Bullets of Rain

by David J. Schow

  Another weighty thud, from the front door. Apparently the assailant had given up tool use and was now running against the barrier. Or maybe Luther had taken the guy out. But Art had heard no roaring report of the shotgun, talking dirty.

  Luther was back in the kitchen. "I can't get the little window crank-thing to work. Can't see to shoot."

  Art motioned him over. Luther squatted close, for confab.

  "How about we don't do any shooting at all?"

  Luther gulped in surprise. "Say what?"

  "How about," said Art, "we just open the door?"

  Luther rocked back on his heels, then wiped his brow, then split another huge grin, brightening. "Now, that requires balls. I like it. We'd make a great comedy team, you and me. Do road pictures. Yep, I'm for it." He motioned toward the door. "You go low, I'll stay high and cover you. Your house, your rules."

  Keeping the pistol right-handed, Art quietly pulled the big bolts on the door. Blitz was still barking.

  Time sped up to fast-forward as Art yanked the door. It stuck on the first try. He put one foot against the frame and almost dislocated his shoulder hurling the door wide open, getting his gun up to eye level, shouting into the incoming storm so loudly that his throat hurt.

  "Don't you fucking move, you piece of-"

  The person standing outside sprang so quickly, and was in Art's face so fast, that he seemed to scoot around real time. Art's gun went spinning across the floor and the next thing he knew, he was being swarmed by a mad savage painted up like a psychedelic Indian.

  Who went limp on top of him when Luther reversed the shotgun and cracked him on the back of the head, a skillful, well-aimed, smart tap that negated all the incoming fury in an instant. He stepped over both of them to slam and relock the door.

  "You got an ax stuck in your front door," Luther said as he stepped over the two of them to resecure the entrance. Art fought not to black out.

  "Lookit this guy," said Luther, rolling over the prostrate form of the invader, who was, in fact, clad in a zebra skin. The front door had a frightening amount of exterior damage but was now resecured, the only clue on the inside face being the tiny impact blister Art had seen to appear on the otherwise smooth surface. The ax he and Luther had pried out of the door was the sort of thing woodsmen used to split rails, and Art had a pretty good estimate of where it had come from.

  It's like those wild West serial adventures, Art thought. Take out the leader and the whole tribe of savages backs off. Apparently the other outsiders had given up, or gone to beat on the immutable monument of the radar dish, or blown out to sea. Who really knew?

  The guy piled in the entryway like dropped laundry was definitely a man, definitely wearing no other clothing apart from neon-logoed running shoes, no socks. He was bald and still had fresh cuts healing on his head, which was newly and indifferently shaven. Black paste raccooned his eyes and his face was striped in red paint that looked queerly familiar. Braided thongs and elephant-hide wristlet. He was wearing a coyote skull on a piece of lamp cord tied around his neck.

  When Luther thumbed back the guy's eyelids, Art saw brown eyes and pupils contracted to saltshaker pinpricks like spatters of ink.

  "This looks like ole Malcolm," Luther said, shaking his head.

  "Spilsbury's," said Art, nearly simultaneously. He related the story of the break-in, downbeach, and the near calamity that had almost finished off his Jeep.

  "Maybe he's pissed off you almost ran over him."

  The feeling hit Art again, the gnawing constancy of being forced to pay for everything that happened to him. All at once.

  Luther peered at the coyote skull (alas, poor Yorick), and stripped it away. "So he took all this stuff from that other house, that Pillsbury? Man, I don't know how they stayed standing in this shitstorm. That wind through the door, just now? Tried to peel my eyelids off.''

  "I think they had some high-octane encouragement," said Art. "Price's tiny time pills."

  "Oh, yeah. Fuck. Not counting what other shit there was to suck up. They probably didn't even feel the cold."

  Blitz had left his post near the windows to sniff the unmoving form of Malcolm (or whoever this really was), then did a patrol turn of the house, then resumed his original spot.

  Art considered his home's latest uninvited guest. "He's not dead, is he?"

  "Naw." Luther checked the pulse at the wrist and throat. "I think we should wake him up, though. Maybe tie him up, then wake him up."

