The Once-Dead Girl

by Laer Carroll

  A young police officer looked up from a desk on the side of the room opposite the small room they’d entered. Over his uniform was a sleeveless khaki safari jacket with a lot of pockets.

  He stood up quickly. “Chief! You should have told us you were coming.” He turned and called into an open office door behind him. “Sergeant! It’s the Deputy Chief.”

  “Relax, Alberto. This is not an inspection.” Though, Beth knew, it sort of was.

  Through the door came a man who reminded Bethany of Miguel, though he was Chinese or something similar, because of the way he held himself and moved. He was dressed in a uniform also.

  “Al. To what do I owe this honor?” He came forward and offered his hand. Allan Rossiter shook it and turned halfway toward Beth.

  “Jimmy, I want you to meet my daughter, Bethany.”

  Beth stepped forward and offered her hand to shake. “Jimmy” hesitated and shook it also. Reflexively she probed his health, fixed a minor problem, and give his overall health a boost.

  After some pleasantries, during which the young police officer was also introduced, her father explained about her school’s career day and her willingness to shoot a pistol. There followed some minimal paperwork, her father selected a pistol for her, and she was outfitted with a headset with a pair of cup-like sound mufflers and a strap over her head so she could wear them.

  Her father gave her a heavy box of ammunition and took her and the borrowed pistol into a side room with a long desk and a whiteboard. There he gave her a briefing on gun safety and techniques, then had her fill out a short questionnaire booklet covering those subjects.

  Naturally she made a perfect score. It had been almost a year since she had not on any test.

  Then he had her handle the pistol, correcting her several minor mistakes. Such as never pointing the gun at someone unless she intended to shoot them, always treating a pistol as if it were loaded, aiming, and firing it.

  “Very good, Beth. Now you get to shoot this thing.”

  Now he carried the box of ammunition and she carried the pistol, its slide locked open, pointed at the ceiling, and her trigger finger outside the trigger guard. He and she were both wearing their pair of hearing protectors looped around their necks.

  They left the briefing room, turned a corner, and went through a closed door. The popping sound of muffled gun shots became louder, though still not very loud.

  They were in a long carpeted hall. They went halfway down it to a set of plate glass windows which made the hall into a gallery looking onto the gun range.

  The first thing she noticed was a long waist-high shelf separated by partitions into two dozen little semi-private rooms open at the back and front. She could see the backs of several men and a woman in a mixture of uniforms and civilian clothes. Each was standing at a shelf looking downrange. This was a long room with targets at the far end.

  Most of those within were aiming and firing at the targets. As she watched one of them lay down his pistol and reached up to a control. The target began to move forward and she could see that it was suspended on a rack suspended from a couple of wires.

  “When we go inside and pick a firing station put your gun down on the shelf and watch me. I’m going to fire a magazine. Then it will be your turn. OK?”

  She nodded. He pulled his ear protectors into position over his ears and she imitated him. Then they went into a door into a small room like a spaceship airlock, then through a second door into the shooting gallery.

  The sound of shots increased. Bethany cut her hearing back to normal and they became quite muffled by her ear muffs.

  Bethany watched as her father pinned a large paper replica of a human torso onto a rack on wires, sent it halfway down the range, and fired a full clip of cartridges at it from his pistol. Then he replaced the empty clip with a full one from a holder at his waist and began to load the empty clip. Finally he placed that clip in the holder on his belt and gestured to Bethany to take his place. He stood to her side and a bit back watching her closely.

  She examined the remote control attached to the side of one of the partitions which hid her from the shooters on each side. She replaced her father’s target, noticing how the bullet holes all clustered near each other in the chest area, and sent it half way downrange as her father had.

  Now she loaded the first cartridge into the first of her three empty clips, going slowly and carefully. Then she loaded the second cartridge, just as carefully.

  The smell of gunpowder was strong, a bit exciting. Lesser scents included gun oil and metal.

  The third through sixteenth cartridges she loaded much faster, but human speed rather than the super speed of which she was capable. Her father was watching her closely.

  Then she loaded the remaining two clips, picked up the pistol, inserted a clip into it, and pressed the small lever on the side of the pistol to send the opened gun-barrel slide shooting forward to lock closed.

  Bethany raised the gun, following all her father’s lessons in breathing, aiming, and firing the first shot. The gun kicked back in her hand, forcing her arm to rise several inches.

  She relaxed with the gun held up at an angle and squinted at the paper target. Her shot had landed in the bull’s-eye on the figure’s chest close to but not in the small black circle in the chest’s center.

  So. Now she knew how the pistol acted in her hand. She aimed and fired again, rechecked. Much better. She holed the small circle.

  Then she began steady firing, humanly fast but much slower than she could shoot, put her empty pistol down on the shelf, and retrieved the target.

  She stepped back from the shelf to get room to show her father how well she’d done. He held it in front of him and her and just looked at it. The small black dot was completely gone.

  He pursed his lips and nodded his head, then smiled at her and held a hand up in an OK sign.

  With gestures he told her to shoot twice at the target for the remaining clip, a “double-tap” where the first shot let her know where she’d fired, then a second presumably better shot correcting for errors committed during the first shot.

