Fatal Option

by Chris Beakey

  He watched as April’s Sorrento rounded the bend, then turned away from the window, knowing he had no more than three minutes before she pulled into the driveway.

  He stepped toward the door that led from the driveway to the kitchen, listening for the sound of her footsteps on the side landing and the twist of her key in the lock, then stood as still as a statue as she stepped in and stooped down to untie her snow-covered boots.

  “Hey,” he said.

  She gasped and turned and looked up into the barrel of the gun, her eyes widening for an instant before he shot her in the face.

  She fell backwards, her skull hitting the hardwood floor with a thump. He stared down at her as the blood spread out from beneath her head, and then lightly kicked the side door shut.

  He left her there, on the kitchen floor, then reached into her purse and took her wallet and pulled the diamond ring given to her by her mother from her right hand. He took the jewelry from the box on top of her dresser next, and then did a quick sweep of the second bedroom used as an office, shuffling the contents of drawers and file cabinets in what approximated a rushed effort to find more valuables.

  Satisfied that he had set the scene to look like a random break-in, he slipped back into the main room, intent on slipping out the side door. And then he glanced at the floor-to- ceiling window that offered the view of the valley, and saw the rise of inky black smoke rising from the road below.

  Sara opened her eyes to darkness, and slowly began to make out the blurred, vibrating shapes above her. She blinked—thought where?—and then recognized the frames of car windows high above the cramped, dark space where she was lying. She breathed in musty smells—motor oil and dirt—and realized then that she was on the narrow floor of the back seat in Kieran’s truck and the truck was moving fast.

  She swallowed, felt a raw pain in her windpipe, and brought her hands to her throat as she remembered the chokehold and the blow to the side of her face that had knocked her out.

  And then she remembered the weapon in the pocket of her skirt.

  She shifted her weight and felt the hard molded plastic of the handle through the fabric as a sudden centrifugal force bumped her head against the door. She brought her hands up and pushed against it, managed to sit partially up on the floor and got a view of the truck rounding a curve. The front end of the truck was lower than the back.

  Driving down the mountain, she thought. Too fast—

  She saw the way it would happen: Kieran smashing the gas pedal to the floor, the truck going airborne, shooting over the cliff and into creek at the bottom of the gorge; imagined that she screamed “NO!” as she gripped the top of the front seat and abruptly pulled herself all the way up and raised the weapon.

  Kieran met her eyes in the rearview mirror and hit the brake, throwing her forward as she brought it down. She felt the puncture of the metal point in his leather coat and heard him grunt as the rear of the truck began to slide sideways; glimpsed the wide view of the gorge and then the woods rushing by as he yanked the wheel to the right—an overcorrection that sent them into a full spin. The left rear tire slipped over the edge of the roadway as his arm flew up and knocked her backward.

  There was a long moment of weightlessness as the truck left the pavement and the trees rushed at the windows, and then a crash of metal and glass that slammed her back against the floor.

  For several seconds she could barely move. Her right shoulder ached from the collision and there was a sharp pain at the base of her neck as she turned her head. The air in the truck felt colder and she heard the moan of the wind as she gripped the top of the front seat and slowly pulled herself up again.

  The windshield was cracked and the front passenger side window had been shattered. Kieran was motionless, his head against the window frame, his shoulder against the door.

  She looked out the windows to her left. The truck had hit a tree head-on and come to rest half on and half off the road. At the moment of impact she had been below the windows and had been slammed into the door. Kieran had been fully upright and had been thrown headlong into the windshield.

  She took the first wavering step out of the truck, felt the slickness of the pavement, and steadied herself with a grip on the door. The top of Kieran’s face was covered in blood, bright red against his pale skin.

  She looked down at the pockets of his coat, thinking of his phone. She reached forward and touched his chest and felt a tingling surge of energy that swept up her arm and shot like a pinball into her heart as she stared down at him.

  Have to help him.

  But he was going to kill you.

  Her feelings clashed as she felt the bulge in his coat and traced the shape of a gun and looked at Kieran’s wrist. He was still wearing his braided bracelet, identical to Aidan’s. The thought sent a shaky wave of emotion through her as she imagined Aidan, lying bloodied in Kieran’s arms.

  Both of them dying.

  Because of you.

  Tears sprang to her eyes as she leaned back down, her thoughts and her emotions clashing again as she listened for the sound of breathing. Hearing nothing, she pressed her fingers to Kieran’s neck, felt a faint pulse, then put her palm against the side of his head and wrapped her right arm around his upper body.

  She lifted his head carefully, and pulled him gently away from the jagged glass. There were tiny shards embedded in the wound, and his blood covered her hands and ran in rivulets down her arms as she shifted him onto his back on the front seat. She checked his pulse again and then opened his mouth. There was a moment of indecision—a memory of her volunteer training at the nursing home—and then she had her mouth over his, the tip of their tongues briefly touching before her first forceful exhalation. Then after two more she checked his pulse again, feeling nothing now, her own heart pounding as she scooted back and positioned herself over his chest, the heel of her left hand pressing against his breastbone, her right hand pressing down on the left, her jaw clenched and her own breathing halted as she began the compressions, mentally counting to ten and then losing count as her mind told her you’re losing him…

  She heard her own soft, plaintive moan.