  "What about his buddies outside?"

  "You hear 'em banging? I say we don't worry about them until we hear 'em banging. If they were still hanging around, all them windows in a row on your beach side are too good to resist."

  Somehow, the authority in Art's realm had surreptitiously settled on Luther's shoulders. But he was right, and Art suspected that Price's idea of chemical recreation did not allow for a great deal of linear logic. Art and Luther had been smart, but they had been lucky, too. It might not occur to the marauders to come back for another try.

  Luther reached over and smacked Art on the shoulder. "Hey. You here or not?"

  "Yeah, yeah. I'm here." His entire body felt flushed and warm.

  "Don't you fuckin go all girly on me now. We got him." Luther wiped away his own stress sweat. "Fuckin' zebra."

  "It's not real," said Art. "Spilsbury's had a lot of decor in early Great White Hunter."

  "So these dudes got too high and instituted their own back-to-nature movement, right here on the beach?"

  "Maybe he can tell us. Somehow I don't think the story will really matter."

  Luther rose, kneecaps cracking audibly, and checked the garage.

  "They sprung the damned door again.''

  Art stood up, shaking less now, his movements more controllable. "I'll see if I can get it to stay shut. Where's the dog?"

  Luther shielded his eyes with his palm against the glare from the hallway emergency lights. "Looks like he's sleeping on duty. Near the window. Listen, you want me to bend that door back, y'know, give it a little more gorilla power?''

  "No, take five while you've got it. I'll fix it."

  "Your house. Fair enough." Luther cracked a plastic bottle of water from the deactivated fridge and began to chug it down.

  ***

  It took fifteen seconds, give or take, for Art to work his way over to the triangular rent in the garage door. The whole thing would have to be replaced. The spit-and-baling-wire method was not even working, right now. This was the thought in his head when he heard the shotgun go off, inside the house.

  For a fraction of a moment, it was louder than the storm.

  Then, suddenly, it wasn't noisy enough.

  Art sprang back into the house, skidding on the floor and seeing a hole in the kitchen wall the size of half a dinner plate, like a big bite edged with fresh blood. Luther was splayed atop the intruder- Malcolm?-his wide-legged fall dumping him half out of the kitchen.

  Art thought of World War II movies, of guys throwing themselves on top of live grenades. Blitz was barking, braced, holding back, snarling wetly for added threat.

  Luther emitted a horrible braying sound, that of an animal in the iron jaws of a trap, tearing loose one of its own limbs to get free. He lolled over and grabbed the hole in the wall, trying to upright himself, using just his upper-body leverage. The rest of him was not working. Art was still standing eight feet away with his mouth hanging open. The crotch of Luther's pants was shredded and oily with dark blood that had been inside of him, just a second ago.

  "Mother fucker." he gasped. "Foxed me."

  Malcolm (or whoever it turned out to be for real) had rolled, captured the Benelli, which had been left leaning against the foyer wall, and pulled the trigger once as Luther tried to stop him. Now the man in fake zebra hide was on his back, his face distended in a frozen wax scream, eyes bugged, wearing the last expression he would ever display. No breathing, no pulse, not anymore. Luther had managed to break his neck while most of his own left thigh
was being vaporized by double-ought buckshot.

  It no longer mattered who Malcolm really was.

  Art tried to tend his new ally, but the white towels from the kitchen drawer turned sodden crimson too quickly.

  "Ya can't put pressure," Luther said between clenched, shallow breaths. "I think that cocksucker got my artery down there. Shit!" Art grabbed his phone, the response of a person who has finally acknowledged the situation has gotten out of hand. Nothing. Cellular, ditto. Emergency evacuation by the navy, no way.

  "Suzanne!" Art screamed toward the back of the house. "Get your ass out here and help me!"

  No movement from the bedroom.

  Luther went gauuuu and wrenched upward in an excruciating spasm. "I can't feel my hands.'' He was sitting in an enormous pool of blood that Art could see spreading, even in the dark. He was shaking now, vibrating with shock trauma. "Art?"

  "I'm right here." He yelled for Suzanne again. No good.

