In his panic, he didn’t think, just trotted downstairs. Dim light glowed from the basement’s lone bulb, illuminating the concrete walkway between shelving racks and stacked boxes, casting a vaguely human shadow that stretched from the basement’s back wall toward Ken at the foot of the stairs.
The shadow belonged to a woman with grungy hair wearing a navy-blue zip hoodie. She was hunched over, her back to him, and appeared to be tying—or untying—someone’s wrists. Below her knelt a fidgeting woman dressed in a wrinkled nylon jacket. Bizarrely, the tied-up woman clutched a revolver behind her.
“Hurry up, Hannah, untie me already,” the fidgeting woman shouted.
“Shut up and hold still,” Hannah said. “Michelle, I can’t undo the knot if you keep moving.”
When Hannah squatted, Ken saw his father.
Dad sat frozen against the far wall, his useless legs outstretched in front of him. He clutched his right forearm, which was smeared with blood. His face was contorted into a grimace, and someone had stuffed a rag in his mouth. But the worst was his eyes. They reflected the same defeated look Ken had noticed when he had sat beside Mom’s deathbed.
Ken’s wet clothes became frigid in the chilly basement air. He regretted not dialing 911 in the kitchen. He turned to run upstairs, but Hopper barked.
The intruders turned toward the sound, revealing themselves. They looked Ken’s age, maybe younger. Michelle growled and thrashed, as though trying to break free of her own flesh. The other girl, Hannah, drew a gun that Ken recognized as his father’s 9mm, the one that had been hidden in the chimney.
“Stay back!” she said, aiming it at him. “Don’t make me shoot.”
Ken flinched. He’d never faced a live gun before, not even a paintball gun. To think, twenty minutes ago he was safe in Angela’s arms. If only he’d stayed with her.
No. He needed to be here. Somehow, he had to rescue Dad.
“Who the hell are you?” Michelle said, twitching. “Why you all wet?”
Ken swallowed. “C-can you please put your guns down?”
She cackled. “If you only knew.”
“Please don’t kill him,” he said, tears rimming his eyes. “He’s my dad.”
“Yeah?” she said. “Our dad was murdered when we were kids.”
“Right,” Hannah said. “All thanks to your old man.”
Ken was too afraid to ask what they meant. Probably had something to do with Dad’s past life. Whatever he’d done, an apology wouldn’t fix it. They intended to kill him, and they would succeed unless Ken acted now.
“Cops are on their way,” he lied. “You should leave.”
“We will.” Michelle twisted against a shelving rack, rubbing her bindings against the edge of a metal leg. “Soon as your father pays for what happened to mine.”
Her conviction chilled him. On instinct, Ken shifted toward the stairs but bumped into Hopper. Maybe the dog had the right idea. They couldn’t run away. Not now.
Instead, Ken leaned forward, his wet clothes dripping. The constant pat-pat-pattering of droplets heightened his anxiety as he gripped Hopper’s collar. The only viable plan that came to mind was charging at the armed intruders. A sudden rush might catch them off-guard. Trouble was, they were fifteen feet away—a massive distance under the circumstances. Then again, no distance was too far, not if it meant saving a loved one.
“Stay back,” Hannah said, her pistol trembling.
“Relax,” he said, “I’m getting my dog under control.”
“Move the dog upstairs.”
“Okay, okay.”
But instead of tugging Hopper backward, Ken let go with a shout. The moment he did, Hopper bounded forward, his bark echoing through the basement. Ken raced alongside him, wet shoes screeching along the concrete.
Hannah hesitated and aimed somewhere between them.
The gun roared.
Ken would’ve stopped short if he hadn’t already jumped, propelling himself toward her. His shoulder smashed her thigh, and the impact drove her into a nearby shelving rack.
Canned goods tumbled from above. One must’ve struck Hopper, because he squealed and dodged away. Others struck Ken and Hannah; the rest crashed against the floor, filling the basement with the stench of soggy vegetables.
Ken hit the floor next to Hannah. His elbows struck concrete, but he didn’t feel the impact thanks to adrenaline. He pushed himself upright and realized Hannah no longer held the pistol. He searched for it among the pile of fallen cans. Then a subhuman shriek ricocheted through the basement.
