by John Shirley
A shot boomed out from the door of the house, shattering the windshield of the black pickup behind Russ. Dickie at the door, steadying the big pistol to fire at Russ again. “Fuck me, fuck me I missed!” Dickie said between clenched teeth. “This time . . . you little prick . . . ”
Russ fired from the hip, because he had no choice, and Dickie shut his eyes and gasped, took two steps back—Russ saw that his shot had caught Dickie in the upper right torso just under his collarbone—Dickie was firing but his gun hand was compromised, the shot slapped the air on Russ’s left, and Russ raised the Winchester to shoulder, levered the round in.
But Dickie vanished from sight, slipping off to his right inside the doorway.
Russ thought, If I follow him in there, he’ll nail me.
But some instinct, spiraling up from his ancestors, argued: He’s wounded. He’s running. Follow. Finish it.
Mouth bone dry, blood humming through his veins, he eased the rifle off his shoulder and made himself stalk forward into the house.
“Russ!” Brand shouted, from the corner of the house. “Don’t go in there!”
But Russ was already going through the door, following the trail of blood.
He stopped in the living room, swinging the rifle to take it in. Saw a sofa, a Coleman lantern glowing near the ceiling. Light glancing off a brass Jesus crucifix over the sofa. An open door to the left . . . blood speckling the floor that way . . . a fireman’s coat on the floor. Dickie had taken it off.
He set the Winchester against his shoulder, got a good mount, sidestepped quietly to his right, keeping the muzzle on that open door toward the sea . . .
Then he saw Dickie, turned away, a coatless silhouette against the gray sky. The door opened onto the broken down western end of the house. Dickie was swaying on the edge of a broken-off section of flooring. Just standing there, swaying, with his back to Russ. Beyond him, the part of the house that had been there was gone, smashed down by the tsunami. There was just sky, clouds streaming by in the wind. Dickie’s right hip was dribbling blood, and more red slickness trickled down his right arm. He held the gun in his left hand now. Seemed to be staring downward, trying to figure out how to climb down. Russ aimed . . .
And found he couldn’t shoot Dickie in the back. Stupid, but there it was.
“Dickie!” he called out.
Dickie spun around, raising the pistol—and Russ shot him in the chest. Dickie was flung backwards and off the edge of the snapped-off floor overlooking the pit. Falling out of sight.
Russ walked through the doorway, levering another round into the Winchester as he went. He reached the edge of the floor and carefully looked down. He made out several bodies down there. The remains of two women.
And Dickie was there too, lying in muck on his back, all twisted, eyes closed, mouth open. He was completely motionless. A shiny puddle of blood, reflecting the racing clouds overhead, welled up on his chest.
TWENTY-THREE
“Dale going to be all right?” Russ asked, as Pendra came into his dad’s apartment. She was cleaned up, her wrists bandaged, her eyes dull with weariness. But she smiled at him.
Right shoulder aching from rifle recoil, he was half-lying on the living room sofa, legs stretched out, watching the shadows flicker from the candles. Thinking that he was very tired. That he really wanted to sleep. And wondering if he could.
It was late. His mind had been replaying the gunfight, on and off, for hours. He didn’t want to see it anymore. He didn’t even want to think about it. But the Winchester was nearby, leaning on the wall. He wasn’t letting go of that Winchester.
Pendra sat on the arm of the sofa near him. “Lucia says Dale’s going to recover just fine. I think she’s got the hots for him. Brand took a bunch of guys and put the bonfire out. Got all that wire down. The pass is open—Lucia’s driving Dale into Deer Creek right now. Brand is with her—and Jill. Jill’s arm is pretty fucked up. I mean—it’ll be okay, I guess, but it’s going to be scarred. Hey—thanks for coming over there to get us. God, we were glad to see you guys.”
“We were looking in the wrong house. Anyway it seemed like you didn’t need us. You got out on your own!”
“You had to do what you did, anyhow. They’d have been back.” After a moment she added, “Mario almost shot us.”
“He almost shot you? What the fuck!”
“He couldn’t see us in the garage very good. We opened the garage door and there he was, walking up with the shotgun and he almost shot us—and I almost shot him! Then Jill yelled his name and told me to wait. We’d heard them talking about him. He was pretty mad there was nobody there to kill.” She chuckled. “Jill took the gun from me.”
“Nobody there to kill . . . ” His stomach twisted. He was so tired. His arms felt like lead weights. “I almost shot Brand once too, by accident.”
Maybe he shouldn’t have shot Randle Grummon in the back of the head. But Randle was still alive, still had that gun. Was trying to lift himself up . . .
“Um—what about your dad’s body?” Pendra asked gently.
“It was where Ferrara said it was. Dr. Spuris is acting like the great public servant now. He’s arranging a burial. Tomorrow morning. We’ll have a little service. There’s a pretty nice old cemetery on the way to Deer Creek.”
