by Patten, Sean
“I’m thinking a lesson’s in order,” David said coolly. “That being, do not mess with me, or with Sandy Vista. And let me tell you, Lori, it’s going to be a tough one to learn.”
He clicked the safety off, the gun still pointed at me.
“No!” shouted Mom as she struggled again.
But before the pop of a gunshot could rang out, a voice spoke from the top of the stairs.
The exact voice that I wanted to hear.
“Put that thing down, asshole,” Ed growled. “Or the only one learning a lesson’s going to be your stupid ass.
“Huh?” David exclaimed.
My face still throbbed and my vision was blurry, and I glanced down at the things in the box that had been spilled around me in order to try to focus my eyes on something. It appeared to be David’s deceased wife’s things, sewing supplies and random beauty items. Several hairpins were on the ground, their slender shapes catching the light of the lamp.
“You don’t know when to quit, do you?” said Ed as he stepped down the stairs, gun in hand. “You could’ve put all this shit behind you, but you couldn’t let it go. Had to hold onto your stupid fucking oasis in the desert.”
Ed stopped at the bottom of the stairs, spotting Powell’s body for the first time.
“What happened?” he said, anger in his voice. “He turn out to be an inconvenience? Have to have your perfect, cookie-cutter neighborhood, no matter how many people you have to kill to make it happen?”
David turned on his heels, pointing the gun at Ed.
“I wouldn’t expect a low-class piece of shit like you to know the first thing about what it takes to keep a neighborhood like this together. And yes, I killed him, because I care about this place enough to do what needs to be done. A king is willing to make whatever sacrifice he needs to for his kingdom.”
“Figures that a petty tyrant like you would think of himself this way,” said Ed.
“Stop right there,” said David. “Make another move and I’ll kill the both of them.”
Ed stopped, finally taking in what was happening, realizing who, exactly, David was holding hostage.
“Holy shit,” he said. “Is that…”
“It’s my mom,” I said. “And he’s going to kill her.”
“No, no,” said David. “Your mom’s the one I want to save. I’ve got some big plans for her. She’s got quite a role in the future of Sandy Vista.”
“The hell I do,” Mom spat.
“Keep it to yourself,” said David. “And do what I say.”
The daze finally began to wear off, my vision becoming clearer.
“You’re sick in the head, you know that?” said Ed. “You think killing your own equates to doing what’s best for the community? That’s one fucked up moral compass you got there.”
My ear hung on the last sentence.
Compass.
Images flashed back to me images from the other night, of Ed showing me how to make the compass with the hairpin and the leaf. My eyes flicked down to the pins, noting that these were different than the ones I’d used.
They were sharper.
Almost as if someone else were controlling it, my hand shot out and scooped up several of the pins. I gathered them into grip before crawling on my hands and knees, cutting the distance between me and David.
“What the—?”
Caught off guard, he didn’t have a chance to move before I raised my hand, slamming it down hard onto the exposed bit of skin just above his shoe.
A quick jab.
My senses were sharp, sharp enough to feel the dozens of pins puncture the skin.
“Fucking bitch!”
David’s voice boomed through the basement as he raised his foot, the gun falling out of his hand as he hopped backward. At the same time, Mom flew out of his grasp, running to the stairs.
“Ed!” I shouted. “Do it!”
Ed raised his gun. He was close enough to where he could hit anywhere on David’s body that he wanted.
He fired twice, the hollow echo of the gunshot stinging my ears, and David fell back with a thud.
At first I thought he was dead, but his howl of pain a moment later made me realize that Ed had been merciful. A glance at David revealed two shots, one in his hand and the other in his leg, bright red blood dripping down onto the concrete.
“Amy!” shouted Ed. “The gun!”
Shit.
I scrambled to my feet and hurried towards the door, snatching the gun off the ground.
“Fucker,” I hissed as I passed David. Part of me wanted to use the gun I’d just taken and end his miserable life right then and there. But he wasn’t worth it. Besides, we had bigger matters to deal with, like getting out of there alive.
“Come on!” shouted Ed. “We need to move!”
David was on the ground groaning. I shot him one last hateful glance before following Ed and Mom up the stairs.
“Where are we going?” asked Mom. “And who the hell are you?”
“Mom,” I said. “This is Ed. He kind of saved my life.”
“And your daughter kind of saved mine,” he said. “More than once.”
“Then I’m more than pleased to meet you,” said Mom.
We burst out through the front door and took off down the street.
“But that doesn’t answer my question,” said Mom. “Where are we going?”
“We’re getting out of here!” said Ed as we hurried behind him, following him out onto the street.
“But where to?!” shouted Mom. “Because I don’t know if you noticed, but we’re kind of in the middle of the damn desert!”
“Is that right?” asked Ed.
Mom didn’t have time for a snappy rejoinder. In nearly every window in the place candles flickered to life—if the screaming hadn’t woken people up, the gunshots sure had.
The whirl of an engine sounded out, and the three of us turned to see a small vehicle, a gas-powered golf cart, appear from the driveway next to Ed’s house.
“Shit,” I said. “Maybe not killing him wasn’t the hottest idea!”