Michelle spread her arms wide behind her like a pair of featherless wings. Her eyes dilated as she brought her arms forward, clutching the revolver in front of her chest with both hands. The barrel immediately snapped toward Dad.
No!
Ken met his father’s eyes, recognized the unprecedented terror in them. Dad pressed both palms against the floor and pushed, shifting a couple of feet away just as the revolver went off.
The report thundered through the basement, unbearably loud. Ken flinched. A series of faint clicks followed. After he opened his eyes, he wished he’d kept them shut.
Chunks of red pulp dribbled from his father’s cheek. Blood dirtied the rag in his mouth and flushed down his neck, spreading a scarlet stain across his white Dodgers t-shirt. Despite all this, Dad’s eyes remained open. Lifelessly open.
Ken wondered if his father could survive such a wound. People attempted to shoot their own brains out and failed all the time. This couldn’t be much different. A gushing hole in his cheek could be fixed. There had to be a way.
A second blast tore Dad’s forehead open.
Dad jerked in place, arm twitching at his side. His liver-spotted hand flopped against the concrete floor, smearing blood in a wild pattern.
Again a series of faint clicks followed.
A third shot exploded in Dad’s chest.
His arm stopped twitching.
His eyes drooped open, accepting the blood that trailed from his forehead.
He made no effort to blink.
No effort to move.
Nothing.
Ken crawled forward in a daze. The sight of his lifeless father struck him as ridiculous, impossible. He refused to believe it. This had to be some hidden-camera gag, some morbid comedy experiment that would show up on YouTube. Any second now a cable TV host would run downstairs laughing while Dad sprang to life and told him the blood was corn syrup.
Dad couldn’t be dead. Old men in wheelchairs didn’t get shot to death. Never.
Michelle shrieked. Her free hand pried at the revolver’s grip, as if trying to yank it loose from her hand. While she struggled, a trail of smoke rose from the barrel. Ken had hoped the weapon was a prop, but the chalky, burned odor was too real.
The gun was authentic.
And now it was pointed at him.
Ken gawked at the smoking revolver. The barrel’s opening stared back like a blackened, empty eye. It peered at him. Through him. Beyond him. He saw his whole life play out within that shadowy tunnel—twenty-nine years of love and loss, success and mistakes, meaning and insignificance.
He drew a deep breath. Maybe his last.
Then the revolver dropped from her grasp. It struck the concrete with a clack and bounced to a stop right in front of him.
Light gleamed along the sweaty, polished handle.
In his panic he reached for it.
“Stop!” Hannah grabbed his shirt. “Don’t—”
Ken picked it up.
Chapter 16
Firearms had intimidated him from an early age. Never in his life had Ken touched a gun, yet now he found himself appreciating the snugness of the grip against his palm. Though he wouldn’t call it comfortable, he welcomed the reassuring feel. A grimy layer of Michelle’s sweat mixed with his own and seemed to weld his hand to the weapon. In a surreal way, it was as though he and the snubnose became one.
From the corner of his eye he saw movement. But before he could reac
t, two hands seized his wrist. Hannah growled in his ear as she steered the gun barrel toward the floor. “Michelle, help me pin him down!”
“Fuck that,” Michelle said, digging among the fallen cans. “Where’s that pistol—I’ll just shoot him.”
Ken couldn’t believe his ringing ears. First these two had executed his father; now they intended to murder him. Would they hunt down Robby next? Everything was happening so fast that anything seemed possible. All Ken knew for certain was that Michelle intended to kill him. That left him no choice.
With tears in his eyes, he shoved Hannah aside and lifted his steel companion, lining up the barrel with Michelle’s chest.
“No,” Hannah cried, tugging on his shirt. “Listen!”
Ken listened, all right. Listened to a private voice that he ignored too often. A voice that insisted it was time he stopped being everyone’s doormat.
Michelle raised both palms.
“You don’t understand,” she said, shuffling backward toward Dad’s corpse. “Your old man killed my parents. We grew up orphans because of him.”
Ken pulled the trigger.