“Listen,” Pendra said, “I feel like crap. I was wondering . . . ”
“Oh shit, yeah—you spent the night in that garage all chained up. You should lay down. Let me get you something to eat.”
“I ate something.” Pendra hesitated—then went on, not looking right at him. “I was just hoping—could we just, sort of sleep together? I mean, under covers, just sort of spooning. For now. I just need to have somebody there. While I’m sleeping.”
“That is exactly what I need too. Sure. Let’s get some sleep.”
They went into his dad’s dark bedroom, candles lambent on the desk; kicked off their shoes, got under the covers, still dressed. They lay nestled together, her back to him, his left arm over her, hugging her close. She sighed. He could feel her relaxing. “That is it exactly.”
He closed his eyes. Sleep was close. He saw muzzle flashes. He saw gun smoke drifting. He saw the back of Randle Grummon’s head coming apart as he shot him. Saw a pool of blood expanding around Cholo. Saw his father rolling down the stony slope. He saw the tsunami, rising up, throwing all into shadow, all into darkness; darkness like sleep. Sleep rolling down on them . . . There would be nightmares, but he’d grown used to them and it wasn’t so bad, with her beside him . . .
He was almost asleep when she whispered, “We telling police from Deer Creek about . . . ?”
“Mm, about what happened to Dickie and those guys? No. We’re not telling them. Talked it over with Dale and Brand and we’re just telling people that bunch killed each other fighting over stuff. We have enough to deal with already, without inquests and shit. People here will back the story up.”
“What happened to that girl who was with them?”
“She seems like she ran off, outta town. Nobody can find her.”
She yawned. “Where you going next? Staying here in town?”
“Hell no. Taking my dad’s car. Taking some of his stuff with me. A letter he wrote, to give my mom. And some money. He had an envelope with two grand cash in a drawer. He was gonna give it to me to buy a car of my own. Probably would’ve given it to me the day I came, but . . . the wave came.”
“Where you going, then?”
“See my mom. In Ohio. Akron.”
“Oh.”
He thought she was asleep then. Was almost there himself when she said, “Going to stay in Ohio?”
“For a while anyhow.”
“And do what?”
He hesitated. Then said, “Go back to school. And just live where things work. Where there’s electricity. Where people answer if you call nine-one-one. Might be awhile before a lot of California’s like that again.”
“Study what in school?”
; He answered without thinking. Answering the question for himself at that moment. “Law enforcement.”
“Seriously?”
He thought about it. He was sure. “Seriously.”
She was silent and after a minute he thought she’d gone to sleep. Then she said, “Russ . . . ”
“Yeah?”
“Is it nice in Akron?”
“Akron—nice? Some of it. Cold in winter. No jobs, hardly. But . . . I’ll say this for it. It’s a long fucking ways from the ocean. Forty miles from Lake Erie. But—no ocean.” He decided to go ahead and ask, right now. “Want to come? Meet my mom?”
“What about Gram’s kitties?”
“Oh yeah. Does she have cat carriers?”
“Yes. But they’d yowl all the way there.”
“Let ’em yowl.” After a moment he added, “My mom likes cats.”
“You’re a good guy, Russ.”
He wondered about that. He hoped she was right. He had his doubts.
After a moment she asked, “Definitely no ocean in Akron?”
“Definitely. None.”
“Then I’m in. Let’s start tomorrow afternoon.”
“ ’Kay. We’re going to Ohio. Tomorrow.” After a minute more, he pulled her a little closer and said, “Good night.”
But she was asleep. When he was sure she was deeply asleep, Russ got very quietly up and went to the living room. He locked the front door, got his rifle, brought it into the bedroom. He leaned the Winchester 92 against the wall, with the safety on, where he could roll over and grab it if he had to. Then he got in bed with Pendra again, put his arm around her, and fell into a strangely dreamless sleep.
Nella knew Dickie was still alive. She could feel it.
So she waited and, sometime around dawn, she saw him crawling up out of the pit under the fallen part of the house, climbing up just a little bit at a time. Climbing, resting, climbing. He was weak and filthy with mud and blood and caked slime, coughing blood. Looked like he was going to fall back in, and she didn’t want that to happen, so she helped him up onto the broken rim of the smashed western wall.
“Nella . . . ” he rasped. “Thanks, girl. Nella. Get me . . . car. Doctor . . . ”
“I went to that house with the Jaguar, I found the keys. We’re going in style, Dickie. There’s a way down to the beach . . . ”
She went and got the Jaguar, which she’d parked just a few doors down, backed it up next to him. She put the car in park, got out, helped him into the passenger side. He was heavy. It wasn’t easy. He groaned with every movement. He’d been shot through three times. Lot of blood lost. Felt like broken ribs, broken shoulder blade, swollen left shoulder, maybe busted.
“Shouldn’t have gotten into the shit,” he muttered, eyes closed, when they were almost to the sea. “Can’t shoot on meth. Missed the fucker. Missed him.”
