by Sean Little
“A man can’t own another person,” I called out. “Just let her go.”
“A man can’t own another person,” he agreed, “but God can. The Lord placed her and me together, and I aim to carry out the will of the Lord. You ain’t going to be stopping me. The way I see this, you can either step aside and let me do what the Lord has chosen for me to do, or you can shoot me, and we’ll see what happens. Pistols aren’t all that accurate, you know. Your hand will be shaking, I’m thinking. I’m willing to bet that at this range, in this light--you miss. Your first shot will go wide and I’ll return fire. Now, at that point, I’ll have adrenaline and the will of the Lord on my side. Who do you think walks away from this if bullets go?”
“I don’t want to shoot anyone,” I called back, “but what if I hit you?”
“The Lord will protect me,” called Adam. He hadn’t moved for cover. He was still standing in the open, illuminated from behind by the headlights of his truck so that I could only see him in silhouette. It actually made me just a tiny bit angry. He was so certain of my lack of abilities that he wasn’t even going to do me the favor of seeing me as a threat.
“What if he doesn’t?” I said.
At that moment, there was an explosion of noise. One of the windows of the library shattered and Adam spun and fell to the ground. I didn’t see what happened, but the only thing that could have happened was that Meri had taken the shotgun I’d left in the annex and shot at Adam through the window.
I was frozen with fear. I didn’t know if Adam was dead or if he was going to leap to his feet to return fire. I brought my own pistol up and sighted it toward the man’s body. He was lying still. I couldn’t tell if he was breathing.
I heard Meri shout from the window in her Quebecois accent, “I think you should go home, Adam! I am not yours anymore. I am not your property or your wife! I never was!”
I didn’t see him move, but I heard him start to laugh. It was a chilling cackle, a low, monotone “heh heh heh” like something the Joker would do when he knows that Batman is cornered. “The Lord protected me,” he said. He coughed and rolled over. He fumbled in the jacket he was wearing and pulled out a Bible. In the light of the truck headlights, I could see that it was badly damaged from a shotgun slug, but that it hadn’t pierced all the way through. “The Word of God is the only protection, I need!” he shouted. He cast the Bible to the side and stood again, holding his arms to the side in a crucifix pose.
The shotgun rang out again, but Adam did not flinch. Meri missed him. “I am the living avatar of the Lord, our God!” shouted Adam. “His will be praised!”
To my right in the darkness, I could hear Meri loading more shells into the shotgun and cursing in French under her breath. I don’t speak French, but I imagine she was saying something along the lines of calling him crazy as a shithouse rat.
Adam leveled his pistol toward the window where Meri was shooting at him from and fired two shots. More glass shattered. “You can’t hope to win where God’s will is concerned. He has spoken. He has declared it!”
I could hear a hiss and some muttered curses. I didn’t know if she was hurt any worse. I was still paralyzed with fear.
From the edge of the darkness, in what little light there was, I saw movement. It was low to the ground and fast. Dogs. After another second, I saw more movement. Lots of dogs. The pack was back. The shouting had attracted them. Why weren’t they running from the sound of the guns?
I took a deep breath and sprinted to my left, back toward the entry of the library. I threw open the door and dove to the floor of the foyer. A bullet just missed me, exploding wood splinters from the door where it hit instead. I pulled the door shut, making the pneumatic door closer wheeze. I slapped the four-by-four I used as a barrier into its place in the door and hoped it would slow Adam down just a bit.
I wheeled toward the community room of the library where Meri had taken her shots. She was slumped on the floor with the shotgun. She wasn’t hit again, at least I didn’t think so. She was still pale and sweaty. It had taken everything she had to drag herself here to shoot at Adam.
“Take the gun,” she gasped. “Shoot that asshole.”
