Blink & Caution

by Tim Wynne-Jones

  You wake up with a start. You must have drifted off. You have no idea what time it is. You turn your head slowly toward the door. You see nothing, not even a light under it. The darkness is complete. And yet you heard something. The wind gusts. The rain pelts down. The window rattles. That’s what you heard. Freed from the buildup of paint, the window is rattling. You’re kind of rattled yourself.

  You switch on your flashlight and scan the room nervously. It’s as if you’re in the middle of a horror movie. You switch it off again and listen hard; there’s nothing but the creaking of this big old building under the battering of the wind, the squall of rain. You throw back the sleeping bag and place your bare feet on the cold floor. You stand and make your way by memory to the window, your hand out in front of you, finally coming to rest on the chilly glass. You’ve got your flashlight in the other hand and only now do you switch it on. You dig your knife out of your pocket, open it, and lay it carefully on the windowsill. With the flashlight between your teeth, you lift the window slowly, slowly. You test to see if it will stay up, but it won’t; the painted-over pulleys in the grooves are no longer connected to anything.

  How to keep this thing open? Because there’s no way on earth you can undo those fasteners on the shutters and hold this window at the same time. You lower the window. Listen again. That storm is heaven-sent for your benefit, Blink Conboy. If there is a God up there, he’s an angry God, but maybe something else has gotten his attention right now. The house seems almost to rock, like a great boat out on the sea. The trees shake and crack under the weight of the deluge, their branches rustling and clicking against the sides of the lodge.

  You check under the mattress to see if there are boards there but, no, just springs. You look at the chest of drawers. The two top drawers are each something less than two feet across, maybe six inches high. You slowly pull out one of the drawers. It’s empty except for a couple of mothballs. You pull it all the way out, ditch the mothballs, and carry the drawer over to the window, where you turn it on its side. You lift the window again with one hand, then carefully place the drawer in the gap, hard against the sash. You lower the window until the bottom rail rests on the upended drawer.

  You step away, breathing hard, holding in the desire to say something proud and foolish. To shout “Yes!” to the night. You smile grimly. Keep that “yes” inside you, Blink. Hold on to it tight.

  The longest blade of the Swiss Army knife slips through the crack between the shutters and pushes up the lower fastener with only a few minutes of effort. You push tentatively on the shutter, and a thin whoosh of wind and rain comes in on you. Cold as it is, you have never felt anything so refreshing. Next you slip your arm up into the narrow space between the upper window and the shutter. There is not much room to maneuver in, but you wedge your knife into the widened crack right under the upper fastener. It doesn’t give. You press harder. You try to hammer the blade upward, and suddenly the knife springs from your grip and clatters down on the windowsill beside you. You switch off the flashlight.

  You freeze. Wait.

  Despite the cold, you are sweating like nobody’s business. Slowly, carefully, you find the knife in the dark and lift it, cursing your slippery fingers. After an eternity, you try the fastener again; no hammering this time, just even pressure upward. It budges. Good. You lean your back against the right-hand shutter and press the knife upward. Then suddenly there is a snap and a clatter, and the shutter flies open.

  The upper S-shaped clasp has broken off and tumbled down the roof. With your flashlight, you can see it resting in the leaf-clogged gutter three feet below you, down the steep pitch of the roof.

  The shutters waver in the air and are about to slam against the gable wall when you reach out and grab them. You are hanging half out the window, your feet no longer on the floor, and the shutters are tugging on you like a kite in a gale.

  Was there a kite in your life, Blink? Yes, out on the Beaches with Granda. Him getting it up there and then you holding on, two-fisted to the reel, sure you were going to be lifted clear out across the lake all the way to America on the far shore.

  Again you catch your breath, wondering how much breath you have left in you. You need your moccasins. The wind is on your side for the moment, pressing the shutters closed, though any minute it might swing them both open.

  Go, quick!

  You race to your bed, slip the moccasins on, race back, and in one fluid motion fling open the right-hand shutter and crawl out onto the roof.

