by David Michael

 

He picked up the 8-inch chef’s knife and looked at it. The light flashed off the tapered blade, hitting him in the eyes. A cliché.

 

Still, even cliché’s have their place.

 

He pushed his chair away from his desk and stood up–carefully. The knife might be a cliché, but it was a damn sharp one.

 

His wife sat at her sewing machine, piecing a quilt block. She glanced up at him as he stepped into the living room, looked at the knife in his hand, then focused on her stitching again.

 

He stood behind her, the knife ready, looking down at her.

 

“How’s your story coming?” she asked.

 

He plunged the knife into her back, pulled it out. Then stabbed her again. And again. One more time, to make it an even number. Blood flowed from a criss-cross of red wounds on her upper back.

 

“Nothing special,” he said. “It doesn’t seem to be working.”

 

“What’s all this blood then?” she asked.

 

“It’s unsatisfactory,” he replied. He dropped the knife, pulling his foot back at the last minute so that the knife missed his toes. He considered his options for a minute, then said, “Be right back.”

 

“Whatever,” she said.

 

He went to the garage, found the axe, came back.

 

She still sat at the sewing machine. The stab wounds in her back were causing her some obvious discomfort, making it hard to push the material under the sewing foot. She looked up at him again. “I’m getting blood all over everything,” she said. “If you’ve made me stain the quilt block …”

 

“Sorry,” he said, and hefted the axe. He eyed the joint between her right shoulder and arm. He lifted the axe, lined it up, and brought it down, hard.

 

The axe blade bit into her deltoid muscle at the top of her arm, scraped down her humerus, peeled back skin and muscle and bits of bone. More blood flowed, but the arm didn’t sever.

 

“Shit,” he said. “I’ve always sucked with an axe.”

 

“Really?” she asked. “What about my arm?”

 

“Yes, really,” he said. “I was trying to cut the arm off. When I was a teenager, I kept splitting axe handles any time I chopped wood. And you’re left handed anyway.”

 

“When did you ever have to chop wood?”

 

“I didn’t have to,” he said. “I liked doing it.”

 

“You just sucked at it,” she said.

 

“Exactly. And it seems I still do.”

 

“Why are you trying to kill me?” she asked.

 

“I’m not trying to kill you,” he said. “Not really.” He tossed the axe down on the floor, beside the knife, and walked back into his office.

 

“The knife?” she asked when he came back. “What was that about? The axe?” She noticed what he carried when he came back from the office. “And now the gun? I didn’t know we had a gun.”

 

“We don’t,” he said. “Hell, we don’t even have an axe.”

 

“OK,” she said. “So … if you’re not trying to kill me …”

 

“I’m not.” He pointed the gun at her, pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.

 

“Then what are you doing?”

 

He looked at the gun, studying it, found the safety and flipped it off. He pointed the gun at her again.

 

“Is this because I didn’t load the dishwasher last night?” she asked.

 

The muzzle of the gun dropped, and he stared at her. “What? I don’t care if you didn’t load the dishwasher. Hell, I loaded it myself this morning.”

 

“Yeah. I wondered if maybe you were upset about that.”

 

“Nah.”

 

“Then why are you murdering me?”

 

“I need a story,” he said.

 

“And this is the best you could come up with?” she asked. “Murdering your wife?”

 

“It’s not like it’s gonna hurt,” he said. “It’s just a little blood, some gore.”

 

She looked at what was left of her right arm, at the blood pooling under her chair, dripping on her quilt block, splashed across the white plastic body of the sewing machine.

 

He lined up the gun to shoot her, looked down the barrel at her.

 

She just looked back at him. That look.

 

“It’s not like I’m doing anything else,” he said. “Nothing rough. Just killing you.”

 

The look continued.

 

“Did you want me to do something else?”

 

The look didn’t falter.

 

After a minute he sighed and let the hand with the gun drop to his side. “Fine,” he said, and went back into his office.

 

He sat down in his chair again, stared at the blank laptop screen. “My story today is gonna suck,” he said, loud enough to be heard in the living room. “And it’s all your fault!”

 

by David Michael

 

When he finally came to a stop, it was with a last, sickening crunch, like a watermelon dropped and busting open. It hurt, sure, having his head split open by the rock he hit, but by then he had already had one leg broken and folded under him and an arm yanked from its socket.

