Everyone Dies in the End #63
Susan
But now wasn’t the time to be sick, was it? She rushed to Arty and pressed her ear to the sticky blood covering his chest. It was as still as a graveyard. No, no! She covered the slit in his neck with her hands, the pressure welling blood between her fingers. She focused, intent on drawing the healing from east, west, north, and south, from fire, wind, earth, and water, to her center, through her hands, and into Arty’s neck. But there was nothing to heal and she knew it, she could feel it. Artemis was gone; there was no life in the heart, no soul in the body. She could heal, but she could not resurrect. What lay beneath her hands was a corpse, nothing more. She sobbed, a plaintive, wounded wail, and the tears wet her cheeks.
Beside her Todd’s eyes fluttered. Through the blur of her tears, the saw his handless arm shift slightly on the table. A moan escaped his lips. He’s still alive, but Arty is not. Beneath her the blood no longer welled between her fingers. He’s dead, she told herself, reminded herself. Her tears splashed onto his face, her sobs wordlessly arguing with cruel reality. Again Todd moaned and Arty remained dead. Slowly, Susan lifted her hands from the lifeless neck, and kissed the still lips. On a whim she retrieved the butcher’s knife, wiped the blade on her jeans, and slid the knife into her boot. Just so she would never, ever forget.
Susan stepped over the dead mother and placed one hand above the other on Todd’s back. She could feel the poisonous Sux inside him, but that was a good thing, because she could heal any malady that she could feel. If she had the strength. She was so tired; so, so tired. She sent the energy down her arms, through her hands, out of her body, and into Todd. He stirred, his eyes opened. She grew weaker by the moment, but Todd grew stronger. He lifted his head, shifted his arm, pushed against the table with his good hand, and sat up.
Susan stepped back, dizzied with the effort of healing. Cradling his bloody stump against his chest, Todd groaned. “Gun.”
“What?” Susan’s head swam; Todd’s voice seemed to come from the next room.
“Gun…get…me…a gun.”
“You can’t fire a…” Susan began.
“Now,” Todd grunted. “They’ll be back.”
As if to confirm Todd’s declaration, Susan heard voices outside the window.
Yes, it must be Akasia! The mother had told her to get the others. The freaking others! Oh my God. She snatched the assault rifle from the corner and put it in Todd’s good hand.
A head popped through the door leading the house’s front hall. Susan fired the .38 and the doorframe splintered. The head disappeared. Susan doubted she had hit it. Shouts came from the hall. Todd fired a burst from the assault rifle, the rounds peppering the door, the recoil walking the bullets to the ceiling.
“Go!” Todd shouted as he stood, the chair catching on the mother and toppling behind him. He sent another burst toward the door, the noise stunning in the dining room, and he backed toward the kitchen. She backed with him, her gun pointed toward the front hall.
“No,” he whispered through clenched teeth. “The back door, clear the back door.”
“Right,” she nodded. She crouched and shuffled toward the kitchen, not wanting to be seen through the window above the sink. Todd took cover at the end of the table, the M-16 assault rifle snugged to his shoulder, the barrel resting on the edge of the table. His stump bleed on the floor, and his face shown pale in the flickering candlelight. The voices from the entrance hall had gone silent. A stubby gun appeared through splintered doorsill. Blam, blam! One of the bullets punched a hole in the wall wide right of Susan. The other sped like an angry bee close by her ear, shattering a dish beside the kitchen sink.
Todd’s M-16 answered. “Go!” he repeated, and she did. Into the kitchen, just waiting for a bullet to pierce the dark window above the sink and end her life, but none did. And then she was at the back door. She flicked off the bright overhead. Maybe that would alert any one in the back yard, perhaps not, but stepping into the yard, back lit by the kitchen light was simply not an option.
She peered through the glass at the back door, guns boomed from the dining room. Todd grunted.
“Todd, are you okay?”
“Get out,” he grunted, and his M-16 fired. Slowly she opened the back door and stepped into the yard. The night was dark, clouds occluding the moon. She crouched, still. Torn between the urgency to find an escape for the two of them, and the fear of what lay unrevealed. The gate creaked, the same gate that she had opened less than eight hours ago. Had it really only been eight hours? She heard voices and thought she saw a shadow move by the gate. Inside the house Todd’s M-16 sounded off.