  You didn’t count on the rain-slick moss.

  Your feet no sooner touch down on the steep slope than they fly out from under you, and you are on your backside sliding down, down, and over the lip of the roof into space.

  You cry out.

  Crash!

  You lie in a heap on a grassy hummock. You are winded, but nothing feels broken. Above you, out of sight from where you lie, the shutter to your cell slams shut, then flies open and slams again, sounding the alarm.

  Get up, Blink. Go!

  And with a new surge of energy, you roll to your feet in the wet grass and take off, only to run right into a thicker darkness — a darkness you bounce back from, recoil from. Then out of that darkness comes a flashlight beam, blinding you.

  “You just made my day,” says the Tank-shaped darkness, now revealed as he switches on the row of lights on his ball cap brim. He says it loudly, so as to be heard above the storm, loud so you can hear him good, like a man who’s been feeding money all day into a slot machine and just hit the jackpot.

  Before you can find your feet again, Tank grabs you by your shirtfront and lifts you up in one fluid motion so your face is inches from his, and the row of brightness on the underside of his cap blinds your eyes. What you can see of his expression is filled with hate and triumph.

  “Nobody’s gonna blame me for this,” he says. He raises his hand, and there’s the rifle he wanted you to see earlier. The black metal catches the glow of his lights. He holds it so you can see it. He’d like to hold it there awhile, shaking it in his massive fist, to give you a good long chance to fully appreciate how terrified you are.

  “I’m going to let you go in a minute,” he says, pulling you closer still, so you can smell the wet rankness of him, the stench of his breath. “And you are going to wish you were never born.”

  You wish you could tell him that you’ve thought that before, nearly every day of your life after Stepdaddy moved in. But you had left that behind. And as hard as the street was, you knew you were alive every single day, alive and hungry.

  “Are you ready to go now?” he says, almost sweetly, like he’s your daddy putting you to bed and about to turn off the lights.

  Then all of a sudden, his face contorts with pain, his thick lips grimace, his eyes squint shut. His grip on you loosens enough to pull yourself free and fall backward onto the sandy, wet, leaf-strewn ground, skittering away from him while he howls with pain and rage, the Swiss Army knife protruding almost up to its shaft from his thigh.

  You skitter out of his light, try to get up, fall again, and crawl.

  Then you hear the click of the rifle.

  And the night explodes.

  “Good trigger action on this model,” says Kitty. “Very smooth.”

  She is standing with a rifle of her own aimed down at Tank. His cap has fallen to the ground, and now he is blinded by the light coming from her head: not a guardian angel any longer but an avenging angel. The lights from her hat reveal the Hulk curled up like a giant baby.

  “Who the hell are you?” he shouts, as if maybe he thinks she is something supernatural.

  Her answer is to work the bolt action on the rifle, sending a shell flying, then to push the bolt forward, reloading it.

  “Take it easy!” says Tank.

  Beyond him, she sees Blink, his back pressed against the lodge wall, like an execution victim who’s wondering if he’s just woken up in heaven.

  Tank makes a move for his rifle, lying near his fe
et, and Kitty fires again. The kick is huge. The muzzle leaps a foot above her target. The first shot was in the air. This shot sends up dirt beside Tank’s hand, making the man squeal and throw his hands over his head.

  Kitty lowers the rifle, quickly works the bolt again, and then, raising it to her shoulder, takes a careful bead on Tank.

  “I got my first rifle when I was twelve,” she says. “This one here’s got a lot longer barrel. It’s a .308. Nice walnut stock, knurled bolt handle — the whole Winchester deal. And there are three more bullets left in the magazine. So are you going to try anything?”

  Tank doesn’t move.

  “Nod your head,” she says. Reluctantly he nods. “Good. Now use your foot to push that rifle of yours toward me.” She wonders if Tank can hear the trembling in her voice that the tough words try to hide.

  Tank does what she says, darting his head back and forth to try to see past the wall of light coming from her brow. She edges toward him, the .308 aimed at his chest.