  "It ain't working," said Luther. "I'm sorry." Now his teeth were outlined in blood.

  "You did everything right. No apologies. I don't want anybody at my back that just has apologies to whip out."

  Luther almost smiled at that, but could not force it past the pain, and his imminent system shutdown. "No, I mean… I'm sorry about Price. I never shoulda listened to his bullshit, played along, you know?"

  "To hell with him," said Art. "What can I do?"

  "Can't do nothin'." He coughed up a phlegmy rattle from deep in his chest, unable to keep his head up. "This is gonna sound… stupid."

  "Anything."

  Luther was able to roll one eye to meet Art's gaze. "I want you to kiss me," he said. "Kiss me and send me on my way."

  Another grenade, another shotgun blast, erupted inside Art's brain. Say what1par "Hurry. You ain't all that bad-lookin, y'know?"

  Luther convulsed again, hard enough to lift his nerve-dead legs, then slap them down on the red-moist floor. Art was certain that was it. But Luther's eye still transfixed him.

  It was probably very simple. Luther was delirious. Luther was gay. Luther was flashing back to his combat ladylove. What difference did it make, as he died?

  Art tilted Luther's chin up and kissed him as gently as he could. He caught Luther's final exhale into his own mouth. Dead man's breath. He was still holding his friend's hand when it no longer mattered.

  Blitz was growling. The sound, ominously constant, gradually trickled through to Art's perception. Art blotted his forehead with his biceps. He felt a dot of Luther's blood on his lower lip. The stench of blood all around was palpable, sickening.

  This is no time to be jealous, you dumb hairbag. Art tried to invent something reassuring and only a dry click issued from his throat. What was the command in German?

  The dog came for Art at a charge, launching off the floor. All Art saw was a crowd of onrushing teeth.

  His eyeblink of hesitation almost cost him his face. He caught Blitz on his forearm and felt the teeth nest deeply into his flesh. They teakettled backward into the kitchen.

  No command in any language could deactivate Blitz.

  The dog was all over Art like a gang of muggers, fast enough to score high marks on any K-9 test. Peculiar and interesting, yes, but not when Art was the attack dummy. He clopped Blitz on the snout hard enough to break the clamp of his jaws and get his chewed arm free. He tried to grab the dog by the ears. Blitz feinted and snapped, practically rabid, and tore another furrow along the heel of his master's right hand. There were no guns around; hell, there weren't even any blunt objects.

  Art slung the dog around and fell back, putting both feet against Blitz's chest, the place where he most liked to be rubbed, in another life. He kicked and Blitz somersaulted backward into the garage through the still-open door. He banged against the grille of the Jeep, scrabbling for equilibrium, paws already accelerating on the concrete floor for another charge. Art slammed the door on Blitz's nose. The dog yelped and withdrew, leaving brackets of Art's blood on the frame as the door seated with a declarative click.

  He slumped against the counter, leaning heavily on his thighs, panting. "Damn it, dammit!" His own fucking dog.

  Reason kept his head from subdividing on the spot, like an amoeba. Luther had fed Blitz jerky. Luther had dissected the mystery pill on the living-room table. Blitz had sampled the powder, which no doubt had retained the tang of Luther's jerky-greased lingers. Blitz had Hyded out and become the perfect attack canine, payback for his shortcomings as a wannabe cop.

  "You guys sure make a lot of noise," said Suzanne, causing Art's heart to nearly catapult from his throat. Someone pulled the ejector-seat ring on his rib cage.

  "Jesus Christ, Suzanne, buck!"

  She was holding the votive candle and wearing an old, thick UCSB sweatshirt with fabric pills on the shoulders. "Jesus Christ, yourself! You're all bloody. Is the war over? Did you win?"

  Blitz was frothing and thudding against the door.

  "It's bad," Art said, his lungs still trying to find air. How did you boil the evening's events down to a one-liner? Ad hell broke loose. Shit happened. My life changed fiorever and ever.

  "Don't walk out here." He gestured feebly. "Broken glass."

  "Oh, I found shoes, I figured that.'' She pointed. Somewhere in the closet she'd unearthed Lorelle's old canvas deck shoes.

