by Connor Mccoy
His stomach rumbled again. Damn them both. Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
Jacob pushed the bedroom door fully open. With the sun having set hours ago, a set of candles on the dresser provided the room’s light.
Domino, seated on the bed wearing night clothes, looked out the window. “It’s amazing,” she said. “It doesn’t look any different. Before, when all the lights were on, we’d always look outside, and it would be as dark as it is now. For a moment it had taken my thoughts back to the way things used to be.”
Jacob concurred. Their bedroom window looked out to the western part of their property and the forest beyond. There were no outside lights in that area, so when night fell, the view was always dark, a mass of shadowy shapes amid the stars.
“Sometimes it’s easy to forget how things have changed around here,” Jacob said as he parked himself by the candlelight, which flickered as a soft breeze blew in through the open window.
“How’s Sheryl doing?” Jacob asked.
“She’s okay. She’s actually with Arnie.” Jacob smiled. “I think those two are getting along. It’s almost like…” His smile grew bigger. “I want to say it’s like a mother-son deal.”
Domino chuckled. “I can see that.” After pausing, she added, “I was thinking about how she’s coping with having to fight her first gun battle. I know we were all cheery at the dinner table, but you know how people can hide their true feelings.”
“I think she’s handling it,” Jacob replied. “I talked to her about it before. She was uneasy about it, but I think she knows she had to pull the trigger to protect us and our home.” Casting a glance at Domino, he added, “I’m just glad you two are getting along better. And I promised I wouldn’t push her on the subject any longer.”
“Thanks. I am definitely grateful that she is here. She’s going to be a big help with the kids and Arnie.” Domino settled into bed, resting against the pillows. “Say, you want to keep the window open again like last night?”
Jacob checked out the window. With the glass slid down, only the window screen provided a barrier to the outside. He pressed on the screen. Tight and sturdy as always. Mosquitoes and other insects wouldn’t stand a chance of getting inside.
“Let’s keep it open,” Jacob said as he blew out the candles.
Sheryl fanned herself. Even after a few nights at the Avery house, it was hard to get to sleep amid the warm air, although thankfully the den had a window that could stay open during the night to funnel out the hotter air. Still, she felt a little more comfortable than the last few evenings, maybe because they had taken out Sykes’s invading force.
At least she had a bed to sleep on now. There were nights during her flight to Jacob’s house when she had to sleep outside in patches of leaves under the boughs of trees. She never got much sleep. The only reason she did fall asleep was due to pure exhaustion. Her body wouldn’t let her go on unless she rested.
Arnie lay in a folded-out bed from an old sofa. He seemed very content in his slumber. He easily would drop off to sleep after Sheryl sang to him.
I know he looks scary, but he’s really sweet. However, Sheryl’s thoughts drifted to what Courtney and Brandon had told her. This man might have had a bad past. Arnie had his outbursts, to be sure. Could he be deadly? Courtney confessed it was impossible to tell rumor and fact apart.
He would wander the streets, alone. He’s killed people, left their bodies out in the open. Sheryl repeated Courtney’s words. She shivered. No, it couldn’t be. Sykes’s men were hardly the most trustworthy sort. They must have been bullshitting.
A rustling sound cut into Sheryl’s thoughts. Sheryl spun around, facing the window. The sound came from outside. Those were footsteps. They had to be.
The noise roused Arnie from his sleep. He sprang up, his eyes fixed on the window. “Who’s that?” He sounded frightened.
“I don’t know.” Sheryl was certain she wasn’t hearing things, not if Arnie heard it, too. Who could be out there? Jacob? Domino? One of the kids? No, the den lay on the way to the back door, and the den’s window was pointed toward the backyard. Unless Jacob or Domino went out the front and looped around the side, someone would have to walk past the den to take the back door, and Sheryl would have heard them.
Sheryl reached for her gun and belt.
However, Arnie was up and at the door before Sheryl could secure her belt latch. His eyes were focused on the window even as he backed toward the door.
“Arnie?” Sheryl approached him.
“Outside,” Arnie said softly, “in the dark. I want to…I want to look.”
