The Nighttime is the Right Time

by Bill Crider

  ~ * ~

  Tabor jumped out of the truck and started running as soon as he heard the first shot, but he knew he wasn’t going to make it to the house in time to prevent a disaster. Karla would probably be dead before he got fifty yards.

  ~ * ~

  Karla wasn’t dead yet, however. She shot Ervin, hitting him in the eye by sheer luck. Bad luck, that is. At least for Ervin. He lurched into Boo just as Boo was about to blow Karla away. The 12-gauge pellets intended for Karla blew a hole in the ceiling.

  “Don’t shoot that thing in here!” Sue Lynn said.

  Ervin lay on the floor, flopping around like a catfish on a creek bank. He was dead. He just didn't know it yet.

  Boo brought the shotgun down, pointed it at Karla.

  Karla jumped at the plastic-covered window. She hoped the duct tape wasn’t industrial strength or anything.

  “Don’t shoot!” Sue Lynn screamed.

  Ervin’s flailing foot kicked Boo in the balls.

  Boo pulled the trigger.

  ~ * ~

  Tabor was still twenty yards away when the house blew up.

  Flames and smoke shot out all the windows. Glass splinters flew around Tabor, some of them cutting his arms and slicing his shirt. A couple of boards blew past his head, and something smacked him in the face, knocking him on his ass.

  ~ * ~

  Karla was already through the window when the kitchen exploded. She lay on the ground, more or less wrapped in black plastic that had protected her from glass cuts. If she’d tried to get up, the force of the explosion would have flattened her. As it was, it sort of mashed her into the dirt. She lay there cursing Tabor as she was pelted by falling debris.

  After things stopped dropping on her, she shook off the plastic and stood up. The house was burning like a match and the heat was about to fry her. She took off at a run. Fuck Tabor. She wasn’t going back to the truck. She’d catch a ride out on the highway, or walk to Arkansas if she had to. Paragould was a shit-hole, but her aunt would be happy to see her.

  ~ * ~

  Tabor looked down at what had hit him in the face. It was an arm. On one of the fingers was a pink amethyst ring. Karla’s ring.

  For some reason a verse that Tabor had heard as a kid popped into his head. He’d thought it was pretty funny then. It was about some guy named Willie, who found some dynamite that he didn’t quite understand. Tabor recalled the last couple of lines:

  Curiosity never pays.

  It rained Willie seven days.

  “Shit,” Tabor said. He’d never lost a snitch before. He hoped there wouldn’t be a lot of extra paperwork. He hated paperwork.

  ~ * ~

  “That’s really nice,” Donna Jean’s friend Janice said.

  She pronounced her name Ja-neece and thought she was sophisticated because she’d lived in Houston for six months one time when she was working at a Taco Bell. She held Donna Jean’s hand as she examined the amethyst ring.

  “You know, they say for every beautiful stone, there’s a beautiful story behind it.” She released Donna Jean’s hand. “I’ll bet there’s a beautiful story behind this one, too.”

  Donna Jean and Buddy had agreed they wouldn’t tell anyone where they’d bought the ring. It seemed creepy somehow to Donna Jean, and besides, she thought what Janice had just said was wonderful, and she instinctively knew that it was true.

  “I’ll bet you’re right,” Donna Jean said. “A real beautiful story, for sure.”