  "Don't come out anyway."

  "Don't be stupid, I mean, look at you."

  The anger rose in him unbidden. He was pressed rudely against the fabric of his own sanity and could hear rips and tears widening.

  There was a corpse in the foyer, Luther was gone, and the air reeked of madness and death. The house was punctured, pierced, trashed, nearly powerless. His dog had gone insane.

  "Suzanne, go back into the bedroom," he said, gutturally, eyes squeezed shut. He was on the verge of losing it, flipping out. Plus, he was hurt and bleeding. Now was not the time to try walking Suzanne's tightrope. "Do it now."

  "You need help. Look at you.''

  True enough. But he did not think she would be eager to help him stack bodies in the garage. A persistent burn had settled into the corners of Art's eyes, damage that hurt when he blinked, and felt caustic, as though solvent had been rubbed into the tender flesh there. The candle in Suzanne's hand stung his eyes.

  "What's wrong with the dog?'' Blitz was barking, ragged and wild, behind the closed door two feet away.

  Hot acid jetted into Art's throat from his stomach. He swallowed it back down, thirsty and depleted. "He got hurt. He's a little crazy. I had to lock him out."

  "Come on in here and lie down, just for a moment. You look like death.''

  "Can't." It felt like the wall was the only thing holding him up as he spoke. The starch was leaching out of his bones.

  "You've got to. Please?" She was still looking him up and down with the candle, assessing his damage.

  "Can't." Disharmony furrowed his brow. "Got to-why?"

  "I don't know," she said, turning the hand that held the candle to show him she was wearing her diver's watch, the one that it was so important to her not to lose track of earlier. "Because it's almost nine?"

  That didn't make any sense.

  "Come on," she said. "Don't make me force you."

  That made even less sense. He looked at her, nude from the waist down, abused and hanging on like a castaway.

  She smiled, face pulling up oddly on one side due to her shiner. Her other hand came into the small circle of light to reveal his own Beretta, semiauto, from the open gun safe, hammer back. "Daddy had guns," she said. The muzzle idled in his direction, not exactly a threat, not yet. "I made sure I grabbed this when all the commotion started."

  "Put that away," he said, just annoyed. "Give it to me."

  She shook her head, backing up a step in case he wanted to try a grab. "I said, it's nearly nine, so it's time for you to. Sit. Down."

  He should have smacked away the pistol with the heel of his hand and grabbed Suzanne by the throat, but he had
already missed the moment. They had Luther between them and she was stepping back from the tide of blood oozing toward her feet. The fine hairs on the back of Art's neck scared up. The rattler in his chest was looped into a defensive fallback position above his lungs, cornered, its weight making breathing a chore. He felt too depleted, as though a dump vent on his will had been tripped. Blitz was still schizzing out, oblivious to his own doggie damage. A nasty slipstream of wet, cold air was keening from another opening, somewhere yet unmanned, and seeking passage through the destroyed kitchen door, thence to chase back out into the night and return again. It was like the output of a big commercial freezer. He was cut and bitten, bleeding and beaten, and he could not summon his hand to strike.

  Sometime during the calamitous events in the living room, she had calmly strolled to the safe, withdrawn the pistol, and thought, yeah, this'll do. Then she waited, through gunfire and violence, destruction and death, maybe flinching a little if a shot was fired out where she could not monitor the action, but with a frightening detachment, no more afraid than if she had been tapping her foot for a pizza delivery.

  He pushed off from the counter.

  ''Easy," she said, the gun now pointed at him, its threat now definitely meant for him. She pointed out features of the Beretta.

  "See? Safety off. Hammer cocked. Round in the chamber. The bullet will come out here. I know how to use this thing; don't think I don't."

  He tried to give her his calmest, most paternal manner… in order to fox her, snatch the gun, and maybe beat the shit out of her on general principles. "Suzanne, I know it's been a little nuts, but please don't point that at me." He combined the succor with his move forward, lying his ass off. "I have to turn the lights back on. This is no time for this."

  She quickly placed the candle on a bureau near the door and used both hands to grip the gun. "Stay right there."