Shadow of a Killer

by David Anderson

  I considered getting up on my feet and sprinting for safety behind the trees. It seemed too much of a risk. As I was chewing it over, a cloud covered the thin moon, making the landscape even darker. If I was going to go, now was the time to do it. I drew up my right leg like I was in sprinting blocks and raised my head above the grass stalks. The crack of an imaginary starter pistol sounded in my head and I pushed up and forward and went for it.

  With my eyes fixed ahead I sprinted for cover of the trees. I had barely made it halfway when Bautista fired. Searing pain shot through my hip and down my leg. I screamed out in agony and fell to the ground.

  Chapter 51

  Ignoring the pain in my hip, I sprung back up on all fours and scrambled forward in a desperate race to safety. A second shot plunged into the ground alongside my ribs. The nearest tree was straight ahead and somehow I got to it. Behind the trunk, I kept going until I’d scurried way down into the debris of broken branches, moss covered dead logs, loose dirt, and God knows what else.

  As my breath calmed, the pain increased. My left side, from waist down to ankle, was on fire. The worst of it centred on my upper thigh and I moved my arm down to feel for blood and torn flesh. Instead my hand touched ripped cloth and a hard metal object I’d forgotten about.

  The agony of it almost took my breath away, but I managed to ease the Nokia phone out of my pants pocket and bring it up to my eyes. A bullet had pierced the back of it right through the middle and the phone was completely wrecked. But it had stopped the round and saved my life.

  I dropped the phone, with the slug still lodged in it, and peered around for Bautista. With any luck he would now think that I was seriously injured and assume that I was unable to move around. He would cautiously approach to administer the coup de grace. Having already lost rounds one and two, I had to use his misperception to my advantage. I drew the automatic and readied myself.

  Silence went on and on for what seemed at least half an hour. I felt the pain in my thigh and hip, along with various itches, and resisted all impulses to rub and scratch. At last, I heard a faint rustle of grass and foliage. Bautista was coming. My ears almost twitched, I was listening so intently. Eventually I sussed his position out.

  He was to my right, as expected, and close to the trees. As he got closer he would have to stand up and show himself in order to get a clear shot at me. I squirmed further back into the dry leaves and waited. When the time came, I intended to rise up behind the tree trunk and finish him.

  Several more minutes ticked by. Keeping my eyes glued to the bobbing black shadow that had to be Bautista, I slowly raised myself up behind the tree. As I raised the gun I heard a sudden, unexpected sound to my left and turned to see what it was. Too late, I realised it was just a rock hurtling into the bushes. Bautista must have thrown it to distract me. I turned back to see what he was doing.

  The jet black shadowy form was gone. He was in the trees now too. Again, I’d missed my chance. Disappointed, I slumped back down onto the carpet of leaves. I realised there wasn’t going to be any quick end to this duel of wits and lives. Naïvely, I had imagined a skirmish at dusk, Bautista rushing into the cottage and letting off some hopelessly wild shots, while I coolly settled the matter with a couple of rounds into his chest. A tense wait, then ten scary minutes, and it would be over. That fantasy had been shattered by the smoke bombs and any remnant was now dispelled for good. My life was going to depend upon getting an accurate snap shot off here among the trees where visibility was virtually zero and moving around quietly was impossible.

  Ammunition supply would now be vital. I tried to recall the Sig Sauer manual I’d looked at online and how many rounds it said were in a clip. Ten or twelve? It was one of those, I couldn’t remember which. I didn’t even know how many times I’d fired already. Four? Five? So I had somewhere between five and eight shots left in this clip, plus two spare clips in the backpack. I unzipped it and stuffed a clip deep in each of my jacket pockets, zipping them closed afterwards.

  If I went towards Bautista, I would probably be ambushed. Odds were heavily against me as the attacker. On the other hand, it wouldn’t do me much good to lie here till dawn, my eyes darting from left to right, nerves strung out with wondering which direction he was coming. Perhaps I could make just enough noise to draw him out, while keeping myself safe.