 

It had been a long fall. Head over heels, ass over teakettle–much like the fall that had started the relationship that was ending here, now. So landing face up on the sharp, gray rock that he could feel driven into the top of his spine only seemed like the final bit of punctuation at the end of a particularly long and painful run-on sentence.

 

He couldn’t move, so he didn’t, as Jill loomed over him.

 

“You’re not dead yet?” she asked.

 

“I’m working on it,” he said. The pain faded from his body, though. Is that what it felt like to die?

 

“You’re taking this really well.”

 

He would’ve shrugged, but nothing moved when he told it to. “My own fault,” he said. At least his mouth still moved, even if it was a struggle to breath.

 

Jill nodded. “It is.” She looked him over, winced a bit when her gaze got to where his left leg should have been. “You in pain?”

 

He would’ve shaken his head. “No. I think my spine is severed.”

 

“Bastard,” she said.

 

He would’ve protested–but she was right.

 

Jill stepped up and kicked him in the side. “That didn’t hurt?”

 

“Nope.”

 

She changed her angle of attack. “What about this?” Her foot hit his crotch hard enough to lift him off the ground, off the rock that had been embedded in his skull.

 

“Nothing,” he said, “and that really sucks.”

 

“Yeah,” she agreed. “That does. Shit.”

 

She kicked him one more time, then just stood there, looking down at him.

 

After several long minutes, he asked, “How long are … you going … to wait there?”

 

“Until you die.”

 

He would’ve nodded. “You could … make it go … faster,” he said. “With a rock … ?”

 

“No,” she said. “This is good. Not what I expected, but it’s oddly satisfying.”

 

He would’ve nodded again.

 

More minutes passed in silence.

 

“I guess … it’s too late to … apologize?” Speaking was even more of a struggle now. Not painful, but he couldn’t seem to get enough air to make the words. It was like someone–a rather fat someone–sat on his chest.

 

Jill just looked at him, didn’t respond.

 

“This just … proves I’m … right you … know?”

 

Anger flickered across Jill’s face. “No,” she said. “It doesn’t.”

 

“Yeah … it does.”

 

For her reply this time, she kicked him again.

 

“You’re,” he said, fighting back the blackness that had almost covered his vision, forcing words through the even greater weight that had settled on his chest, “fuck … ing … in … sane …”

 

She bent over then, picked up a rock.

 

He managed one last smile before she smashed his face in.

 

Writing progress report for the week starting Monday, August 23, 2010.

 

	Writing Project	Words
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday	“Inferno” additional brainstorming and story planning.
Total		0

 

	Marketing/Submission
Monday	Posted “Late Arrival” to blog.
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday	Posted “Hard Boiled” to blog.
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

 

 

by David Michael

 

Makenzie never looked so good as when she helped the blonde into my office. Makenzie was six kinds of hot. Pick your favorite points, she scored high enough in all of them to make her the perfect receptionist. The blonde, though, added a touch of class and another four kinds of hot, at least–even after deducting for the black eye and the bloody scratch down one cheek.

 

“She just stumbled in,” Makenzie said. She maneuvered the blonde into one of the visitor chairs, helped her sit down. For several long seconds, both women leaned toward me, the necks of their blouses hanging open. “Said she had to talk to you.”

 

I could’ve helped, I guess. But then I would’ve missed the show. “You didn’t try to talk her out of it?”

 

Makenzie straightened up, adjusted her blouse. “No. Only God knows why.”

 

“I …” the blonde said. Makenzie and I both turned to look at her.

 

“Is she drunk?” I asked, trying to decide how that might affect her score, and the houly rate I charged. “Or stoned?”

 

The blonde fumbled with her handbag, opened it. “I,” she said again. “I need you to … solve … a murder.”

 

“Whose?” I asked.

 

“Mine,” she said. She opened her mouth to say more, then closed it. “Mine,” she said again. Her stomach heaved. Her mouth opened. No words this time, just blood.

 

“Jesus!” I said, pushing back from my desk, away from the red splash of gore and bile. “Jesus!” I repeated.

 

The blonde had dropped her handbag when she convulsed, spilling out a green rainbow of cash. Hundreds, in neat, wrapped stacks, little bricks of paper worth $10,000 each.

 

“Poisoned,” said the blonde.

 

“Oh my god,” said Makenzie. “How many do you think there are?”

