Kiss Her Goodbye: Thriller/Romance with a shocking twist

by Kirsten Mitchell

  Michaels finally sprinted into the clearing, bending forward and gasping for whatever scraps of oxygen he could get. Oblivious to the bear still napping in the shadows. “Jeez, man,” he gasped at Leo. “How fast do you seriously run? I just about lost you in that fog.” He scanned the group, his eyebrows darting up at the sight of Brendan’s knife as his fingers touched the gun in his holster. “Whatcha doing there, kid?”

  “These people killed my mother and sister and now they’re trying to kill me too,” Brendan said.

  Michael continued scanning the scene, his eyes adjusting to the fog and twilight. When his gaze fell upon the condition of the two bodies, his face knotted up. “What the…”

  Perhaps it was Constable Michaels’ surge of fear, or the fact that he was stumbling backward, unable to visually accept the scene before his eyes anymore, that woke Walter. The bear lifted his head with a sloppy, loud snort. A visceral growl uncoiled itself from deep inside its chest. Michaels’ eyes responded to the sound and snapped over to where the bear lay. He jerked the pistol from his hostler, fumbling it over his fingers for a few agonizing seconds before he balanced and gripped it.

  “Freeze, asshole!” Michaels yelled at the bear. The gun rattled against his palms as he pointed it at the animal.

  Walter lazily blinked back at him.

  Michaels kept his gun pinned on the bear anyway. His eyes narrowed into doubtful slits. “Don’t you dare make any sudden moves.”

  “Don’t hurt my bear, mister.” Brendan gripped his knife. “Walter is a good bear, but these people played tricks on his mind. They drove him to murder.”

  It was when he spoke that Leo could see it. The child had had the same amber eyes as Mia. The same bowed mouth and little nose. The same tender fierceness in his voice. It was her child. Her son. No doubt about it. He should never have doubted her dreams or a mother’s instinct. The boy was here all along and Mia knew it and came to claim him.

  “Brendan,” Leo called. The boy’s eyes snapped toward him and slithered into a tighter glare.

  “Brendan, put the knife down. Please,” Leo said.

  “I won’t,” Brendan said. “Not until you people leave me and Walter alone. We want to live here in the forest. I will protect him and he will protect me. Like buddies who look out for each other.”

  The child clearly was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Leo had researched this extensively for this thesis. The very thesis he’d focused relentlessly on instead of building the treehouse his son had pleaded for. And now, here he was, full circle, having to use that very information to save the life of another boy and the life of the woman he loved, Mia.

  The irony was not lost on him.

  Leo didn’t even realize until now that he loved her. But he did. And he would not let her die. Not like this.

  “Brendan, baby, if you drop your knife we can go home and have marshmallow soup like you used to love,” Mia pleaded, almost beside herself with anguish. “You remember that? You remember the marshmallow soup? How we put cinnamon and chocolate chips in it too?”

  Brendan’s eyes cringed at some distant childhood memory, then firmed up into a glare again as he shoved the memory away.

  “No,” Brendan said. “I’m gonna kill you, lady, if you don’t go away. And the doctor and the cop too. I want you people to leave.”

  Michaels gave up on targeting the bear and shifted the aim of his trigger toward Brendan. With a tremble in his voice, he cocked his gun. “That a fact?”

  “Drop your aim, Michaels,” Leo said. The kid could snap at any moment; it was written all over his body language. He wasn’t playing games. Further provoking him was hardly wise.

  Michaels regarded Leo as if assessing the validity of his request.

  “Trust me on this one, man,” Leo said.

  Michaels dropped his gun and pointed it to the ground, still fiercely watching the boy and the bear.

  Brendan’s gaze kept tripping over to Mia, as though he vaguely remembered her from some random moment in his life but didn’t quite place his finger on whether he should fear her or love her. He recoiled and clutched the blade. Leo knew the only chance they had to disarm him was to proceed as cautiously as possible.

  “Put the goddamn knife down!” Allan Michaels yelled from behind Leo. “This is the last goddamn time we are going to tell you.”

