Widow Town

by Joe Hart

  “Why did you ask me to the festival, Joe?”

  He blinked at her in the low light. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, why? There’s a hundred other women our age that aren’t pregnant that you could’ve asked.”

  “I didn’t want to take a hundred other women, I wanted to take you.” His voice was soft and he hoped she didn’t hear the tremble in it.

  “If you feel sorry for me, don’t. I made a mistake, not in getting pregnant but with who I chose for the father. I’ve made my peace with that and I’m ready to raise this baby alone, so if pity is pushing you to date me we can just shake hands and go our separate ways. I don’t need pity.”

  “The only person I pity is the man who left you, and I dislike him enough on principal to get past that.”

  He watched the half of her face he could see and when she smiled again he leaned toward her. Her perfume smelled like warm honey and a fresh flower; daisies. Then her lips were against his, pliant and unlike he’d dreamed they would be. Better. She touched the side of his face, running her fingertips down the skin he’d shaved only hours ago. Then her lips were gone, but her hand remained where it was.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  He put his hand over hers. “Thank you.”

  “I should go, it’s late and there’s a lot of work to do tomorrow.”

  “I’ll walk you up.”

  “I’m fine,” she said, grabbing her purse from the floor. “I’m sure I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “You can count on it,” he said, watching her ease out of the door and make her way to the house. He waited until she unlocked the door and waved before turning around to pull down the short drive that met the county road.

  As he guided the truck toward town, he looked up at the stars again and smiled.

  ~

  Siri shut the door behind her and leaned against it, one hand on her stomach in the spot the baby usually kicked.

  “What do you think, honey?” she said aloud, rubbing her belly. “He might be something, huh?”

  She slid off her flat shoes and flipped on several lights. Pausing in the doorway to the kitchen, she frowned. The air smelled of something. She sniffed, inhaling the scent. It was like old sweat or faint body odor. The hair on the back of her neck stiffened as a sound came from the living room, quiet, almost indistinguishable, but there.

  Breathing.

  She spun and let out a short cry as two hands grasped her upper arms, the fingers digging into her flesh.

  “Hello Siri, have a nice date?”

  ~

  Ruthers pulled to a stop at the first light in town and considered grabbing a six-pack. He could almost taste the beer on his tongue. The liquor store was right and his house was left. He glanced down the well-lit street and checked the clock. If he hurried he could still make it before closing time. He was about to spin the wheel when his eyes fell on a dark rectangle on the passenger floorboard. Keeping his foot on the brake, he leaned to the side and picked it up.

  Siri’s phone.

  Holding it, he thumbed the display on as the time ticked over to the next hour.

  “Probably too late anyway,” he said.

  With a last look down the street, he cranked the wheel and headed back the direction he’d come.

  ~

  Darrin threw Siri across her bedroom. Her legs slammed into the bedframe and she fell onto the mattress, the air rushing out of her lungs.

  “You just lay there for a second while I show you something,” Darrin said, walking closer. Ryan entered the room behind his brother carrying a sleek pistol in one hand.

  “What are you doing?” Siri said. “I know your father, I work with him.” Her eyes went from Darrin’s cold stare to Ryan. The younger boy’s features were slack and he was pale. “Please, just don’t hurt me and I won’t tell anyone you were here.”

  Darrin laughed as his hand went into his pocket and came out holding a round steel cylinder. One of its ends was flat and smooth while the other narrowed to a short, needled point. He smiled at her as he stopped at the side of the bed and knelt down so that they were at eye level.

  “Do you know what this is?” Darrin asked.

  Siri looked at the instrument in his hand and shook her head.

  “It’s a deseminator. They use these in abortion clinics. See, this little needle here is inserted right through a woman’s stomach wall into her uterus.” Darrin squeezed the handle and the short needle slid out nearly a foot with a clicking sound. “Then once it’s been maneuvered into the perfect position by a qualified medical professional, such as my father, this other button is pushed.”

  He squeezed the cylinder again and the last four inches of the needle split apart into six individual pieces, like an umbrella opening in reverse. Siri’s eyes widened as Darrin brought the splayed edges of the needle closer to her face.

