* * * * *
Frank started at one end of the auction yard and moved fast, popping latches and swinging the cage doors wide, bouncing from one side of the aisle to the other. Frank left the big doors at the back open, and sunlight spilled inside, beckoning the animals.
The dogs, big cats, a few wolves, and one lone hyena, mostly watched the other animals with caution before they crept out of their cages. Once the animals were out, they snapped at each other a few times, but most of them simply ran for the sunlight.
Frank stepped out of the auction yard and turned quickly, walking along the wall towards the parking lot. Two wolves burst out of the building, headed for the clowns’ trailer, and disappeared into the fields. Several lionesses slunk out, heading along the wall away from Frank. The exodus was slow at first, but more and more animals plunged into the sunlight and left the auction yard behind.
He strolled across the parking lot over to the lone car. He knocked on the driver’s side window. The window rolled down. A voice, groggy and pissed, said, “Fuck’s your problem? What?”
Frank stuck the .30-.30 into the open window and fired. Someone else inside screamed. The passenger door popped open and another other dog owner sprinted across the gravel towards the building. Frank shot the guy in the leg. The man twirled like a ballet dancer and landed hard on his side in the gravel. He saw the back doors yawning open no more than ten yards away, a possible sanctuary, and crawled over and slammed the doors behind him.
Not all of the animals had left, though, and the guy had just locked himself in the building with the rest of them. Frank got a kick out of that; he waited until he heard screaming and then reopened the doors and left them open. He climbed back into Chuck’s truck, reloaded, and drove back down into town.
* * * * *
Frank peered over the edge of the deep end of the pool and saw that the Siberian Tiger was gone. They’d either taken it or it had been able to jump clear over the fence or scrabble up one of the walls, down near the shallow end. The Komodo Dragon was curled in his corner, surrounded by Mr. Noe’s bones.
Frank climbed down into the shallow end and unlocked the fence from the ladder, and dragged the concrete blocks back, clearing a pathway for the Komodo Dragon. That long tongue shot out and it tasted the air, looking from Frank to the shallow end. It broke for the new exit, moving fast, faster than Frank had expected. He didn’t bother running for the ladder, just hoisted himself onto the deck and scrambled to the front gate. He risked a look back. The dragon’s head appeared of the edge. The vicious claws scraped concrete. It wouldn’t take long for the giant lizard to be roaming the streets.
Frank left the front gate open, climbed into Chuck’s truck, but then noticed a pickup and camping trailer in the parking lot. It wasn’t Billy’s; Frank was hoping to run into the Komodo’s owner. He pulled into the lot and stopped next to the campfire. A steel coffee pot burbled happily to itself as it rested on a blackened grate over the coals. It smelled delicious. But with all the chemicals surging through his system, Frank decided he didn’t need any caffeine. He knocked briskly on the trailer door.
The door opened. A hunter stepped out onto the steps, scratching the four-day stubble on his chin. “Morning,” he said, looking down at Frank and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
“Morning,” Frank said. “Afraid I have to take a look at your hunting licenses.”
“Hunting license?” The hunter turned into the trailer. “Greg, you know anything about any licenses?”
Frank couldn’t hear Greg’s reply. The first hunter turned back to Frank. “You’re looking for what now?”
Frank shot the hunter in the chest. The guy went down hard on his ass, legs sticking out of the trailer. Frank stepped over him and found Greg rolling off the bed, bloated white flesh spilling out over his jeans as he struggled to pull a handgun from a leather holster. Frank shot him in the jaw. Greg spun sideways and left a spray of blood against the yellow fridge.
Frank slung the rifle over his shoulder and picked up Greg’s handgun. Greg waved his own hand a little, but Frank ignored him, concentrating on the pistol. A 1911 Colt .45. Semi-auto. Frank liked it immediately. Compared to the rifle, it was small, compact. It took a while, but he figured out how to release the magazine It held seven rounds.
Greg tried to get up. He was doing a damn fine job too, despite having half a jawbone and only one lower cheek, when Frank slapped the magazine back into the gun, yanked the slide back, and shot Greg in the stomach.
It was a practice shot, and it worked beautifully. Frank admired the lethal efficiency, the simplicity of the handgun, the feel of it jumping in his hand like something alive, while Greg fell against the table, landing on his ruined jaw. Greg made a sound like a rat getting its tail caught in a garbage disposal and dropped heavily back to the floor. Frank stepped over him and poked around a little and found a full box of shells. He slung the holster over his shoulder and put the box of shells in his suit pocket. Greg was still rolling around on the floor, but he was slipping into shock and wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon.
He heard a pickup door slam outside.
Frank stepped on the first hunter’s chest getting out. A third hunter was running for the road. He must have been sleeping in the pickup. Frank decided that, as much as he liked his new .45, this was a job for the .30-.30. He stuck the handgun into Chuck’s jeans, pulled the rifle in snug, tracked the running man for a moment, and shot him in the base of the spine.
The third man flopped onto the single rope of chain that separated the parking lot from the highway and twitched erratically, like a worm hung over an electric fence. The guy was making a high-pitched keening sound, and it hurt Frank’s head. He walked over and shot him a few more times with the .45.
Something out of the corner of his eye made Frank look up, bringing the Colt around, ready to fire. But there, not more than twenty yards away, he saw the Gloucks’ four-wheel drive station wagon, slowly rolling to a stop. Edie was driving, Alice next to her, Annie in the passenger seat; a handful of kids were stuffed into the back. They all stared.
* * * * *
Frank stuck the pistol in Chuck’s loose belt and tried to smile as the pill walked him over to the car. He caught a glimpse of himself in the car windows and something disgusting uncoiled in his chest and he thought he might throw up. He looked like some careless butcher with a hungry tapeworm; flecks of blood, tissue, and bone were splashed across his suit and hands and face. The chassis of the station wagon was so high off the pavement he could look directly into their faces without bending over.
Annie stared through the bug-spattered windshield at the corpse on the fence and wouldn’t meet his eyes. Her expression told Frank that she didn’t care about anything, but he knew that wasn’t true because her legs were half-crossed, knees crushed against each other, calves rigid as she pushed up on the balls of her feet, fingers hanging onto each other for dear life. She felt Frank watching her, and tears spilled over the corners of her eyes and slid down her cheeks.
Alice raised a trembling hand. “Is that who…who killed Petunia?”
Frank thought it might make them feel better. “Yes.”
They were silent for a moment. “We’re going up to the lake to bury her, Frank. Would you like to come?” Alice asked.
“I can’t,” Frank said and focused on Annie. “Last night. I told you. Why didn’t you take the safe and leave?”
“Leave to where, exactly?” Edie asked. “This is our home.”
“I don’t think it’s your home anymore.”
“That’s not for you to decide,” Edie said.
“I don’t think you understand. Things have changed. Sturm—”
“We’ve dealt with Sturm for years. We can handle this.”