 

The blonde sat up straighter in her seat, bracing herself on the arms of the chair. Maybe she was trying to stand. “Someone … poisoned …” Her arms gave out then and she slumped out of the chair onto the floor. I couldn’t see her now, but I heard her retch a couple more times.

 

“Shit,” I said. “Did she miss any of the stacks?”

 

Makenzie had backed away from the woman too. She leaned forward, then sideways. “A couple, I think.”

 

“OK. Get those. See if they’re sequential.”

 

“Help … me …”

 

“You get them,” Makenzie said. “She’s staring at me. And I’m not stepping in that mess. Not with these shoes.”

 

“Bah. What do I pay you for?”

 

“Filing,” Makenzie said. “Answering the phone. And these,” she added, with a quick, disgusted flick of one wrist, her fingers brushing the side of one breast.

 

She had me there. “Normally,” I said, “you’re worth every penny.” I stepped around my desk, trying not to step on any of the blood.

 

Three stacks of bills had been spared a blood bath because they lay behind her on the floor. I squatted down and picked those up, riffled through them.

 

“Ick,” Makenzie said. “She’s blowing bubbles of blood.”

 

“Fuckin’ ay,” I said. “They’re not sequential.” I stood back up. I leaned over the woman so I could see her face. Damn. She was blowing bubbles. Nasty stuff. One of her eyes rolled up to look at me, seemed to focus on me. “I’ll take these as my retainer,” I told her, waving the three stacks where she could see them. She might’ve nodded, it was hard to tell, the way her body shook.

 

I went back around my desk to my chair, sat down. I opened a drawer and pulled out a Fedex package. I filled out the paperwork, stuffed the stacks into the package and sealed it. I launched the package across the room to Makenzie. She caught it one handed. “Put that in the out box, will you?” I said.

 

She nodded and went into the front office. “One of those is mine, right?” she asked when she came back.

 

“Absolutely,” I said. “Is she dead yet?”

 

“The bubbles have stopped.”

 

I picked up the phone and punched in the numbers.

 

“911 emergency hotline,” the voice on the phone said.

 

“There’s a woman just came into my office,” I said. “I think she was poisoned. She’s throwing up blood and I don’t know what to do for her. She just collapsed.”

 

As I listened to the operator I settled back in my chair and looked at the ceiling. It looked like I could take off early today, at least after the cops had come and gone. Makenzie too. Maybe both of us together. Fuckin’ ay.

 

by David Michael

 

Arriving late had kept Cox alive during his ten year career.

 

The tricky part, the part that made his shoulders tense up, made him grip the shotgun tighter, made him verify–once again–that a shell was indeed chambered and ready to fire, was that he might be too late.

 

He already knew he had the right house. The broken door, leaning on one remaining hinge, the latch torn free, the chaos and blood visible in the foyer only confirmed it for him. He stepped over the threshold of the house, shotgun held at waist level, pointing in the direction he looked.

 

Blood trails led out of the foyer into what might be a formal dining room, but sounds of feeding came from upstairs. He would have to see who/what might be in the dining room, the whole house, before he left. But the immediate need for his services was upstairs.

 

Cox brought the shotgun up to his shoulder, and started up the stairs. He moved slowly, testing each step before settling his weight onto it, trying to make as little noise as possible.

 

The muffled sounds of a carnivore became more distinct, resolved into teeth tearing flesh, bones cracking, quick breaths between bites, whimpers and moans of animal pleasure.

 

The stairs brought Cox to a short hallway. His quarry was in a room to his left. He pressed himself against the wall, beside the door, steeling himself against what he was about to see and do. In ten long years of chasing monsters, he had become hardened, but not inhuman.

 

He must’ve made a noise, because the feeding sounds paused.

 

No more time to wait. He spun into the doorway, looked down the barrel at the thing he had come to hunt, and pulled the trigger.

 

An older woman, her graying hair wild, her clothes in tatters, blood all over her face and dripping down her chin, squatted, hunched, over the body of a small girl. The girl’s long hair spread on the floor around her shocked, betrayed, and still angelic face. Her throat had been torn out, and her stomach, and the woman had nearly chewed off one arm. A very different picture, Cox noticed, from the one of the grandmother and granddaughter that adorned the wall opposite the door.

 

Cox’s first shot hit the woman in the shoulder and threw her spinning, backwards.

 

The old woman sprang back up, unnatural strength propelling her at Cox, her face snarling, her lips pulled back and baring her teeth, as Cox pumped another round into his shotgun.

