Constant Fear

by Daniel Palmer

  Fausto’s pain finally settled, or so it seemed, since he managed a satisfied grin. For the first time, Jake got a good look at the horrific metal mouth, which contrasted sharply against his dirt-covered face. The pile of ammunition positioned between Jake and Fausto continued to burn, and produced tiny explosions of gunpowder, which sounded like a mash-up of firecrackers and popcorn popping.

  “How many more are down here?” Fausto asked. His chest heaved from fatigue. He spoke with an accent, but Jake had no trouble understanding him.

  “None,” Jake said.

  “None?” Fausto could not contain his utter disbelief. “It’s just you?”

  Jake smiled. “Yeah. Just me.”

  “Well, then, váyase al diablo, pendejo,” Fausto said.

  Jake stood with his feet shoulder-width apart, the left-handed grip on the can of beans mimicking a four-seam grip on a baseball—the best grip for accuracy. He took a small rocker step forward with his right leg, and pivoted his left foot at the same instant Fausto raised the gun to take aim. Fausto lifted the gun higher, but he didn’t have it targeted yet.

  Jake’s right leg came forward as his left arm went back, producing enough separation to generate velocity. Jake was perfectly balanced, right in the middle of his feet, not too much over the front leg or back leg. His hands were equal and opposite. Jake’s trigger foot—his left, not the usual one—turned in, and that brought him to the release point. He drove his shoulder toward Fausto’s head, which he visualized as a catcher’s mitt, and brought his right arm into his side. His feet were perfectly aligned so that his hips could open up. He stayed up and over the front leg as he released the can of beans way out in front of his body.

  For not being a southpaw, Jake generated tremendous thrust. The can shot forward at incredible velocity at the same instant Fausto’s gun went off. If Jake hadn’t been in his follow-through, the bullet would have hit him in the head. Instead, it struck Jake’s shoulder.

  The impact knocked Jake off his feet and backward into the shelf with all those cans. The shelf shattered on impact and sent a hailstorm of tin raining down on Jake’s head.

  The bullet and the can of beans passed each other, but never made contact. Instead, the can sailed right through the open door of the adjacent storage room and connected in the middle of Fausto’s head. Maybe it was going forty miles an hour, maybe faster. Either way, it was fast enough to put a dent in Fausto’s skull and knock him to the ground.

  Jake groaned and rolled on the floor of his larder, while Fausto did the same in the storage room. Expending what felt like his last bit of energy, Jake forced himself onto his knees. The hole in his shoulder was just another place for the blood to leak out. Jake’s world was going dark, but he could see the nearby can of gasoline, the same canister he’d used to ignite the pile of ammunition.

  Jake went for the Zippo first. He stretched his arm like a ballplayer going for an errant throw to cut down the distance he had to travel, before he slid his way over to the can of gas. The cap was still off, with plenty of fluid inside. In the other room, Fausto, even more dazed than Jake, somehow got to his knees and took aim with the gun again. A river of blood poured out from the jagged gash that had opened up the middle of Fausto’s forehead and had bathed much of his face and eyes. Even on his knees, Fausto was wobbly, off balance. He fired two shots, which went in two completely different directions, both ineffective.

  Jake tipped the can of gasoline over, spilling pungent liquid onto the floor. Using his legs, he shoved the whole thing into the storage room as if he had launched a shuffleboard piece. The open canister left in its wake a long trail of gasoline that continued until the container of gas came to a stop against Fausto’s knees.

  Jake wasted no time getting his Zippo out. He hit the flint and dropped the lighter at the start of the gasoline trail.

  The flame traveled faster than Jake’s pitch. In a blink, it vanished inside the open container of gas. An enormous fireball soon erupted. The explosion lit every crevice of the storage room and expansive larder in a bright yellow and orange light.

  A wave of heat shot out, so intense it singed the hair on Jake’s arms and face. Biting odors of gasoline and smoke failed to mask the odor of Fausto’s burning hair and flesh as he vanished inside a swirl of flame. Fausto’s skin blistered and peeled. Soon he wasn’t in the flames, he was the flames; he was part of this entity that licked and spit and thrashed in all directions.

