Here and Gone

by Haylen Beck

  Whiteside swung the door fully open, leveled the pistol at the dog’s back, fired two rounds that pierced the animal between the shoulders. Through the ringing in his ears, he heard it whine, but it held on, even as its legs gave way. He kicked at its snout with his right foot, and as the dog’s eyes dimmed, it finally released him.

  He went to climb out of the cruiser, but a shot cut the air above his head. He dropped down low, using the door as a shield, and another round shattered the driver’s window. Glass fragments showered down over his head and shoulders.

  Whiteside counted off, one, two, three, picturing in his mind where Tandy stood in the doorway, the distance between them. Then up, pistol aimed through the broken window, front and rear sights aligned, and squeezed the trigger three times.

  The third shot caught Tandy’s right shoulder and the old man fell back into the house. Whiteside heard the thump and clatter of his body hitting the floor, followed by the rifle. Then a string of curses.

  Whiteside stood upright and stepped around the car door, his Glock raised and aimed toward the cabin’s dim interior. Inside, the curses had faded to low groans. Whiteside took slow, careful steps toward the cabin, veering to the left, out of sight of the doorway.

  He saw a movement low to the floor inside and by reflex ducked to the side. The muzzle flash illuminated the interior for a fraction of a second, Tandy’s wide eyes and bared teeth visible in the gloom. The shot went wild, the bullet shredding pine branches at the other side of the clearing.

  Whiteside made a crouching run for the porch, moving out of sight of the doorway. He reached the cabin, flattened himself against the wall, beside the window, and listened.

  ‘Goddamn you, son of a … son of …’

  He edged up to the window, peered inside long enough to see Tandy use his left arm to swing the rifle around to the glass. Whiteside dropped low as the window exploded outward. He crawled forward, toward the doorway, his knees complaining at the pressure.

  When he neared the edge of the doorframe, he reached around, aimed blind into the cabin and fired low to the floor three times. Silence for a few moments, only the echoes of the shots rumbling through the trees, then he heard an agonized howl. Keeping down, he crawled forward, glanced inside.

  Tandy lay flat on his back, the rifle lying loose at his side. One bullet had entered through the sole of his left shoe, the second was buried in his groin, the third in his upper thigh. Yet still he breathed, a high desperate whine.

  Whiteside hauled himself upright, keeping his eyes and his aim on Tandy. He stepped inside, approached the old man, and kicked the rifle away from his reach.

  ‘Where are they?’ Whiteside asked as he walked around to Tandy’s right side.

  ‘Go fuck yourself,’ Tandy said, his voice a weak crackle.

  Whiteside placed a boot on the old man’s wounded shoulder, put his weight on it. Tandy screamed.

  ‘Where are they?’

  Tandy laughed and wheezed. ‘You still here?’ he said. ‘I thought I told you to go fuck yourself.’

  Whiteside looked around the cabin’s dim interior. One open door leading to a bedroom, no sign of anyone in there. Nothing in here to hide behind.

  Then he noticed the handle set into the floor.

  ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘I think I found them.’

  Whiteside held the Glock’s muzzle an inch from Tandy’s forehead. He didn’t give the old man time to curse him again.

  54

  AUDRA RAN AS hard as her exhausted body would allow, her feet slamming into the dirt and pine needles, the cover of the treeline abandoned. Danny ran a few paces behind, his breath as sharp and even as hers was ragged. Off to the east she could make out an open expanse, the dry bed of a lake spirited away by the drought. Wherever the gunfire came from, she knew it had to be at the end of this trail.

  How many shots had there been? She couldn’t tell. They had come in clusters, two distinct sounds, one a hard snap, the other a boom that rolled through the trees. The last shot she’d heard had a terrible finality about it, like settled business.

  The trail seemed to climb forever, and Audra’s lungs felt as if they would burst from her chest. Her thighs weakened as they screamed for oxygen, and her stride faltered. She stumbled, her arms cartwheeling as her momentum carried her forward, but Danny’s hand grabbed her upper arm, kept her upright, kept her moving.

  ‘There,’ he said, the word snatched between breaths.

  He pointed to a smaller trail that branched off, a clearing with a cabin and cars visible through the trees. Audra allowed him to guide her that way, and somehow, from somewhere, she found a reserve of energy that propelled her forward.

  As they reached the clearing, Audra started to call her children’s names, her mouth open wide, but Danny silenced her with his palm across her lips. He took her arm, forced her to stop.

  He pointed to his eyes, then his ears. Look. Listen.

  They both moved to the treeline, keeping low and watchful. Whiteside’s cruiser stood facing the front of the cabin, its trunk open. A dog lay in blood and glass fragments by the driver’s door. Lazy smoke curled from the remains of a fire in a barrel to the side of the property. The cabin’s front door stood ajar, one of the windows shattered.

  Danny went ahead, crouching as he advanced, keeping the cruiser between him and the cabin. Audra followed, keeping low. She reached for the pistol she had stowed in her waistband. Danny paused by the open driver’s door, peered through the space where the window had been. Glass crunched under Audra’s feet as she joined him.

  ‘Look,’ he whispered. ‘In the doorway.’

  Audra peered into the gloom and saw a man’s feet, and she knew it was the body of whoever lived here. Then she heard a low grunt from inside, followed by muttered curses. She looked at Danny, and he nodded, yes, he heard it too. He pointed to the right end of the building, the one with the window intact, then gestured to the ground, telling her to stay low.

  Danny moved to the rear of the cruiser, around the back and along the passenger side, Audra close behind. He watched the doorway for a few moments before setting off at a crouching run to the cabin. He stopped short of the porch, then stepped onto it, one foot at a time, slow as he could move.

  More curses and grunts from inside.

  Danny waved at Audra to come to him. She took a breath, then ran, her head down. She reached the porch, looked at the wooden boards, and wondered how she would cross them without a thunderous creak. Danny beckoned her once more, and she crossed the porch in two light strides, barely a sound.

  ‘Come on,’ the voice inside growled.

  Audra heard a loud, hard cracking sound followed by a metallic rattle. Then a rhythmic crunching, accompanied by chesty grunts. She eased up and looked through the window. A bedroom, a simple metal-framed single bed at the center, a bare minimum of furniture. Danny inched toward the door, the whisper of his movement masked by the noise from within, Audra at his back.

  When they reached the door, Danny eased himself upright, and Audra stepped around him, copying his stance, the Glock raised and ready.

  Inside, on his knees, Sheriff Ronald Whiteside, his shirt spattered with blood, pried at a trapdoor with a crowbar, sweat beading on his forehead, his teeth gritted. He did not notice them, his world centered on the task of opening the door, which he had almost accomplished.

  One last crack, and whatever held it closed from within gave way. Whiteside gave a triumphant roar, swapped the crowbar to his left hand, grabbed the handle, and hauled the door open.

  ‘Whiteside,’ Danny said.

  The sheriff’s eyes widened as he swiveled to the sound of his name. His right hand grabbed for the pistol on the floor. Danny squeezed off a shot, but Whiteside dropped down to his belly as the bullet cut a hole in the wall.

  The pistol in his grasp, he rolled to the side, into the mouth of the basement, and disappeared.

  55

  WHITESIDE TUMBLED DOWN into the dark. By instinct, his
left hand released the crowbar and reached out, his fingers slapping against a rung of the ladder, grabbing the next. As the crowbar clanged on the floor, his weight wrenched at his shoulder. His fingers lost their grip and the hard floor slammed into his back. He cried out at the pain.

  Above, footsteps running across the floor, then Lee appeared at the edge. Whiteside raised his Glock and fired twice up into the light, and Lee was gone. He rolled onto his side, into the shadows, then up onto his knees.

  ‘Christ,’ he said, the sibilant hissing through his teeth.

  Pain shrieked from his back, threatened to blot out all else, but he willed it to be quiet. He had no use for it now. Suppressing another cry, he forced himself up onto his feet. He backed away from the square of dim light the open trapdoor projected onto the rough concrete floor.

  His heel caught the crowbar on the floor and he stumbled back. Something loose and heavy bumped and rolled around the rear of his head. He reached up for it, found a flashlight suspended from a beam in the ceiling. Holding onto it, he turned a circle in the darkness, his eyes scanning the shades of black. He pressed the power switch and a sharp beam cut through the dimness, throwing wild shadows around the basement as the flashlight swayed on its cord.

  His gaze swept across the rows of tinned food, the piled blankets and clothes, the chemical toilet. There, behind a stack of boxes at the rear of the room, the boy and the girl. Whiteside staggered toward them, the Glock aimed at the girl’s chest.

  He grabbed for both of them. The boy struggled, but Whiteside slapped him hard across the head. He dragged the boy by the collar out onto the open floor, then reached for the girl and did the same. His free arm swept around them as they squealed, gathered them close. He aimed the Glock up at the trapdoor.

  ‘Mom!’ the boy shouted.

  ‘Shut up,’ Whiteside said. ‘Be quiet or I’ll kill you all.’

  The woman’s head appeared in the opening, peering down at them. The boy shouted for her again.

  ‘Listen to me,’ Whiteside called. ‘You and your friend get out of here or I’ll take your children’s heads off.’

  Her face slipped away from the opening, and for the briefest of moments Whiteside thought she had heeded his warning. Then her feet dropped down and found the ladder.

  From above, ‘Audra, no.’

  She climbed down, unarmed. Whiteside leveled the pistol at her as she descended. When she reached the bottom, she turned to face him, her eyes blazing as the flashlight beam danced between them. Lee’s face appeared above once more.

  ‘Audra, what—’

  ‘Stay there,’ she said. ‘If he tries to leave this basement, shoot him dead.’

  ‘Audra, listen to—’

  ‘Just do it,’ she said, taking a step closer.

  ‘You best back off,’ Whiteside said. ‘I’m taking these children, and that’s all there is to it.’

  ‘No,’ Audra said, stepping forward. ‘You won’t take them from me again.’

  Whiteside backed away, bringing the boy and girl with him, his left arm still wrapped around them both.

  ‘Goddamn it,’ he said, his voice resonating between the concrete walls, ‘stop right there.’

  ‘Sean, Louise,’ she said, ‘you’re going to be all right.’

  ‘Shut up,’ he said, stabbing the pistol’s muzzle in her direction. ‘I’m taking them with me. Don’t make me hurt them. I killed Collins. I killed the old man. You better believe I will kill again, if you push me.’

  She moved closer yet and said, ‘Let my children go.’

  Whiteside felt a hysterical laugh rise up to his throat, but he swallowed it.

  ‘Listen to me,’ he said. ‘There’s a man will pay me a million dollars a child. Three million for a pair. Now, you can plead and you can beg and you can threaten all you want. But there ain’t a word you can say that’s worth more than three million dollars. Is there?’

  Audra stooped down and reached for the crowbar on the floor. It scraped on the concrete as she lifted it and straightened. She held it loose at her side.

  ‘One last time,’ she said. ‘Let my children go.’

  Whiteside looked at the crowbar in her hand. ‘What are you going to do with that?’ he asked.

  She looked him hard in the eye and a finger of cold fear touched his heart.

  Then Audra swept the crowbar up and across, slamming it into the flashlight. It careened across the basement, its bulb flickering out as it went.

  56

  AUDRA SAW THE brilliant muzzle flash as she threw herself to the floor, felt the pressure of the discharge in her ears. Through the whine she heard small feet sprint away into the dark and then a hoarse, angry cry.

  She got to her knees, kept low as she advanced into the black.

  Another muzzle flash, this time aiming in the direction the footsteps had run. She held her breath through the sound of pulverized concrete crumbling to the floor until she heard the footsteps again, running to the far end of the room.

  Whiteside fired again, and she felt the bullet zip past her head. She dropped down onto her stomach, remained still as tins fell and rattled, liquid glugging out of a container. The sheriff screamed in rage, his voice rising to a piercing shriek.