  She put a new paper target on the rack and sent it downrange, loaded the pistol with her second clip, and began firing. Then she brought the target back to the firing station, took it off the rack, and stepped back.

  This time he looked at the target he held for over a minute, shaking his head very slightly from side to side. Apparently he was seeing something he found hard to believe .

  Every double-tap was in exactly the same spot so they appeared to be one bullet hole. There was a spot exactly in the center of the bull’s-eye, at each shoulder, lower down where the top of the thighs would have been, the eyes, and the nose.

  He blew out his breath, loaded a fresh target on the rack, and sent it all the way downrange: 50 yards. Then he gestured to her to shoot again.

  She’d shot too well the second time. Her father was disturbed.

  She fired this time just as fast as before, as fast as an ordinary human could pull the trigger. This time she made three deliberate mistakes, one a complete miss of the target.

  That ended the session.

  ·

  Outside he showed her three paper targets to Jimmy and his assistant.

  “She’s a natural,” he told the two men.

  “I’ll say,” said Jimmy. “How long have you been shooting, Miss?”

  She was beginning to think she’d made a mistake showing off how good she was. A real superhero would do a better job hiding her abilities. “This is the first time ever.”

  The younger man said admiringly, “You should compete! You’d blow away the competition.” He grinned. “Figuratively speaking!”

  Her father made to speak but was interrupted by a cell-phone call. He listened for a few moments, said “I’ll call you back from the car,” and hung up.

  “Sorry. Could you two finish up for me? We’ve got a situation.”

  They assured him they wouldn’t mind, b
ut they were talking to his back. Bethany hurried after him .

  They almost ran to the air car. Inside he donned his safety belts and glanced at her to see if she was doing the same. Then he lifted off.

  “Control, this is air car P-zero-zero-five-eleven. Emergency over-ride. Repeat, emergency over-ride.”

  “Roger, five-eleven. Emergency over-ride till further notice. You are go for 5000 feet as needed. Be advised this will put you in a commercial flight path.”

  “Roger that. I should not need to break 1000-foot protocols.”

  “Good hunting, five-eleven.”

  “Dispatch, this is Deputy Chief Rossiter. Fill me in.”

  Bethany stayed still and silent. Now was no time to distract her father.

  “We had a domestic disturbance 20 minutes ago. Five minutes ago the mother called 999. Her husband has kidnapped their nine-year old daughter and hurt the wife. MTEs are dispatched to the scene. We’ve also bracketed the location with two patrol vehicles.”

  “Have you dispatched air cover?”

  “Negative, sir. All units are too far away. Except you.”

  “Roger. Send me the coordinates and a vehicle description.”

  “Done, sir.”

  Two items appeared on the dashboard control screen. Her father tapped one of them. A purple line from their location to the trouble location popped into place. “I’ve got them. Out.”

  The flashers were going atop the air car. Allan Rossiter flicked a finger to the dashboard control panel and the lights ceased strobing.

  Her father said quietly, almost to himself, “We need to sneak up on the perpetrator and guide the patrol cars to him. We must hope he doesn’t hurt the girl. Now don’t distract me, please.”

  “Roger, Daddy.”

  He flashed her a brief grin and applied his attention to the air around him and to the flashing red X on his map display. Soon it was almost directly underneath.

  “Patrol units. Chief Rossiter here. I have a possible sighting, a white SUV moving fast.” He passed on the names of the street and nearest cross street of the suspect vehicle.

  “Chief, Dispatch. Can you see the license plate?”

  “Just a minute, Dispatch. It’s been a while since I used the videocam—there, I have the vehicle rear in sight. And— I think it’s—” He then read off the plate seen in the telescope view of the SUV.

  Bethany had looked out the window and could see the white SUV. She zoomed her vision in on it but got no better view than that of the telescope built into the bottom of the air car. But she did have a suggestion, after glancing at the screen he was viewing.

  “Daddy, could the 5 be a 6? Or the other way around?

  There was silence, then her father began reciting the license plate number again, saying the 5 digit might be a 6.

  “Chief, Patrols, Dispatch. We have a confirmation on the license plate. The vehicle is registered to the suspect.”

  Below them the SUV turned a corner, too fast, narrowly missing a pedestrian who scrambled back onto the sidewalk.

  Her father cursed underneath his breath, said to her “He’s heading for the freeway. That’s not good.”

  She kept her word and said nothing. He said, “Highway chases are more dangerous. And intercepts are more dangerous. All because of the speed.”

  Bethany thought about what she could do. He would see her if she rolled down the window, stuck her hand out, and zapped the tires of the SUV. But maybe she could—

  For the next several minutes she examined her ball of energy. It had gotten ever stronger as the months went by. Her body was constantly siphoning off tiny bits of energy from around her. And she’d gotten an especially large amount from the lightning bolts from an early-Spring thunderstorm.

  Hmm. Lightning bolts.

  Maybe—?

  Yes, she could do THIS. But she’d have to be very careful. Not too much energy. And released at the right time.