  The sliver of moon emerged from behind a cloud and provided faint light on the open ground between the copse and the cottage. In the gloom to the far right was an old shed that extended well back, having a roughly shoebox shape. It belonged to the house and was full of junk. Bautista was somewhere further along the copse, not far from the shed door. If he decided not to approach through a thick jungle of scrub, with dry as dust branches, twigs and leaves underfoot, he would have to come by way of the open ground. Until the moon went in again, to expose himself there would be suicidal. That left the shed. I wondered if its big corrugated iron doors were open. Then I heard Bautista on the move.

  His impatience was once again spurring him to take the initiative. The noises he was making were becoming fainter so, instead of moving towards me, he had to be moving away. I had no idea what he was up to but he knew where I was – which meant he had to be planning something. I crawled out of the undergrowth and started to follow him, hoping that the noise I was making was masked from Bautista by his own rustlings.

  He left the safety of the trees and walked away, showing me his back. I could run up to him, shooting as I went but that would make my accuracy even less, and I might even drop the gun. And as soon as I got close enough, he would turn and calmly return fire from a steady, stationary position. It angered me that he knew he was perfectly safe.

  His footsteps snapped on dry twigs and he did not seem to be making any effort at all to move quietly, so he had to mean me to hear and see what he was doing. I couldn’t figure it out at all. Suspecting a trap, I stuck close to the edge of the trees and followed behind him.

  He didn’t keep me guessing long. At the far end of the open area, he made straight for the shed and hauled both of the twin doors wide open. Before darting inside, he seemed to turn his head and look back over his shoulder at me. There was no way that I could possibly have seen his sneering grin from this distance. But I swear I did.

  Chapter 52

  Cunning as well as cussed, Bautista was acting unpredictably. Now that he was inside the shed, it was impossible for me to get close to him without exposing myself fatally. As long as the moonlight continued, faint though it was, my profile would show clearly enough for him, waiting and ready inside the shed, to fill me full of bullets.

  He was also playing on my desire to finish this once and for all, and maybe even on my sense of honour too. I had proposed a settling arrangement limited to tonight, and he had agreed to it. He knew I wouldn’t back out now and just walk away. Neither did I want to wait out here for hours on end, nerves tight as wires, until dawn. There was a big window at the back of the shed and he could be climbing through it right now. If I went around the back, he could be waiting at the corner. He had me, and he knew it.

  I stood and thought for several nerve-wracking minutes. It was too late now to consider working my way to the back of the shed. Do that, and at best I might lose track of him altogether, at worst I’d walk into a trap. Somehow I had to get in by the door. Slowly, very slowly, I approached it from the side. The ground beneath my feet was soft, almost peaty, and my footsteps made no noise. Finally I crouched beside the entrance, automatic raised, my back to the shed wall.

  I wondered why he had opened both halves of the door. He only needed one to get in and, assuming he wanted me to follow him, it would have presented a smaller area to cover with his weapon. A mistake?

  It was still a small enough entranceway, about seven feet wide by the same in height. To me right now, it seemed postage stamp-sized. I peered up at the moon and examined the sky around it. A bank of clouds was drifting close to the narrow slice of light. In a couple of minutes the clouds
moved in front of the edge of the crescent, beginning to obscure it.

  The dim, silvery light faded away from around me and I readied myself to make my move. When the light had completely gone I tensed and counted to ten. At ten . . .

  I sprinted between the open doors and into the gaping maw of blackness. Instantly a barrage of shots rang out. Bizarrely, I felt one clip the top of my right foot. I stumbled in mid run; all my weight came down on the other leg and my left ankle twisted sideways. Searing pain shot through it and I fell like a rock. My right arm darted out to save myself but I still hit the ground hard.

  Lying flat, my ankles and feet feeling useless, an engine started up and the twin headlamps blinded me. Bautista’s Audi. Why hadn’t I checked the shed when I came home hours ago? How stupid could I be? Too late now. I had to stop Bautista from driving over me. I was about to raise my arm and fire when my heart stopped and I felt blood draining from my face. I’d dropped the damned automatic.

