Spilled Blood

by Brian Freeman

  On the ground, his feet became ice. Then his ankles. He looked down and realized he wasn’t standing on the river bank anymore, because there was no river bank. There was only the river. He squinted into the cloud, and as the dust separated, drifting into the air, he could see a stain spreading over and consuming the land.

  Water.

  Water churned white.

  Water leapfrogging itself, erupting through a jagged hundred-foot gap where the dam had pancaked into rubble. The thunder in his head was the near-bottomless reservoir, freed from its prison, cascading into the valley with astonishing speed, pouring out its guts like an open wound and drowning everything in its path.

  Chris had only seconds to escape. He was already immersed to his knees. He splashed up the shallow slope toward his Lexus, parked on the shoulder of the highway. The river chased him, rising inch by inch at his heels. As he climbed into the car, fingers of water slithered onto the road like snakes. He fired the engine and roared into a U-turn, trying to stay ahead of the flood as it surged downstream.

  He fumbled with his phone, driving one-handed, weaving on the road as his scrambled brain tried to right itself.

  First he dialed 911.

  Then he dialed Hannah. ‘You have to get out of St. Croix right now.’

  51

  The emergency sirens wailed.

  Olivia ran from house to house, pounding on doors in St. Croix, alerting their neighbors to evacuate. In the criss-cross blocks of the town, she could see Johan, her mother, and Glenn Magnus on the same mission of mercy. No one asked questions. Living in a river valley, everyone knew the risks; sooner or later, someone would tell them that the water was coming.

  The danger was speed. Most floods rose with the river in a matter of days as the winter snow melted; now, with the dam gone, they had minutes. An hour. Maybe.

  She heard car tires slipping and squealing on the roads as families headed east and west to outrun the river. She waited long enough at each house to make sure they took her seriously. No, she wasn’t kidding; yes, they had to leave now. Some agonized, hemming and hawing over their possessions. What to take, what to leave. It was hard, knowing there might be nothing left when you came back.

  If you came back.

  Some put up no fuss at all. She knocked on the door at Loren Werner’s house, and the eighty-six-year-old widower simply told her to calm down and catch her breath and talk slowly. She explained, and he nodded and took his car keys from a bowl near the door and walked with her back to the street. He patted her cheek, climbed into his 1981 Cutlass Supreme and waved as he drove away. That was that. He didn’t look back at the house once.

  In half an hour, Olivia raised the warning with more than twenty houses. She found herself on the eastern edge of the town, across from the corn fields and the water tower, where the railroad tracks paralleled the southbound highway. From her vantage, she saw a speeding stream of traffic escaping from the lowlands of Barron. They’d moved fast. She wondered how many got out and how many were already trapped on their roofs. The lucky ones on the bluff over the town were probably saying prayers of thanks as they stood on the cliff and watched the disaster unfolding below them.

  ‘Olivia!’

  It was her mother on the opposite edge of town, shouting at her, waving her arms. There was a glimmer of panic in her voice. They were running out of time.

  Olivia took the river route back home, wanting to see how bad it was. She followed the railroad tracks to the bridge, where she used to meet Johan, and she got her answer. It was bad. The lazy creek had become a torrent. There was no gap anymore to jump from the bridge deck to the water; instead, the current swept an inch below the gray steel. Tree trunks pounded the bridge like missiles, shooting spray and splinters across the tracks. She heard wood crunching and cracking.

  She ran along the trail behind the houses, and the ground was already soupy mud. She wasn’t looking down at the water anymore. She looked out across a stretch of brown magma at her feet, rolling into swells. She covered her mouth in horror as she saw the water carrying debris from the town of Barron, hoisted on its shoulders like a trophy. She saw light poles spinning like tiny twigs, suspension cables from the pedestrian bridge, shattered windows like shrapnel, and even a white Toyota Corolla doing somersaults in the current before the current carried it up the bank and dumped it at the fringe of the corn field.

  ‘Wow,’ she murmured.

  Olivia looked down at her feet. The tentacles of the river wormed their way through the mud.