“Sweetie, it’s very dark out there. And if it is a person, somebody we don’t know, we need to get Mister Jacob and Mrs. Domino.”
Arnie’s eyes looked distant. What was he responding to? A memory? Did something about the noise outside trigger him?
“Arnie…” Sheryl began.
But Arnie turned and fled out the door and into the hall before Sheryl could finish.
“Arnie! Wait!” Sheryl gave chase. She hoped that she and Arnie had misheard what could be out there.
A poisonous grin crossed Sykes’s features. That window had to belong to the homesteader and his gun-toting woman. He watched from a distance until the small candlelight visible through the window flickered out. The pair must be in bed now. And with the candlelight gone and all the other windows dark, now was the time for Sykes to make his move.
So, he stole along the house, walking slowly on the patches of dirt that ran across the grassy land near the homestead, although every now and then his boots would crunch on tall, dry grass.
The windows remained dark even by the time he got to the window. No one detected his approach. The people in this house must be sound asleep.
Sykes raised his gun and squinted, trying to make out human shapes through the window. It wasn’t easy to see from this distance. He walked in a little closer. Still nothing. He approached all the way to the window screen.
Peering inside, he spotted the backs of two heads. No doubt about it. This was the homesteader and his wife. The pair lay still. They did not turn around.
The window screen did not appear thick enough to deflect a bullet. From this range, the deed appeared so simple. Two shots, one for each of them, into the backs of their skulls. He might even be able to shoot open the screen, break inside, and steal their firearms. They ought to have some in that room. From there, Sykes could take the rest of the house.
His stomach rumbled again. Anger flooded into his feeling of triumph. He had to get into the house, feed himself, and recuperate after today’s debacle. And it would start by taking out these two.
He aimed his pistol. His trigger finger twitched.
Sheryl pursued Arnie out the back door. “Arnie, wait! If we’re going to do this let’s get Jacob and Domino—”
The moment she spotted Sykes she stopped talking. Arnie let out a yelp, followed immediately by an “Oh my God!” from Sheryl.
Sykes was so startled by Arnie and Sheryl’s cries that he jerked his arm upward as he fired his gun into the room. He spun around in Arnie and Sheryl’s direction. “Son of a bitch!” he cried.
Sheryl raised her own weapon, but only got off one shot at Sykes before Sykes returned fire. However, at this distance and in this darkness, neither one of them scored a hit.
“Hey!” shouted Jacob’s voice from the window. “Doms, are you alright? Are you hit?”
“Jay?” Domino called out, “Is that gunfire?”
“Shit!” Sykes turned back to the window.
“No!” Sheryl fired back. Sykes, ducking his head, ran off toward the other end of the house.
Arnie was trembling. “Shoot…shooting? Why shooting?” he asked. “Bad, bad man?” The man’s mind was trying to piece together the current situation.
“Arnie, Sweetie, go back inside.” Sheryl took Arnie’s arm. “Sykes is here.”
“He hurt nice Miss Domino, Miss Sheryl?” Arnie asked, �
��Mister Jacob too?”
“Yes, yes, he will. And he’ll hurt you too. So, please, hurry inside!” Sheryl turned to the door.
Arnie’s fists shook. “No! He won’t hurt you, won’t hurt you!” Arnie then broke into a run after Sykes.
“Arnie!” Sheryl cried, “For God’s sake, come back!”
Chapter Twenty
Jacob and Domino had hit the floor soon after that loud pop awoke them from their sleep. The pair, confirming that each of them had heard the bang, crawled toward their bedroom door. If there was a shooter just outside of their window, they had to hurry out of the room and into the hall.
“Jubilee!” Jacob cried, “Brandon! Sheryl! Courtney!” He had to warn them, and quickly. If the shooter showed up outside of their windows before they took cover…
The instant he hit the hall, he rushed to Jubilee’s room, which was the nearest one. The teenage girl already was up and at the door. “Dad! What happened?!”
“A shooter, Baby. Probably. We don’t know,” Domino said breathlessly as Jacob hurried to Brandon’s room. His son just then was arriving at the door.