 

His second shot hit true, right in the woman’s heart, stopping her just before her teeth closed on his neck.

 

The life left her eyes, the jaw slacked and the woman fell.

 

With a boot, Cox flipped the woman onto her back. Her lifeless eyes still stared, wide open. Cox pumped one more round, lowered the barrel and shot her again in the heart, just to be sure.

 

He tried not to look too close as he performed the same ritual on the little girl, nearly blasting in two what remained of her.

 

A feral growl was his only warning. He spun towards the door of the room, pumping the shotgun as he did.

 

The woman, a younger version of the grandmother, moved fast, closing with Cox before he could get the gun in line to fire. She barrelled into him, pushing him backwards. He tripped over one of the bodies on the floor and he and the woman fell together, her trying to claw his face, him trying to hold her back with the gun.

 

No doubt now. He had come too late. One of the victims had had time to change.

 

The woman shifted her hands to grab his shoulders, digging in with her nails, puncturing the leather jacket he wore just before sinking into the flesh. The pain shot into his arms as she used her new purchase to pull the soft, unprotected flesh of his neck nearer to her teeth.

 

Cox pushed back but knew that he could only slow her down. She weighed less than 140, he guessed, and was nearly a foot shorter than him. An hour ago, Cox could have broken her in two, but there was no contest now. She would win.

 

Kicking, trying to wriggle out from under her, Cox managed to get to get his boots against her chest. He pushed with his legs now, using the leverage of his back against the floor.

 

Suddenly she let go and backed away from him.

 

She rushed him again, though, as he tried to stand.

 

Cox twisted, and smashed her in the face with the butt of the shotgun. It didn’t stop her, but it deflected her some, gave him an extra second to lean against the wall and bring up the gun.

 

He fired, hitting her in the stomach, knowing it wouldn’t kill her, hoping it might slow her down some.

 

The woman backed away from him, one hand on her stomach.

 

Now Cox could see that the woman had had her throat torn out too, and one of her breasts had been devoured. The woman panted, the breaths coming noisily from the tear in her throat. The old woman’s feeding on this one must’ve been interrupted by the child, Cox decided. Or maybe the old woman had loved the grandchild more than the daughter. Same result, either way. He pumped the shotgun’s last shell into the chamber.

 

The woman’s eyes flicked from Cox’s face to his gun. Then she sprang for the door.

 

His shot hit her in the back, caused her to stumble. She fell in the hallway outside the door, but had scrambled to her feet before Cox could shift the shotgun to his left hand and pull his revolver out of its holster.

 

He heard her run down the stairs, slam into the wall at the bottom of the stairs, smash into what was left of the front door, and then there was silence.

 

She wouldn’t be coming back, Cox knew, but he still checked the rest of the house as quick as he could. He had come too late, but there were other dangers if he stayed too long.

 

There were no other victims to be disposed of. Cox paused only long enough to thumb five more shells into his shotgun. Then he stepped out the front door and took up the new trail.

 

Writing progress report for the week starting Monday, August 16, 2010.

 

	Writing Project	Words
Monday	“Inferno”	1078
Tuesday	“Inferno” Edited “Nostalgia”	1029
Wednesday	“Inferno” Edited “Nostalgia”	657
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Total		2764

 

	Marketing/Submission
Monday	Posted “Straightening Up” to the blog.
Tuesday
Wednesday	Posted “Unexpected Truths” to the blog.
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

 

 

by David Michael

 

“You know him, don’t you,” the man asked.

 

Claire tried to remember the man’s name. He had said it, right after he stepped through the broken glass doors of the patio. Just before he opened fire and saved her life. “Evenin’, ma’am,” he had said. “My name is–”

 

She couldn’t remember. Claire shook her head, to clear it and to shake loose the memories of the past few minutes. If she was going to forget something, why couldn’t it be something she wanted to forget?

 

Like Corey’s eyes, the red hate and the yellow light; his lips pulled back, exposing his teeth, dripping drool; his fingers curled into claws; his lunge at Jim, so fast–too fast. Corey’s teeth had been sinking into Jim’s neck, tearing it out in a great spray of red blood, even before the glass from the patio doors had begun to land and break on the hard floor of the kitchen.

 

She could still hear each shard of glass as it hit and shattered. She could still hear the inhuman growl in Corey’s throat. She could still hear Jim’s shout of outrage become his scream of pain become the hiss and bubbling fountain of his death.