  She sprinted away from the trail to their house. She eyed her bedroom window and thought about all the times she’d climbed up and down the drainpipe and knew she’d never do it again. She followed the lawn to the front porch. Her mother carried a box of soup cans to their truck. When her mother saw her, her face dissolved with anger and relief.

  ‘Olivia, where were you?’

  ‘I wanted to check out the river. It’s almost over the bank. We better roll.’

  ‘Run to the church and check on Glenn. I want to know what’s keeping him. Then get back here right now.’

  ‘Where’s Dad?’

  ‘He’s five minutes away. Go.’

  Olivia ran across the street and up the swath of lawn to the church steps. The white steeple towered over her head, with its bird’s-eye view of St. Croix. She didn’t see Glenn Magnus. The town swarmed like a hive as residents frantically loaded their vehicles to join the escape parade. She hunted for the minister among the faces, but she didn’t see him.

  She pulled open the church doors. ‘Mr. Magnus!’

  There was no answer, and she called again. ‘Mr. Magnus! Hello!

  She heard a groan. The oak door to the sanctuary was partially blocked, and when she yanked it open she found Glenn Magnus prone on the floor. He groaned again and pushed himself up to his hands and knees. The back of his skull was matted with blood.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Olivia clung to the minister’s arm, helping him to his feet. ‘What happened?’

  His voice was weak, and he winced as he put a hand tenderly on the back of his head. ‘I came back to retrieve some things from the church. Somehow I hit my head.’

  ‘We better go,’ Olivia said. ‘Mom can help.’

  Magnus slung an arm around her shoulder as she helped him out of the church. Their house was barely fifty yards away, but it looked far as they took baby steps. She was conscious of the water rising; it wouldn’t be long before their routes out of town were blocked. When they were halfway to the house, her mother jogged to help them, and they made their way inside the house. Her mother settled Glenn into a chair and got a damp towel from the kitchen to dab at the back of his head. Johan appeared from upstairs with a box in his hands, and he quickly put it down as he saw his father in the chair by the door, his eyes closed.

  ‘Dad!’

  The minister gave his son a weak smile. ‘I’m okay.’

  ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘I don’t know. One minute I was in the church, and the next thing I knew, Olivia was helping me up. I must have slipped and banged my head.’

  Hannah interrupted them. ‘There’s no time. We have to get out of here. Olivia, Johan, get the last boxes in the truck. That’ll give Glenn a minute to rest. If Chris isn’t here by then, I’ll call and tell him we’re leaving, and he can meet us on the bluff.’ She gestured impatiently at the two of them. ‘Hurry, let’s go.’

  Johan picked up the box again. Olivia grabbed another box from the kitchen table. They headed for the front porch and across the lawn to the truck. The river was over the banks. They splashed through an inch of water, and it seemed to rise before their eyes. The current was so fast and slippery they could feel it under their shoes, trying to knock them off their feet. She piled the boxes into the back of the SUV and slammed the door shut.

  On impulse, she threw her arms around Johan’s neck. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For you, for Ashlynn, for everything.
I was a jerk.’

  ‘I’m the one who’s sorry, Olivia. I should have trusted you.’

  He knelt into her, and she felt him holding her again, strong and familiar. She lost herself in those blue eyes and felt a surge of arousal as his face drew close and he kissed her. It started quietly, soft lips on soft lips, but all the months of loss and violence spilled out of them and became passion. Their tongues, their faces, their hands, their bodies, pressed together, until they were molded against each other.

  She knew they had no time. She was conscious of the river on her bare ankles. They broke apart, breathless, and before they turned toward the porch, she heard a strange bang that bounced around them in an echo.

  ‘What the hell was that?’

  Johan heard it, too. He looked around in confusion. ‘I don’t know.’

  It happened again. Bang. The noise was everywhere and nowhere. She saw an odd splash inches from her feet, and ripples washed into curves in the rushing water. What was going on? She took a tentative step toward the street, and then, beside her, the windshield of the Explorer shattered.

  ‘Olivia,’ Johan cried. ‘Get down!’

