Widow Town

by Joe Hart

“He’ll need to be cleaned, and someone else can do that, but the cord needs to be cut.”

  “We can cut it, give him to Rachel,” Gray said.

  “What are you going to use? There’s nothing sterile in this room.”

  “We’ll wash my knife, now give the baby to Rachel or I’ll kill you where you stand.” Gray reached his hand out and Danzig placed the tranq in it without a word, the sight never leaving Barder’s head.

  “Okay, okay. We all need to calm down here, I mean we just experienced a miracle.”

  “Now,” Gray said.

  Lynn knelt by the pan of sudsy water and began to wash the knife’s blade as Rachel came forward, her eyes and hands steady but her movements unsure, as if she were approaching the open door of a lion’s cage. Barder smiled at her and offered the baby out, the newborn’s aching cries growing louder. Rachel reached for him.

  Barder yanked the baby back to his chest and kicked the bowl of hot water.

  Lynn screamed as the scalding liquid splashed up her arm and onto her face. Water spattered Gray and Danzig, stinging droplets burning more than Gray guessed they would. Rachel and Joslyn cried out and the little boys in the corner began to yell for their mothers. Amidst the chaos Gray heard one sound that made his stomach plunge.

  The knife clattered to the floor in front of Barder’s feet.

  Gray tried to secure a shot, but the doctor moved with the same liquid grace he’d displayed earlier, scooping the knife from the floor as he’d caught the baby from Siri’s womb. With a short flick of his wrist, he cut the infant’s cord and slid the blade to the child’s throat. Oblivious to the danger, the boy continued to wail.

  “No!” Siri yelled from the bed, and tried to rise, the umbilical still trailing from between her legs.

  “Drop it, Barder!” Gray said, keeping the tranq’s bead on the man’s face while eyeing his exposed legs.

  “Ah, I wouldn’t, Sheriff. You try to shoot me and I stab him, and you don’t want two children’s deaths on your conscience.” Barder grinned, and shifted his gaze to everyone in the room. “That goes for all of you. No one make a move or the little one’s dead.”

  Siri and the children sobbed. Lynn picked herself off the ground and wiped her face free of the water, the skin where it had splashed an angry red. Barder edged toward the door, his eyes flicking to each of them in turn. A fevered rictus pulled his features into something hideous and Gray could see the doctor was enjoying himself.

  “Now it’s time to disappear, folks. It’s been real fun, but my welcome’s worn out in this town so to speak.”

  “There’s a forest fire outside, where the hell do you think you’re going to go?” Gray said, still following the other man’s movements with the tranq.

  “I’ll figure something out, I always do.”

  “You won’t make the county line before I cut you down,” Gray said.

  “I can see you mean that, Sheriff, but I have resources stocked away just for an occasion such as this and I’ll be fine.” Barder hefted the baby and readjusted his hold on the knife. “Actually, we’ll be fine.”

  “Bring him back,” Siri moaned. “Bring my baby back, please.”

  The doctor moved so that his back was to the wall. He slid sideways, forcing Gray and Danzig to rotate away from the open door.

  “Lynn, give me the door card,” Gray whispered.

  He didn’t release his gaze from Barder, couldn’t look away, but felt Lynn put the thin card into his outstretched palm. The newborn continued to flail within the sheet, kicking its legs and twisting its flushed face in and out of view. Barder reached the doorway and backed out, watching them all with buzzard eyes.

  “Goodbye my friends,” he said, and kicked the door shut.

  Gray leapt forward, stretching out the hand that held the key card. The door slammed home and he waited to hear the lock engage, but no click came. When he looked down he saw the card bent into the door’s frame covering the locking mechanism.

  “Did it not—” Danzig began.

  “Shhh,” Gray said. When all was still for another ten agonizing seconds, he pushed on the door.

  It stuck solid for a sickening beat and then swung into the deserted hallway.

  “He didn’t wait for it to lock,” Danzig said, staring hard at Gray.

  “Nope.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “You won’t last a minute outside in the smoke.”

  Danzig started to argue again but Lynn silenced him with a touch to his bicep.