“Too late to take that one back!” Ed shouted over his shoulder.
I was never much of an athlete, and despite David being in close pursuit in a golf cart, my legs already burned as I ran. I was still disoriented from the slap, and all I could do was stay behind Ed and hope he was going to lead us in the right direction.
Several bangs broke through the still silence of the air. I looked back to see that it was David, his bloody hand on the steering wheel, the other holding a rifle raised into the air.
“Everyone!” he shouted out. “Wake your asses up and grab your guns! Don’t let these fuckers leave here alive!”
With that, things went from bad to worse. Faces appeared in the windows we passed, all the neighbors I’d known over the years except now their expressions were all twisted into anger. They produced all kinds of guns, aiming pistols and rifles and shotguns out of their windows in our direction.
David evidently had them trained well. They were ready to kill on command. And we were their targets.
Pops rang out in the night, one after the other. A few whizz-bangs of the bullets connecting with the side street under our feet made it clear how close some of the shots were getting to us.
“Watch for the crossfire!” shouted David. “And shoot to kill!”
“Ed!” shouted Mom. “I hope you have a plan that’s better than running down the middle of the road!”
“Kind of!” he shouted. “We run behind it! Come on!”
Ed broke a hard left and I followed him, a crack from David’s rifle ringing out and a bullet whooshing past my head so close I could’ve sworn I’d felt it graze my skin.
We followed Ed as he ran onto one of the nearby lawns, hopping over the fence into the backyard with surprising speed. His heart problems flashed in my mind as I watched him push himself to his physical limit. But then I remembered, to my relief, the big stash of meds he’d gotten his
hands on back in Alban Falls. One less thing to worry about.
Mom stopped, waiting for me to jump over the fence before following behind me. As the two of us followed Ed around the house into the backyard, I glanced over my shoulder to watch as David pilled his cart up onto the lawn, his arm unsteady as he tried to train the rifle onto us.
But he didn’t manage to get off a shot before the three of us were already out of his line of sight. But we weren’t out of the woods—we were in the backyard of the Shepherds. I knew this because their familiar faces appeared in back windows as soon as we arrived, guns at the ready.
“Hurry!” shouted Ed.
“No kidding!” Mom shouted right back.
The sliding door opened and the short, wizened figures of the Shepherds stepped out, the heavy weaponry in their hands a shocking contrast to the frail looks of the people holding them.
“We shooting?” asked Mr. Shepherd as we cut across the lawn.
“That’s what David says,” said Mrs. Shepherd.
Both of them raised their rifles and took aim, sharp cracks bursting through the air as me and Ed and Mom all clambered over the fence leading to the next backyard.
We cut across one backyard, then the next, then the next. I ran hard and fast, my legs still burning and my lungs pulling in and pushing out air as quickly as I could. Eventually we reached the backyard of my mom’s house, but it didn’t matter. The idea of running in to grab anything we needed was beyond ludicrous.
As we cut through our backyard I took one last lingering look at the house. Once again I was fleeing it, but this time there wouldn’t be any open invitation to come back. I was leaving for good.
The boom of a shotgun blast snapped me back to the moment. The three of us took advantage of the brief bit of safety to catch our breaths.
“This is bad,” said Ed. “We need to get out of here before they all form up at the gate.”
Mom nodded. “I’ve got an idea,” she said.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“When David bought that golf cart, he bought it in a pair. Guess who he gave the second one to.”
“He just gave you a golf cart?” I asked.
“One of many gifts to get on my good side,” said Mom. “Or whatever else he had in mind. It didn’t work. Anyway, it’s in the garage.”
“Okay,” said Ed. “Then it’s just a matter of getting the door open and getting out of here.”
“Not easy when the entire neighborhood is trying to kill you,” I said.
Mom shook her head, clearly still trying to wrap her mind around what was happening.
“This is all so insane,” she said softly.
“We can talk it over when we’re free and clear,” said Ed. “But right now the only thing we need to be worrying about is getting out of this fucking subdivision.”
Mom snapped out of it.
“Yeah,” she said. “Got it.”
With that, she stepped over to the back door to the house, reached over top of it, and pulled down a key. Seconds later the door was open and we were in.
We cut through the house, eventually to the door in the kitchen that led to the garage. Ed opened the door and stepped through, disappearing into the dark. But I didn’t follow, not yet. I stayed in the kitchen, paralyzed by memories.
I remembered sneaking ice cream after school before my Dad was home from work, I remembered helping cooking Dad’s famous lasagna when he still was still alive, and I even remembered the fights I had with mom in the room, when I was a teenager and life was harder for the both of us.
When I came to it, I realized that Mom was standing at my side, a look of longing on her face as she appeared to be doing the same thing, taking in one last sight of the home we knew that we’d never come back to.
“Ladies,” said Ed. “Don’t mean to ruin the moment here, but we’ve got a few dozen old-timers looking to blow our brains out.”
I glanced over at Mom, who gave me a nod. It was time to go.
The three of us hurried into the dark of the garage. I was barely able to see anything, but there was enough brightness from the moonlight through the open door to the kitchen that I was able to fumble around Mom’s car and onto the golf cart next to it.
