The Terror of Living

by Urban Waite

  He felt the cold come into his shoes. He was shivering, caught out in this cold without the proper clothing. Drake looked up at the house and then moved off again. His father hadn't told him one thing he could use. He didn't know what he had expected. An answer? Part of him felt the same way he'd always felt, but a little part of him said it was all right. It was how it was, and it was all right.

  Hunt was probably dead. Nora, too. The killer gone. The heroin gone. All of it gone. Nothing left but the gray darkness to guess at.

  He wrapped his arms around himself and walked a little farther along the row of cars, making fresh tracks in the snow, keeping the house in view across the street. He noticed a shadow, thick as molasses, on one of the snow-covered Car windows as he passed, like oil under sawdust. He came closer, looked at the shadow on the window, blue black with the overhead halogens.

  There was something seeping from the inside of the car window out through a hole and onto the fresh-fallen snow, and he put his finger to it and brought it close to his face. The lights overhead made the liquid on his finger a strange, otherworldly color. "Shit," he said, dropping to the ground with his hands out in the snow, feeling the cold.

  Drake tried the handle, and the dead officer slumped half out of the car, his fingers resting on the ground next to Drake. A bullet hole in his head, neat as if the hole had been drilled through from one side to the other, spiderwebbed glass and the shattered hole where the bullet had come through and disappeared out into the snow-covered world.

  He couldn't see the face, didn't want to. The man just lay there on the ground with the snow falling and melting on his skin. Drake checked the pulse. Nothing. The skin was still warm to the touch, snowflakes melting into water droplets on the dead man's skin.

  Inside he found the other man, neck gaping, blood down his front and dried onto his shirt collar. Deep odor of blood and the human body hanging in the car. Drake pushed the man back in his seat and reached through until he could get the shotgun out from between their seats. He checked the cartridges, five slugger shells, big and solid enough to stop a bear. He sat panting against the side of the car, his breath heavy and a nervous sweat beginning to dampen his clothes.

  He looked back up at the house, the same naked bulb hanging in the basement, and somewhere toward the back another light, an orange glow, just visible through the front curtains.

  GRADY HAD HUNT AND NORA SEATED IN THE KITCHEN. There was a dead Vietnamese man in the middle of the floor with his neck slit so far open they could see the back of the man's tongue, broken pieces of a white ceramic bowl spread everywhere around the kitchen floor, and a burnt skillet of garlic on the stove. Grady sat in a chair and looked across at them, holding a small boning knife in his hand. Nora was tied by the hands with a length of butcher's twine Grady could see had come from his own basement. Hunt smoldered in his seat.

  With his free hand, Grady brought out a syringe from his bag and put it between his teeth, taking the cover off the needle. He brought up a bottle of the morphine, and with the bottle held between his legs, he drew the liquid up into the barrel. After clearing the air bubbles, he injected himself and felt his head swoon. When he looked up, Hunt was staring at him. Grady still held the knife.

  The Vietnamese were dead, and the lawyer was dead. Grady was trying to decide what to do. All that was left worth any money was the heroin. Hunt's half wasn't on him. Grady guessed it was hidden away somewhere, some deal Hunt had hoped to work out with the Vietnamese.

  From the first girl, he had about sixty pellets of heroin in his bag, and not a clue what to do with them. He didn't know how much they were worth, but he could guess the amount was enough to warrant all the trouble he'd been through. He looked across at Hunt, then looked away.

  The morphine was beginning to work on him again. He felt as he had before, unstoppable. He wanted to yell, he wanted to walk through walls, to plunge his fist through glass and walk on water. He looked over at the dead man on the floor, then at Hunt. "You ever wonder what it's like?" Grady asked, his vision swinging back to the dead man on the floor. "What's it like over there?" Grady asked the dead man. He waited for a response. The man stared up at the ceiling, a bloom of red down the skin of his neck, his eyes searching the heavens for an answer.

  "What did you expect?" Hunt said.

  Grady turned and looked at Hunt. He was having a hard time focusing, the outline of Hunt's face appearing blurred. "Get up," he said.

  "What?"

  "I said, get up. Both of you get up."

  Nora began to snivel a little, and when she didn't quiet, he crossed the room and hit her with his open palm.