He slumped there, breath coming slow and scratchy, shuddering on the brown leather seats, as she drove the Jaguar, under the cold gray light of dawn, toward the beach.
She had to drive up on someone’s yard, twice, and over a mound of debris in one place. But she’d already scouted the way through.
And then they were at the highway. There was an old concrete boat launch ramp, at the northern end of the beach, hardly ever used. Wooden debris was heaped on the ramp but she was able to drive over it, since she didn’t care what it did to the tires. Dickie groaned with the thumping as she drove down the ramp and onto the beach.
Nella drove to the edge of the water—and right into it a little ways. Saw the tide was pretty low and getting lower. He opened his eyes, just cracking them, as the engine died.
“What,” he said. “Why here? Someone comin’ in a boat?”
“Sure,” she said. “That’s right. Come on.”
She got out, came around to his side. She was barefoot. The sand felt cool and good on the soles of her feet, the water cold on her ankles. She opened the door, got her arms under his shoulders, and dragged him out. Pulled him hard, backwards from the car, so that his feet splashed down into the shallow waves. He yelped in pain and cursed her.
“You fucking bitch! That hurts!”
“Come on. They’re coming to take us. Come on . . . ”
She dragged him toward the deeper water. He opened his eyes and saw there was no boat, and made a thrashing effort at dislodging her, but he was weak as a kitten, and she was determined. She was going to use all the strength she had left.
She got him full into the water. Its cold embrace was her first release from the feverishness that she’d taken for granted for days. She dragged him out farther, till the sand sloped away under her and they fell back, a wave slopping seawater into her mouth. She gasped and thrashed herself back on the surface, looped her left arm around his neck. A wave from behind pushed them in a little ways but she kicked off the bottom, and pulled him with her, struggling feebly, out to deeper water. The tide was going out and that helped.
Nella was shivering, teeth chattering, and felt sick to her stomach. Her strength was waning, but she felt good too, in a funny way, as she kicked and swam a clumsy sidestroke, pulled him with her out to sea. The waves got bigger and bigger, rhythmically splashing over her head. But she kept on.
He resisted a little, at first. Then he seemed to run out of steam and went limp in her grasp. Made it easier to pull him along. She knew he was still alive only because she heard him gasping and spitting water from time to time.
They swam past a water-smoothed log; she kicked them through a big patch of seaweed. A gull sat on a bobbing, overturned rowboat, eyeing them. They kept going, past the gull, and on out west. Out to sea. Where cold sea met cold sky; where gray-green sea became gray sky.
“Nella . . . fuckin’ . . . cold . . . ” he rasped. “I’m cold.” She didn’t answer him, and, taking a long shaky breath, he managed, “Where we . . . goin’?”
“Out past the edge of the world,” she said, sputtering a little as a wave slapped over her face. “Out where you get your help from. Out there. We’re going out to join the ocean out there and ask it to please take us, Dickie.”
He spat water. Laughed croakingly. Said, “Not bad.” He coughed. “Not bad . . . ”
He didn’t say anything else. A current caught them, pulled them out farther. Her arms started to go numb, and she lost her grip on him. He floated away, turning face down. He was almost out of sight when she saw him sinking away, down under a wave. Not coming up again. Pretty soon the waves closed over her head too.
Nella was surprised. He was right.
It wasn’t bad.
“What is the meaning of it, Watson?” said Holmes, solemnly, as he laid down the paper. “What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an answer as ever.”
—“The Adventure of the Cardboard Box”
by Arthur Conan Doyle
About the Author
John Shirley is the author of more than thirty novels. He is considered seminal to the cyberpunk movement in science fiction and has been called the “postmodern Poe” of horror. His numerous short stories have been compiled into eight collections including Black Butterflies: A Flock on the Darkside, winner of the Bram Stoker Award, International Horror Guild Award, and named as one of the best one hundred books of the year by Publishers Weekly. He has written scripts for television and film, and is best known as co-writer of The Crow. As a musician, Shirley has fronted several bands over the years and written lyrics for Blue Öyster Cult and others.
The father of three sons, he lives in the San Francisco Bay area with his wife, Michelina.
To learn more about John Shirley and his work, please visit his website at john-shirley.com.
Also by John Shirley
Novels
Transmaniacon
Dracula in Love
City
Come A-Walkin’
Three-Ring Psychus
The Brigade
Cellars
A Song Called Youth Trilogy:
Eclipse, Eclipse Penumbra, Eclipse Corona
A Splendid Chaos
Wetbones
Silicon Embrace
Demons
The View From Hell
. . . And the Angel with Television Eyes
Spider Moon
Crawlers
The Other End
Black Glass
Bleak History
Collections
Heatseeker
New Noir
The Exploded Heart
Black Butterflies: A Flock on the Darkside
Really Really Really Really Weird Stories
Darkness Divided
Living Shadows: Stories: New and Pre-Owned
In Extremis: The Most Extreme Short Stories of John Shirley
Nonfiction
Gurdjieff: An Introduction to His Life and Ideas