The shadows moved closer, creeping toward the back door, resolving into two figures, one smaller than the other. They didn’t see her, or if they did, they didn’t react. Closer still and the smaller one whispered. “They are in the dinning room. We can shoot them in their butts.” Then the voice giggled. Akasia!
They were no more than two arm-lengths distant when Susan fired. Blam, blam. Two shots in the center mass of the larger shadow. It yelped, grunted, and jerked back as if struck by a giant fist.
Susan stood, sighting down the barrel of her revolver. The little shadow quivered. “Please, please don’t hurt me,” pleaded the small girl. Susan could see her clearly now, the pretty hair, the innocence, and also the pistol in Akasia’s right hand. Susan was a kind person, at least she had been until the mother drug the blade across Artemis’s throat. She pulled the trigger once and the small head exploded.
She darted to the gate. More gunfire erupted from the house, but nothing moved in the yard beside the gate or the parking lot of the convenience store. Todd burst through the kitchen door, turned, and fired a burst at his pursuers, the flame extending a good two feet past the barrel of the M-16.
“Over here,” Susan whispered urgently. He shuffled toward her, limping badly. In the dim light, she could see the thigh of his jeans, torn and bloody. He breathed hard, staring at the back door, the assault rifle held in his one good hand. She placed her hands on the torn thigh, feeling the injured flesh beneath, unsure if she had the strength to heal it the wound. And then he pulled the leg away. “No!”
She looked up, and saw him looking down at her, his head shaking. “You don’t have the strength and I’ve lost too much blood.” Susan knew he was right, and hated herself for admitting it.
The back door creaked. They were coming.
Todd’s voice was low. “Get out of here. Get on that bike we found and ride.”
“No, I’m not leaving without you.”
“Just go, girl. I can’t drive a bike with this.” He held his stump in the air. “And I sure as hell can’t hold on. Not the way you’ll need to race that thing to get away. “
A face peeped around the corner next to the kitchen door. Todd fired a burst, the M-16 splitting the night air.
“Go. They’ll be on us in a second.”
Now there were more voices, and a shot from the door, wild in the dark, but soon Susan knew they would come at them. Come at them from the door, come at them along the side of the house, come at them in numbers they couldn’t kill.
“But…” she began.
“No buts…just go!” Todd was shouting now. “I tried to turn you guys in to Kill Dog in Charlotte
His face was but inches from hers. She could see his eyes, sense the pain in them. Whether from his wounds or his heart, she could not tell.
She nodded. “I know, Todd. I’ve always known.”
“Please, let me do this,” he whispered
She leaned forward and softly kissed his cheek. Without another word, she was up and running. Through the gate, she saw a head peek around the house, but she didn’t shoot. It wasn’t about firepower now, it was about speed. The mother had set eight places on the table. Set them before she had met Susan, Todd, and Arty. That meant there were at least six others in addition to Akasia and the mother. Too many for her, too many for Todd. Someone shouted. A gun boomed, something ripped the air beside her ear. Todd’s M-16 chattered on full auto; a ripping sound that ended in a piercing scream.
The store loomed, its white now subdued in the moonlight, now dark gray as a cloud passed over.
“Stop!” It was a man’s voice, but that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but escape. More shots cracked behind her, a bullet snapped a leave from the tree overhead, and she ducked behind the gurgling minnow tank. A round pinged off the tank, the screeching ricochet smelling hot in the cool air, and then she was behind the store.
Please be there, she prayed.
And it was. The motorcycle gleamed like a silent dream in the moonlight. Susan risked a backward glance. The minnow tank guarded the entrance, no one popped up behind it, but she knew that they soon would. Boots crunched across the store’s parking lot.
She hopped on the bike, the leather pliable beneath her thighs. She rocked the Indian to one side, kicked back the stand, and reached for the ignition. The key! The ignition was empty. Of course, who would leave a key in a bike?
“Don’t move.” It was the male voice, strong authoritative, and close. She looked over her shoulder. He was at the corner, tall, and pointing a pistol.
Why doesn’t he shoot? She thought. I’m just a meal. The bike, it’s the freaking bike. Men love their machines. The grip of the .38 was cool in her hand. He’ll hesitate. That’s all I need. But was there a round in the chamber? Had she shot five bullets or six?
Turns out it was five, and the bike did cause the man to hesitate, and the .38mm bullet pierced his chest, his lung, and threw him to the ground. Five seconds later Susan found the key in a small trap box beneath the turn signal, stomped the throttle, and rode away, the wind cool over the tears on her cheeks.
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