  “These barbs tear the fetus apart. Barbaric, isn’t it? I mean, we put men on Mars but we can’t find a better way to kill babies?” Darrin laughed, the sound like screeching vehicle brakes. “Anyway, this model’s a bit large, normally used for livestock with abnormal pregnancies.” He moved closer to her, thrusting the deseminator into her face. “You make a move that I don’t like, try to run, scream, anything, I’m going to have my brothers hold you down and I’m going to shove this into your stomach and hit the trigger. You’ll feel your baby die inside you, then we’ll watch you bleed out. Do we understand each other?”

  Siri drew in a shuddering breath. “Yes.”

  “Good girl. Now where do you keep your suitcase?”

  “In the closet on the floor.”

  Darrin stood and retracted the needle into the deseminator’s handle.

  “Keep that on her in case she decides to be stupid,” Darrin said to Ryan as he passed him. Ryan swallowed and raised the pistol, leveling it at Siri as she sat up on the bed. His hand trembled.

  “Why are you doing this?” Siri asked.

  Ryan swallowed and blinked. It looked like he was going to pass out. Darrin emerged from the closet carrying her black, rolling travel suitcase.

  “Isn’t that the question of the hour? Why? Why? Why? Everyone wants to know that.” Darrin stalked to the clothes dresser beside the bed and dropped the suitcase. With a snap of his hand he snagged her hair in his fist and pulled her toward him as he bent over. His breath was rotten on her face and his handsome features were pulled into something demonic.

  “I’ll give you an answer, darling: because, that’s why.” He released her hair and opened the top drawer of the dresser. He chucked handfuls of her underwear and socks into the suitcase and then moved on to the next drawer. Ryan watched him work, flinching every time he slammed a drawer shut.

  The barrel of the gun wavered.

  Ryan stared at the back of Darrin’s head, his eyes shooting once to Siri and then to Darrin again. Slowly, the pistol dropped a fraction of an inch, lining up with Darrin’s skull. Ryan shook, the sights sliding on and off of his brother’s head.

  Siri watched Ryan’s eyes lock on his brother’s task and eased her hand over to where the dresser met the bedframe. Her fingers brushed the grip of the handgun that was stowed there and she tensed her body, taking in a deep breath before releasing it.

  Siri jerked the gun free of its holster and swung it up. Darrin yelled something unintelligible and reached for her. The pistol bucked in her hand and blood flew from Darrin’s shoulder in a fine spray. Ryan fired, his finger reflexing on the trigger and three rounds burst from the barrel, burying themselves in the floor. Siri rolled across the bed, falling from its top to the space near the wall. With one hand she covered her stomach while she threaded the gun up over her head and then under the bed.

  “Fuck!” Darrin screamed, and fell to the floor as he skittered backward. “Shoot that bitch! Shoot her!” A shot came from beneath the bed and punched a hole in the wall near the doorway at foot level. Ryan ducked and ran into the upstairs hall as Darrin floundered after him.
r />   “Are you hit?” Darrin asked, grabbing Ryan’s arm for support.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What the fuck, where’d that gun come from?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Cover the fucking door in case she comes out.” Darrin staggered to the head of the stairs and examined his shoulder in the light. A crater large enough to put his thumb in was gouged in his arm. Blood oozed out of the hole and began to soak his shirtsleeve, turning it a darker black.

  “What do we do, Darrin?” Ryan asked, his eyes locked on the bedroom door, the gun vibrating in his grip.

  “Shut up,” Darrin hissed. “I have to get this bleeding stopped. Don’t move and shoot her if she comes out. She can’t get out that window, it’s a fourteen-foot drop.”

  Darrin made his way down the stairs, blood dropping from his fingertips. He found a towel in one of the kitchen drawers and looped it around the wound but couldn’t tie it with only one hand. As he walked toward the stairs again a knock came from the front door and it began to swing open. He stopped, frozen where he stood as a hand appeared and then a face.

  Ruthers stepped into the entry holding a cell phone in one hand.