  The pain had to be unbearable. Sounded that way, at least. In a matter of seconds, the flames melted another canister of gas in the storage room, and a second fireball erupted.

  Jake shielded his face and turned away from the intense blast of heat. He crawled toward the door as another blast shook the room. By the time Jake reached the corridor, he heard the popping sounds of ammunition going off, followed by an explosion big enough to send a column of flames shooting out the larder door. Those flames licked the wall near Jake and then sank back into the larder as if the flaming beast had uncoiled and retracted its burning tongue.

  When Jake finally reached the ladder that would bring him to the field house, his bug-out location was completely engulfed in flames. Gunpowder ignited, and chambered rounds went off as though someone had pulled the trigger. Food on the many shelves, in sacks, cooked until it was charred. Stored water boiled before it evaporated. Sacks of rice burned, as did the salt, the sugar, and the honey. Wood shelving fueled the flames and the heat melted the cans of fruit, vegetables, and beans it had scorched. The larder was seldom above sixty-five degrees, but now it was sixteen hundred degrees Fahrenheit, on its way up to two thousand.

  Jake pulled himself up the ladder, rung by rung. His shoulder and leg begged for him to stop, but he went up anyway, one-handed, one rung at a time. He pushed open the trapdoor and was outside the field house, stumbling in the grass as if his legs were new and walking was something still to learn. His blackened body was invisible against the night sky. Eventually voices came at him from all directions, shouting orders, calling for medical attention. Figures approached carrying lights.

  So many lights.

  From darkness, at last, Jake stepped into the light.

  CHAPTER 50

  The preoperative holding area at St. Mary’s Hospital, in the same town where Jake and Ellie had once dined at a cozy Italian restaurant with checkered tablecloths, was an open-floor plan that used movable curtains on tracks to create the illusion of individual rooms. Jake was resting on a stretcher—his shoulder was immobilized in body wrap, his hand mummified in gauze dressing, and his leg suspended in traction. He had several IVs and a catheter in him, and he was hooked up to an array of equipment that monitored his vital signs with rhythmic beeps and hums.

  In addition to the anesthesiologist, a trauma specialist and orthopedic and vascular surgeons had already consulted on Jake’s condition. As a team, they decided to operate on the hand first. Amazingly enough, considering the number of shell casings that would be recovered at the scene, none of Jake’s wounds had been deemed as life-threatening.

  Jake was feeling logy from the pain medication, but he was alert enough to inquire about Ellie. According to the duty nurse, she was still in surgery. One of Ellie’s leg wounds was more severe than any of Jake’s injuries due to the proximity of a major artery, and she’d been rushed into surgery soon after her arrival and initial evaluation. Police and FBI were swarming about the hospital, purportedly there to keep an eye on Jake in case some cartel operatives were still on the loose and aware of his location, and because Jake’s involvement in the mêlée was part of an ongoing investigation.

  At some point during an especially medicated fuzzy period for Jake, the curtain to his makeshift room parted. A broad-shouldered man, with short-cropped hair, entered, escorting Andy. The man had eyes as hard as a steel girder and his mouth seemed forged into a permanent grimace. He came right to Jake’s bedside with purposeful steps, and gripped one of the steel side rails in his sizable hands. He leaned over the
bed, his hardscrabble visage looming large before Jake’s eyes.

  “Jake, I’m Leo Haggar, the FBI agent you disregarded and disobeyed.” The man had a voice gritty and coarse as Jake’s favorite manager in the minors. “That said, from the statements the kids gave, I think I owe you a debt of gratitude.”

  Jake’s mouth felt cottony dry, his throat achy and raw, but he managed to croak, “If I were you, I wouldn’t have listened to me, either.”

  Haggar formed a half smile, which Jake matched.

  “Listen, we’ve got a lot to chat about, me and you, but it can wait. In the meantime, I brought somebody with me who really wants to talk to his dad. I’ll leave you two alone.”

  Haggar took a few steps toward the exit, but then turned around.

