by Paul Curtin
It wasn’t the way he wanted things to happen—the very idea made him sick to his stomach. But things needed to be done sometimes. Things he wasn’t necessarily comfortable with. He thought through the plan. It could work, but it was risky. Though not riskier than facing Michael head-on. That might get them both killed. The entire thing knotted up his stomach.
But Michael had forced his hand.
He hurried into the house without making a sound, sneaking in on his toes. His garb would make an astute mind question what was happening, but his target wasn’t all that astute. He felt bad for Kelly. She had experienced the worst of everything this whole ordeal offered and was still alive. Her life, though, would be over soon. Even if she held on a little while longer, once the food situation got truly dire, she would be the first to go. She barely weighed over ninety pounds and was deteriorating more each day. Starvation was a terrible way to die, and he was sparing her from it.
That’s what he told himself. That it was merciful.
He crept up next to her and shook her shoulder. She resisted waking at first but looked up at him after a few seconds. He pulled his scarf down and smiled at her. Pressed his finger against his lips. Motioned with his head for her to follow. She clearly didn’t understand, and so he motioned again. Kelly always expected the best in everyone. She was a sweet woman. But she was still living as if the ash hadn’t fallen—under the old code of things. She was trusting. So trusting.
She got out of her sleeping bag and followed his lead by sneaking around toward the garage door. She grabbed her coat and hat and gloves and cracked the door open. With a confused look, she went out into the cold air before him. Sean grabbed another coat from the couch before slipping through the door and shutting it behind him.
Kelly was sliding into her jacket and gloves. “Put my coat over yours. It’s freezing this morning,” he whispered. She paused, Sean removing his jacket and handing it to her. “You ready to learn?” he said, flashing a smile.
She slid his coat overtop her other one. “Learn what?”
He looked at her, dumfounded. “Michael didn’t tell you?”
She shook her head.
He sighed. “I’ve been thinking, I might not be around forever. Things happen. I think it’d be good if everyone knew how to chop wood, not just me and Elise and Michael.”
Sean pulled the other coat onto his shoulders. It was a lot thinner than his other one, but it didn’t matter. It only had to shield him from the elements long enough. Just long enough. “I should have told you myself. I thought he—I thought he told you.”
“He never told me anything.” She paused. “What’s going on, Sean?”
He blinked. They stared at one another for a few seconds, listening to the wind outside. “You need to know how to chop wood. It’s a very important—”
“I don’t want to die.” She looked down at the ground and then up to him. “I don’t.”
He smiled. Thought he was selling it. “What are you talking about?”
She looked to the side and back to him. “I’ll scream.”
He held his gaze on her and pounced. She didn’t see it coming, so by the time she could start yelling, it was too late. He sealed his hand around her mouth and peddled her back against the work bench. She screamed into his palm and coated it in warmth, the muffled sound eclipsed by the wind. She slapped his arms, but it was like taking blows from a child. With one hand, he grabbed a roll of duct tape, bit down on a corner, ripped a length, and tore it off. He stuck it to the end of the bench and looked Kelly in the eyes. Tears streamed down her face into his fingers. He said, “Please, Kelly. Stop. Kelly.”
She stopped screaming into his hand, but her body shook.
“I’m going to take my hand off.”
She nodded.
“Please don’t scream, okay? Please.”
She nodded, and he released his hand.
“Why?” she asked.
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” she said, a tear dropping from her eye. “What’re you doing?”
“I’m doing nothing. I just need you to walk outside. That’s it.”
She swallowed. “Who gave you the right to do this?”
“Do what?”
“Decide if I should live or die.”
He stopped and bowed his head before raising it. “I wish it was some other way. But it’s what seems best to me.”
“What seems best to you? That’s it? Just because you feel it doesn’t mean it’s right.”
He said nothing.
“What you feel is wrong.”
“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”
She blinked. More tears. “Oh, God. I’m not ready, I’m not—”
He snapped the tape from the workbench and pressed it onto her mouth. She started to scream just before he got it on, but the sound didn’t last long. She slapped at his arms, and he grabbed her wrists. “Stop. If you just do what I ask, it’ll be over quickly. Put your hood up.”
She sniffled and pulled the hood of his jacket over her head and looked back at him, her eyes red and puffed.
“I’m sorry, Kelly. You’ve been—you’ve been great to Aidan. And to Molly. I’m sorry. But everyone dies one day. Just know you’re helping Aidan—right now—listen, right now you’re helping him live as long as possible. If you just do like I ask, I promise you won’t suffer. I promise.”
Though he couldn’t keep that promise. It all depended on Michael’s aim. He puffed up the jacket on her shoulders and said, “You’re going to walk out to the stump. Put a chunk of wood on it, but don’t try to cut it. Just take the axe in your hand. Be very still and face away from the house, okay? If you don’t, I can’t guarantee the first shot will end it.”
She pleaded with her eyes.
“I’m sorry, okay? Don’t be scared. It’ll be like going to sleep.”