  “Siri? The door was open and—” His words cinched off in his throat as he saw Darrin standing in the kitchen doorway, blood slowly soaking through the starch-white towel.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” Ruthers said taking another step into the house.

  Darrin reached with his good hand into his pocket and drew out the steel cylinder. Ruthers began to move backward as his eyes shot toward the stairway.

  “Don’t move, police!”

  Darrin nodded once and something hit the back of Ruthers’s neck hard and the lights tipped to the side as he fell.

  ~

  Siri blinked away the tears that kept forming as she aimed at the doorway. Sobs tried to build up inside her but she swallowed them down each time. The baby kicked, a watery, sliding motion that made her clench her jaw each time. She heard the Barder boys talking in the hall. She’d hit one of them but she didn’t know which. Blood lay in a triangular spray on the white carpet, an arrow that pointed directly at her.

  Footsteps receded down the stairs but there was still heavy breathing in the hall. She tried to calculate where it was and if she could send a shot through the wall. Tears again, blurring her vision. She wiped them away and glanced at the window beside her and then back at the door.

  Voices came from downstairs, muddled and indistinct. Then a yell that made her gasp.

  Joe was downstairs.

  “Joe! Get help! There’s two of them!”

  Silence except for the breathing in the hallway.

  “Darrin? You okay?” Ryan called.

  “Yeah, we’re good.”

  Siri waited, her stomach roiling in time with the baby’s movements. Vomit tried to make a run for the back of her throat but she gagged and managed to hold it down.

  “Siri, you’re going to put that gun down and come out of your room in ten seconds, you hear me?” Darrin said from what sounded like the bottom of the stairs.

  Siri licked her arid lips. “Joe?”

  “He’s right here, and if you don’t come out of the room unarmed I’m going to slit his throat.”

  “You’re lying.”

  There was a sliding thump and then a moan.

  “Tell her to drop the gun,” Darrin said.

  A pause and then Joe’s voice, weak and groggy came up the stairway. “Don’t do it, Siri, don’t—”

  Joe cried out and there was a scuffle followed by a gagged groan of pain.

  “Don’t hurt him!” Siri yelled, her arms trembling from holding the gun so tightly.

  “You do what I say and you both live. You don’t, he dies first, slow, and then we burn the house down with you inside. Your choice, Siri, we’ve got all night.”

  She waited, the baby kicked.

  With another look at the window, she stood, the blood flowing back to her legs in painful ebbs that coalesced into tingling needles. She crossed the room as quietly as she could and stopped at the door.

  “I’m coming out, don’t shoot.”

  “Lay the gun on the floor of the hall,” Darrin said.

  She bent over and tossed the pistol through the doorway.

  “Good girl. Now come out, nice and slow and no one dies.”

  She stepped into the hallway. Darrin and Ryan stood at the base of the stairs. Adam, the huge middle brother, held Joe with one massive forearm pressed to his neck from behind. Joe’s lip was swollen and seeping blood. Darrin had the deseminator poised below Joe’s chin and he watched her over one shoulder, his dark eyes gleaming. Ryan held an unsteady bead on her with the pistol.

  “Let him go.”

  “Come down the stairs first, then we’ll talk. Make any sudden moves and I’ll shish-kebob his fuckin’ brain.”

  Siri took a step as Joe gurgled something and shook his head. Darrin gouged the soft skin of Joe’s neck and a small runner of blood appeared that slid out of sight into the collar of his shirt.

  “Stop, I’m coming, don’t hurt him.” She stumbled down the last several stairs and Ryan caught her arm, breaking her fall.

  “Take her, Adam,” Darrin said.

  Adam released Ruthers who sagged as Darrin clutched the back of his shirt, moving the weapon from his neck to his lower back.

  “You know, I’ve never been shot before, but it wasn’t like I thought it would be. More like a bee sting.”

  “Let her go,” Ruthers wheezed.

  Darrin ground the sharp end of the instrument into his back. “Shut up, Joey. You always were a pain in the ass.”

  “Stop,” Siri said. Tears finally broke free of her eyes and slid down her face.

