he looked at Johnstone’s face—misshapen, bruised. Nothing had ever looked so dead—not even Marie when the machines stopped pumping, and her chest ceased its shallow rise and fall, rise and fall. He had watched Marie waste away under the harsh fluorescent lights of that awful hospital room, her arms and legs turning to sticks, her hair thinning, her cheeks hollowing until she looked like a skeleton with a sheet thrown over it. Bedsores, catheters, bedclothes full of shit. And it had been his fault. The accident had put her in that bed, but he had let her lie there because of his own cowardice, his fear of being alone. Because he could not let her go.
Now it was happening again. He stood vigil over someone who no longer needed him. Fiercely guarding what might as well have been stone. Here beside him was Betsy McDowell, living flesh and blood and soul, still in danger. Frost had already figured it out: The dead need no help. Now the professor walked beside Darrell LeBlanc, Raymond’s partner and best friend, still alive. Red Thornapple, insane with grief, but still alive. Even Garner moved forward, despite every outrage the Kid had visited upon him. Everyone moving but Raymond, everyone clinging to life while he wallowed in death.
No, he whispered. He forced himself to rise and wiped snot from his nose.
Get to the road, he said to McDowell. Not much you can do without a weapon.
I ain’t gonna leave y’all, McDowell said.
No. But you’re gonna go where the Kid can’t follow. If we die, get Roen and his boys. Maybe they can finish this.
He trotted away. She did not even have time to protest.
McDowell watched him go. Her back ached, and her arm throbbed, and he was right. She had no weapon, no energy. But she could not bring herself to leave.
> The hell with it. Roen and them know the plan.
She stood and ran after Raymond.
The others stopped long enough to reload. Garner trudged onward, slow and implacable. No one seemed concerned he would reach the Dead House without them. More likely, he would fall over dead first.
LeBlanc looked past Raymond as he arrived, eyes widening. What’s she doin here?
Raymond glanced over his shoulder and sighed. McDowell was trailing behind him. Whatever she wants, I reckon. To Frost, he said, You sure you can handle that?
Frost held the gun as if it might turn of its own volition and shoot him in the face.
No, Frost said. But Betsy and Adam are hurt. There’s nobody else, unless you can do it.
Garner shuffled on, the gas can slapping his thigh. The group got moving again. LeBlanc and Thornapple flanked the big trucker. The newsman walked backward, his bulging eyes on the lot. I hope he keeps it together until we get this done, Raymond thought. Especially if—oh, shit. Oh, damn. Nobody’s got any salt. He turned and splashed back to the car. The trunk lid was still partially open. He lifted it and grabbed two five-pound boxes, holding them against his body with his forearm just as someone’s gun roared. Raymond stacked another box on top of the first two and ran, not bothering to shut the trunk.
Garner stopped at the door, regarding it as if it were a painting in the Louvre. He swayed, almost tottering over, but Thornapple did not care. The world existed five feet away, seen and heard through a veil. He floated in his own pocket universe filled with red pain and augurs of loss. The ghost blinked into existence; LeBlanc fired; the ghost vanished; salt struck the Dead House wood, pockmarking it. The sounds were muted, unimportant. Even his thoughts seemed distant, like muttered conversation. The ghost could have snapped its nebulous fingers and sent them all to the red and boiling surface of Mercury for all he cared. It had shot Joyce Johnstone in the back of her skull, executed her like a mob hit man might strike down a stool pigeon in some old movie. She had fallen in the mud. The shitty, flooded lot of a diner had been the last sight she had seen on God’s Earth. And now all Red Thornapple wanted to do was shoot the Kid, and then do it again, and again. Somewhere in his mind, a voice reminded him he could shoot from now until Doomsday, and it would solve nothing, but that voice was rational, and he wanted nothing to do with logic. He wanted the Kid’s meat and gristle.