Another bullet rang out. And then another. I heard Adam cursing loudly, yelling at the dogs to scare them away. Another bullet. I could hear the dog pack driven to frenzy. They bayed and barked, snarled and yelped. I could see Adam’s shadow in the darkness, he was limping toward his pickup. A dog jumped at him and grabbed him by the forearm, tugging him off-balance. I heard Adam cry out loudly and stagger to regain his balance. The dog lost his grip and fell, rolling out of the way of a badly-aimed kick from Adam. Adam opened the door of his car, lashing out and kicking dogs as he did. He somehow got into the cab. Dogs crowded against the door. He fired his gun again. I heard a loud yelp and saw the shadows of dogs scattering. The door of the truck closed and the cabin was plunged into darkness. The engine clunked into gear and Adam launched forward, hitting several dogs as he did. I heard more yelps and scared barks. The truck lurched awkwardly as it drove over bodies. I felt sick to my stomach.
The truck sped up, bouncing over the curb and into the shaggy, thigh-high grass around the side of the library. I lost sight of the truck, but I could hear its engine unmistakably. He was doing a loop of the building. Why?
I heard the truck engine gunning and then there was a loud crash, a horrible wrenching noise as steel hit wood. On the side of the library, there was a three-season porch for reading outdoors in the summer. I should say now that there was a three-season porch. The truck had broken through it, half-collapsing it. The damage served a purpose, though. The truck filled the hole it made and effectively blocked the dogs. Adam shot the door to the library four times, and I heard him kick it open. He was inside.
My heart was in my throat, thrumming hard. I could hardly breathe. My chest was constricting. “Quick,” I hissed to Meri. “Pull yourself into that corner and cover yourself with as many cords of wood as you can. Hide!”
I took the shotgun and pocketed as many shells from the ammo box as my pocket could hold. I ran crouched into the darkness of the library. I could see Adam in the entry for the outdoor porch. He was inspecting the bite on his arm. I pulled the shotgun up to my shoulder. He didn’t see me; he was too busy with himself. I sighted down the barrel. I was pointing a gun at another human being. I thought I was going to piss myself right then and there. I’m not a killer, I thought. What was I doing?”
“You’re dead!” I called out. “Right now. I could have pulled the trigger on this shotgun and I would have killed you. I could have hit you right in the face. No Bible was going to save you. Get back in your truck and go. That’s my gift to you. I let you live.”
He didn’t respond. I just saw the pistol come up and he pulled the trigger, fast as a snake striking. I was dead.
Click!
The gun was empty. I didn’t know how many shots he’d fired out of the revolver; I’d forgot to count. The metallic sound of the hammer hitting an empty chamber told me everything, though. He was dry. I was alive.
“Well, look at that,” he said. “Out of bullets.” Adam tossed the gun onto a table. It landed with heavy, distinctive thunk. “I guess you win.”
I exhaled. I’d forgotten to breathe for a minute. My lungs were gagging for air. “Then go!” I called back. I felt adrenaline coursing through my body like an electric charge. At that moment, I could not imagine ever sleeping again. I was as alive as I’d ever been in my life.
Then, everything slowed to a snail’s pace. Time froze. I saw him dig into his jacket with his right hand, going under his left arm. Shoulder holster. He had another gun. Everything in my body started screaming at me to move, to dive, to run. My legs were jelly; my body was pudding. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t feel. I saw black steel emerge from his jacket, a sleek semi-auto handgun. I was throwing myself to the floor when the first bullet whizzed over my head and exploded in the plaster of the wall behind me. I bear-crawled to the le
ft, diving behind a bookshelf. The second bullet hit books above me, burying discreetly into the pages.
Now I was on autopilot. I was no longer in conscious control of my decisions. I scampered to my feet and sprinted down the row of books, hooking left at the end and running back several feet before dodging down a difference row. At the end of the row, I had the shotgun up and I fired blindly toward where I thought Adam would be. The shotgun ripped back into my shoulder, kicking hard. I knew I would bruise. It felt like it tore my arm off for a moment. My shot went wide; I was nowhere in his vicinity. The bullet hit the glass of the reference librarian’s office and shattered. I pulled back behind the relative safety of the bookshelf as two more bullets returned fire.
