by Paul Curtin
“What am I supposed to do with this?” she whispered so softly the sound almost didn’t exist.
He made a cutting motion across his throat, almost growling at her to stop. The stranger might not know they were there. They had to stay quiet, and then he would go away.
But reality hit him, hard and cold. He put himself in the man’s shoes, saw his logic. The man was desperate, so he would try to find water first. If he came across a home, he would assume the house was empty. He wouldn’t try to knock. He would break in and try to take what he needed.
The man outside knew they were there.
Sean gripped the handle of the pistol and unsheathed it. He brought it in front of himself and pointed it toward the ground, his finger straight across the slide of the gun.
“Please,” the stranger outside howled, “I’m so hungry.”
“Sean,” Michael whispered. “Sean.”
Sean pressed his hand toward the floor to tell him to shut up. It was Sean’s fault they didn’t know what to do. He had never walked them through the scenario of a stranger showing up. A terrible mistake.
He put his hand on Elise’s sternum, to tell her to stay put, and took one step toward the door. A baseboard under his foot creaked so loud it sounded like a gunshot. He winced and took the next step, raising his weapon toward the door and tripping the laser dot sight under the barrel. A tiny red dot shone on the middle of the door, shaking a few inches to the left or right as his hand quivered. His blood coursed with adrenaline and his tremor grew steadier. He had long told himself that he would be ready to kill someone who threatened his family, but he thought, statistically speaking, it would never happen. Now that the situation had come, he was trying to fight every instinct he had to run instead of fight.
Another floorboard creaked. He edged closer to the door, standing off to the side at a forty-five-degree angle in case the man started shooting through the door.
“I know that someone’s in there. There’s smoke—” the man outside yelled.
Shit.
“There’s smoke in your chimney. Please.”
The fireplace, its crackling red flames pouring smoke up the flue. He snarled. People could smell smoke from miles away, follow it right to them. Elise waved in his peripheral, trying to get his attention. She was silent, but her eyes explained everything.
“No,” Sean mouthed to her.
He wouldn’t do it. That kind of risk could not stand. There was no way he would open his doors to some starving person they didn’t know. No way. He shook his head.
His gun remained trained on the door. “Get off my property,” Sean yelled. “There’s nothing for you here.”
Seconds dragged on with no reply. The wind gusted. “Come on, man. You’re gonna kill me.”
That was a lie. Sean had no obligation to help this man, and he wouldn’t listen to some half-baked rationale that tried to paint him as the bad guy.
“Please. I haven’t eaten in days.”
“I said, Get lost. Leave.”
A hand grabbed his shoulder, startling him, Sean wrenching his body free. Elise. He looked back at the laser dot. “What’re you doing?”
“We can’t leave that man outside,” she whispered.
“We can, and we will.”
“He’s going to die out there if we don’t do something.”
Michael piped in with hushed words, “Sean, she’s right.”
No, she wasn’t. If this man came into the house, they were accepting a completely preventable risk. He could be anyone, a child molester or a rapist. Maybe he murdered the last family he encountered. He shuddered. “We are not discussing this,” he said.
“We have to discuss this,” Michael said. “There’s a man outside and we can help him.”
“We don’t know anything about him.”
“We know he’ll die without us,” Elise said. “Please, we can just feed him a meal and give him a warm place to sleep for the night.”
“What about after that? We can’t just let him stay here.”
“We’ll send him on his way.”
“You can’t ask me to do this, Elise. No.”
She leaned the axe against the couch and cupped his face with her hands and pulled his gaze onto her. “We can’t turn this man away. He’s just one person and we can help him. If we don’t—we can’t let a man die.”
“This is dangerous.”
“You’ll protect us, babe. You always have.” She leaned in and kissed his stubbled cheek. “We can’t judge whether a man lives or dies.”
They could. They did it every day when they hunkered down instead of opening their home to everyone else. They didn’t see it like that. It was barbaric to think that way, but someone had to do it. “We can’t take the risk.”
“We have to.”
“We don’t have to do anything.”
“Sean, please. Just one meal.”
He zeroed in on the red laser dot, his stomach churning with a sick heaviness. It would have been easy to just squeeze off a few shots into the door. The man outside would run. No more problem. But he’d be the bad guy. His wife—she might never forgive him. So easy to shoot off a few rounds…
He lowered his weapon. Shit, he thought, what am I doing? “I’ll bring him in through the garage. Nobody else move, okay?”
Silence. He approached the door, still just off to the side, rapped his knuckles on it, and waited. The man outside smacked the door. “Hello?”
He tried to speak but couldn’t get his vocal chords to work. All his thoughts told him to stop, except one—the one that sounded like Elise. He cleared his throat. “Hey,” he yelled.
“Yes, yes. Please. Is someone in there?”
Goddamn it. “There is a doorway in the back of the garage. Go there.”
The words echoed in his head.
“Oh, thank you,” the man yelled.
His footsteps padded down the deck, and Sean turned back to Elise. “We did the right thing,” she said.
He said nothing.
“We couldn’t just leave him out there to die,” Michael said.
“Worse things could happen,” Sean said.