  “Jake, before today I never would have said a hero could be a renegade. Heal quick, son. We’ll talk soon.”

  Andy hung back for some time, until Jake encouraged him forward with a slight wave of his left hand, his good hand. Andy took a few tentative steps, his eyes taking it all in—the tubes, the monitors, the bandages.

  “I’m . . . I’m so sorry, Dad. I’m so sorry for everything.”

  Jake noticed the quiver in Andy’s lower lip, but somehow his son held those threatening tears at bay.

  “Tell me everything,” Jake said.

  When Andy finished, a story that took considerable time and effort to tell, his eyes were red, and his face looked drawn.

  “It’s all my fault,” Andy said.

  “You didn’t know how this was going to go down,” Jake said.

  “But a woman died because of what we did, Dad,” Andy said. His voice carried the full weight of his regret.

  Jake’s facial muscles tensed. With it, an unpleasant jolt of pain ripped into his hand before it shot down his wounded leg.

  “A woman died . . .”

  “Andy, there’s something you need to know about that woman.”

  Maybe it was the timbre of Jake’s voice, or his phrasing, but something struck Andy as alarming. He went a little pale.

  How will he take it? Jake didn’t know, but he had to be the one to tell him. Andy had to hear it from his father first.

  “What about her?” Andy blinked rapidly and drew in several short, sharp breaths, as if he knew the news would be devastating on many levels.

  Jake could feel himself getting choked up. His throat closed in silent protest.

  “It was Laura. It was your mom, son.”

  Andy made a noise, a breath that swallowed a cry, and he had to lean on the bed rails for support. Jake covered Andy’s hand with his own to make contact and to help keep his son upright.

  Andy was having a hard time getting out any words. He pulled away and shook his head as if that show of denial, his protest, could somehow alter this new reality.

  “What—what—was she doing there? Why was she even there, Dad?” The warble of Andy’s voice, close to a stutter, punctuated each word.

  Jake remained quiet for fear of implying any blame, but Andy seemed to focus on his father’s silence. It gave him enough information to put the pieces of the puzzle together on his own.

  “We were supposed to meet up,” Andy whispered to himself. “Oh no, Dad. Did she come looking for me? Did she?”

  Jake reached out his hand. “Come here, son,” he said.

  Andy squinted hard as he could, but those tears leaked out anyway. He gritted his teeth, but a sob broke free. Next, Andy covered his face with his hand and began to cry, full on, taking heaving breaths to get air down his lungs. It was raw, honest, and gut-wrenching for Jake to hear, to watch, but it was also very much needed. Like a sliver on the verge of causing an infection, those pent-up emotions had to come out for the healing process to begin.

  “She wouldn’t have come looking for you if she didn’t honestly care. Her feelings for you, everything she said to you—that was genuine. I can attest to it.”

  Andy might have heard the words, but his head rested on Jake’s chest and his tears continued unabated for a time. Jake caressed the back of Andy’s head, and felt so sorrowful for his son that it actually took away his pain.

  After some time, Andy looked at his dad through eyes that were red and raw. “I killed her,” he said.

  “No, son, those men did. They shot her. She saved you.”

  Andy stood up fully and took a step back from Jake’s bed. “Saved me? How?”

  “We might not have known there were hostages inside the school without her warning. They would have tortured you to get what they were after, and eventually killed you, leaving your bodies for us to find as they slipped away, undetected. That was their plan anyway. She sacrificed herself for you. She stayed alive long enough to tell somebody what she saw. I knew your mother pretty well, and the old Laura would never have gone to look for you in the first place. But the new Laura . . . well, I think she would have exchanged her life for yours if that had been a choice.”

  Andy hung his head in sorrow and shame.

  “The best way to honor her death,” Jake continued, “the only way, is to find it in your heart to forgive yourself. I do, son, I forgive you. I love you, Andy, more than anything. You’re my boy—” Jake got emotional and the words stuck, but he found his voice soon enough. “I would do anything to keep you from harm. Anything. In that way, your mom and I are a whole lot alike.”