 

She wished she could forget those.

 

“Didn’t you, ma’am?” the man asked again.

 

“What?” she asked. She tried to look at the man without dragging her gaze across Jim’s mutilated body, and without seeing Corey propped lifeless against the wall with a hole in his chest from the man’s shotgun. To do that required flexing her neck, seeming to examine the ceiling before coming to rest on the man’s face. What’s your name? she wanted to ask. But all she got out was another, “What?”

 

He was a big man, whatever his name was. He had long black hair, pulled back in a thick ponytail, exposing the sides of his head, shaved smooth. By his face, he was at least in his late 30′s, maybe older. His eyes, black, reflected nothing, they just looked at her. “You knew him,” he said, pointing at Corey’s body with the barrel of his shotgun. “Didn’t you.”

 

Claire resisted the urge to look where he was pointing. “Yes,” she said. “He’s … he was … my brother.”

 

The man nodded, looking satisfied. “Never fails,” he said. “It’s the emotional tie that draws them.”

 

Claire wondered if maybe she had gone insane. Something in her universe had gone insane. It could have been her. Maybe Corey was still at home with his wife, having dinner or watching TV. Not dead, in her kitchen, having just killed her husband, having just been shot dead by a stranger. Except she knew better. “The … emotional tie?” she asked.

 

“Intense feelings,” the man said. “Love. Hate. Lust. Envy. Whatever. There’s always an emotional connection. Werewolves don’t kill at random. Not at first, anyway.”

 

As the man’s words sunk in, she wondered if maybe she was insane after all. That would be a relief. But then the pain in her breast re-asserted itself, the shock and pain of Corey pushing her back against the wall and sinking his teeth into her.

 

“Lust?” she said. Then added, “Werewolf?”

 

The man nodded, and just looked at her.

 

She still refused to look at Corey. “He didn’t–”

 

“Hollywood,” the man said, interrupting her. “You’re thinking, ‘He didn’t look like a wolf.’ Aren’t you?”

 

She nodded.

 

“They always say that, the victims.” He shook his head in disbelief, made a sound in his chest almost like a chuckle. “Reality jumps up and tears their throat out, and they can’t believe it because the guy hasn’t got a long snout and a fur coat.”

 

“Have you seen–?”

 

He interrupted her again. “More times than you want to hear about, ma’am.” His expression softened a bit then, as he seemed to see her for the first time. “You’re hurt,” he said.

 

She nodded. “He … Corey … bit me.”

 

The softness disappeared from the man’s expression. “You’re sure?” he asked. “He bit you?”

 

She nodded again. “Yes. Why?”

 

“Because Hollywood got that part right,” he said.

 

“I’m … I’m infected?” she asked.

 

“In a manner of speaking,” he said.

 

“Is there a cure?”

 

“In a manner of speaking,” he said again. He pumped his shotgun. The sound of the mechanism was loud in the small kitchen. “Sorry, ma’am.”

 

by David Michael

 

He grabbed the clear packing tape, with its handy, sawtooth-edged dispenser, and looked at it for a moment, wondering if he had enough. It was the biggest roll of tape he could find. It had to be enough. So he got to work.

 

He started with his laptop computer, taping it closed first, then sealing the edges, carefully folding the tape so no sticky edges poked up. Then he taped the laptop to the top of his desk, right where he always kept it.

 

The printer came next, following a similar approach. He taped down the scanner/copier lid, then wrapped tape around the paper bin to keep the paper from falling out, and finally taped over the control panel. Then the printer too was taped, as a unit, to the top of the desk.

 

The rest of the desk followed, starting with the various office supplies and papers scattered on the desktop. He had made an effort to straighten and organize the mass of material the day before. Now they would stay in place, be organized forever. He taped the ink pens where they lay, along with his cellphone. He started to re-arrange the bills, some opened, some still pristine in their envelopes, then taped them all up in the slotted folder exactly as they were.

 

He pushed in his chair, and taped it to the desk. He had to use a lot of tape for that, reaching behind the desk and bringing the tape back around, wrapping desk and chair several times.

 

He stepped back to admire the effect. Yes, he liked it. Very neat.

 

“What the hell are you doing?” asked his wife.

 

He smiled at her. “Just straightening up,” he said.

 

She gave him a look and then turned to leave the small office. Once her back was too him, he struck her at the base of the neck with the tape dispenser, hard. She pitched forward and landed with a thud on the dog, who yelped.