  “Now get back,” she says. “I mean it.”

  He does as he’s told, making a face at the pain of moving. She sees blood on his thigh and wonders if she shot him without knowing. The thought freezes her. Did the bullet ricochet up from the ground? Something got him.

  “Farther,” she says.

  And maybe something of her own fear lodges itself in that single trembling word, because suddenly Tank grins through his pain. “Hell, you’re just a kid,” he says.

  “You are so wrong,” she says.

  With her own rifle trained on him, the butt tucked in at her elbow, she picks up Tank’s firearm and lays it carefully on the lake side of her. With her foot, she pushes it deep under a bush. Thunder rumbles in the distance.

  Kitty steps carefully aside. “You,” she says to Tank. “Get on your feet and walk real slow and careful along the wall past me and head into the building. One sudden move and I’ll shoot you.”

  “No, you won’t,” he says.

  “You have no idea how angry I am!” she shouts.

  Tank jerks backward, as if her shout had a caliber all its own. He gets painfully to his feet. His arms hang loose at his side, and he tries to swagger, which is hard with his wounded leg. She sees it’s the same leg with the wounded foot. His right leg has taken a beating tonight.

  “Country girl, eh?” he says. “Think you could really shoot a man?”

  He’s aiming for bluster. But his words shake her. He mustn’t see it. Must not figure out that were he to saunter across the three or four strides that separate them, he could take the gun from her hands as easy as pie.

  She waggles the rifle. “Move it,” she says. She thinks of Merlin and hardens her voice, replacing Tank with someone she’d have a better chance of murdering if he were standing there against the wet logs of the lodge.

  Lazily he raises his hands in mock surrender. “You are making such a big mistake,” he says.

  She doesn’t answer, only waves the barrel of the rifle in the direction she wants him to go.

  “You okay, Blink?” she asks without looking his way.

  “Uh-huh,” he says.

  “Pick up his rifle very, very carefully. Don’t even think of touching the trigger. I mean it!” She is yelling at him, like some toddler she’s found playing with cat turds in a sandbox. “You hear me?” she says.

  The whole lake can hear her. There are people waking up in Toronto right this minute wondering what the noise is. She is on the verge of hysteria.

  “It’s okay,” he says soothingly. “I hear you.”

  Tank hasn’t moved. “Give me that thing before you do an injury to yourself, little girl,” he says.

  So she fires again and reloads before his scream has died down.

  The next part is tricky. Glancing at Blink, she knows he has never held a rifle in his hands before, and she’s not about to try to teach him how it works. So it’s all on her. She has two bullets left, and Tank must never know she is incapable of shooting him. That even holding the rifle is the hardest thing in the world. So when they get back into the lodge, she is glad for the dimness of the lights, but she warns him not to turn around.

  “I don’t want to see your ugly face,” she says. But what she means is that she doesn’t want him to see her ugly face.

  And she makes him sit on the couch, his hands on his knees, while she stands behind him. She is shaking all over, and she’s afraid the man will smell her fear. This has to happen quickly, she thinks, before she breaks down completely.

  “We should tie him up,” says Blink. She looks at him, looks into his face, and sips a bit of courage from his wide-eyed stare. Then she shakes her head.

  “I don’t want you to get anywhere close to him,” she says. “And, anyway, we don’t have time to find something strong enough, you know?”

  Blink nods. He glances at Tank and shudders, as if the impossibility of tying him up has finally dawned on him.

  The wind suddenly bangs the palm of its big hand against the house, making the windows tremble in their sockets.

  “The gun rack,” she says, gesturing toward the south wall. “There’s a steel cable strung through all the trigger guards. Take his rifle and put it back, string the cable through, and replace the lock. The key’s still in it.” Blink does as he’s told. “Thanks,” she says.

  “It’s okay,” he says.

  “No, I was thanking Tank here, for leaving the cable off when he took his gun up to bed with him. Where I come from, that’s a big no-no.”