I ducked low, crouch-walking back down the aisle and moving down a few more rows. I was well-ensconced in the fiction section. Thick hardcover fantasy novels all around me. I didn’t know where Adam was. I tried to listen for footsteps, but I could only hear my heart beating in my ears and the tinny ring of gunfire distorting everything else. Another bullet hit books a few rows ahead of me. I could hear the bullet shredding books and then going silent as it lodged within one.
I racked the shotgun and fired into the darkness again. More pain blasted through my shoulder. I heard the bullet hit the wall somewhere in the distance. Adam was moving in that darkness. I could only glimpse flashes of shadow when I peered into the library. He was moving quickly, using cover. He could be on me at any moment and I’d never know.
I needed a distraction. I ran to the end of the row of bookcases, planted my feet, and shoved with everything I was worth. The bookcase was heavy, ridiculously heavy. I strained with everything I had in me and I toppled it. It teetered precariously for a moment, and then went over. Like dominoes, the bookcases in the far left side of the aisles tipped and crashed into each other. Books spilled out everywhere.
I was already moving, though. I was bent over and moving as fast I could toward the children’s section. I heard bullets ringing out toward the place where I’d just been. I drew my revolver and fired three shots toward where I thought the other gun was. The gun was heavy and jumped hard in my hand with each shot. The bullets sprayed wildly. I was a lousy shot and gun battles were nothing like they had been on the cop shows in TV.
More bullets chased me. Two more, no three shots! They buried into the wall behind me. I threw myself down under the children’s librarian’s desk. I held my breath, even though it felt like my lungs were gasping for air. It felt like my eyes were bulging out of my head. My body was covered in panic sweat.
I heard heavy footsteps lunge past the desk in the dark. I didn’t move. I had to let him get more distance before I could move. I needed him to not hear me as I got behind him.
Then, in the darkness, I heard the stomach-churning sound of something hitting thick bone. There’s no other sound like it. It’s not unlike the sound of a sandbag being dropped onto the pavement from six feet, just a dull, resonant thunk!
There was a second thunk after that, just as heavy. I cautiously looked toward the center of the library. In what little light there was, I could see Meri standing over Adam’s prone form, a heavy length of cordwood in her hand. She dropped the log to the ground where it clattered dully on the carpet. She crouched down and plucked the gun from Adam’s hand. She stood again, arm swinging gracefully to point the gun at his head.
I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t tell her to stop. My throat was constricted. My brain was fuzzy.
At that moment, everything went silent, like some scene from an arthouse film. There was no noise. No anything. I saw the muzzle flash three times. In the darkness, the gun spat fire. It was bright. It was angry.
And then sound rushed back into my ears like a freight train. The gunshots. My own voice screaming, trying to tell her not to, the dogs outside howling in fear, pain, and frustration.
Meri kept pulling the trigger. The gun clicked hollowly, repeatedly hitting an empty chamber. I could hear Meri sobbing softly, wavering on unsteady legs.
I crept up to her and gently took the gun from her hand. I dropped it onto Adam’s dead body. I steadied Meri, slipping my arm underneath hers for support.
“Why did you do that? You didn’t have to kill him.”
“It was what he deserved,” she whispered. In the dim light, I could see that her lips were ashen and pale. She looked like death.
“He survived the Flu,” I said. “He didn’t need to die like this.”
“You think we could have reasoned with him? You think he would have just gone away happily and left us alone?”
“I was willing to take a chance that he might. I didn’t want to kill him.”
“For someone who didn’t want to kill, you shot that gun pretty well.”
That shut me up. What if I had killed him? What if one of the bullets I’d been firing had hit him? What if I’d been the one responsible for his death? How would I feel then? I had nothing to say to Meri after that. She was right.
I felt Meri go slack in my grip. She passed out and her legs gave way. I picked her up and carried her to the bed in the annex.
We would leave that place at first light, I decided. There was no reason to stay any longer.