“Okay,” said Ed as me and Mom slid into the seats, Mom in the driver’s. “Ladies, I’m going to open the door and when I do, you haul ass out of here.”
“What about you?” asked Mom.
“I’ll hop in. Just get moving. But be ready, because we’re gonna be staring down the barrel of more than a few guns once this door flies open. Got it?”
“Got it,” me and Mom said together.
“Okay,” said Ed. “On three. One, two…three!”
With a heave, he pulled the door open.
He wasn’t wrong about the guns.
24 Ed
The second I lifted the garage I realized how damned half-cocked this idea was. Truth be told, however, I’d been winging it from the moment I’d gotten up in the middle of the night and realized that Amy was gone.
But there wasn’t any turning back.
A few more of the old-timers were waiting for us, posted in the windows of the McMansions like the world’s oldest sniper team. But I was more concerned about David. A quick glance to the right revealed that he’d given up trying to chase us through the backyards, and was instead climbing into his golf cart once again, ready to pursue.
“Come on!” I shouted. “Move, now!”
Behind me I heard the engine of the golf cart rumble as it started up, followed by Amy and her mom driving the thing around me and out onto the driveway. As soon as they were clear I let the garage door fall, the metal hitting the pavement with a deafening clang.
“Get it!” shouted Amy. “Come on!”
More pops sounded out, one followed by the crisp, crashing sound of one of the windows of the house breaking. My head down, I ran to the golf cart and climbed in the back, Amy’s mom not needing to hear it from me to take off.
Shot after shot sounded out, and all I could do was give a quick thanks for the fact that the people shooting at us could likely hardly hold their guns straight in front of their faces. Otherwise we’d have been popped long ago.
David, the real threat, was bearing down on us. Amy’s mom was taking us straight down the road and towards the main gate, but the expression of pure rage on David’s face made it clear that he wasn’t about to let us leave so easily.
And I was wide open and exposed in the back. David, about thirty feet behind us, the hand on the wheel drenched in fresh blood, raised his rifle and took aim. The people firing at us from the windows were amateurs, but David knew what he was doing. He closed one eye, the gun pointed directly at me.
“Hard right!” I shouted. “Now, now!”
Lori pulled the wheel, a squeal sounding from the tires as she turned. David’s rifle cracked as he fired, the triplet of bullets kicking up asphalt around the place in the road where we’d been only seconds before.
The gate was just up ahead. The car was on the other side, and if we could make it and shut the gate behind us we’d be clear; didn’t matter how nice of a golf cart it was David was driving, we’d be leaving him in the dust.
“Almost…” said Amy as we drew closer and closer to the gate.
More shots rang out, the popping almost constant. David raised his rifle for another few shots, but I beat him to it. I stuck the pistol out in front of me, took aim, and fired a pair of rounds. David reacted to the shots in the same way we had—by turning hard—but with less success. The cart raised on its right-side tires, wobbled for a moment, then toppled over onto its side.
It wasn’t bad shooting. Ramirez would’ve been proud.
We reached the gate right at the moment David managed to climb out of his wreck. But he didn’t get his bearings in time. Together, the three of us pulled the gate shut, the gunfire still ringing out from the windows of the houses. David’s rifle had flown dozens of feet from the car and he
didn’t waste any time going for it. But before he could get it and fire off some more rounds, we were already on the other side of the barrier separating the development from the rest of Sandy Vista.
Once on the other side of the gate, I looked back through the thick bars to see David one last time, blood streaming down his arm as he hobbled back to the cart, an expression of pure, twisted rage on his face.
“Where to now?” asked Lori.
“Car,” I said.
“You have a car?” she asked. “Aren’t all the cars broken?”
“Not this one.”
The three of us made our way down the main road to where the car was parked. I grabbed the keys out of my pocket and opened the old girl—boy, whatever it was—up and soon the three of us were inside. The engine roared to life, and relief settled over me as I took a glance at the fuel gauge—it was nearly full. And more than that, we had enough for another fill-up in the trunk.
I pulled the car out onto the road and we were off, the manicured lawns and perfect homes of the Sandy Vista development shrinking smaller with every second.
We were safe. At least, for the moment.
I let out a rush of air, allowing the tension to flow out of my body.
“Holy shit,” said Amy from the passenger’s seat. “Holy shit.”
“Hey,” said her mom. “Watch your mouth.”
“Oh no,” said Amy. “Don’t you start with the ‘language’ stuff, too.”
“I’m your mother,” she said. “I think it’s well within my rights.”
Silence fell, and I had the impression it was just then sinking in with Amy’s mom that she was in the car with some guy she’d never met before, some guy who’d shown up in the nick of time to save the lives of both her and her daughter.
“Oh,” said Amy. “Mom, this is Ed.”
“Ed Mack,” I said, reaching back to offer her my hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“Lori Hendricks,” she said, taking my hand and shaking it softly. “More than a pleasure. You…you saved our lives.”
“Just doing the right thing,” I said.
“How did you know I was gone?” asked Amy. “And where I went off to?”