  And her pleading voice “Please…Kieran…”

  And then she heard a pop from the front of the truck, and saw the spike of flame rising from the crumpled hood.

  Kieran was weightless, suspended amid flickering light and looking down at his body lying across the seat of the truck. Pain pierced his forehead, sharp as a spike in his skull.

  He watched as the light began to fade, and as random thoughts swirled through his mind.

  You’re dying.

  Like you wanted.

  Aidan…

  Suddenly he was blind, eyes wide in search of his brother but seeing nothing in the pitch darkness. He imagined that he called out:

  I’M HERE. TO SAVE YOU.

  He heard nothing, but felt a shrinking sensation in his arms and a bending in his knees, and the sudden presence of solid walls around him.

  The closet.

  A flash of bright white light and a blast of cold air and the sight of Nurlene towering over him came next. Her body was solid this time, without the translucent glow. And she was holding a claw hammer at her side.

  He screamed. His voice had a strange sound—and a high-pitched, childish tone. He looked down and saw himself as a young boy, wearing nothing but loose, white underwear, and watched as blue-black bruises appeared on his tiny legs, and as a shard of broken bone poked through the skin of his right arm.

  You, then.

  You, now.

  Broken, beaten.

  The thoughts rushed through his consciousness as the walls closed in, pining his arms to his sides, crushing his lungs, tight as a vise.

  He managed to look up once more as the hammer came down, the claw cleaving his skull, splitting it like the rind of a melon as
Nurlene stood over him, her grim triumphant, telling him—

  This is death.

  Only this.

  He imagined that he screamed again as the light began to flash like a strobe, and then suddenly he was staring up at Sara instead of Nurlene. He felt her tongue and a forceful breath into his mouth and a hard pressure against his heart.

  And then he heard her voice: real, alive:

  Please…Kieran.

  Glimmers of a calmer light brought him tactile sensations: the tip of his tongue between Sara’s lips, a memory of her breasts in his hands, and then a hard, rhythmic pressure on his chest, a motion that began to push the darkness farther away as her face took on a clearer shape above him, her long black hair falling forward, a feathery tingle against his neck, her hands over his heart, bringing him back.

  The flames under the hood were spreading amid billowing clouds of gray smoke. Sara felt the heat on the side of her face and coughed as the smell of burning rubber filled her lungs. She envisioned the gas tank exploding an instant before she felt the sudden movement in Kieran’s chest. She looked down at his face and started to say his name again as his eyelids fluttered and stilled, and then caught sight of a vague light in her peripheral vision.

  Help, she thought, as the sound of an approaching car drew her attention to the road.

  Marco saw the glow on the roadway the moment he started around the curve. The Hummer had wide Pirelli tires but there was a sudden absence of traction on the slick surface when he hit the brake. The Hummer spun in a 180-degree arc toward the burning pickup truck that blocked the road and cleared it by inches as it came to a stop.

  He sat still for several seconds, feeling stunned by the shock of the near-collision with the burning truck in front of him. He had started to regain the rest of his sight in the eye that had been blackened by his father’s beating, but there was a halo around everything in his vision as he looked into the rearview mirror. A girl was running from the burning truck, her gait awkward and rushed, long black hair blowing across her pale face.

  Sara Porter.

  She slid on the ice but kept her footing as she reached the driver’s side window. Her mouth was moving, mouthing his name. There was blood on her face—covering her cheeks, mouth, and chin, and it stuck to the glass when she touched the window.

  He dazedly reached down and opened the door.

  She stepped back. Wet snow clung to her black hair and her teeth were chattering from the cold.

  “Marco, you have to hhh-help me…That’s Kieran O’Shea’s truck. He’s hurt.”

  He slowly swung his legs around and stepped out of the Hummer and looked at the truck again. The front end was completely engulfed, and there were popping and pinging sounds coming from underneath the crumpled hood.

  “He’s lying on the front seat.” Sara grabbed his forearm. “I tried to pull him out but he’s too heavy.”

  He looked past her, toward the road that would take him the rest of the way to April’s house, where April was waiting after telling him she wanted to go with him to give himself up for the dead women.

  He had had a different idea, which was why he had brought the Taser with him.

  Sara tightened her grip on his arm. He shook her off, but his mind flashed on a memory of her on a warm day in the fall; the shape of her long, smooth legs and the curve of her ass.

  And knew what was going to happen.

  He touched his forehead, gave her a blank look, as if he was searching for his bearings. The inside of the Hummer was still warm from the drive. Do her here, he thought as he stepped out onto the icy road and reached into his right hand pocket and grasped the Taser.

  Still dazed by the collision, he pulled it out a bit slower than he intended and held it down at his side.

  Sara’s eyes widened as she caught sight of it. “What…?”