“Worse things could—? We’re helping him.”
“You don’t see how stupid this is.”
“We’re saving his life.”
“We’re delaying his death a few days. Hardly qualifies as saving.”
He motioned for everyone to make room, and they cleared his path. Throwing on his thick wool coat and fingerless gloves, he grabbed a small LED flashlight and his gun and went into the garage.
The air was stagnant and well below freezing there. He trained his gun and flashlight upward in front of himself. His heart beat so hard the pulse shook his eyeballs. The mixture of adrenaline and cold sent opposite signals in his body so his skin simultaneously crawled with chill and flushed with heat.
He rounded the corner, and the backdoor came into view. He nudged closer. His impulses called for him to turn around, to back away and leave the man to die. Yet, he inched forward. A new contradictory thought arose every few seconds. Keep going. What are you doing? Listen to your wife. Listen to reason. Stop. Keep going.
The door grew closer and closer until he found himself just a foot away, almost like it had snuck up on him. He curled his finger onto the trigger. He withdrew a foggy breath into the light, half-expecting to get shot the moment he opened the door. Desperate men did desperate things.
He reached out and grabbed the bolt lock, ensuring he made no sound. The wind hissed outside and then he heard a crunch of snow. His chest thumped. Don’t do it. Do it. Are you crazy? Have some decency, man. This is suicide.
He wrenched the lock, the sound echoing around the garage, and pulled the door open. The man stood in the doorway, not five feet from him. Sean flashed the bright light i
n his face, and the man held up his hands to block the light. No way would someone get the drop on him if he could help it.
Layers of ratty cloth covered all but a small slit for the man’s eyes. The color of the fabric, unwashed for months, was only a mixture of gray and black shades from the ash. His body, probably skinnier than he appeared, was padded with layers of mismatched garments filled with holes and unwound thread.
“Hey, I don’t know what the deal is, man,” he said.
“You shut the hell up right now, you hear?” Sean said.
“I don’t know what I did, man.”
“You showed up at my house, that’s what you did.”
The light snow and ash fall blew around the man. “I don’t know where else to go.”
“And you picked my house?”
The man looked down at his chest and noticed the red dot dancing in the center. His hands drifted a little further into the air. “Hey man, let’s just hold on a minute.”
“I’m not going to wait for anything, you hear me?”
“I don’t want no trouble. Please, I haven’t eaten in days.”
“I just want to be clear about one thing: you aren’t coming inside because of me. If I had my way, you wouldn’t even be standing where you are. You’d be lying dead in that snow. Don’t even doubt me for one second.”
“I don’t, man. I don’t.”
“You get one meal and one night then you go, understand? I see you even do one thing I don’t like, you look at my family the wrong way or try to go anywhere I didn’t say you could go, you take advantage of my generosity in any way, I will march you out here and put a bullet between your eyes. You understand me?”
The man nodded but kept his head low.
“You have anything on you?” Sean asked.
“On me?”
“A weapon? A knife? A gun?”
“I ain’t got nothing on me.”
“Get inside and shut the door behind you.”
Sean backed away and watched him trudge out of the snow and into the doorway. For a few tense seconds, they stared at one another. “I said, Close the door.”
The man turned and pushed the heavy door shut.
“Bolt lock.”
The man cranked it until it latched. As he started to turn back around, Sean yelled, “Stop.”
The man did.
“Interlock your fingers together behind your head.”
“I told you I ain’t got nothing.”
“And I told you to do as I say. Now do it or you’re not coming in.”
The man raised his gloved hands to the back of his head and laced his fingers together, trembling. “Please don’t kill me, man.”
“I’m not going to kill you. Now shut it.”
With the laser dot never leaving him, Sean sidestepped and set the flashlight on a work shelf so that the beam spotlighted him. He approached slowly. “Keep still.”
The man did. Sean pressed the barrel of the gun between the man’s shoulder blades and patted him down, the ash on the man’s clothes smearing across Sean’s hands. He checked his belt line, thighs, ankles, chest and shoulders. When he felt confident the man had nothing more, he stepped back, the laser still dead set on his back. “Turn around.”
The stranger, hands still locked behind his head, rotated and stared at Sean for the first time. His eyes shifted back and forth between the gun and Sean’s face, the cloth in front of his mouth expanding and contracting.
“Look me in the eyes,” Sean said.
He did.
“You try anything, and I swear I’ll kill you.”
“We’re all living in such times,” he said. “I understand.”
Sean lowered his gun. “Let’s go.”
The man hesitated, but pulled his hands down and walked past Sean, cowering like he was expecting Sean to hit him as he passed. Sean watched him turn the doorknob and crack the door open.
His family just on the other side.
The man opening the door.
Stop this.
Listen to your wife.
Stop this.
Stop this.
His heart rose in his throat and dropped to the bottom of his guts.