JOURNAL ENTRY EIGHTEEN
-Goodbye, Wisconsin-
She didn’t survive the night. Shortly before dawn, I heard Meri gasping, panicked, and thrashing. Something was wrong. I scrambled for candles and the camping lantern. I peeled back her bandages and saw her bleeding freshly, gushing. Something bad had happened. I could only put bandages on the bleeding in a feeble attempt to stop it. The bandages weren’t working. In a panic, I thought about heating a knife blade in the fire to cauterize the wound like I’d seen them do in old cowboy movies, but before I could even wrap my head fully around that one, she suddenly went rigid and gave a sharp inhale, then went slack, breathing a soft exhale one last time.
As best I can figure, some part of the bullet inside her shifted during the night and it tore a small hole in one of her arteries. That’s why it was bleeding so badly. Her body filled with blood from the rupture and she went into shock and her heart seized. That’s my best guess, at least. I don’t know if there was anything I could have done. I’ll never know, really. Strangely enough, I didn’t cry for Meri. I was dehydrated and all cried out from crying for Rowdy. I was tired. I had nothing left to give her, sadly. She deserved tears. She deserved someone grieving for her. I had only known her for a short time and I was definitely touched by losing her. She might have saved my life that night. She might have sacrificed her own life for mine that night. Again, I’ll never know for sure.
It was sunny that day. A gorgeous summer day, really. The world would not weep for Rowdy’s death, or Meri’s. My morning was filled with grave-digging. I dug a grave near Rowdy’s for Meri. I placed her in it gently, covered her with a sheet from the bed, and then filled it in. Each shovelful of earth that rained down on her made me sad. It gave me a sick feeling in my gut. Burying Rowdy had felt right, even if it was tragic. He’d deserved it. Meri, though, I barely knew. I felt like she should have had family there. I felt like it was almost sacrilegious for me to be the one to bury her. I put logs from the community room over her grave, piling them over the scar on the ground to discourage wild dogs from digging up her body. I wasn’t much for praying that morning, or even attempting to pray, but I hoped she was with her kids again. I hoped she was happy. She deserved it.
I dug a larger grave for Adam and the dogs he had killed the night before. Four dogs had been killed when he drove his truck over them. A fifth had died from a bullet wound. The rest of the pack was nowhere to be seen the next morning. Maybe the smell of their dead comrades scared them away. Maybe they found deer to chase. I would never know.
I put cordwood over that second grave, as well. I had plenty of it to spare, and it only seemed right. I didn’t hate the man. I didn’t even dislike him, even though he’d tried to kill me after I’d been willing to let him go. I felt sorry
for him, actually. I felt sorry for him, for Meri, and for me--and for this awful position we’d all been thrown into for seemingly no reason. Maybe for some, it helped him to call it an Act of God, but it just made me angry and sad. I was still searching for answers and coming up empty. Why did any of this have to happen?
I had an RV ready to travel filled with things for a woman and a dog to travel with me. These were things I no longer needed. I spent the early part of the afternoon cleaning out the things I wouldn’t need. I rearranged the Greyhawk to better work for one person. I stored a crap-ton of extra drinking water in the overhead bed compartment now that I’d be back in the queen bed in the rear.
As the late afternoon shadows stretched, I was ready to go. I took one last shower in my makeshift shower room, washing away blood and dirt, sand and sweat. I brushed my teeth and flossed. I dressed in clean clothes. I made one last trip through the library to make sure I wasn’t missing anything I would need. I lingered over the books. I laid in my bed one last time and looked at the ceiling above it. I made sure all the embers in the fire were out before I left.
Before I walked out of the annex for the last time, I took a thick black marker and wrote on the wall.
I lived here for the first year after the Flu. I went south because the winters are too cold. Find me in Madisonville, Louisiana.
--Twist
I had no idea if anyone would ever see that. I don’t even know why I did it, really. If someone did ever see it, maybe they’d be a nutjob like Adam and come down with guns blazing.
Or maybe they’d be someone with whom I could work toward a new future.
I couldn’t know.
I made sure the fire in the brazier was completely out. I trickled water from one of my water buckets over the ash until it was a soupy mess. I closed down the library as best I could. It had served me well.