  A lightning bolt flashed between earth and sky, its bottom twin forks. The forks struck the two rear tires of the SUV. Black smoke roiled away from the tires as the rubber completely melted and burned. The SUV slowed suddenly, weaved left and right on the city street, and came to a halt.

  “What the fuck?!” Her father never cursed.

  Below them the driver side door opened and a man jumped out. He was pulling a girl behind him. She was tripping and almost falling. In the shapechanger’s magnified eyesight she seemed to be crying.

  The air car surged downward toward the ground. The man crossed a street and ran to a home. At the front door he kicked it in and pulled his daughter in behind him.

  Her father was now half a football field’s length from the ground. He could see the back yard of the house. As could Bethany. A high wall was all around it. Anyone leaving the house would have to climb it.

  “Dispatch, Deputy Chief Rossiter. The suspect is sequestered in a residence. I can’t tell if anyone is home.”

  He then gave the location. Within minutes a patrol car pulled up near the house. Then two more, bracketing the house from two sides, then a fourth closing off the last side of the house. From each of the vehicles police exited in the side away from the house. Each peered over the top or motor of the car, aiming a rifle or shotgun.

  Finally a large brown van arrived. It parked two blocks away from the house but where it could see the front door. Her father landed the air car near it, got out, said “Stay here” to his daughter, and entered the van.

  Bethany did so, whiling the time away with an examination of her ball of energy and reliving just what she’d done to call down lightning and control it so well. She went over it again and again until she was sure she could do it again routinely.

  About 40 minutes later her father returned to the air car.

  “I’m sorry I took so long. I’ll call your mother and have her or Ken to come get you.”

  “No. I’m staying here.”

  “It’s too dangerous. Even at this distance.”

  “No. I won’t go. I’ll stay away. Maybe I can help. Fix coffee. Make sandwiches. Something.”

  He looked as if he would argue. But Bethany had put on her stubborn face. He knew there’d be high drama if he pushed her. Time would be wasted and he had none to waste.

  “Very well. Promise me you’ll stay away from the house. If shooting starts get behind something and lie down.”

  “I promise I’ll stay a safe distance away.” A safe distance for her was very different from what he must envision.

  With that he turned away and called her mother on his cell phone. There was a good deal of discussion and he finally hung up abruptly.

  “She’ll be here right away. You stay here.” Let his ex-wife deal with his daughter, he must have thought.

  Within 15 minutes Bethany’s tall red-headed mother pulled up in her car, her clothes still covered by a white medical smock. She had no more success than Beth’s father convincing Beth to leave and had to be satisfied with her daughter’s promise to say a “safe” distance away from any action.

  After a time trying to make conversation with a daughter who answered questions with a nod or non-committal comment she went to the Emergency Medical Team truck and struck up a conversation with the med techs, checking on her daughter periodically.

  By now hostage negotiations had begun. No one was in the house but the kidnapper and his daughter. Apparently neither of them were injured. The man was stubborn in staying inside.

  One and then two more news vans showed up, parking well back from the scene of the action. News reporters, each with an attending camera operator, began to circulate.

  The sun set and darkness invaded the area. Street lights came on.

  Beth got out and wandered over to where her mother was chatting with some medical personnel. She leaned on her mother and they put arms around each other’s waists. After a while Bethany pulled away from her mother and wandered further away from the scene.

  The negotiations were not going well. The man
was increasingly demanding actions, threatening to kill his daughter and himself if they were not met. Bethany had decided it was time to take action.

  She’d been observing the scene she could see and examining online maps on her info slate which showed the area in great detail, both from the ground and the air. Now she removed her shoes, tossed them into the air car, and walked to a nearby alley and down into it. Here she was not visible to anyone .

  She squatted and leaped upward, grabbed the eave of a house, and swung herself up to thump down onto a slanted roof top. Her bare feet gave her solid footing.

  From there she progressed in zigzags from roof-top to roof-top, pausing as needed to ensure no one was looking up when she leaped. Finally she landed atop the house where the kidnapper was housed, flexing her legs to keep down the sound of her landing, and crouching down.

  There seemed to be no reaction below. But then the house was two stories and large and the man was likely in the living room. And she was in the back of the house.

  Silently she approached a dormer window facing onto the back yard. Inside it with her enhanced vision she could see an upstairs bathroom. Even to her eyes the room was dim.

  There was a screen over the window and a slightly opened glass window behind it. Bethany pried off the screen and set it down on the roof. Then she pushed the window open. Its middle bar made it too small for her to climb through, however.

  Bethany felt the press of time. Any minute now the kidnapper might carry out his threat.

  She set herself and grasped the window frame and pushed. The frame resisted for long moments but suddenly cracked from its niche in the wall. She’d been prepared for something like this and instantly reacted to keep it from falling. One of the window panes cracked but only in one long straight line. The pane did not fall out to shatter on the floor.

  Bethany removed the frame from inside the house and set it down upon the roof top. Then she eeled inside.

  She listened at the crack of the door. Hearing no alarm she opened it cautiously and slid through it. Inside she stood still again and listened some more. Nothing.