The recoil hit him like a punch to the hand. Thunder echoed through the basement. His ears rang. His eyes closed. When he opened them, his father’s murderer collapsed against the cinderblock wall.
Somewhere—inches away, maybe miles away—Hannah shouted.
He fired again.
And again.
Michelle jerked left and right, blood fountaining from her chest as she struggled to cover the entry wounds. Her hand fell on her stomach as he pulled the trigger a fourth time. He suspected the gun might be empty, but another shot erupted. Ken continued firing, amazed by the ceaseless ammo stream coming from the six-shot revolver. He fired until he lost count, watching his father’s murderer bounce in place, absorbing bullet after bullet. Until the revolver clicked.
It only clicked once.
He tugged the trigger for another blast. More reports boomed. Bullet after bullet entered Michelle’s corpse. An empty click followed every fifth shot. Then the thunder resumed. He kept shooting despite the hissing heat against his palm, despite the tears stinging his eyes, despite his sore trigger finger. All his grief and pain and love kept him firing.
“Stop!” A pair of navy-blue sleeves wrapped around his neck. Hannah wrestled him to the ground, pressing his cheek to the blood-smeared concrete. He twisted beneath her, throwing elbows until he caught her in the stomach. She coughed, loosening her grip. He jerked his head free and shoved backward, dropping her onto her back.
Before she could recover, he drove the barrel into her cheek, pinning her skull against the floor.
“Ow! It’s hot!” she yelled, swatting his arm. “Hot!”
He jammed the barrel harder into her cheek. A distant part of him wanted to pull the trigger, but he restrained himself.
“Hothothot!” She grabbed his forearm. “Get it off!”
He lifted the snubnose.
She shuffled backward on heels and elbows, crashing into a rack loaded with toolboxes and hardware supplies. Against the floor, her legs jerked, kicking a can of veggies into a thudding roll. Panting, she sat up and gingerly touched the ring-shaped burn on her cheek. Then she looked at Michelle’s corpse and moaned.
“No…this can’t be happening.” Hannah sagged sideways. Tears overflowed her eyes. “You idiot. You just…shot my sister.”
He blinked, still dazed. Only now did it sink in: he’d unloaded over two dozen rounds into his father’s murderer without reloading.
Impossible. Perhaps it was a heat-of-the-moment brain lapse. An illusion conjured by a fractured mind.
His attention drifted toward his father. The sight crushed him.
Oh, Dad. Why?
He wanted to hug his father but couldn’t bring himself to try. He worried there might be a speck of life in Dad somewhere. Moving his body might snuff it out permanently.
This can’t be real.
Something wet surrounded his knee and he flinched. Michelle’s blood. A dark red puddle was spreading across the concrete. Its coppery stench left him queasy, and he staggered to his feet, aiming the revolver around the basement as if phantoms might emerge from the cinderblock walls and strangle him. He didn’t know exactly what he was afraid of, but it seemed to be everywhere.
He couldn’t stay here.
He needed to head upstairs. Call 911.
Lumbering to his feet, Ken pointed the gun at Hannah. He considered marching her upstairs but thought twice. She could run away or attack him. Better that the cops came down here and got her. But he couldn’t just leave her here, not with the missing pistol lying around. Until he found it, he needed her restrained.
On the shelf above her, he spotted a duct tape roll. He gestured toward it.
“Get that tape.”
“Tape? Why?”
“Get it. Now.”
Wiping her eyes, she stood up. He readied his weapon in case she tried anything, but she grabbed the duct tape and faced him.
“What now?” she asked.
“Tape your left ankle to the leg of that rack.”
“Seriously?”
“I need you to stay put while I run upstairs and call the cops.”
“Before you do, there’s something you should know about that gun.”
“All I know is that I’ll shoot you with it if you don’t listen.”
“Okay, fine.” Trembling, she peeled off a strip of tape, creating an awful squeaking noise. She bent forward and, with a few wraps of the roll, adhered her ankle in place. After doing the same to her other ankle, she taped her left wrist above her head, her hand raised like a nervous student with a question.
“That gun,” she said, her tone urgent. “Try setting it down.”
