Rage of Winter

by Sam Herrera

  “Is my daughter around?” he called out, waving his gun over the pews. Michelle got up with her hands raised.

  “Come up here!” he yelled. Astrid Cole instantly leapt to her feet and put her arms around her lover.

  “Get the fuck away from her before I kill her.”

  Michelle wrenched herself away from her girlfriend instantly.

  “You, dyke-bitch, stay down.”

  I watched as she walked towards us and climbed the altar steps, her wary, brown eyes meeting her father’s wide, mad, bloodshot ones.

  “Why did you do it? Why did you take the side of the goddamn institution?” he demanded, shoving his gun under her chin.

  “No!” Astrid sobbed. “Please, don’t.”

  “Shut the fuck up, dyke,” he sneered, not even looking at her.

  “No,” I yelled as I saw his finger curled around the trigger. He shot Michelle. He just lowered his gun to her leg and pulled the trigger. She screamed as she fell to her knees, blood oozing out of the small hole and running down her gleaming shin. He shoved her into one of the front pews and covered the three of us with his weapon as the sound of sirens drew nearer and nearer.

  SARAH

  “Greer,” I groaned through gritted teeth, wiping my bloody nose and trying to get to my feet, “leave her alone.”

  “You can shut up as well,” he snapped, glaring at me. “She wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for your holier-than-thou bullshit and her own big mouth. Get up.” My blood ran cold as I saw he’d turned the gun on me.

  “No,” I groaned, my heart freezing.

  “Get. Up. Or. She’s. Dead!” He emphasized this by jamming the gun against her temple. The doors burst open and cops swarmed in, decked out in flak jackets with guns at the ready. Greer ducked into a crouch and used me as a shield, aiming his gun at them over my shoulder. “Get back! So the show’s gone public, huh?”

  “Drop your gun!”

  “Fuck you. Fuck all of ya! Come here, Michelle.” Michelle, grimacing in pain, slowly limped to her feet and, following his gestures, moved between the cops, me and Astrid. The fucking coward. He was using his own daughter as a shield. I fumed helplessly.

  “Well, well, well,” he grinned, looking over and seeing Mara’s terrified face above the rim of the pew, “the niece. Here, you little bitch, your proof. Take it and go to hell.” He reached into his coat pocket and threw something at her. Whatever it was flew through the air and landed in the aisle, on the floor beside Mara. It looked like a lump of pink rubber.

  “You two bastards betrayed me, but you especially. Why did you do it?”

  MARA

  I stared down at it as it landed at my feet: a mask modeled on Kyle’s face that was a perfect likeness, made by a perfectionist artist that I knew very well. The last piece of the puzzle. I watched Michelle stand, tall and graceful, in front of her maniac father, feeling truly scared for her. I noticed her black hair, a lot thicker than mine, and I was reminded of the time when I’d visited the horse ranch at Redstone and had fallen in love with Dasher, the dark stallion. A young foal, but still tall, and muscular with a mane, glossy and black as Michelle’s hair was glossy and black under the sunlight streaming in through the stained-glass windows. I watched as she stood in the crosshairs of all the guns trained on her, thinking of a little flower in the path of a hurricane.

  “So, it was you, not him?”

  “That’s right. I hoped you would be an ally to me, but no, you preferred to stay home and lick muff.” Michelle hung her head and blushed. “Yeah, you should be ashamed. You’re a disappointment to me, Michelle, always have been. It’s disgusting, this ‘lifestyle’ of yours. You brought shame on me and our family.”

  “I’m not ashamed of that,” she said, raising her head. “I’m ashamed of you. You’re the disappointment, Daddy. I looked up to you, always, and you turned out to be one big, walking, talking lie. I don’t know how you dare stand in front of me and talk about bringing shame after what you did to Mom, to your own mother, to all those people, left all those children motherless—”

  “Come here, Kyle,” he snapped, cutting her off. “Did I just fucking stutter? Come. Here!” Kyle and Michelle glanced at each other then he stepped forward until he was beside her. I swallowed hard as the maniac’s gun slid back under Aunt Sarah’s jaw. She looked beautiful in her white dress and blonde, radiant hair, despite her bleeding nose and mouth. Please, God. Please God. Please God.