  "Grady," Hunt said, his voice going feral.

  Grady was standing over Nora, ready to hit her again. " Grady' what?" His attention focused on Hunt now. "Thanks to you, everything is fucked. Can't you see that?" He wanted to slice Hunt's face off. He wanted to do cruel things with no real purpose, things he knew he would enjoy. "Get up," he said again.

  Hunt stood.

  Grady hit him hard across the face four times in quick succession. Hunt was still standing, his head merely rocking back after each blow, the blood coming now and dripping in streams from his nose and off his chin and pattering on the floor.

  "You're going to show me where that heroin is, or I'm going to carve the two of you up and sell you for your organs. Do you understand?"

  Hunt wiped the blood away from his nose with his forearm and stood looking at Grady. He was shamed and Grady knew it. Beaten down in front of his wife. Hunt mumbled something under his breath.

  "What did you say?" Grady asked.

  "I said I'd take you."

  DRAKE BROUGHT OUT HIS PHONE AND CALLED DRISCOLL. The snow was still falling and his shoes were wet with it. "Driscoll," he said, speaking close to the phone, his eyes still on the house down the street. "Your guys are dead, and I'm sitting out here with their bodies, watching this house, and I think Grady is in there."

  "Slow down," Driscoll said. "Where are you? Wait-you went over there?"

  "Listen to me," Drake said. "These guys you had watching the house are dead. They're dead, Driscoll." He was squatting with his back against the side of the car, almost hysterical, the bad situation he'd landed in beginning to dawn on him. His voice was only a whisper, spitting into the phone, the shotgun propped between his legs.

  "Don't do anything," Driscoll said. "Just stay put. I'm on my way over there now. Just stay right where you are and don't do a thing."

  Across the street the door of the house opened, and a man walked out onto the porch carrying a bag of some sort. Drake held the phone to his chest, whatever else Driscoll had to say lost in that moment. The man on the porch swung his head down the street toward the unmarked patrol car, and Drake dropped down. He held his breath, watching the snow fall, watching it drift down, feeling each flake as it landed on his face, everything clear.

  He chanced a look back over the hood of the car in time to see Hunt and Nora, her hands bound, coming down the stairs with the man close behind them. Driscoll was saying something on the open phone, and Drake eased it closed until there was no sound but the scuffle of footsteps across the street. With his elbows he positioned the shotgun over the hood of the car and found a clear sight. He took a breath and felt it go down inside him, felt it fill his lungs and his lungs give it back. Everything in slow motion, snowflakes falling, far off the sounds of wet, snow-covered streets, a plane miles overhead angling in for a landing.

  GRADY DIDN'T KNOW WHERE SILVER LAKE WAS, OR WHY any cop from there would be yelling at him from across the street, telling him to throw down the bag. He looked at the knife bag in his hand. He was feeling the bullet wound now. Somewhere along the way he had stretched it too far, had pulled it open, and he could feel the blood, warm on his stomach, slipping down along the skin and into his pants. He stumbled for a second and then recovered. His thoughts came to him in a jumble, rolling one over the other, like loose rocks tumbling down a hillside with no sense of contro
l. For a second he thought perhaps this cop was something of unrelated interest - a tab he'd forgotten to pay in some country diner, a missed parking ticket - but then the man called Hunt's name, and Grady knew it had something more to do with the latest string of unfinished events.

  The cop had yelled for them to stop, and they had. All three of them, Grady, Nora, and Hunt, stopped there in the dusky half- light of the streetlamps. There didn't appear to be anyone else around, just the single cop across the street and no one else.

  The knife bag dropped from Grady's hand, revealing the retracted stock of the AR-15.

  "Don't," the cop yelled.

  Grady came on with the gun, muzzle flash going, the smell of gunpowder and the hot bullet casings falling to the snow-covered street, steam catching in the wind.

  ALL HE COULD HEAR WERE THE BULLETS GOING PAST at a million miles an hour, the car shaking. Drake kept his head down, cradling the shotgun. A bullet hit one of the tires, and he felt that side of the car drop, followed by the sound of glass breaking and falling everywhere along the hood and all over Drake's shoulders and head. It was like some hideous carnival ride, Drake too scared to rise up or even move out of the way as Grady came on with the AR-15 switched over to full automatic.