He picked up the rifle he had set on the wall earlier. He pulled the garage door open and tilted his head out the door, not meeting her eye. “Come on. Go.”
She listened. As she made the slow walk across the icy, dark snow, Sean lagged behind, stepping out only far enough so that his back was to the side of the garage. He slid along it away from the door, his rifle close to his chest and his knees bent. Kelly kept going. If she turned around, he would have to shoot her himself.
The thoughts came then. For a second Sean couldn’t breathe, watching her walk to her death, his own justifications growing weaker in his mind. Don’t do this. It must be done. You can still pull her back. He’ll see you. No, he won’t. Michael might kill you first. Not like this. Not like this.
Don’t think.
Sean grunted, slipped around the corner of the garage, and backtracked a few feet toward a fallen tree. Only some of it was left; he had hacked most of it for firewood, but it was a good vantage point of the backyard. And a good spot to hide behind. He planted his knees into the snow and brought his rifle over the top. Lowered his body, flipping up the two covers on both ends of his scope and positioning his phone on the log in front of him.
Kelly had the axe now. She placed a block of wood onto the cutting stump. Something was wrong. She was staying still, but every passing second made Sean wonder what Michael was thinking. He watched on the screen while Michael sat at the gun, looking down the mounted rifle scope. The shot had been in Michael’s crosshairs for a while now. Perhaps, he had overestimated Michael’s resolve. Sean kept his eyes darting between the screen and Kelly when—
A rifle popped.
Surprised, Sean ducked down below the plane of the fallen log. He knew Michael couldn’t see him, but the sudden rush blurred his reality. Slowly, he raised his head back up over the log, almost expecting to be shot. His shock waned, and he brought his eye back to the scope.
Kelly was squirming on the ground. Sean grunted. The least M
ichael could do was finish it. It was the merciful thing to do. He was tempted to do it himself, but the illusion had to be sustained. Michael needed to think he had won.
The wood exploded over Kelly’s head, but this time Sean was ready for it. He winced but kept his scope steady on her. She squirmed, almost as if she were trying to turn around. Sean whispered for Michael to just end it already. She had suffered enough. When her back popped and blood shot into the air, he knew Michael had done it. Her limbs flopped and sank to the ground, lifeless.
Sean waited, releasing a sigh. He scarcely had the will to look at Kelly’s body, but he forced himself to. Told himself that it was for the best. That she would not have made it anyway.
The most dangerous part of his plan was now in play. There was no guessing what Michael would do. He might stick around inside, or he might venture out to check the body. There was no way of knowing. If Sean barged inside, Michael might be waiting with an ambush. If he stayed outside too long, he could freeze.
He stayed put. It seemed like the best idea. He waited, listening for the garage door to open and Michael to walk out onto the charcoal snow. He wouldn’t even know what hit him. Before he even made it to the body, he would be dead.
Minutes passed. It became increasingly likely in Sean’s mind that he would have to kill Michael inside. He weighed the options. Sure, it meant another bloodstain on his carpet, but he could live with that. His family would finally be safe. Their future would be secure.
His joints cracked as he rose from his position. He got up but heard something. He paused, listening, sinking back behind the fallen log, Michael’s shape creeping closer toward Kelly’s body in the corner of his eye. Sean set his rifle back into position.
Michael’s pace was glacial. Sean would have it done before he ever reached his wife’s body. He looked down the scope and put the crosshair onto Michael’s side. Michael just needed to angle a bit more toward the chopping block and Sean would have a clean shot. Michael did as Sean had expected. He turned toward Kelly’s body and picked up his pace, holding the shotgun from the living room. Almost to the body.
Sean held his breath to steady his shot. None of his nerves fired. His mind was relaxed.
“Michael!”
Elise. Somewhere inside.
He lifted his eyes and brought them back to the scope, grunting soft and low. Michael reached down toward the body. Sean gritted his teeth and lined up the shot.
“Michael, where’s Kelly?”
Michael pulled his wife’s shoulder, her body rolling to the side. He screamed and dropped to his knees. Sean lost the shot. The shotgun tumbled to the side, and Michael wrapped his hands around the back of his head and then grabbed at his wife’s body, shaking it and crying out her name. Sean tried to keep his bead steady, but Michael picked her up into his arms and rocked her back and forth, his movement erratic. When Michael finally paused, Sean squeezed the trigger.
Michael fell like he had been hit with a wrecking ball. Sean jumped over the log, keeping his rifle level with the ground, crunching the deep snow around him. There were only thirty yards between them. His steps were large. He came upon Michael, wiggling around on his back, blood pumping out of his upper abdomen, gasping.
Michael reached out for the shotgun next to him.
Sean said, “I took the powder out of the shells weeks ago. Save your energy.”
Michael’s hand gripped at the snow, and he yelled, either in pain or frustration. Sean didn’t know. “You son of a bitch,” Michael said in between gasping breaths. “You killed her.”
“I killed her?” Sean said, standing over him.
“You motherfucker,” he cried.
Sean said nothing.
“You, you motherf—” he said and coughed up blood.