  The sounds of screaming jerked the grizzly bear’s head up from its lounging position. It bored a resentful glare at the source of the noise. Michaels. Grunting, it heaved itself atop its massive legs again, taking a firmer stance.

  “Michaels stop,” Mia pleaded. “You’re going to provoke the bear to attack again.”

  “Brendan.” Leo held out a hand and spoke softly, gently. “Make Walter lie back down.”

  “No,” Brendan said. “He’s here to protect me from bad guys. And you people are bad guys because you won’t go away.”

  “I’m your mother,” Mia cried. “Why can’t you even recognize me?”

  “Lies!” Brendan shrieked at her. “You’re crazy, lady!”

  Walter growled deeply and lowered his head and watched Mia as he took three slow, thundering steps toward her.

  “I swear to Buddha, I am gonna shoot,” Michaels squinted an eye and honed in on his target. “If you don’t want your pet teddy splashing brain soup in your face in about three seconds flat, I suggest you make him lie the hell back down.”

  Leo cringed. He was no expert, but he knew for damn sure Michaels didn’t have enough power in his Glock 35 pistol to take down a beast this size. Shooting him with that thing wouldn’t do anything more than irritate him. Unless he managed to get six shots into him, at least one of them penetrating deep enough to his heart, it would be like peppering him with bee stings. The only way to make that grizzly back off was to convince Brendan to make him back off.

  “In case you haven’t noticed,” Brendan said, “he’s not an effing lap dog that does backflips on command. He’s a grizzly. He does whatever he wants. And right now he wants to defend me.”

  Walter stopped walking and assessed the three adults, as if wondering if they were ready to respect his authority yet or not. He didn’t look convinced and proceeded toward them.

  “Mother…fuuuh…” Michaels exhaled.

  “Allan, put the gun down,” Leo said.

  “I will when that thing stops walking toward me.” Michaels reeled and shook his gun harder.

  “Brendan.” Leo stepped easily toward the boy. “Brendan, you’re the one in control here. Make your bear back off and then put down the blade.”

  “No!” Brendan shouted at him. “If you don’t retreat I’ll give him the command to eat you all.”

  Walter kept his gaze fixated on Michaels, and his back to the rest of them. Leo saw his opportunity and he went for it. He charged at Brendan in nine steps. Brendan watched him approach with wide, startled eyes.

  “Walter!” he cried. “Walter!”

  Leo grabbed at the knife, but the boy swept his fist up away from Leo a split-second too fast. Brendan arced the knife over his head, his eyes wild with confusion. In one crazed gesture, he slammed the knife toward Leo’s chest.

  The gun fired a shot.

  Leo saw everything unfolding in front of him in slow motion. The bullet Michaels fired sliced into Brendan’s left shoulder.

  God damn it, he just shot the kid.

  Hot blood from Brendan spurted in Leo’s eyes. Blinding him. The kid still had the knife in his right hand and was probably enraged enough to use the last of his energy to stab it straight through Leo’s soul, let alone his body.

  Walter’s boiling roars vibrated the air like death.

  “Brendan!” Mia’s cries sounded muddled. Faraway-sounding, almost…

  Leo staggered backward, clasping at his eyes, desperate to regain his vision. He expected, at any moment now, the kid would take advantage of this snippet of vulnerability and go for the money shot.

  The knife didn’t plunge into him.
He felt his body slam back to the earth. Spirals of white twirled before his eyes. An enormous weight crushed down on his chest. The blades of the beast’s paws dug at his collarbone. He opened his eyes and through bloodied vision and saw the grizzly. Its face was right atop his. Lips back, exposing rows of angry white daggers. Globs of saliva dripped like ropes from his mouth. Sparks and stars and waves of icy, tingling pain rolled through Leo, making everything feel weird. He felt warm blood seeping away from him and wondered if he’d ever be able to stand, let alone walk, again.

  I am not going to die, god damn it, Leo inwardly seethed, not now. Not this way.

  The bear stepped away from Leo. Momentarily. As though not quite sure what to do. Beyond the creature from hell, Brendan stayed near. Knife still clamped in hand. Gritty smile to mask the sharp agony and the dread. Blood rivered down his bare chest.