Elise
The instant Sean stepped out of the house, Michael’s mouth opened. Elise had to stop herself from punching him. She understood that her husband was acting erratic. She saw him babbling to himself, saw his fuse was so short that even a tiny bit of conflict sent him into a rage. He needed sleep. Yet, Michael piled all of his concerns about Sean into her ear. He had always done this, even when they were kids, explaining things she already knew. It wasn’t enough that she had to be the keeper of morale in the house, making sure everyone had hot meals and a stoked fire, but she had to keep track of her husband and brother too. Make sure they were behaving. Sometimes she wanted to pull her hair out.
She told Michael to stop, but he kept hammering away. Even while she sent the others to grab items for their guest and drape towels on the floor near the fireplace, he wouldn’t stop. Elise moved near the garage door and waited. He said, “What happens when he snaps, Elise? He could hurt someone. If we don’t—”
She waved her hand in his face. “I’ll do something about it,” she said through her teeth. “I will. I’ll handle it. Lay off.”
The handle turned, and the heavy door sprung out an inch from the frame. Elise’s stomach leapt into her ribs. The door opened. A ragged man, caked with gray soot woven deep into his clothing, poked his head through the crack of the door and opened it further. His head was wrapped in the hood of his coat and his scarf was coiled around the bottom half of his face. Ice had penetrated every fiber of his clothing. The man’s eyes darted between Elise and Michael. He took a step forward then back.
Elise didn’t move. It wasn’t fear of him—he was a pathetic-looking figure and presented no danger—but he took her aback. With eyebrows crusted with ice and skin red from the unforgiving wind, it was as if he had walked out of a post-apocalyptic movie.
“Evening, ma’am,” the man said.
“Go on inside,” Sean said behind him.
Sean pushed the man’s back and forced him three steps forward. The man looked around at the books on the shelf and the clean carpet and the soft red glow from the fire in the other room. His eyes widened. “It’s so warm in here.”
The creases around his eyes changed, the man smiling behind the scarf. Her heart warmed. She said, “Warmer than outside.”
“Yes, ma’am. Much better than out there.”
“What’s your name?”
“Travers. My name’s Travers.”
Sean shut the door, his lips pursed. He nodded, and Elise got the message. “I’m sure you would like to warm up, Mr. Travers.”
“Just Travers, ma’am.” He looked at the carpet and then down at his clothes. “I don’t want to soil your rug.”
“There’s a towel down by the fire.”
“Once the dirt gets inside, it won’t come out.”
“It’s okay. The others’ll be down in a bit with some new clothes. You can warm yourself by the fire.”
“That would be good—”
“Elise.”
He extended his filthy mitten to her, and she took it. Felt like holding a block of ice. Michael shook it too and introduced himself.
Elise said, “And you met my husband, Sean.”
He looked back, said, “I did,” and nodded. “Thank you for taking me in for the night. I really appreciate it.”
“It’s the right thing to do.”
The smile wrinkles vanished from around his eyes. “Yes. It is.”
She motioned for him to go into the living room. He passed, Elise watching him take careful, measured steps, looking around at everything without settling on anything in particular. He got
on his knees in front of the fire and extended his hands. She turned back to find her husband glaring at her. “What?” she asked.
“Where are the others?” he said in a low voice.
“The others?” she said, hushing to his level.
“The kids? Kelly?”
“Around.”
“They’re not to be alone with him.”
“They’re fine.”
Sean’s eyes shifted past her to Michael standing over her shoulder. “Where’s the shotgun?”
“Why?” Michael asked.
“You just left the shotgun sitting around?”
“Is that a problem?”
“Is that a problem? Do either of you understand the risk we’re taking here?”
“Risk?” Elise said. “The guy could barely lift his arm to shake my hand.”
“I’m pretty sure Aidan could take him,” Michael said.
She closed her eyes. If only Michael could keep his trap shut.
“You don’t get it,” Sean said.
“Sean, please,” Elise said, “it’s just one night. To help the man along.”
“It’d be more merciful to just kill him now.”
“Wow, Sean,” Michael said. “Even for you that’s low.”
His jaw muscles pulsed and protruded in his cheeks, telling them, “You don’t get it,” before throwing his coat off and walking into the living room.
Michael started to speak, but she put a hand up and silenced him. “I’ll deal with it.”
They joined Sean and Travers. Sean hung out near the back wall, the shotgun next to him, while Travers leaned over the fireplace. The fire roared around the outline of his silhouetted body and cast a dark shadow along the floor and walls. The moisture from his clothes began dripping in murky, watery droplets. She watched a bead sink into the towel on the floor. Travers was right: she would never get all that gray out.
Andrew and Aidan emerged from the kitchen, the younger one clasping a bowl of hot soup. He walked with a cautious gait, trying not to spill a drop. Travers turned his head. Aidan—the sweet little boy, kindhearted and gentle—extended the bowl with a smile. “And food too,” the man said. “I feel like I’ve hit the jackpot here.”
Travers cradled the bowl and set it down on the stone. He pulled his scarf down from his face and started devouring the soup. The expression on Aidan’s face changed from goodhearted to horror. He stepped back into Andrew’s legs, Andrew’s eyes lifting up toward Elise, his chest rising. Sean perked up. She stepped towards Aidan, her eyes locked onto Travers as the fire crackled in front of him. She walked through his shadow and then back into the light.