  Johan leaped for her, but she still didn’t understand. As his arms reached her, she heard it again – bang – and this time Johan screamed, and she saw a red stain bloom on his shoulder. His face contorted in pain, and he clasped his hand to his shirt. Blood oozed between his fingers.

  ‘Johan, no!’

  Someone was shooting at them.

  Olivia grabbed him around the waist and guided him toward the porch. He staggered, and red drops sprayed into the water. The bullets followed them, erupting in splashes on either side of them, chasing them back inside the house. Another window shattered as they scrambled through the door and slammed it shut behind them.

  They were trapped.

  The water kept rising.

  *

  In the steeple of the church, Lenny Watson stood among the litter of cartridge boxes and spent shell casings. From here, the highest ground, he could see the river coming for them. He didn’t know what had happened, and he didn’t care. He’d heard the explosion, and now, minute by minute, he watched the town of St. Croix sink into the water before his eyes.

  The streets were eerily deserted. There were no streets now, no pavement, curbs, or corners, just avenue signs jutting out of the rapids. Nearly everyone was gone. He’d let them go, but not Johan Magnus. Not him. Not Olivia, either. He didn’t want to hurt her, but he’d watched them kiss, the two of them pawing each other like animals, and he’d started firing and firing and firing. He wanted to make it stop. He wanted to drive them apart. He wouldn’t be humiliated, watching her with another boy.

  This was what Kirk would do. His brother would be proud of him. You’re finally a man, Leno.

  He slid the barrel of the rifle through the slats in the steeple again. Each time he fired, the bells made a metallic vibration behind him, like church music. He aimed for another window in Hannah Hawk’s house, and he squeezed the trigger.

  52

  When Chris was one block from the church in St. Croix, the Lexus floated off the pavement.

  The flooded engine died. Dank river water filled the base of the car, and the sedan spun in a lazy circle. Chris pushed open the door and stripped off his seat belt, and he spilled out of the car into a foot of rushing rapids. The current shoved him to his knees. His silver car, driverless, rammed an oak tree and ricocheted away, bouncing downstream through the town like a pinball.

  He didn’t have time to grieve for his car. The river popped with an odd splash no more than a foot away from him. Simultaneously, the crack of a rifle shot blasted and reverberated in his ears. Chris rolled right, deeper into the water, and when he looked up at the church steeple, he saw a long gun barrel poking out through the louvers, aimed downward. He scrambled forward on his knees, and another bullet buried itself in the water and mud.

  Chris ran, trying to stay on his feet. He reached the wall of the church, where he was out of view from the shooter above him. He was wet, cold, and dirty. His phone was gone, lost somewhere in the water. He reached around to the small of his back and found Marco’s gun still lodged tightly under his belt. He slid it into his hand, but he didn’t know if it would fire, not after the gun had spent time swimming in the swollen Spirit River.

  Marco.

  He’d had his revenge. Florian was gone. So was Mondamin. So was the heart of Barron. The trouble was that revenge knew no boundaries, and the river didn’t stop its destruction at the city limits. It kept flowing, kept flooding, kept growing, carrying everything away in its path.

  Chris stayed under the eaves of the church and followed the wall to the corner. Ahead of him, no more than fifty yards away, he saw Hannah’s house, now an island in the deepening lake. Trees and street signs grew oddly out of the water. Behind one of the corner beams on the porch, he spotted movement, and someone waved frantically and called for him in a high-pitched voice. His heart stuttered. It was Olivia. She was in the last place he wanted her to be. He couldn’t stop her or hold her; instead, he watched in terror as his daughter bolted from her hiding place and splashed down the front steps. She was in the open, coming for him. Another shot tunneled into the rushing river, barely missing her.

  ‘Olivia!’ he shouted, his choked voice carrying over the flood. ‘Get inside!’

  She ducked behind the steps, but he could see her face and the pink flash of her T-shirt. Her hands gripped the iron columns of the railing. The water swirled around her. ‘It’s Lenny!’ she screamed back at him. ‘He shot Johan!’

  ‘Get inside!’

  ‘I can help. I can talk to him.’