  “He’s right, Dan. I’ll go instead.”

  “No,” Gray said, starting out the door.

  “MacArthur Gray, you are not going alone. You’ll die without help this time and it’s not just your life you’re risking, it’s Siri’s son’s too. Now cut the macho bullshit. You need me.”

  He glanced at her, taking in the aggressive stance, the set of her jaw.

  “Okay.”

  He squeezed Danzig’s arm once and shook his head when the big man tried to speak.

  “Keep them safe,” Gray said, and turned away.

  They crept down the hall without another word. Gray swept the stairs with the tranq as they neared them and chanced a look all the way up. The hatch was open, the silo thick with smoke. It sounded as if a train were running on a track directly outside the building.

  Gray motioned to Lynn and they moved up the stairway single file. The silo was a hazy murk. They could have been on the bottom of a disturbed lake, floating sediment all around them. He turned in a slow circle, scanning the space but saw nothing. There was no place to hide with the loud infant, not in this echoing place. He coughed, the air dry and tangy with a taste that went past his tongue and followed straight to his lungs. The familiar burning that he’d felt in Hudson’s barn returned.

  “You okay?” Lynn asked.

  He quelled the coughing by swallowing a half dozen times.

  “Fine.”

  They moved to the door and he noticed the heat again. It was exponential with each step. The steel walls radiated it and his hair curled with its touch. The yard glowed, smoke lit in ambient flames without definition. The fire whipped and flowed like something alive, its gnashing jaws the only sound audible, but indefinable behind the roiling fumes.

  Over the cackling of the fire, a baby’s cry floated to them.

  “Toward the field.” Lynn pointed and Gray followed her finger.

  A darker shadow hovered in the choking swirls, its shape resembling a man but monstrous in the misgiving light. Barder’s form grew, elongated into a stilted figure out of an ancient carnival, and then shrank as the waves of smoke rolled past them.

  Gray grasped Lynn’s warm hand and they set off from the silo. The heat was worse in the open air, too large for lungs to breath. They tried to get below the smoke that rolled past them, closer to the ground, but it wasn’t much use and Gray felt a coughing fit rising within him. He bit down on the insides of his mouth, drawing blood, and swallowed.

  They reached the border of the barnyard and cornfield and stopped. The baby squalled again somewhere to their left and they moved, the pliant earth of the field becoming crusted by the approaching heat. The fire roared behind them and then over them and Gray ducked, yanking Lynn down with him while the roar become a thudding beat.

  The helicopter exploded from the smoke overhead, a stone’s throw above the ground. Its twin rotors cut the air and fanned the noxious clouds down and away. It continued on toward the tree line, dropping the last of its chemical retardants on the withered leaves before fading from sight.

  They picked themselves up from the ground and went on, walking careful and quiet. Gray held the tranq at waist level, searching the smog. The infant cried out, a long heartbroken wail that drew them forward onto a path leading toward the dense trees lining the field.

  A flapping came from ahead like some great bird trying to take off. Gray put a hand on Lynn’s arm, halting her. The baby screamed its protest which led into a stream o
f minute coughs. A shape began to form as the wind shifted, blowing away the curtain of smoke.

  Barder was there, not a dozen yards before them, uncovering something beneath a featureless tarp. Siri’s son lay on the ground, the long grass bent beneath him like an archaic cradle. As they watched, Barder yanked on the tarp again and the shape was revealed.

  A new four-wheel-drive pickup sat amidst the swaying grass and overhanging trees. Its paint glistened as if it had just been recently washed. Barder opened the door and set something inside on the passenger seat before turning toward the infant.

  At the same instant, he noticed their presence. Gray brought the tranq up and fired.

  The moment he pulled the trigger he knew he’d missed. The dart containing the poison was barely visible, its flight streaking across the distance in half a second. It flew by Barder’s chest close enough to make the doctor cry out and take a step in reverse.

  “Get away from him,” Gray said, pulling the trigger again.

  Barder bared his even teeth and ducked behind the truck’s fender as the second dart skipped off the hood, marring the pristine paint. Gray ran forward, putting himself in between the other man and the infant thrashing in its swaddles. When he rounded the truck, Barder was gone. He swung the weapon back the way he’d come, covering the opposite side in case the doctor tried to flank them.