  “Drop your gun,” the lead cop shouted again. Keeping Sarah as a cover, he fired on them, around Kyle and Michelle. They ducked and sought cover behind the pews.

  “Get back and get away from those people.” He dropped Sarah, grabbed Michelle and spun her around by her shoulder to face him. I felt really sorry for her. Kyle and I were used to life-or-death situations; she wasn’t.

  “No one leaves,” Greer yelled into her face, putting an arm around her neck and jamming the gun into her temple. “These bastards and everyone like them,” he hissed at Kyle, “send hundreds of young men to get shot at, bombed and God only knows what else. And for what, so they can look good on TV? So they can strut around in their suits and then piss on us when we come back? Sure, we get a pat on the back, and a medal, and a sorry-about-your-blown-off-limbs. Too bad that’s all we ever get, huh?” He coughed up some phlegm and spat on the carpet. “And you,” he yelled at his daughter, “turned out to be just like them. Well. Fuck. You! Did she tell you about her nightmares, Kyle? They’re not nightmares, they’re repressed memories,” he grinned, as he spun her around again and slid his gun down the front of her dress, between her breasts.

  “You sick bastard,” Kyle growled. Greer nodded and smiled as tears ran down his daughter’s horrified face.

  “You did that to me?” she whispered.

  “I earned it,” he snarled into her ear. “After years of taking shot and shell, I don’t think a bit of ass is too much to ask, is it?” God, he is sick.

  “Come here, Sarah. Stand beside me.”

  “What are you doing?” Groaning, Kyle stepped forward, swaying on his feet and trying to pull Sarah back as she stepped forward, blood spreading in a growing patch all across his jacket and dripping onto the flower on his lapels. Get him a doctor, for God’s sake.

  “Think of the rugrat lying on the cold, hard earth, in the dark, crying out for the bottle that will never come. Ever. Of his fingers and toes going blue from the chill and of how horrible, agonizing, it is to starve to death.” Kyle groaned, running a hand through his hair, looking like a trapped animal, while the color drained from Sarah’s face and ice ran down my spine and emptied in my stomach.

  “I want you to know,” he continued, “he’ll never been found. The cops can search everywhere I own, high and low, until kingdom come.”I recalled the Winter’s ability to travel the world and knew this was true. How could this be happening, on what was supposed to be the happiest day of Kyle’s life? Suddenly he shoved his daughter away and pulled Sarah to him so her back was to his chest.

  “Even if, by some miracle, they do find him, you will never see him again.”

  “No!” I screamed as a flick knife suddenly appeared in his hand. But she screamed the loudest; a wail of pure agony as her eyeballs burst like fried eggs stabbed by a fork. She fell to her knees, still screaming, blood running through the fingers over her face. I held her as she hunched over, crying her heart out. Oh, God. Oh. God!

  KYLE

  I swallowed a lump in my throat that was too large to speak around, taking Sarah from Mara and holding tight to my maimed bride’s shaking shoulders as she wept softly into my chest, her blood staining my shirt.

  “The price of your nobility, Michelle. High, isn’t it?” She looked up at him as though she were seeing her father for the first time ever, her eyes full of horror and disgust.

  “It’s a shame you chose to side with the system,” Greer mused,
beckoning her forward, looking down at us with a demure, pitiless little smile. “I had hopes of teaching you, instructing you in my ways—”

  “Go fuck yourself,” she spat. “I will never be you or anything like you. Never. In. A. Million. Years.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Greer shrugged. “I guess now we’ll never know.” His arm came up and he fired one shot-. Michelle gave a violent shudder, swayed on her feet for a few seconds, blood spreading across her front, before falling to the floor. Astrid gave one small, strangled sob and whipped her face away.

  “Michelle. You shit!” I yelled as I ran to her side. I clasped her hand as she looked up at me through wet, pleading eyes, spitting blood with every breath.

  “Kyle, Kyle, what’s happened?” Sarah asked, looking around blindly. With one last shuddering sigh, Michelle closed her eyes and lay still. I clenched my jaw and hung my head while Astrid, her face a frozen mask of grief apart from the tears running down it, knelt beside me and put her lover’s limp head on her knees.

  “Get over here, Hale,” he smiled.

  MARA

  I slowly got up, seeing his gun aimed at Kyle’s head, with many fearful eyes on me: the cops on hair-trigger alert, the terrified congregation and Kyle. I looked up into the monster’s madly glowing ones, carefully avoiding the sight of the still body. I was scared. I was terrified, but I got up and walked forward anyway.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” he snarled as he backhanded me in the mouth. I scowled as I probed my cut lip with my tongue.

  “Kevin, you lay one finger on her—”

  “Shut up!” He pushed me to the side so I stood between him and the guns trained on him. He stayed in front of me, slightly crouched, so I would shield him. What a hero. “Be a dear and look in the bag, would you?” he grinned, taking off the rucksack on his back and handing it at me. All the cops tensed as I opened it and looked in but found nothing except a sleeping bag and a roll of duct tape. I took out the tape and looked up at him in confusion.

  “What?”

  “Take this and don’t try anything funny,” he warned, passing me his bloody flick knife as well. What’s he doing?

  “Tie it to the pew top with the blade facing out.” I looked and saw what he meant: some of the pews had curving, decorated heads. Puzzled, I tore off a length with my teeth, held the knife out and wound a length around and around both it and the stub, trying not to think about the gun stroking my temple all the while. Once I had done this, he held me close, with it no longer stroking but jamming painfully into the side of my head. He held a finger to his grinning lips then…

  “Sarah. Saraaaahhhh. I’m holding a gun to your niece’s heeeeaaaad,” he grinned in a sing-song voice. “Come here. Now!” he growled, pressing the barrel between my eyes. Holding me, he moved back across the aisle, beside the seat. No! I tried to scream this, but his hand suddenly clamped over my mouth. The congregation began to groan in protest as Aunt Sarah got to her feet, tears of blood running down from the ruined eye sockets, spoiling her beautiful face, but he turned to face them, letting them see the gun, now jammed under my chin, clearly. Kyle began to hiss through his teeth, looking terrified.

  “You. Motherfucker. Don’t,” he groaned, running his hands through his hair.

  “Shut. Up, you,” Greer grinned. Aunt Sarah sensed something was wrong, but kept coming, his gloating voice being all she had to go on. “C’mon sweetheart, follow my voice. That’s right.” I screamed a thousand warnings in my head. We all did, but his hand tightened over my mouth, stifling all but the softest hisses and I saw his finger curled around the trigger. We were helpless, all of us. We moved around her, letting her stagger past us. Kyle began breathing like a steam train, his scared, pained eyes watching his bride as she groped her way toward the gleaming point of the waiting knife. Call out, you dickhead. What are you doing? I felt his eyes on me and understood: he loved me and he wouldn’t risk my life, not even for her. All eyes were now on Sarah. What were we going to do? That was when Astrid Cole moved like lightning. Everyone had all but forgotten about her as we had been watching Sarah move towards her death. But she suddenly, before anyone could stop her, grabbed a gun from the hip holster of one of the cops. Swinging it around, she fired one shot at Greer before they pinned her. Reacting quickly, he ducked, taking me to the floor with him. He gave an agonized roar as I bit into his gun-hand, locking my jaws and worrying like a dog, drawing blood and making him drop the gun. Pulling back, my mouth now clear, I screamed up at my aunt.

  “Stoooooop!”

  Aunt Sarah jumped back from the knife a second before Greer grabbed me, pulled me up and punched me in the face, sending my head snapping back. All the breath was knocked out of me as he then slammed his fist into my stomach.

  “You motherfucker, I’ll kill you!” Kyle roared as he flung himself on his onetime friend, throwing him bodily off me, onto the floor, and kicking him in the balls, stomach and face over and over. The cops moved in but he jammed Greer’s gun under his jaw.

  “Back up. Back the fuck up,” he yelled. “Where’s my son?” he growled into the bloody mess. Greer whispered something into his ear.

  “Cielo. The basement,” Kyle told one of them. The cop relayed this over his radio and two of the team ran off, out of the church.

  “Finish this,” Greer whispered, closing his eyes and pressing his forehead into the barrel. Kyle’s lips tightened into thin, white lines over gritted teeth as his finger curled on the trigger.

  “Kyle, no! No, don’t do it.” I said, shaking off my dizziness and sitting up. “Please. He’s not worth it.” He looked from me to Greer and then back again, the longing to see his son again warring with hunger for payback. “They’ll arrest you. Think of Mike.”

  “Kyle,” Sarah rasped, leaning against the pew, “listen to her.” Slowly he took a deep breath and got to his feet.

  “You can’t, chickenshit?” Greer laughed, baring red teeth.

  “Oh, no, I can. But she’s right: you aren’t worth it,” he said as he turned away. They cuffed Greer and carried him down the aisle. The most horrible thing was he still laughed even as they dragged him out the door, shaking with evil cackles. The echoes hung in the air long after he was gone. I shook my head in disgust as I watched Kyle hold Aunt Sarah in his arms and kiss her, not caring that she was still crying her red tears. He looked over at Astrid, still kneeling beside Michelle.

  “She’s gone,” she whispered to no one in particular. Kyle and I lowered our eyes while Sarah began to cry watery tears this time.

  *

  I held Astrid tightly as she watched the medics lead a gurney down the aisle. A gurney with a body bag on it. Kyle had gently gathered up the body of Michelle Greer, fighting the pain of his bullet wound, and gently laid it down into the bag. We all watched as they wheeled her away to a waiting ambulance, Astrid going with her. Then Kyle was told he needed to go to hospital as well.

  “Hey, beauty,” he whispered, sitting beside his girl. Scoffing, Aunt Sarah smiled ruefully, gingerly touching the bandages around her eyes. She leaned sideways to kiss him. He held her, stroking her hair and kissing her cheek and forehead. Her dress is ruined, I thought stupidly. It was though; flecked with blood all down the front from her nose, eyes and mouth.

  “Wait,” I said suddenly as the medics came for them too, wrapping blankets around them. I found the rings beside one of the pews, I picked them up and handed them over to Kyle but he shook his head and extended one finger, allowing me. I put one on it and then took Sarah’s hand so I could slide the other onto her finger. Those that had stayed, braving the danger of the madman, began to clap. All three of us grinned as the applause began to rise in volume. We were bleeding, and swaying on our feet, and traumatized. But who cared? I beamed even wider as they kissed again, once more, before they were rushed away. I walked out, through a side door, into the sunshine. Outside, it was like a warzone. There were
police cars, ambulances, an Armed Response van, everything. I didn’t stop waving until the siren of their ambulance had faded and the white van was out of sight.

  *

  I was surprised to see Andy on one of the seats in the hospital hallway.

  “Hi, what are you doing in here?”

  “Hi,” he smiled, “I’m waiting to see if our cousin’s been found yet. Proud of ya, sis,” he grinned at me.

  “What have I done?” I frowned.

  “Ya bit that fucker; I ‘spect you’re the envy of the nation.”

  I grinned too at that, as I walked down the hall to their room. In spite of poor Michelle and Astrid, I felt a warm glow spread all through me as I walked upto the bed, parted the curtain around it and looked on a beautiful sight: Kyle, my true friend and a true hero, entwined with the woman he loved.

  “Aunt Sarah?”

  “Mara,” she smiled, turning her sightless face towards me. I came in and threw my arms around both of them, holding them tight.

  “How are you doing, Mrs. Thayer, Mr. Thayer?”

  “We’re good, Ms. Hale,” he grinned. I sat at the foot of the bed, looking down at a black Labrador lying at our feet.

  “That’s Cuffy, my new guide dog.”

  “Hello,” I smiled, standing and crouching to pet him, grinning as he licked my hand. “I’m so sorry about Michelle,” I said, looking up. She nodded.

  “She deserved better than this. Better than him,” she added bitterly. Kyle nodded, his eyes cloudy and sad.

  Kyle, I love you. Michelle, I am so sorry. You did deserve better. I sat, took out my notepad and began to write as though I was possessed, inspired by the horror, courage and deep, soul-rending tragedy I had just witnessed.

  My Warrior