  Another rifle shot dissolved in echoes. He didn’t see the ripples of the bullet. As the crack died away, Olivia broke cover again. He held up his hands frantically to stop her.

  ‘No!’

  She froze in place. She glanced back at the front door, but she didn’t move.

  ‘Olivia, get back! Get in the house!’

  She looked panicked by the power of the rapids. She was an easy target, a stick figure in water up to her knees. He knew he needed to get to Lenny before he fired again. He waved Olivia back to the house one last time and charged up the church steps out of the water. The river hadn’t risen above the top step, and inside, the foyer of the church was dry and quiet. On his right, a twisting staircase led into the steeple. He ran for the stairs and climbed around the spirals toward the bell chamber, taking the steps two at a time. Marco’s gun was slippery in his hand. There were no windows and no light in the square stairwell; he was blind. Above him, to his horror, he heard the blast of another shot, and in the close confines, the explosion stung his ears. He heard the singing of the bells, rattled by the echoes. He listened for what he feared – a scream from his daughter outside – and was relieved when he heard nothing.

  Natural light beamed out of the gloom. The trapdoor in the floor was just above him. It was open. He squatted and climbed another step, high enough to glimpse the claustrophobic interior of the steeple. It was no more than ten feet square, with a low roof and an arched, slatted vent on each of the walls. Light streamed through the louvers and made parallel shadows on the floor. The bronze bells and wheels occupied most of the space. He heard Lenny’s feet shuffling and his panicked breathing. The boy was immediately to the right of the gap where Chris needed to climb.

  Chris shoved his torso through the trapdoor. He led with the gun. Lenny stood there, aiming his rifle at Hannah’s house through the louvers. He wasn’t even four feet away.

  ‘Lenny, stop,’ Chris called sharply.

  The boy reared back in surprise, stumbling against the opposite wall. The rifle clattered to the wooden floor, but Lenny grabbed a pistol from his belt and shoved it in front of him, pointed at Chris. His eyes were wide, almost drugged. His gun arm quaked. ‘Get the hell away from me!’ Lenny screamed. ‘I’ll kill you!’

  They pointed guns at each other. Neither would m
iss.

  ‘Listen to me, Lenny. Listen. You don’t want to do this.’

  ‘Shut up!’ the boy shouted, waving the gun. ‘Get out!’

  ‘I can’t do that,’ Chris told him. ‘My whole family is trapped across the street. I need your help.’

  ‘Kirk’s dead!’

  ‘I know he is, but don’t throw your life away over him.’

  The teenager shook his head. ‘It’s too late. Don’t you get it? I already killed somebody.’

  ‘No, you didn’t. The man at the garage isn’t dead. It doesn’t have to end like this.’

  Lenny hesitated. ‘I don’t give a shit anymore.’

  ‘I think you do.’ Chris let his gun hand go limp. Slowly, he laid the revolver on the floor of the bell chamber where Lenny could see it. He raised both hands. ‘I’m coming up, okay? Let’s talk.’

  Lenny backed up, flush against the wall. He hadn’t lowered his own gun. Chris climbed into the heart of the tower but didn’t try to draw closer to the boy. Dust hung heavy in the streams of light, and old cobwebs dripped from the ceiling. The wind in the vents made a whistling noise, and the large, brooding bells sang a bass chorus. Lenny’s face was streaked with dirt and blood and split with shadows.

  ‘Do you think I’m a coward?’ Lenny asked. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘I think Kirk was a coward. Not you.’

  ‘Kirk was a hero, man.’

  Chris shook his head. ‘No, he wasn’t. He was a sadist, a bully, and a killer. I don’t think you’re like him at all, Lenny.’

  ‘He was my brother.’

  ‘Maybe so, but he did bad things, and we both know it.’

  ‘Don’t talk about him like that!’

  ‘You know what he did. You know what’s right and what’s wrong. I don’t need to tell you that.’

  He took a step forward. Lenny cocked the weapon, and he froze.

  ‘Stop!’ Lenny demanded, his voice cracking.

  ‘I just want you to put the weapon down. You’ve seen what’s happening outside, Lenny. You’ve seen the river. We’re running out of time.’