  He brought it up and pointed it at her chest, but with a sudden swift move she swatted his hand and knocked it to the ground.

  She froze and stared down at the weapon as if she was stunned by what she had done.

  And then she ran—with flailing arms and unsteady legs, going no more than ten feet before she lost her footing and fell on the icy roadway. He caught up to her just as she stood up; got his arm around her neck and threw her to the ground again as headlights appeared from the upward slant of the road.

  Sara scrabbled backwards away from him as the gunmetal gray car came to a stop.

  The driver’s side door opened and his stepfather got out. Joseph looked past him, toward the burning truck in the distance and the Hummer across the road and the Taser on the roadway, and at Sara as she slowly stood up and started backing away, her hands outstretched.

  And then Joseph looked at him, his expression radiating disgust as he took a step forward, his hands and fingers flexing, his legs set slightly apart in the fighter’s stance.

  Marco stared back at him, knowing he wouldn’t throw a punch in front of Sara Porter but suddenly wishing that he would.

  “Go ahead.” His voice was a taunting whisper. “Show her.”

  Joseph shook his head, too smart to strike him then and there. Marco stared back at him, the pain pulsing through his wounded eye as he thought of the beating an hour before; the battered furniture in his bedroom and the jagged crack in his mirror and the drying blood on the basement floor.

  And then without another thought he ducked his shoulder and slammed it into Joseph’s gut.

  They crashed to the pavement together; Joseph grunting as the breath was knocked from his lungs. Marco landed the first punch against the bridge of Joseph’s nose. Joseph landed the second at the base of his throat—a hard blow that knocked him backwards. He gasped and grabbed at the front of Joseph’s coat, then felt the butt of a gun in an inside pocket and went for it. There was a long silencer attached to the pistol that caught on the canvas fabric as he tried to yank it out. His hand wrapped around the grip an instant before Joseph landed another punch at his gut.

  The blow knocked all the strength from his upper body as he fell back, gasping and coughing as Joseph bucked his legs upward and slid out from under him. The motion freed the gun from the pocket but weakened his hold and with after another short sideways kick from Joseph it fell to the pavement.

  Marco rolled sideways and tried to reach for the gun again but Joseph got to it first. And then there was nothing but the flash of the muzzle and the force of the bullet that shattered his forehead and blew out the back of his skull.

  Stephen had seen the smoke rising over the treetops in the distance, a thin, gray stream that made him think it came from a chimney marking a house where he could call the police. But seconds later the smoke had thickened and turned black, and then he heard the whirring sound of heavy tires on the ice.

  He ran toward it, his heart pounding as he thought of the impact of his car on the boy’s body the night before.

  Niles stood over Marco’s body, momentarily transfixed by the boy’s shattered face and the brain matter blown backward from the top of his head into the snow. His mind raced to the possibility of self-defense or even a rescue, an attempt to protect Sara Porter, an accidental shooting.

  But he knew it wouldn’t work. Because the bullet that killed his stepson had come from the same gun he had used to kill April.

  He looked toward Kieran O’Shea’s burning truck, and saw the jagged remnants of the passenger side window and the open driver’s side door and Kieran lying motionless in the front seat. He then turned around and saw Sara Porter crouching behind the open door of the Hummer, cowering like a frightened child. A witness. He kept the gun down at his side as he took a step toward her. He had to silence her quickly. Shoot her and get the hell out of there.

  Think—make it work.

  He clenched his jaw as he stepped toward her. He knew she recognized him—he had stood next to Caruso at the funeral of their
mother.

  “Move away from the car.”

  His tone of voice was a misstep. She crouched lower, mewling like a frightened cat. He took a step closer, and tried to bring a concerned look to his face, a disarming everything’s all right now expression.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “You can come out now.”

  She shook her head back and forth in a frantic motion—and leapt into the Hummer and slammed the door.

  He advanced without thinking, his breath shortened by anger at her defiance. The inside of the Hummer was dark but he saw the motion of her arm as she tossed something on to the seat.

  He banged on the window with his left fist, yelled “Open up!” as she jerkily scooted away, slinking low in the seat and making the shot even more difficult.

  He grabbed the handle to the door.

  Locked.

  “Fucking bitch!” he yelled as he stepped back, knowing he had lost control completely as he brought the gun up and aimed through the windshield. His finger twitched against the trigger. He was an instant away from pulling it when he heard the sound of another approaching car.

  Stephen kept his eyes on the smoke on the road ahead of him and just barely managed to keep his footing as he reached the top of an incline. And then he stopped, transfixed by the sight of a black pick-up truck smashed against a tree, its front end engulfed in flames. And the Range Rover approaching from the opposite direction. And the white Hummer sitting crosswise on the road.

  Joseph Niles was pointing a gun at the window of the Hummer. He was wearing dark clothes—a heavy parka and jeans and a baseball cap with a wide brim. At the sound of the approaching Range Rover he spun around and reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out his wallet. He held the wallet in one hand and the gun in the other, both arms outstretched in front of him as he approached the Rover and yelled: