by Adam Cesare
He pointed the shotgun away from them both, giving a small smile of assent that the commando received loud and clear, the tall man beginning to laugh like they’d just shared a private joke.
Then the man opened up Jim Beck’s skull on the walkway in five quick whacks. From the look of it he didn’t stop because his arms were tired, but because there just wasn’t much left of Beck’s head after the fifth blow.
“Pretty good,” Raines said, breathing in through his nose now, not enjoying the smell but liking the warmth that the smoke wafting from the windows of Mercy House was giving his lungs, spreading through his body.
Behind him, from the squad car, he could hear the girl quietly weeping in the backseat. She didn’t seem as entertained by watching Beck get his ass handed to him, but at least she’d stopped fucking yapping about it. Even with a big chunk of her hair cut off, covered in blood, she was cute. He might even keep her for a while.
The commando still held on to Beck’s lifeless body by one ankle, letting the corpse’s shoulders rest on the ground in front of him. The tall man was funny, and strong, but he’d still struck down a fellow officer.
Cop killer, the words brought a career’s worth of bright fury to Raines’s mind, and muscle memory to his arms and hands. He leveled the shotgun again, opening up once, the center of the blast shearing off one of Beck’s legs at the knee and the rest of the shot colliding with the tall man’s chest, propelling him back.
The man gave Raines a look like he’d hurt his feelings, like they were buddies or something after the laughs they’d shared over Beck’s undoing.
Raines racked one, his fingers feeling slippery on the stock, then he walked a few feet closer until he could almost touch the commando with the barrel and hit him again. The second time he got him under the jaw and the splash against the concrete looked like abstract art.
Smoke curled from his barrel and Raines nodded to himself at a job well done, then turned back to the car.
He closed up the passenger’s side door on the way over, resting the gun against the seat and the floor; he’d put it back later and he didn’t feel like fumbling with the lock now. He could hear sirens approaching in the distance, echoing off the mountains and between the valleys.
Crossing the front of the squad car, he was momentarily embarrassed by his pants dropping off his hips but he cinched up his belt a few holes and carried on. It was difficult for him to fit in the car, since the stubby Jim Beck had been driving and had adjusted the seat for the midget patrol.
Behind him the girl hammered on the glass, back at her screaming again. He ignored her.
Once he got the seat adjusted, he turned the keys and let out. The cobblestone driveway was hell on the suspension, so he kept half the car on the shoulder, kicking up gravel as he tried to keep control with his new butterfingers.
The same way he’d gotten used to the idea of retirement, he figured he’d get used to this change, too.
Passing the sign for Mercy House, Raines cracked the driver’s-side window. It was fall and the air was getting chilly, but he could still smell that rotten stench that had been ebbing off the old people’s home.
Raines hoped that the smell wouldn’t linger, wasn’t soaked into his clothes so as to follow him all the way to his front door.
If I were to dedicate this book to anyone, it would be my parents, but I don’t want them to take the wrong meaning.
They’re not that old.
But enthusiastic thanks must go to Frank Parisi, Christopher Krovatin, and Sarah Peed, without whom I wouldn’t have been able to visit Mercy House.
About the Author
ADAM CESARE is a New Yorker who lives in Philadelphia. He studied English and film at Boston University. His books include Mercy House, Video Night, The Summer Job, Exponential, The First One You Expect, Zero Lives Remaining, and Tribesmen. His nonfiction has appeared in Paracinema, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and other venues.
adamcesare.com
@Adam_Cesare
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