  “Lynn, get him.”

  But she was already picking up the newborn and cuddling him close to her chest. She let out a bray of coughing, hoarse and racking as she stood, her eyes watering but from the smoke or relief of holding the baby, he didn’t know. Movement caught his eye from the right and he saw Barder coming around the rear of the truck, the knife held point down in his fist. Gray raised the tranq and fired again, the dart singing over the doctor’s head as he ducked.

  “Nice try, Sheriff. I’d tell you never to use another man’s weapon, but that’s hypocritical since I’m holding your knife.”

  Gray rounded the front of the truck as Barder stood, smiling through the drifting smoke. He centered the gun on the doctor’s chest and pulled the trigger.

  The tranq clicked empty.

  “The other reason you don’t use another man’s weapon is you never know how many rounds he had in it. In this case I only had time to load three.”

  With a grin that became a snarl, Barder rushed forward, bringing the knife up over his shoulder. Gray backpedaled and flipped the tranq over so that he held it by the barrel. He swung it like a baseball bat, bashing the doctor in the side of the face. Barder partially blocked the blow with his forearm and slashed the blade in a wicked arc past Gray’s chest. The tranquilizer snapped near its grip, leaving him holding only the barrel which became surprisingly light without its handle. He danced backward, feinting to the left and right, inches out of reach of Barder as he pinwheeled the knife over and over, the blade cutting ribbons of smoke as it sang through the air. Daring a look to his side, he found Lynn watching helplessly as she cradled Siri’s son.

  “Go! Run to the silo!” he yelled as Barder attacked again, stabbing this time at his stomach.

  He caught the other man’s wrist and pulled him forward off balance. With his opposite arm he threw an elbow that smashed under the doctor’s right eye. The skin split open there and drizzled blood onto his cheek. With an upward slash, Barder broke free of Gray’s grip, cutting a strand of cloth from his coveralls and skimming his arm with the knife’s tip. Gray stepped back and the reaching touch of the corn met him. With an overhand swing, he brought the tranq’s barrel down, aiming for the other man’s skull. Barder sidestepped, deflecting the blow with the knife. The steel slipped in Gray’s sweaty fingers and he lost his hold on the makeshift baton. It fell to the ground behind Barder, disappearing from sight.

  Gray kicked forward, feeling the lancing pull of the bullet wound as he did. His foot met the doctor’s stomach and Barder stumbled back, his breath knocked from his chest. Gray flicked his eyes to the left and was awestruck in spite of the doctor slowly straightening himself.

  The fire was there.

  It was a wall fifty feet high, its naked flames finally visible without the cloistering wrap of smoke. It walked and swayed to an orchestra of crackling earth, peeling trees, and boiling life. It surged toward them, and as he watched, the flames overcame Barder’s home. In an instant the roof was consumed and the siding ignited. It swept forward like a tidal wave washing forward after an oceanic meteor impact. And before the open maw of hell, Lynn ran toward it holding the baby. She made it within forty feet of the silo and then halted as if she’d hit a fence. She turned, shielding the baby and bent forward, coughing without sound as the fire howled over everything. With a final push, she tried again and then turned back toward the field, the heat herding her the way she had come.

  Barder screamed and leapt forward, stabbing at Gray’s heart. He twisted but it wasn’t enough. The blade slid into and through the muscle of his chest. There was quick burning and then numbness where the steel had entered his body. His mind reeled, registering he’d been stabbed while at the same time seeing Lynn pelt past them into the rows of the field, the child a flash of white cloth in her arms. Gray clamped a hand onto Barder’s wrist as the doctor tried to withdraw the blade, and then slammed the other into the man’s throat as they fell together into the corn.

  Barder landed on top of him, driving the blade deeper. Gray grunted and slapped the side of the other man’s head with a cupped palm, forcing air into his eardrum hard enough to perforate it. Barder cried out and shook his head like a dog who’d just emerged from a lake. The doctor balled up his free hand and struck Gray between the eyes releasing a grenade of pain into his broken nose. The world drained of its color, first at the edges of his vision and then from the center, leeching his sight into a pallid haze.