 

“Sorry, boy,” he said.

 

The dog had been laying in the hall outside the small bedroom he had converted to be his office. The dog crawled out from under the prone body of his wife, and sniffed at her, licked her on the face. She didn’t move, which suited him fine. He wasn’t ready to take care of her yet. He needed to finish his office, first.

 

He experimented with taping the books to the shelves, but couldn’t find an appealing way to do it. So he left the books as they were and created a window of tape, keeping the strips parallel, with only the barest overlap, anchored on each side of the shelf.

 

He picked up his wife then. She had a large bruise and a knot forming on her forehead, from when her head had hit the hardwood floors. She moaned slightly as he arranged her on the sofa, facing the TV.

 

Just to be safe, he taped her arms and legs to the sofa first. She started to come around as he finished her legs.

 

“Honey,” she said. “What’s going on?”

 

He pulled a small length of tape off the roll. “Just straightening up,” he said, and positioned it over her mouth, securing the ends together on the back of her neck.

 

Her eyes got wide and she struggled to breath through her nose.

 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I forgot about your allergies.”

 

He used longer strips of tape to anchor her head to both the sofa and the wall, so she would stop thrashing it back and forth.

 

He taped the TV into the entertainment center next, and created the same window-from-tape he had used for the books to keep the video tapes and DVD’s in place on their shelves.

 

The dog proved to be more difficult than his wife. When he finished, he had several long, deep scratches on his arms. But the dog looked really good, though, almost like he was sleeping, taped to the floor in his favorite spot.

 

The roll of tape had become very thin, he noticed. He sighed. He wouldn’t have enough to straighten up their bedroom, the bathroom, and the kitchen. 3M should’ve anticipated this kind of project, he thought, and created a bigger roll.

 

Still, he had enough to tape the front door shut.

 

As he did that, the next door neighbor came home and noticed him working. The neighbor got out of his truck and watched.

 

“Hola, señor,” the neighbor said after a minute. “Qué pasa?”

 

“Hey,” he replied. “How’s it going?”

 

The neighbor nodded. “Bueno, bueno. What are you doing?”

 

He attached the last piece of tape, sealing the door. He turned around and smiled at the neighbor. “Oh,” he said. “Just straightening up a bit.”

 

The roll of tape empty, he tossed it into a corner of the front porch. His life in order, or as ordered as he could make it, he walked away.

 

Writing progress report for the week starting Monday, August 9, 2010.

 

	Writing Project	Words
Monday	“Nostalgia”	1042
Tuesday	“Inferno” – Story planning.
Wednesday	“Inferno” Edited “Down Hill” (formerly called “Facing the Inevitable”) Edited “Straightening Up” Edited “Unexpected Truths”	1061
Thursday	“Inferno”	346
Friday	“Inferno” Edited “Late Arrival” Edited “Hard Boiled” Edited “…And Broke His Crown” Edited “When Writers Attack” Edited “The Call of the Hunter Moon” Edited “He Came” Edited “A Rainy Morning After the Hunt”	1047
Saturday
Sunday	Edited “Nostalgia”
Total		3496

 

	Marketing/Submission
Monday	Posted “Ambulance Chasers” to the blog.
Tuesday
Wednesday	Posted “Down Hill” to the blog.
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

 

 

by David Michael

 

“Can you shoot, son?” the big trapper asked.

 

Luke started to bite his lower lip, but stopped himself because he needed to be a man now. He sat up a bit straighter. “I can shoot,” he said. “Pa taught me. Some.”

 

The trapper, Everett, looked at him, then pulled a worn six shooter from his belt. He handed the gun to Luke, butt first. “I don’t have time to teach you how to load it,” Everett said. “So you have five shots. Make them count.”

 

Luke took the gun slowly. The mother-of-pearl grip felt cool against his palm and the weight of the gun added even more gravity, more harsh reality to their situation. “I won’t shoot until I see the whites of their eyes,” Luke said. He had heard that in a story once.

 

Everett smiled and chuckled. “Try not to let them get that close, son. These aren’t the British. They get too close and you’ll see a whole lot more than just the whites of their eyes. And I can assure you, you won’t like what you see.” He paused and watched Luke try to sight down the barrel. “Don’t try to aim it, son. This isn’t a rifle. Just point it like you’re pointing your finger, then pull the trigger. You understand?”