  Leo could not put together one single coherent thought, only the conviction that he needed to fight this. I need to get up and fight. Hurt or not hurt, I need to find a way. If he could survive losing his son, he could survive this too.

  A weird melody filled the sky. Leo looked up to see a lone raven crooning as it dipped down. It perched atop Brendan’s shoulder and fluttered its wing at Leo, ever so slightly, as though to wave goodbye.

  He rolled his eyes back to the kid. Brendan watched him back with a terrified grin.

  Leo rolled to his side. His hands found the wet, rocky soil and pressed into it to lift up. Pain and the confusion shook every last muscle in his body. His mind barely hung to reality, flickers of lights dancing in front of him, threatening to render him unconscious at any moment. He would get to Michaels and grab his pistol and take care of this matter for once and for all. It was a miracle Allan had not yet blown a magnificent hole through the child’s head yet. And on Leo’s watch that was not going to happen. Michaels might be an over-ambitious rookie cop who thought he held all the power here with his pistol, and that Leo was just some muscle-bound nerdy psychologist. But he didn’t know what kind of man he was dealing with under all the brawn. Leo was a man who’d survived bullshit Allan wouldn’t even fathom in his worst nightmare. He was not going to just lie here and watch him shoot a child.

  Leo crawled forward on the ground, the heavy, wet breath of the grizzly still curdling on his neck. His shirt was soaked with the hot saliva that dripped out of that thing. Although it seemed as though Walter was letting him clamber away to safety.

  Or maybe the grizzly just liked to play mind games.

  Maybe he was toying with Leo the same way a cat lazily watches a half-dead mouse dragging its crippled body away, letting the poor schmuck believe it’s got half a chance at escaping. Let the mouse crawl just to the vicinity of safety and then yank it back and shred it apart like a pile of bloodied mozzarella.

  Mia called something out to him. But her voice was muddled. Soft. Like the sounds of sobbing underwater. She waved her arms at him, but he couldn’t understand what she wanted. He blinked and looked away from her.

  Is that what you’re doing to me, Walter?

  The bear snorted behind him. Still watching him crawl. Not giving any indication one way or the other what was coming next. But he could still kill Leo at any time.

  You playing me, Wally? Is it all right if I call you Wally? Now that we’re rolling around on the ground like this, we’re close enough to be on a nickname basis, don’t you think?

  Darkness glimmered before his eyes again. He could barely hang on anymore. The shape of Mia faded before him. Her dark hair bouncing in slow motion in the fog. Her sad face. Was she crying? God, he hoped she wouldn’t cry for him. He would crawl to her. If he could just get to the tree stump where she stood, he would save her from this miserable situation if it was the last thing he did.

  And just when he almost reached her, it was not the bear who betrayed his escape. It was the child.

  Leo heard the fateful words come from Mia’s son, Brendan.

  “Kill him, Walter,” he said. “Pizza…”

  *******

  Without even thinking, Mia bolted toward Michaels. That bastard just shot my baby! She lunged at him and grabbed for the pistol in his hand.

  “Miss Floyd, what are you doing?” Michaels shrieked as the gun tumbled to the ground. When it hit dirt, it blasted another bullet, this time up into the foggy sky. Walter growled again at the noise. Michaels lost it. “Are you goddamn crazy?”

  Brendan crumpled to the ground clasping the spread of blood on his shoulder, his face twisted in agony. He didn’t cry out for help and clutched the blade tighter to his body. “What are you waiting for, Walter?” he barely gasped. “Look what these people did to me.”

  Mia lunged for the prized gun by his feet and so did Michaels, one millisecond later. Their heads clonked together as they both dove at it. Mia’s hand got there first and she snagged it to her chest, accidentally sending off one more bullet that barely missed her chin and ricocheted into the forest.

  “…I never was a crying man…I am incapable of any real emotion,” Leo babbled to the bear in some sort of disjointed state of insanity under the angry animal’s weight. His eyes rolled to the top of his head as he spoke to himself. “My ex-wife said she was divorcing me for that very reason…”

  “You’re going to get us all killed!” Michaels said to Mia. “Give me that gun back, right now, Miss Floyd, or I will have you arrested for obstruction.”

