How was this? The Lance Corporal was unarmed. Dozing and waking abruptly and unarmed and barefoot and in his bloodstained T-shirt and boxers in his own house. Goddamned Mack was the one with the shotgun not the Lance Corporal who was unarmed. Mack had not yet made the discovery in the cold scummy bathtub water nor the other on the floor of the bedroom. Yet grimly Mack spoke, Don’t do this, Dennie, back off. As in a nightmare in which you are stark naked the Lance Corporal was without a weapon. It was astonishing to be without a weapon at such a time. Sheila? Mack was calling. Hey, Sheila? It’s me, Mack. You could see Mack’s hands shake. You could see that Mack would not have the courage to fire. For Mack was a civilian, he had not ever fired any discharge of any weapon at any other person. The sight of his Lance Corporal brother covered in blood and barefoot and stark-eyed was terrifying to him, he could not possibly aim true. He was saying Dennie? Where’s Sheila? Where’s Dennie Junior? He was pleading, begging. He was holding his shotgun which had a short grip and a short barrel for bird-hunting and was not a shotgun the Lance Corporal believed he had ever seen before. His own shotgun he’d taken from Pa was on the kitchen table not yet loaded. A pack of birdshot he’d opened but had not yet loaded. Step back, Dennie, Mack was saying, but the Lance Corporal had not traveled so far, across so many oceans and galaxies, a steel plate in his skull and a miracle shunt in his heart, to be told what to do by a civilian. Calmly the Lance Corporal reached for the shotgun that was aimed at his heart and with all his fingers seized the barrel.
Give Me Your Heart: Tales of Mystery and Suspense Page 27