 

Luke nodded.

 

“Alright then,” Everett went on, “put yourself behind that log there and watch up the hill. If anything or anyone gets too close, shoot it.”

 

The two of them had found this little hollow in the hillside by running into it. Luke had been running full tilt, just trying to reach the cover the trees before their attackers found him and ripped him limb from limb like they had his parents. He had tripped and sprawled among the roots and undergrowth as Everett caught up to him. He had been so frightened that he almost bolted out of the hollow again, but Everett had grabbed him, held him, until Luke could calm down.

 

Luke scooted over to where Everett pointed and braced the six shooter on the log, barrel pointed up the hill. He tried not to remember Ma and Pa were dead. If he thought of them as anything other than away for the minute he might start crying. He felt the tears in the back of his eyes, the swelling in his throat, but he forced himself to swallow, and blink his eyes clear again. He forced himself to act like a man.

 

“They ain’t Injuns, are they?” Luke asked. He resisted the urge to look back at Everett. He knew that he had to watch this direction. Everett counted on him to watch uphill. The grass that crowned the hill waved in the slight breeze.

 

“No, son. They ain’t Injuns.”

 

“One of them looked like–” Luke stopped himself. He decided he wouldn’t think of that either. It couldn’t have been Uncle Frank.

 

“Don’t look at them that close,” Everett said. “Don’t think about who they might’ve been. It’s best if you just shoot them on sight.”

 

Luke nodded, then realized that Everett couldn’t see him. “Yes, sir,” he said.

 

For long minutes, the only sounds Luke heard were the wind and his own heart.

 

“Here they come,” Everett said.

 

Startled, Luke turned around. Over Everett’s shoulder he saw the ragged figures of men and women coming towards them. Everett’s rifle boomed. The creature in the lead, the one that looked like Uncle Frank, crumpled and fell as Everett levered another round. Another boom and another creature fell. Everett noticed Luke then and yelled at him.

 

Luke, his ears ringing from the sound of the rifle so close couldn’t make out what Everett said, but he understood. He turned around to watch uphill again as Everett’s rifle boomed again and again. The explosion of each shot seemed to hit Luke in the back of the head and make him blink. The urge to cry almost overwhelmed him, but he suppressed it.

 

Nothing had come into view over the hill when Everett paused in his shooting.

Trying not to turn around, Luke asked, “Did we win? Are they gone?” He could hear Everett working the lever of the rifle, reloading.

 

“No,” Everett said. “And no. I expect we have a few minutes before they attack again.”

 

“Are we,” Luke started to ask. He swallowed another lump in his throat. Not for Ma and Pa this time. Grief and shock gave way to fear. “Are we gonna die?”

 

Everett didn’t answer.

 

Luke risked a quick peek over his shoulder. The big trapper was looking downhill and Luke couldn’t see his face.

 

“Everett?” Luke said.

 

“Come back to this side, son,” Everett said after a long minute of silence. “I don’t think they have sense enough to try and flank us.”

 

Luke had never felt more grateful as he scooted around to sit beside Everett. He pointed his gun downhill, arm braced on the same deadwood as Everett’s rifle.

 

At the bottom of the hill the trees he had climbed and cavorted on his entire life blocked the view of the cabin where he had been born and raised. The cabin where Ma and Pa– No. He wouldn’t think of that. He could see movement through the tree branches as the creatures milled about the cabin.

 

The branches bent towards them now and the creatures began walking up the hill again. One of them looked like his cousin April. The pretty young girl he had known, though, had been almost completely lost in the feral, hungry visage of the creature that came at him. Behind the April-creature came more and more creatures.

 

“Everett,” he said.

 

“Hold your fire, son.”

 

Luke nodded. “Are we going to die?”

 

“Everyone dies, son,” Everett said after a minute.

 

“I don’t want to die.”

 

“Neither do I, son. Neither do I.”

 

The creatures pressed forward, blanketing the lower portion of the hill now. Luke had never seen so many people in one place before. Too many of them were recognizable.

 

“These are my people,” Luke whispered.

 

“They were your people,” Everett said. The trapper turned his face so that he could look at Luke. “Can you shoot, son?” he asked.

 

Luke started to bite his lower lip, but stopped himself because he needed to be a man now. He sat up a bit straighter, and shifted the gun to be more comfortable in his grip. “I can try,” he said.

 

Everett nodded, and they both turned to face the inevitable.