“Brandon!” Jacob closed in on him. “Keep away from the windows!” He passed by his boy on the way to the den. “Sheryl! Courtney! Arnie!”
Jacob nearly ran into Courtney, who was bounding toward him from the other end of the hall. “Mister Jacob!” she cried over and over again.
“Easy!” Jacob took hold of her. “Where’s Sheryl and Arnie?”
Courtney fought to speak amid her rapid breathing. “Outside…now!”
Sykes nearly tripped as he rounded the corner, ending up in the front of the house. The moans and heavy footfalls followed him. That man didn’t sound right in the head. Coupled with this darkness, the pursuing man sounded like a bogeyman.
He was so flustered that he didn’t see the front gate until he slammed into it. He bounced off it so hard that he fell flat on his back.
“Shit!” Sykes rolled onto his side. How the hell did his plan go so wrong? His targets were right in front of him. He had fought his way all the way here. Now it all was crashing down because of some woman with a gun and whoever the hell was chasing him.
His primal instincts were taking over. Escape. He had to escape from here. He ran along the fence, but the darkness made it hard to discern if there was a gate handy. No, he would have to climb over.
“Dammit!” He started climbing onto the fence. “Dammit!” His foot slipped. He wasn’t gaining traction.
The shout of that man rang through his ears. Sykes turned. He was here!
“Holy shit,” Sykes whispered. The man wasn’t any more visible than a moving shape in the front yard.
“You!” the man shouted. “You bad man? You beat on nice Mister Jacob?”
What the hell is going on with this guy? Is he screwed in the head? Sykes couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“You stay back, boy. Run along now,” Sykes said. The man let out a moan that sounded equal parts fear and rage. It jolted Sykes down to his bones.
“Wait a minute!” Sykes finally pieced together who this guy was. “Arnie?” He was so stunned that he didn’t recognize him before, though he had spent little time in Arnold Lerner’s presence and was content to pawn him off to others when he could.
“Sykes?” Arnie spelled out the word as if remembering a long lost relative.
“Yes! Yes! It’s me! It’s me, your friend, Jimmy Sykes. I picked you up when my boys and I found you wandering on the road! I brought you here to live!” Sykes patted his chest. “Jimmy’s your friend. You know that.”
“Friend?” Arnie approached, a little slowly.
“That’s right, boy. You know I’d never hurt you.”
Arnie was close enough that Sykes could recognize the rough outlines of Arnie’s face in the starlight. “But you shoot gun in house. Why?”
“I was coming to save you, boy. I thought you were in trouble,” Sykes said. “Guy and Terri are gone. Did those people in the house kill them?”
“No! No!” Arnie pointed to the land over Sykes’ shoulder. “They go. I have new family now.”
“Well, they’re not your family, Son. I am, and I need your help. Now, what you got to do is…”
“Arnie!” Sykes turned his head. That woman who had shot at him arrived, and she still was packing.
“Miss Sheryl?” Arnie asked.
“Arnie, get away from him!” Sheryl shouted, her gun trained on Sykes. “He wants to hurt us, to kill us! Don’t listen to him!”
“Sheryl, huh? You’re the little spitfire who’s trying to mislead my boy here?” Sykes said. “Arnie knows I’ve taken care of him, housed him, fed him. He knows who his real friend is.”
“Arnie, Baby, this man is a murderer! He…he hurts people! He’s trying to trick you!” Sheryl cried.
Arnie looked back and forth between Sheryl and Sykes. “But…Miss Sheryl, Miss Domino, Mister Jacob, they are nice to me. But Jimmy is too.”
This sucker’s confused as hell. That’ll keep him from doing anything stupid to me, Sykes thought. But can I get him to turn on that lady and the rest of that bunch?
Then he thought of something. I know what button to push.
“Arnie, boy,” he said with a silky tone. “That woman’s got a nice cup of coffee for ya.”
Arnie’s eyes widened. “Coffee?”
Sheryl was puzzled. I have coffee for Arnie? What did that mean?
Suddenly, Arnie roared. “Coffee! Coffee! No, don’t hurt Arnie!” Arnie suddenly rushed toward Sheryl. “No coffee!”