  Another tire shot and the car angled dangerously away from him and he felt the shift with his back. He could feel the bullets getting closer. Any minute, he expected the muzzle of the AR-15 to pop over the top and Grady soon to follow, hot death from above. He hadn't known what he was doing. He'd just gone ahead and done it. Hoped that it would all work out and that someone like Grady would just stop, raise his hands, and throw the weapons down.

  Fuck, Drake thought. It was him or Grady, and he knew he'd be no use to Hunt or Nora if he was dead. He cradled the shotgun, pumped it once, then put it over the hood without looking and squeezed the trigger. Time slowed, a brief hope that Nora and Hunt had the sense to take cover. Then, as if all of it had been playing on a television screen, the film reel sped back into focus, everything on fast-forward. Big booming of the shotgun barrel. The recoil sent his hand back over the edge of the hood and the gun to him and he shucked a shell. Grady returned fire, bullets screaming over Drake's head. Drake put the barrel back up over the hood and fired again. Sound of aluminum car siding buckling, glass shattering. He didn't have a clue what he was firing at. Couldn't see a thing, just hoped that Nora and Hunt had known to get out of the way.

  HUNT FIGURED HE HAD ABOUT A TWENTY-SECOND start before Grady noticed they were gone. An inch of snow had fallen since he'd limped up the stairs and Grady had opened the door to find him waiting there on the porch.

  Now on the street, with Grady's attention on Drake, Hunt took Nora under the arm and ran, almost dragging her after him, the bullet wound in his leg pulsing and the blood coming now. His legs were pumping up the street, feet moving, the sound of automatic gunfire behind him, bullets tearing through car siding, through house boards, clunking their way into wooden telephone poles. He ran, his feet slipping through the snow, off one curb and up the next, the big diesel parked at the end of the block and his only hope that they would make it.

  He didn't have time to think about the kid back there, Drake, the deputy he'd recognized by sight. The same stupid kid, half his age. The deputy had saved him, he knew that. Hunt knew he and Nora would have been dead as soon as Grady got the heroin. Drake had saved them.

  GRADY SAW THE BIG SHOTGUN GO UP OVER THE HOOD like some demented ship breaking through a giant wave, up and then over, sliding down onto the hood. Grady turned, threw himself over the nearest car, and came crashing down onto the ground as the first boom of the shotgun came tumbling through the line of cars. Pain all through him. The dry ache of the wound in his stomach, like he was hollow, like there was nothing left there to give. He sat and wiped the snow off his face and jacket. His hand felt like a lead weight. He put the muzzle of the AR-15 over the hood of the car and squeezed the trigger. Car alarms rattled on with the vibrations of the bullets, the sound almost deafening. Another booming of the shotgun, the cars rattling again. Grady looked around, but Hunt and Nora weren't there.

  He waited, looked up over the car, and, when he didn't see the cop, went at a near run, pinched over with his legs going, following Hunt and Nora's fresh tracks in the snow. He could see them up there in the street, dipping from one light to the next. Grady stumbled, slamming hard into the side of a parked car but still moving. He was having a hard time focusing his vision. He'd lost the knife bag somewhere, his final clip loaded into the belly of the AR-15, and him running, holding the gun with both hands, his legs pumping after them, his side on fire, and the pain of his belly wound coming now and jabbing at him with every stride.

  DRAKE WAITED, GATHERING HIMSELF FOR ANOTHER look over the top of the car. He clutched the shotgun in his hands and breathed in. Time seemed to slow, everything brightening, snowflakes falling, ashy light, the sound of a car on a snow- covered road some distance away, adrenaline-filled senses seeding his mind.

  The phone in his pocket began to vibrate. He didn't pick up. Nothing was happening. No shots fired back at him, nothing. He popped his head over the hood and looked at the street. No one was there, just the line of cars covered in a thin layer of snow and busted up by his shotgun. He kept his head down and crossed the street, broken glass in the snow, no blood, empty AR-15 casings dropped everywhere. An engine started up down the block, and there was the sound of the machine gun on it immediately.