  My hands fumbled over the dry ground in front of me. The gun must have fallen when my hand had shot out as I’d collapsed in a heap. Over and over the ground – Where is the blasted thing? The Audi inched forward. I had a couple of seconds, no more.

  My right elbow brushed against something hard and sharp. I grabbed the gun with a trembling hand and fired at the windshield. Too high. The Audi seemed to shudder but kept coming, accelerating now, almost on top of me.

  I rolled over onto my back, then rolled again and hit the side wall. The front wheel of the Audi sped past my shoulder. There was just enough room for me to escape being crushed. The car shot out of the shed, raced to the end of the open ground and slid around in a handbrake turn until it was almost facing me again.

  Somehow I scrambled upright, ignoring the pain in my ankles and feet. Bautista got out of the car and, steadying his arms on top of the driver’s door, began shooting at me again. I turned and ran.

  Crouching to run saved my life. Bullets thudded into the corrugated iron door behind the back of my head. By some miracle of instinct and adrenalin, my legs kept moving and I ran around the door and out of his range. I kept going, scurrying frantically from left to right and back again, like a startled snipe on a heather moor. More shots rang out. I sprinted over to the cottage and around its side, into the front garden, then out to the deserted expanse of the Long Field.

  Through a veil of dripping sweat I saw the one big surviving building at the far end of the Field and made for it. Regardless of the distance, everything else here was rubble and solitary walls full of gaping holes. The end building had obviously been the hangar and was still standing. It was the one place where I could seize the advantage again. Providing I could make it that far.

  Lungs bursting and feet screaming protest, I made it to the hangar. Hugging the wall, I turned and peered into the gloom behind me. I couldn’t see Bautista but he couldn’t be far behind.

  He fired. I saw the flash of his gun and dived inside the hangar like a bolting rat. As my head went down, I felt a searing pain at the top of my skull. Immediately I knew he’d shot me and that it was serious.

  Inside the hangar I ran to the back, lifting my feet high so as to avoid tripping over bricks and detritus. It was a tall building with a rounded roof and a row of windows high up on either side. All the windows were long since smashed but the night was now so dark it made no difference. Inside was pitch black and I didn’t dare to turn on my flashlight.

  I groped my way to the back corner and found what, by their distinctive shape and feel, had to be two rusted sheets of corrugated iron leaning against the wall. Ignoring the dirt, broken glass and pigeon droppings I knew were on the floor beneath me, I crawled in behind the iron sheets and collapsed.

  Lying on my back, I listened. Bautista had not followed me inside, at least not yet. I raised my head and leaned my shoulders against the wall. Immediately blood poured down the back of my neck, and down my face and into my eyes. I raised a hand tentatively to my head. At the top of my scalp a long flap of skin hung loose. I pushed it back into position then, after listening for a minute, fished the surgical tape out of my backpack, cut off a couple of lengths, and wound them over my scalp. By now I probably resembled Frankenstein’s monster. Maybe I could jump in front of Bautista and scare him to death.

  The effort of holding my arms higher than my head made me weak and faint. I dropped them to my sides and the tape rolled out of my limp hand. The gun, where is it? Again, I’d lost track of it. What’s wrong with me? I fished around with my fingers, my head pounding and dizzy, my thoughts mixed up and confused. Where am I? I looked out the side of the iron sheeting and saw what looked like stained glass windows. An old priest’s voice, heavily accented, spoke in my head, like a church bell reverberating inside my skull.

  My lips moved, forming soundless words. I confessed my sins. Suddenly everything behind my eyes closed down, like a wave of jet black ink rapidly descending. My chin sank to my chest, and I lost consciousness.

  Chapter 53

  Santiago, Chile, a year earlier.

  “So you are not a Catholic. That doesn’t matter. You have faith in God?”