“Arnie, what’s wrong?” Sheryl cried as Arnie closed the gap. He was so out of control that Sheryl had to flee onto the house’s front porch.
“That’s it, boy. She’s out to get you! She’s going to splash your face good with hot boiling coffee just like your old man!” Sykes crowed.
Sheryl then remembered what Courtney had told her about Arnie’s father. “Sykes, you bastard!” Sheryl called out. Sykes was using Arnie’s past traumatic history with his dad to sway him.
Arnie was closing in on her. The confused man easily could kill her if he got his hands on her. Sheryl kept running. “Arnie! Stop!” Should she shoot him? There was no other way she could stop him unless he heeded her words, and right now it didn’t seem likely she could get through.
However, she didn’t get to plan her next move. She was so frantic to escape that she tripped and fell off the other side of the porch, landing on the grass. The next thing she saw was Arnie looking over her from the porch.
Sheryl screamed.
Arnie clenched a fist—but he hesitated.
Fear paralyzed Sheryl. What was Arnie going to do?
“What’s going on, boy?” Sykes approached the other side of the porch. “It seems the cat got your tongue, or at least your leg.”
Maybe he doesn’t think I want to hurt him. Sheryl figured she may have a chance to dissuade Arnie. “Arnie! Don’t listen to him,” she cried. “I never would hurt you. Never!”
“It’s all a lie, boy. You think these folks really are going to keep you around? You know what you’re really like, Son. It takes a firm hand to keep you on the leash, and that hand is me.”
Sheryl sat up. “What he’s really like?” she asked Sykes.
“Arnie here has a history. He knows it. It’s swimming around in that malfunctioning head of his, even if he can’t spit it out.” Sykes slowed his pace short of the steps to the porch. “Your pop. He was mean to you, wasn’t he? You took care of him one day, didn’t you?”
Arnie shivered. “He…he hit me.”
“And you hit back, nice and good,” Sykes said. “When you finally got big enough that you wouldn’t take it anymore.”
Before Sheryl could speak, Jacob and Domino arrived from the east side of the house, fully armed with rifles. “Sykes!” Jacob cried.
Sykes swung his gun toward the nearest target—Arnie.
“Now, don’t come any closer,” Sykes said. Jacob an
d Domino halted in their tracks. “That’s right. You stay right there.”
Arnie looked at Sykes and uttered a “Huh?”
“Don’t worry, Son. It’s just a little game. It’s a game of chicken. If these folks care about you, they’ll back off. If they don’t, well…” Sykes chuckled.
“Sykes, leave him alone,” Jacob said. “He’s basically a child.”
“A child who can squeeze your heads like a cantaloupe.” Sykes backed up toward the fence.
“Believe me, I’d be doing you a favor taking him off your hands, but I’m willing to gamble that you’re too soft-hearted to let me do that.” He quickened his pace. “Now, where’s the gate out of here?” He glared at Sheryl. “You there, Missy. Over here. Find the gate and unlock her for me.”
Sheryl climbed to her feet. Jacob pointed to the fence near the driveway. “Over there,” he said grimly.
Sheryl hurried over to it. Jacob added, “I need to give her the key.”
“Throw it to her,” Sykes responded.
Jacob complied. He fished the key out, took a few steps closer to Sheryl, and tossed it to her.
“Now, get the beauty open.” Sykes stiffened up. “Now!”
Sheryl fumbled for the lock. It wasn’t easy in this darkness.
“What do you think you’re going to do now?” Jacob asked. “It’s pitch black out there. You don’t have your truck. Your men are gone.”
“The only thing I care about is getting away from here with my skin intact. It’ll be a tough night, but I’m sure I’ll find someone who’ll lend me a hand.”
“Jay, we can’t let him go. He’ll come back with another truck and more men,” Domino said.
“You really flatter yourself,” Sykes said. “You think this trash heap and you all who live in it will be worth risking my neck again?”
Sheryl loosened the lock. With the lock unbound, Sheryl pushed open the gate.
Sykes backed up toward the gate. “Well, Sweetie,” he chuckled, “I know there will be a few less to worry about when I do come back here.”