  Audra crept forward on her belly, her eyes locked on the point of the last muzzle flash, the crowbar held off the floor for fear of giving herself away.

  ‘Goddamn you,’ Whiteside shouted. ‘Goddamn you to hell.’

  The voice above her head, she fixed its position. Another few inches, coarse concrete scraping her elbows and knees.

  ‘Goddamn you,’ he said again, his voice withered down to a high keening.

  Audra got to her knees, swung the crowbar, putting her shoulders behind it. The metal connected with bone, and Whiteside screamed. She heard his body slam into the floor and she rose, the crowbar over her head, ready to bring it down on any part of him it could find.

  She saw the flash once more, beneath her now, and felt something hot tug at her shoulder. Before her mind could register the pain, she swung the crowbar hard, felt something break as it struck. A rattle as the pistol skimmed across the concrete, a clang as she lost her grip on the crowbar, and another cry of pain.

  Audra roared, an animal fury erupting from the heart of her. She straddled him and raised her fists, brought them down, raised them, brought them down, again and again, each blow sending shocks up through her wrists and elbows and shoulders. She heard the pounding of flesh, and it sounded like music, and she laughed and laughed until she had no air left in her lungs.

  Someone cried, stop, stop, please stop, but the voice was far away in the darkness, a pathetic whimpering that meant nothing to her.

  A flash of lightning filled the room, a brilliant flickering, and she saw Whiteside below her, his arms raised up to protect his face. Then a slapping and rattling sound, more flashes, making it appear as if Whiteside danced under her, all jerking movements and slashes of red.

  ‘Mom,’ Sean said.

  She froze, her bloody fists above her head, and turned to her son’s voice.

  There, across the room, the flashlight in his hands, his sister by his side. He shook the flashlight, smacked it against his palm, trying to keep the bulb alive.

  ‘Mom, stop,’ he said.

  Behind them came Danny, the revolver aimed at Whiteside.

  Audra dropped her hands. She crawled off Whiteside’s body, toward her children, onto her knees, stretched her arms out wide. They came to her, the hot damp skin of their faces pressing into hers, her arms swallowing them up, their bodies joining together.

  She wept as the flickering light danced around them.

  57

  THE SUN HAD climbed high above the trees and washed the clearing with warm light. She felt the heat on her skin and relished it. Of all the things that should have been important to Audra at that moment, the sun in the sky should have been the least. But still, there it was.

  Whiteside sat on the porch, his bleeding h
ead bowed, his swollen right arm cradled in his lap, his left bound to it at the wrists by his own handcuffs. He had screamed at the pain as Danny had forced his broken arm into place. Now he trembled, sweat mixing with the blood from his nose and lips, forming pale-red streams down his chin.

  Sean stood watching him. He’d asked if he could have a pistol to hold on Whiteside, to guard him. For a moment, Audra had doubted if her boy would have the nerve to aim a weapon at another person. Then she saw a new coldness in his eyes and she knew different. The realization had caused an ache in her heart that still echoed through her. Even so, she told him no. Whiteside wasn’t going anywhere.

  Danny had found an old first-aid kit in the cabin’s basement and now he tended to the wound on Audra’s shoulder as Louise lay curled in her lap. Just a graze, he said, but it hurt like hell when he sprayed it with antiseptic. He packed the wound with gauze and pressed tape over the area to seal it in.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘It’ll need to be stitched when we get back to civilization, but you’ll survive till then.’

  Danny went to stand up, but Audra said, ‘Hey.’

  He crouched down next to her again.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I owe you … everything.’

  He reached to her, brushed his fingers against her cheek. ‘Just take care of them. That’ll be enough.’

  As Danny got to his feet, Audra beckoned to her son. Sean came to the porch and nestled in next to his mother. It caused a flare of pain for Audra to lift her arm and put it around him, but she did it anyway. She kissed the top of his head as he leaned into her.

  Danny approached Whiteside, put one foot on the porch next to him, bent down to speak.

  ‘Where and when was the exchange?’ he asked.

  ‘Fuck you,’ Whiteside said.

  Danny punched his devastated arm, and Whiteside squealed.