“I’ll hang onto it, thanks.”
“You don’t understand. See if you can set it down.”
He ignored her odd comment. “Touch your other wrist to the rack and don’t move.”
Still clutching the gun, he taped her other wrist to the shelving rack. Then he stepped back and surveyed his handiwork. With Hannah secure, he allowed himself a sigh of relief. He turned toward a workbench covered with dust bunnies and wood shavings. He pressed his free hand to the grubby surface and drew several deep breaths.
Settle down, he told himself. Worst part’s over.
But when he tried to release his grip on the revolver, he understood he was wrong.
Chapter 17
The last time Ken took his father to the movies, back in 2012, they’d seen The Amazing Spider-Man. Neither had wanted to go (Dad hated superheroes and Ken hated that they’d replaced Tobey Maguire), but a July heatwave drove them into the air-conditioned sanctuary of their local RC Theater. Thirty minutes into the movie, they both laughed when Andrew Garfield first discovered his spider powers and found that his hands stuck to everything he touched—toothbrushes, towels, doorknobs, everything.
That scene reverberated through Ken’s mind as he attempted to unbend his fingers from the revolver’s grip. They remained fixed in place, however, and when he tried ripping the gun loose with his free hand, a flash of sharp heat burst along his palm. Yanking and twisting did nothing. Same with trying to pry his fingers loose with the house key.
Eventually he took a step back.
Closed his eyes.
Breathed.
Chances were, this was adrenaline related. He’d heard stories about people lifting full-size sedans when their adrenaline was rushing, so maybe when he grabbed the revolver his muscles had hardened into place. It was merely a guess, however—he was a substitute teacher, not a physiologist.
Hopper whimpered nearby, brown eyes glossy with fear. Ken was leading him toward the stairs when Hannah spoke.
“There are two ways to drop that gun.”
Ken paused on the bottom step. The matter-of-fact way she said it bothered him. She didn’t sound like someone crafting a lie. She spoke with unshakable conviction, as if promising
the sun would rise.
“How do I drop it?” he asked.
“If you swear not to kill me, I’ll tell you.”
“Fine. I swear. Now tell me.”
“You need to unload all six rounds.”
“Pretty sure I unloaded more than six.”
“You fired more than six. Problem is, each round remains in the cylinder until it kills someone.” Frowning, she glanced at her sister. “Remember how the gun clicked after every five shots? That’s because a round is missing from the cylinder.”
“That’s ridiculous.” He shook his head, dazed. “There’s an explanation for why it’s stuck—some sort of glue or something, I don’t know.”
“Exactly. You don’t know. Which is why I’m telling you. There are two ways to drop that gun. Either kill six people or kill yourself.”
Ken waited for her to smirk or start laughing. She didn’t.
“If you cut me loose, I can help you.”
“No thanks.” He climbed the basement steps. Upstairs the TV was still blaring, now with a car insurance jingle that promised monster deals. He muted it and grabbed the kitchen phone. He thumbed the number nine, then one, then stopped.
What do I tell them? he thought. That my father’s dead downstairs, that I shot an intruder twenty times in the chest without reloading, that I can’t drop this gun? Will they buy that? Will they send a SWAT team? What if the SWAT team charges in here armed with rifles? What if they demand I drop my weapon? What will they do if I can’t obey the order?
Ken returned the phone to its cradle. He went to the sink and turned the water on. He stuck his gunhand—yes, gunhand—beneath the stream and squirted dish soap over it. He rubbed it in with his free hand until his fingers were sudsy with green apple fragrance. Both the revolver and his fingers were slick but remained fused together. He rinsed, hoping that might help, but it only sent dirty water swirling around the drain.
Least I removed some soot from the gun, he thought morbidly. Sure, it’s fused to my palm, but no more dirt and dried blood. A clean gun is a happy gun.
Exhausted, he leaned against the fridge, staring into space. The gun dripped at his side, and Hopper licked the fallen droplets. Ken reached down to pet him, but the pit bull flinched away with a whine. He limped toward the living room and ducked into his doggie bed.
Entry Wounds: A Supernatural Thriller Page 8