  Tank is about to turn his head, and she screams at him not to, scaring him — scaring herself.

  “You’re a whack job,” he says.

  “Yes,” she says. Then she glances at Blink. “When you’re finished, throw the key in the fire.”

  The fire has burned down to hot embers, but it will be enough of a deterrent, she figures. Has to be.

  Blink throws the key into the fire and then takes a poker and stirs up the coals to cover it.

  Tank’s head turns, watching Blink. Kitty can read his mind, read the muscles in his shoulder, and sees his huge hands grow taut, the veins popping. He is calculating the distance to the boy. Can he get around the coffee table and get to him quick enough to take him hostage?

  She does something horrifying. She presses the muzzle of the rifle into the back of Tank’s neck. He stiffens and swears again, but there is way more anger in his words than fear, and that frightens her — frightens her terribly.

  “Blink,” she says. “Here are the keys for the ATV.” She throws them; he drops them, picks them up. “Have you ever driven one?” He shakes his head. “Well, it’s not so hard. Take one of the caps with headlights and figure it out.” He starts to move right away, giving Tank a wide berth. “Bring it to the door facing toward the road. You got that?”

  “I got it,” he says. Then he’s gone, and it’s just Kitty and Tank.

  “You think you’re pretty clever,” he says, his voice calm again. She presses the muzzle into the flesh at the back of his neck. He doesn’t flinch this time. He rolls his head as if she were giving him a massage. If he could see the look on her face, he would see a nightmare playing out in her eyes.

  “You have no idea what you’re messing with,” he says. “The boys are on their way back. Right now. Should be here any minute, I’m guessing. And, oh, they are not going to be pleased.”

  “Shut up,” she says.

  “You give me that gun, darling,” he says. “And we’ll pretend none of this happened. What do you say?”

  She hears the ATV start up, hears Blink revving the motor.

  “We can be reasonable,” says Tank. “Ask the kid. We can work something out, okay? Because I gotta tell you, you will not get far. That vehicle up there — your get-away car — is traceable. We’ll be on to you so fast.”

  She’s just about to tell him to shut up, when she realizes what he’s saying. Realizes something she hadn’t even thought about.

  “Give me your cell phone,
” she says.

  “I don’t got no cell phone.”

  “So how were you planning on letting the others know?” He doesn’t speak for a minute, and she almost smiles at how he has blundered. She pokes him hard with the muzzle. “Your cell phone,” she says.

  “You’re not going to shoot me, darling.”

  He says it so unemotionally that it reminds her of the therapists after Spence’s death. They would listen to her and watch her and then tell her things as if they were reading her mind.

  “You’re right,” she says. “But this walnut butt would lay you out cold if you so much as move a muscle. Now give me your goddamned cell phone.”

  The ATV is outside the door.

  She pokes Tank’s skull now, twice, three times — hard, feeling the rage growing in her. He grunts with pain and reaches up suddenly with his hand to grab the barrel, and she pulls back just in time. She’s losing it. She can feel her control seeping away. She glances around the room for a solution. Because the thing is she’s not going to really hit him any more than she’s going to shoot him. She would be afraid of hitting him too hard and afraid of not hitting him hard enough.

  “You see that lamp?” she says.

  “What lamp?”

  “The one over the table in the dining room. The one with the blue shade.”

  His head swivels to look. “What about it?”

  She steps back two paces from him, turns, aims, and fires. The bullet pings off the metal lamp shade, which snaps back and swings crazily, casting weird shadows around.

  “What happened?” It’s Blink, standing at the door.

  “Nothing,” says Kitty. “I’m trying to convince this guy to give me his cell phone, and he won’t cooperate!”

  Her voice is swinging as crazily as the lamp shade now. Time seems to be closing in like a vise on her head. She can’t take this much longer.

  Blink runs over. From across the coffee table, he looks Tank over. “I don’t think he’s got it on him,” he says. Then he turns for the stairs and, taking them two steps at a time, runs up to the rooms.