“What did you think would happen? Did you honestly think I wouldn’t know what you were planning?”
“You killed her.”
“I wish it hadn’t gone down this way.”
“How could—? Oh, God.”
Sean looked out into the woods and then back to Michael. “You never understood how this was all going to play out. You thought you could make a clever little plan and that it’d be enough.”
“The fuck is wrong with you?”
“With me?” Sean said, leaning down and putting the strap of his rifle around his shoulder. He reached around his belt and slid his pistol out, setting his other hand on Michael’s heaving chest. “I just figured it out before you did, Michael. Before anyone did. When God has abandoned everything—there’s just survival. The only thing that matters is keeping what I care about alive.” Sean stood up and aimed the pistol at Michael’s chest, right above his heart. “And today, I’m making sure that happens.”
He squeezed the trigger, and it was done. Finally done. He wiped his face with the sleeve of his coat, looking between the two bodies. Thought of the months of food he had bought his family. It wasn’t for nothing.
He turned toward the garage to see his wife on her knees in the doorway, hand clasped over her mouth. He had thought she was still inside.
She would understand one day, he thought. Not right then, but one day. She would see he wasn’t a monster. In time, she would see. And even if she didn’t, she would come to understand. The human heart was like that.
So easily convinced.
Elise
Elise stumbled back into the living room, collapsing to her knees, reaching out for anything to stabilize herself. Her vision blurred as if her eyes were going cross.
He killed them. Both of them. She grabbed her chest. The image replayed: her brother flipping over his dead wife.
He killed them both.
He murdered them.
At any moment, he would bust through the door with his rifle, take aim at her, and cover the carpet with her brains. Now hyperventilating, she crawled forward on her hands and knees.
Her son stood in the center of the room, still in his pajamas. He was such a small kid—tiny for his age, really. He didn’t deserve to die. Not without the opportunity to grow up. Not at the hands of his own father.
Not like Molly.
She scurried to him, taking his small hands into hers, whispering, “Sweetie, I need you to listen to me.”
“What’s going on?”
“There’s just some issues we need to work out. Grown-up things.”
“What happened with Uncle Mike?”
“Sweetheart, you need to listen to me very carefully, okay?”
He nodded.
She thrust a thick blanket into his arms. “We’re going to play a game. You go upstairs and hide anywhere you want. And hide really good. Do your best, okay? And don’t come out unless I come get you.”
“You’re scaring me.”
She cupped his face and kissed his forehead. “Don’t be scared. Just go. Go right now.”
Aidan nodded and went. He looked back at his mother, and she motioned for him to get going.
Her thoughts flashed back to what Michael had said—his warnings. The warnings she didn’t heed. She tried to control her breathing. Aidan’s feet disappeared above the plane of the ceiling when she heard the garage door, loud and clunky, shift open. She yelped, twisting around, sitting on the floor, resting her back against the broadside of the couch.
“Calm down,” her husband’s stern voice said.
Her hands shot into the air. Sean came out into the living room. He had shed his coat and most of his ashen clothes, but a few specks of blood dotted his face. “Put your hands down. I don’t have a gun,” he said.
She hadn’t even noticed. Her arms settled downward. “You killed them.”
“Michael was trying to kill me.”
She lowered her voice, thinking Aidan might hear. “You’re a liar. Kelly’s out there too.”
He took a step closer to her.
She got up and stepped back in equal measure. He licked the inside of his cheek and put his hands up as if in surrender. “Elise, you need to listen to me.”
“Listen to you how? So you can tell me you didn’t mean it? That you were just defending your home?”
“I was defending my home. Your brother wanted me dead.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not.”
“Did you kill Andrew?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Did you?”
“No,” Sean yelled, rubbing his face from brow to chin, calming himself. “I don’t know what happened to him, okay? I swear to you. I swear.”
His expression almost made her believe it. She wanted to believe him. They had so much history. Three wonderful kids, two taken way too soon. Almost twenty years of love and intimacy she couldn’t just disregard. And yet… “I saw what happened.”
“Come on, Elise.”
“No,” she said, taking another step back and pointing a finger at him. “My brother’s blood is all over your face and both of them are dead. My brother—” She stopped and blinked. Her brother. He was really gone. “Why’d you do it?”
“He was going to shoot me.”
She didn’t believe him. Michael talked a big game, but she had never believed for a moment that he would do it. He wasn’t the type. Yet, he had come downstairs after the gunshot, not saying anything to her. She asked herself why he had been silent. Michael had shot at someone—the noise had come from upstairs. But he didn’t shoot Sean. Her jaw dropped slack. “You dressed Kelly up like you.”
“Wait, now. Stop. That’s not what happened.”
“You made Michael kill her.”
“That’s not what happened,” he said, angrier.
“She was wearing your coat, Sean.”
“I know what it looks like.”
“What is it then? What is it?”
“I got up this morning,” he said, “and I was suiting up in the garage when she came out. I asked what was going on, and she said she wanted to talk privately. I needed to gather wood, so I said we could talk while I worked.”