  Andy stayed with Lance while Jake recovered at the hospital. Jake hadn’t seen Ellie yet, but she was there, recovering too. Today was going to be the first day since he climbed out of that hole in the field house’s floor that he saw the woman he loved. It was also the first day he ate solid food—some Jell-O and toast. Not bad.

  Jake’s hand surgery was deemed a complete success, but more surgeries were to come. They had used arthroscopic intervention to remove bullet fragments from the shoulder joint, but a follow-up procedure would evacuate more debris to protect against infection and inflammation. His leg wound had healed some without surgery, but not enough to walk on, even with the aid of a cane—he had tested it. Instead, Jake wheeled himself to Ellie’s room, with a bouquet of flowers resting on his lap. The flowers weren’t spectacular by any stretch, the blue and purple hues didn’t look like anything that grew in the wild, but the hospital gift shop offered a limited supply.

  Ellie was sitting up in bed, leafing through a magazine, when Jake arrived. Both her legs were in traction. Bandaged. Healing. She was hooked to monitors and such, but not to an alarming array of apparatuses. She was clearly on the mend. When Ellie saw Jake, her whole face lit up.

  “Officer Barnes,” Jake said, cocking a half smile. “I heard you were looking for someone to go running with.”

  “Only if I can sit on your lap and you wheel me around.”

  Jake picked up the flowers to make room for her. “Hop on,” he said.

  Jake wheeled over to the bed and tossed the flowers onto a side table crowded with other floral arrangements and a sea of get well cards. He leaned far enough forward to kiss Ellie tenderly on the forehead, then a kiss on her cheek, and then one on the lips.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “Like a woman who got shot twice in the leg. Actually, the surgery went really well. I’ll be on my feet before long, or so the doctors say. How about you?”

  “For human Swiss cheese, I think I’m doing all right. Who’s been looking after your dogs?”

  “My neighbor is on it. What about Andy?”

  “He’s with Lance.”

  They fell into a brief silence, during which Jake took hold of Ellie’s hand. Tears came to Ellie’s eyes, and she laughed and cried at the same time.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m really happy to see you. Honestly, from what I’ve heard, I can’t believe you made it out of there alive.”

  “Yeah, well, that makes two of us.”

  Ellie got quiet again, but then said, “Why didn’t you tell me, Jake?”

  “Tell you what? That I think you’re beautiful, tha
t I love you? I do, and I do.”

  Ellie blushed a little as a smile brightened her face. “Yeah, well, I love you, too. And I should have said it sooner. I should have told you how I felt about you when I knew what those feelings actually were. But what I’m talking about is your lifestyle. Why did you keep it a secret from me all this time?”

  Jake gripped Ellie’s hand tighter as he looked deeply in her eyes. “Because I didn’t want to lose you, I guess,” Jake said. “Look, when there’s a reality-TV show dedicated to your lifestyle, you know what you do isn’t exactly mainstream. I was going to tell you at some point, but I just kept putting it off.”

  “Well, in case you were wondering, I wouldn’t have broken up with you,” Ellie said.

  “But you would have had doubts about me. About my mental makeup. Come on, let’s be honest here.”

  “I have a big guard dog to look out for me. I wouldn’t have been scared.” Ellie laughed a little in a way that Jake found so endearing.

  “Well, my choices might have raised a question or two in your mind. But I guess it was something more than just you thinking I was a nut that kept me from telling you.”

  “Yeah? What more reason could there be?”

  “I think I was holding on, Ellie . . . to my past, to Laura, to a time in my life when everything made the most sense. I was stuck there, which was probably why our relationship couldn’t get beyond a certain level. I didn’t really want to move forward.”

  “And now you do?”

  Jake touched Ellie’s face with much tenderness. Ellie pressed his hand against her even more strongly, and held him close.

  “More than anything,” Jake said.

  A visitor was waiting for Jake when he wheeled back into his hospital room. Pixie sat on a cushioned chair tucked in a corner of the room, Beats by Dre headphones locked over his ears, eyes glued to his phone, thumbs moving at a blistering pace.