  WHEN GRADY REACHED THE SECOND BLOCK, HE SAW they were already in the truck. He steadied himself, snow falling and landing on his eyelashes, the cold wind at his back. The truck engine started and he took aim, his first cluster of bullets tearing down along the line of cars and skimming across the side of the truck, bullets playing on the metal bodies of cars like firecrackers.

  He was too far away for anything but a lucky shot, the truck moving away too quickly for a shot with the scope, his head swimming. He pushed himself up and took aim again, this time letting the bullets go where they might. He didn't care anymore, didn't care whether he got the heroin or not. He just wanted to be done with it. He wanted Hunt dead. Wanted him dead and nothing more to do with the whole bloody business.

  The truck tore out onto the street. A cloud of snow dragged out behind the tires, the wheels spinning. One last volley of bullets, sparks rising off the metal as the truck sped on. Grady stepped out onto the street with the gun going, back windows breaking on cars. Hunt's truck fumbled in the snow, then spun around the corner, Hunt's face visible for a moment in profile as he took the turn, the big wide-bodied truck fishtailing, and then he was gone.

  HUNT PULLED TO THE SIDE OF THE ROAD. THE AIRPORT lay on one side, an empty four-lane road out ahead of them. Barbed-wire fence as far down the street as he could see. He checked Nora for bullet wounds. "Are you bleeding?" he said. "Are you hit anywhere?" He was frantic. Nora didn't even have enough time to respond as his hands played over her.

  "I'm okay," she managed to say. She gave him a look and he could see the cut on her lip where Grady had slapped her. He touched it with his hand, the blood dry and smooth on her lip, a small swollen bump over her teeth. There were several more welts along her forehead and cheek, he couldn't say from what. Nothing seemed to be bleeding. She turned her back and he untied the twine from around her wrists.

  There was still the soreness in his calf. He'd hit the gas hard, worked the brake and slipped the transmission into drive. It had all hurt, but he hadn't registered it at the time, his bad leg bracing for everything, torn muscles tensing. He was sure he was bleeding beneath the bandage, wound ripped open by all the excitement.

  Behind, in the rearview, the streetlights continued down for a mile without breaking. They were parked next to a long fence that ran the length of the airport. Nothing but airplane hangars and metal containers to look at.

  Hunt put his arm back over the seat and watched the road behind them. Nothing came out of the darkness, just the night back there and the fal
ling snow. He'd seen Drake, shotgun out, running up on Grady as he'd fired on them. It was the last thing he'd seen before his truck took the corner.

  Somewhere above, he could hear an airplane circling. He leaned over in the cab of the truck, took the Browning from the glove compartment, and held it in his hand.

  "It's done now, isn't it?" Nora said, her breath in steamy tendrils.

  Hunt looked down at the gun. There was about ninety thousand dollars' worth of heroin to get back to. Ninety thousand dollars he didn't want a thing to do with. He looked over at Nora. "The horses are up an old Forest Service road on the east side of the Cascades," he said. He gave her the mile marker and made her memorize it. He told her where to find the trailer, how much he thought each horse was worth, and who to contact about them.

  "Why are you telling me this?" Nora said. Night out there, and the darkness closing in on them, snow tapping against the window as if it wanted to get in.

  Hunt looked down at the Browning. He looked at his hands for a long time. "The heroin is hidden in the stables, in the little cubby under the loose wooden board."

  Again, she wanted to know why - why was he telling her this? He wouldn't answer. "It's done, isn't it?" she asked. "Please tell me this is all done."

  DRAKE JOGGED FORWARD IN A STATE OF DISBELIEF. He held the shotgun in his hands. There was the sound of sirens in the near distance. He knew this would be Driscoll, though he didn't know how far off he was or if he would arrive in time to help.

  Nora and Hunt were gone, Grady just standing there in the night with the snow falling all around him as he listened to the oncoming sirens. Drake raised the shotgun and called for Grady to throw his gun down. Grady took one half turn toward Drake and then he was off, running as best he could through the snow. Drake fired and missed, the spatter of the slugger shell, big as a meteor strike, on a nearby cement wall. A gust of snow obscured Grady's running figure. The landing lights of a plane overhead illuminated Grady's profile before the plane turned toward the airport, then nothing again.