  The knife slide out of his chest and the beautiful numbness receded with it, leaving a tide of agony where it had been. Above him, Barder pushed himself into a sitting position, his knees dug into the hot soil to either side of Gray.

  “End of the line, Sheriff. Great ride but it has to stop sometime. Should be able to make it to the truck and run down your lady before the fire gets here. We’ll have to see.”

  Barder raised the knife above his head holding it with both hands like some past tribal chief, offering a sacrifice. He plunged it down, driving it toward Gray’s exposed throat.

  Gray’s hands came up and he caught the doctor’s wrists, stopping the blade’s descent. He gritted his teeth and wormed his fingers in between Barder’s clenched fists, finding the small bump he was looking for.

  The button depressed beneath the pad of his finger and the blade vanished into its handle.

  An astonished look came across Barder’s face and Gray wrenched the knife free of his hands, batting it away into the dirt. The doctor jabbed a fist into Gray’s side, finding the bullet wound perfectly. Gray curled into himself, wrapped around the pain that reverberated in his gut. He took a shuddering breath tainted with dust and smoke. The heat from the fire fell over him like a blanket as Barder struggled to his feet and coughed before wiping a hand across his mouth.

  “You’re a stubborn one, Sheriff. Guess I’ll just let you burn.”

  Barder turned, taking one step before Gray swung his foot up and around as hard as he could, catching the other man in the side of his injured knee.

  The joint popped like a firework.

  Barder had a split second that he used to scream before his leg folded inward and back, the bandage around it unraveling and sliding up his thigh. He fell to the ground, clutching at cornstalks as he went, their too-green trunks folding beneath his weight. He thrashed there, a beetle overturned on its shell, one hand tracing down the length of his leg to where it bent at an ugly angle.

  Gray got to his hands and knees, then to his feet, shaking with the effort. He swayed there and turned toward the flames that licked up the side of the silo and highlighted its soaring height. He watched the fire churn within itself
, its colors blending then parting, spewing black smoke from the tips of its orange fingers.

  Barder screamed again, trying to turn himself over so that he could crawl, and reached for Gray’s boot. Gray pulled his foot away and stood looking down at the man covered in the dark soil. Finally he walked away, swaying a little, drunk with the solid heat of the air. The doctor called after him, saying something with words that didn’t make sense anymore. His side was sticky again and he tried brushing the dirt from it as he walked, but it stung too much so he stopped.

  His skin tightened the closer he got to the truck, the trees beyond backlit by flame. A portrait of desolation so bright and horrible, he couldn’t help but stare. His fingers grazed the warm steel of the truck and he looked down, seeing his hand on the handle. He pulled it open, blinking against the smoke and fatigue that was building inside his head. The interior of the vehicle was immaculate. A large bag sat on the passenger seat, its mouth partially open. Gray felt along the ignition for a key or fob but there was nothing.

  “Truck, on,” he said in a voice of gravel. Nothing happened.

  A cinder landed on his shoulder and seared through the coverall to his skin. He brushed it away without looking. His arm was a chunk of lead, but he managed to grasp the bag’s strap and pull it closer. The interior was crammed with money. Thick stacks of bills clipped together with plastic holders. He shuffled the bag around, searching for a key but there was none to be found.

  Gray leaned back out of the truck and shut the door, the nape of his neck warming past the point of comfort. He looked out across the expanse of corn, the wind coursing white and yellow smoke through its rows in swirling channels.

  “Run fast,” he said, and his legs gave out.

  His hand brushed the truck’s mirror on the way down but couldn’t hold on and he collapsed in a heap. He coughed, his throat burning like the trees around him. He could almost feel his lungs blistering. He rolled to his side, reaching out into the grass and trying to sit up. His fingers grazed something hard there. A log or stone. The last throne of the world upon which to watch everything burn. He gripped it and pulled himself forward, sure he could rise one last time, but then his fingers met nothing and a darkness consumed him beyond black as the fire went out.