  “But all those years of repressed emotion…I feel it’s coming back right now and I don’t exactly know why,” Leo continued, to no one in particular.

  “Leo, are you all right?” Mia cried out to him. But he seemed anything but all right. He must have hit his head hard when the bear shoved him down. Her heart clenched when her eyes shifted to the right and she saw Brendan slowly fading from his injury. She held the gun pointed in the direction of both of them, unable to understand which move would she do. Would she shoot and kill her own son, Brendan if he attempted to stab Leo again? Or would she be too frightened to pull the trigger and watch the man she loved be slaughtered by the son who forgot her?

  She would have to shoot one of them to make this terror stop.

  “I’m fine, Mia,” Leo called back, coherently. Alert. He grinned to her, madness flickering in his eyes like a flame, “Matter of fact, never been better.”

  “Pizza, Walter,” Brendan insisted, clearly frustrated that the bear was refusing to attack. “Pizza!”

  The bear slammed its weight down onto two paws on either side of Leo’s face, although it seemed to want to take its time before shredding Leo with the same ferociousness it so freely showed Jessica and Glenda. The bear roared a frustrated, sloppy soup all over Leo’s face, daring him to speak again, daring him to continue smiling. Daring him to do anything to defy him. Leo, barely aware, rolled his head toward Brendan and held out his hand to him.

  “Jason…?” Leo whispered, his eyes wide with confusion and awe. “Jason, come here.”

  “Who’s Jason?” Brendan kicked away from, scowling and still clutching his shoulder.

  “Jason, I want to tell you something…” Leo started.

  “You’re creeping me out, mister,” Brendan said. “All of you people are nuts.”

  Walter pounded on his paws again. Rage gurgling in his throat, as another roar ripped out of him, demanding that Leo shut up.

  “Mia, I never told you something,” Leo cheerily called over to her, oblivious to the bear that threatened to rip him apart. “About how I lost my Jason.” He turned his attention to Brendan. “Should we tell her about how it happened?

  “Whatever, weirdo,” Brendan replied, although seemed mildly curious. Even the bear stopped pounding and looked at Leo with interest.

  Mia kept the gun pointed in their general direction. Her body shaking with terror that ripped up from the earth and shattered out her fingertips. She was afraid of hurting her son or Leo. She was afraid of shooting the bear and triggering it into another murdering rampage. She was even more terrif
ied of putting the gun down and losing the only sense of power she had in this situation. Even if it was a power she knew she could never exercise, it was still there and that was both sickening and comforting.

  “When Jason, here, was four years old, I was raising him by myself. His mom took off. You know the deal with me being emotionally unavailable and the whole shebang. Well, one day when he was four, he wanted me to build him a treehouse. You remember that, Jason?”

  “I’m not Jason.”

  “But, I was so busy working on my thesis, I barely noticed him coming in and out of my office all day, telling me all about the treehouse that Stevie down the street had built. I mean, I knew he was excited about something, but I was so damned focused on hashing out the details of the emergent psychological theories that were so important to me at the time.”

  Leo rolled his head back, his eyes rolling up deep into his head. He looked as though he was losing consciousness. Mia rushed toward him and the bear growled and stomped at her. Clearly he had forgotten all about the sandwiches and they were back to being enemies. Mia retreated, helpless.

  “Jason starts going into great high-pitched detail about that damned treehouse. I barely look up from my work. I don’t even listen to anything he’s said. I just kept typing on my keyboard, saying ‘mm hmm, mmm hmm’ as if I actually gave a damn. Fifteen minutes later, he’s done with his story. He asks me if I can build him a treehouse too. I pause my typing. I look up from my keyboard and I ask him a question. Do you remember what that question was, Jason?”

  “Um…where is my anti-psycho medication?”

  “No.” Leo shook a trembling finger at him. He pulled himself to a seated position in front of the bear and continued, “I did not ask him that. The question I asked you, my precious little son, was ‘can’t you see I am fucking busy right now?’”

  Brendan shrugged.

  “Can’t you see I am fucking busy right now!” Leo repeated with more passionate force. “That’s actually what I asked you.”

  “So, what, mister?” Brendan said.