  “Does our good sheriff suspect anything about us?” Darrin said, shaking Ruthers by the collar.

  Ruthers stared into Siri’s eyes, his jaw tight.

  “Always the hard-ass. Well, probably couldn’t believe anything you’d tell us anyway. What’s the world coming to when law enforcement can’t be trusted?” Darrin let out his screeching laughter again.

  “Darrin, we have to go,” Ryan said, looking out the front windows.

  Darrin didn’t seem to hear him.

  “It’s thrilling, isn’t it? What we’re experiencing now? We’re on the edge of something beautiful, predator and prey locked in the dance.” Darrin gripped Ruthers harder, drawing him close. “You’d do anything to save her, wouldn’t you?” he whispered into Ruthers’s ear. “What’s it feel like to know you can’t?”

  He triggered the deseminator.

  There was the same metallic click and Ruthers stiffened, his eyes flying wide. Darrin held him fast and pressed the second button. There was a hollow thunk that came from inside Ruthers’s stomach and his legs dropped from beneath him.

  “No!” Siri screamed, trying to lunge forward but Adam grasped her by the hair and yanked her back. Darrin pulled the instrument free as Ruthers fell, its end one piece again. Crimson coated its length and ran from the needled tip. Ruthers crumpled to the floor, a whoosh of air coming from his chest, the sound of a balloon deflating in one blast. Siri sobbed and Adam twisted her hair, holding her tighter. Ryan stared at the fallen deputy.

  “Oh shit! That worked great!” Darrin yelled, stepping back from Ruthers to look at him. “Must’ve cut a nerve to his legs along with his liver. Damn, he pissed himself, look at that!”

  “We should go,” Ryan said, his eyes locked on Ruthers as he shuddered against the floor.

  “You’re a fucking coward, Ry-Ry, and for that you get the duty of hauling our fine deputy out of here.”

  “We’re taking him with us?”

  “Can’t leave a body here. They’d be able to ID him even after the fire.”

  Siri cried out again and tried to lunge at Darrin.

  “Will you shut her up, Adam?”

  Adam nodded and pulled a small plastic tube from his pocket. One end w
as slim and pointed and he jammed this into Siri’s left nostril as he wrenched her head back. Her eyes fluttered and she gagged before slumping forward. Adam held her upright easily and dragged her across the living room toward the front door.

  “Nice thing about this is almost all the bleeding is internal. No messy cleanup,” Darrin said, gazing at the weapon in his hand. “Although I kind of like the mess.” He motioned to Ryan. “Go ahead and drag him to the door, we’ll load him in the van from there.”

  Darrin moved toward the front of the house while Ryan swayed and took a step forward, tucking the pistol in the back of his pants. Ruthers gasped in a hitching breath, a ratcheting sound coming from deep in his chest, and his eyes found Ryan’s as he approached. He tried pushing himself along the floor with his arms but he barely moved an inch. Finally he lay still, bringing his hands to his sides as Ryan bent over him to grasp his ankles.

  Ruthers fumbled with something and then slowly lifted his hand up, half sitting as he did so. Ryan glanced at him, thinking that the dying deputy was reaching to him for help. When he looked up, the other man’s hand was in front of his face. There was something in Ruthers’s palm, something metallic.

  The six-inch blade shot from the end of the knife and slid into Ryan’s right eye.

  For a moment he remained where he was, holding Ruthers’s ankles and then his body convulsed, snapping him upright as his hands came instinctually to the injury. Ruthers lost his grip on the knife and it went with Ryan as he stood, its handle jutting from his ruined eye socket. There was a beat of quiet stillness as Ryan’s jittering fingers found the blade, his jaw dropping loose, and Ruthers watched him through the fading that was filling up his vision. Then the younger man’s legs unhinged and he slammed to his knees before tipping forward. He landed on his face, driving the knife even deeper into his skull just as Darrin stepped back into the room.

  “What the fuck?”

  Darrin latched onto Ryan’s shoulder and rolled him over. Blood poured out around the knife’s haft and expanded in a dark pool on the floor. Ryan’s body shuddered once and fell still.