  I looked at Fr. Sergio in surprise. I hadn’t expected the question but now it struck me as entirely reasonable. Why else would I have begged the nurse to fetch the priest right away?

  “You can be honest,” he added, “It’s fine whatever you say.”

  “I had faith I would survive,” I replied.

  He nodded. “And enormous desire to do so,” he said, “Or it would have been impossible.” He reached forward and slowly pulled the rosary out from under the neck of my hospital gown. “You know how to use this?”

  “I don’t understand it but it gave me comfort every night. Strengthened me.”

  Fr. Sergio smiled. “That’s what it does. Helps us get through our day. Changes us, makes us thankful.”

  “Yes, that’s how I felt.”

  “I am glad to hear it. Now tell me what you need to tell me.”

  I swallowed hard and cleared my throat. “It’s like this, Father. The rosary – it’s not mine. It belongs to someone I met, called María . . .”

  “Take your time.” He sat on the edge of the bed, with his palms placed lightly together, as if in semi-prayer.

  I told him my story, beginning with my arrival in Mendoza and my chance meeting with María. Our all too brief time together, and our flight to visit her sick father. The crash. I came to our crawling around in the snow after the crash.

  “You both survived?”

  “Yes,” I said, “At first.”

  His face creased in a worried frown and he held up a hand, stopping me from speaking. “Calvin, I have to warn you, this is not the confessional. If you are about to tell me something terrible, I cannot keep it secret.”

  I suddenly realised he thought I’d killed María. Stunned, I felt blood drain from my face.

  “No, no, it’s not like that,” I blurted out breathlessly, “There was an avalanche . . .”

  I explained María’s injuries and related how the avalanche had buried us in the middle of the night. How I’d tried to reach her in time but failed. “I was too late,” I continued, “She was already gone.”

  He placed his hand on mine. “Did you lose faith then,” he said, “Or start to gain it?”

  I had no idea what he meant, though I’ve thought about it ever since. “It was my lowest point,” I said, “I hadn’t known her long but I already loved her. I was ready to lie down and die. Then I remembered her trust in me. She’d never doubted me. I couldn’t give up.”

  “That’s when you began wearing her rosary.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Because I sense your trial was just beginning.”

  I nodded. “You’re right.” I told him then in plain, simple words what I’d done, leaving out any self-serving justifications. When I finished, his grip tightened around my hand.

  “I endorse the decision you made.”

  I wiped moist
ure from my eyes with my free hand and looked up at him. “What? How can you?”

  “Cal, there are some benefits in being a Catholic.” He smiled warmly. “One of them is that over two thousand years the Church has pronounced on many obscure but important things. One of them is anthropophagy, the eating of human flesh. In extreme circumstances, in a limited situation such as yours, it is allowed.”

  I stared at him in amazement. He continued, “Please, let go of your guilt about what you have done. For what it’s worth to you, the Church counts it as a moral act, especially as you did it in a most serious and sober way. And you had no other option.”

  I thought about what he’d said. “It felt like a sort of communion,” I finally replied, “Her flesh and blood given for me. She was there in spirit.” I scoured my memory for the Bible story. “Like Jesus and the disciples at the Last Supper.”

  The old priest shook his head slightly. “There can be no strict correlation between the Eucharist and your acts. But I know what you are saying, Cal, and I affirm the sentiment. In the silence of the mountains, God was with you.”

  “Yes,” I said, “It was majestic up there and terrifying at the same time. I was so alone. I just had my thoughts, terrible thoughts. And the rosary. Fingering it for hours.”

  “And the presence of the Spirit behind it,” he added.

  I couldn’t argue with that. He was putting into words what I had felt so deeply. “You’re right, Father. Alone but for the presence of God.”

  I’d never spoken like that before and felt embarrassed by what I’d just said. But now that it was out, I kept going.

  “Inside me, there was a sort of hand or mind guiding me, pushing me on, not letting me give up. That’s what made it so hard. God was right there, watching me with María . . . watching me do it to her.” My lower lip started quivering. I was losing control again and couldn’t stop myself.