Missed.
Returning to my spot, I steady myself and fire again. There’s a flash, the shot rips the air and echoes off the hills. What I don’t see is a bullet punching a hole in the door amid a flurry of paint flakes and wood chips.
Missed again.
I examine the little gun. There’s not much to it. The barrel is no longer than my middle finger and the front and rear sights are no more than metal fins. I can’t see how the gun could be askew or need calibrating. I also can’t see how I can be such a terrible shot.
I take a big step closer. Now the revolver’s muzzle is only a body length from him. God, I knew I’d have to be close—but this close makes my stomach turn when I recall how horrible it was when Dad put his gun to his face.
That memory is like ice cracking beneath my feet and I plunge into doubts that are like frigid black currents. What if I’m wrong about Jack’s guilt? What if I’m murdering humanity’s only hope? What if I’m right but Jack’s really a life support system? What if—with one bullet—I kill not just him but Evan and everyone else he has raised? These questions could encase me in ice, freeze me solid.
I shake my head, try to surface, reclaim calm and clarity.
‘No,’ I say. ‘You’re right about this.’
I know I am. I’ve turned over the evidence in my head again and again. This is my fear trying to talk me out of what I have to do. Of course I’m doubtful. A week ago I was a sixteen year old unwrapping Christmas presents. Now I’m a sixteen year old doing a dress rehearsal for first-degree murder. No wonder my brain’s trying to find some way out of this.
But I know there’s only one way out for me and Evan and everyone—killing Jack.
Relax. Inhale. Exhale. Aim. Squeeze.
Blam!
I hit nothing again. At this rate, I’ll have to hold the gun to Jack’s temple. As much as he might love me, I’m not sure he’ll stand still for that. I step closer again to the outhouse, intimate enough now to see a column of unconcerned ants spilling from a crevice near my target’s inner thigh.
I aim and squeeze the trigger and the muzzle flares and my ears ring louder. Chalk Jack abides unplugged as unfazed ants march on across undamaged wooden planks.
A lot of uns also apply to me. Untrained with firearms. Unmoored by what’s happened to the world. Unable to believe every single shot I’ve fired has missed. The toilet door fills my entire field of vision. Physics wasn’t my strongest subject at school but I’m goddamned sure bullets don’t go around corners.
Chalk Jack’s smile no longer seems blank. It seems sinister. Mocking. My skin prickles into goosepimples. Maybe he is a God. I’ve invoked him with my crude totem and then insulted his divinity with my puny attempts to inflict injury. Maybe he can watch me through those vacant eyes as easily as he can bend the laws of the universe so my bullets miss him.
‘No,’ I say, as if my denial only has power spoken aloud. ‘No.’
Jack isn’t here. He can’t see me. Chalk Jack’s not real. He’s just a representation.
Then it hits me that this isn’t only true of my outhouse door drawing.
I look at the gun in my hand.
It’s fitting that everything I know about it—that it’s a .38, that headshots are tricky, that I’m supposed to squeeze not pull the trigger—comes from movies and television.
That’s because I don’t think the gun’s actually a weapon at all.
I think it’s a prop.
The Last Girl Page 30
