Chief Davis jumps left, but still catches one from the second barrel. Catches it in the face. There isn’t even a scream. There isn’t time for one. One second his face is fine, the next it’s a mask of blood and musculature, and white teeth and pieces of bone splatter on the driveway behind him in a thick and widening triangle of red liquid like his head is a ketchup packet that’s been stomped on.
By the time Ian is once again looking to the doorway Henry Dean has dropped his sawed-off shotgun to the ground and is pulling a rifle from behind the door.
Ian dives behind his car, unlatching his holster and drawing his SIG in one smooth motion. He pokes his head up briefly to get an idea of where he is in relation to Henry Dean and hears a shot explode on the air. It carries death though it sounds no more harmful than someone popping a paper lunch bag. The bullet grazes the trunk lid and chips of gray metal cut into his head and cheek.
The dog continues to bark wildly.
Ian drops to the ground again, gravel digging into his arm and his side, and tries to catch a glimpse of the man from under the car, but the angle is wrong. He can’t see anything but more gravel and the base of the house.
‘Go get ’im, Buckshot! Get ’im!’
Running across gravel. Barking. A brown blur seen from under the car.
Ian turns around in time to see the dog coming around the back of the vehicle with teeth bared, its eyes black, foam hanging from its jaw in frothy strings. It leaps at Ian and Ian has just enough time to pull the gun around toward it and pull the trigger.
There is a brief yelp and then silence.
The dog continues through the air, lifeless, and drops on top of him, its dead open mouth on his throat. Hot spittle runs down his neck. Hot blood soaks into his uniform. He pushes the dog off and it falls to the gravel with a meat-sack thump, wet and viscous, and lies there, still.
‘You son of a bitch,’ Henry says, and there is another shot. It only kicks up gravel.
Ian pulls himself up into a crouching position, making sure his head is below the level of the trunk. Inhale. Exhale. He’ll be on the porch waiting for him. He’ll have to get his own shot off quick and drop again if he doesn’t want to take one in the face like Chief Davis did. The man is fast. Inhale. Exhale.
He catches his breath in his throat and jumps to his feet, ready to take a shot. But he never has the chance.
Before he even catches sight of the man-standing at the bottom of the steps now, feet distanced, rifle pressed into the crook of his shoulder, left eye closed, aiming at where he rightly reckons Ian will pop up-there is a dull thwack in his chest just to the right of his sternum, like someone thumped him with a rubber mallet. It doesn’t even hurt. Not at first. But suddenly he can’t breathe. He inhales and hears a strange sucking sound from beneath his shirt. He looks down at himself, confused. A small dot of blood appears on the fabric. He looks up at Henry Dean to ask him just what the hell happened, but the man is heading up the steps and into his house. Ian drops to his knees, both of them popping on impact. Gravel digs into the flesh, and though he is aware of it he hardly feels it at all. He looks down again and sees drops of blood splashing to the gravel.
This isn’t how it was supposed to happen.
Then he’s face down, sucking in chalky white dust. He spits. Whenever he tries to breathe his chest makes that wheezing noise: a low whistle, like a punctured tire.
Sounds of feet on gravel stepping quick.
Ian rolls onto his side to see what’s happening.
Henry Dean is helping his wife Beatrice into a green Ford Ranger pickup truck. That seems like it should be impossible. Henry was just standing on the gravel aiming a gun at him and a curl of white smoke was slipping from its barrel. It doesn’t seem like he should have had time to go inside and get his wife and bring her outside and put her into their truck. She is crying and her right foot is covered in blood and a skin flap hangs from her ankle.
Ian blinks.
In the next moment Beatrice is sitting in the truck and the door is shut and Henry Dean is halfway up the steps leading to the house.
What’s happened to time? Someone broke time.
I need my gun. I can get him if I can get to my gun.
He rolls in the other direction. It hurts and the sharp points of stones dig into his back. He looks for his gun. There it is, just over three feet away; within reach, if he’s lucky. He puts his arm out toward it, fingers stretched. His fingers touch it. He pulls it toward him. Then wraps his hand around it. He rolls back toward the house.
Henry Dean is now dragging Maggie out the front door of the house. She is pale and thin and her nose is bleeding, but it is Maggie. His daughter. She’s so grown up. Practically a woman. And that man with his hand clutching her wrist stole her from him and stole her childhood.
Ian raises the gun in his hand.
But Henry Dean sees him and pulls Maggie to him and lifts her and uses her as a shield. She tries to pry his hands away, but cannot manage it. Blood drips from her nose and onto the man’s large arms.
‘You gonna shoot your own daughter, Hunt?’
Ian tries to aim at the man’s legs, to shoot them out from under him, but his hand is too shaky, and he is afraid of hitting Maggie. He would never forgive himself for that.
The man walks toward him, using Maggie as a shield, and once he’s close enough, he kicks the gun away.
‘Help me, Daddy! Daddy!’
She reaches for him and a bloody snot bubble grows in her left nostril and pops. Tears stream down her face. Her teeth have blood on them.
Ian reaches for her.
‘Baby,’ he says. ‘My Maggie.’
But then a boot swings toward him at great speed, a blur of motion, and kicks him in the face. Hello, darkness.
He comes to to the sound of that punctured-tire wheeze. That strange sound of air leaking from his chest. The pain is greater now, overwhelming. Something in his chest feels closed off. Like a door slammed shut. He cannot seem to breathe.
His eyes are open and staring at the back tire of his car. Rust and splattered mud. And beyond his car is Chief Davis’s car. And in Chief Davis’s car is a radio. He turns over on all fours. He grabs the rear bumper of his car and pushes himself to his feet. Chief Davis’s car is only twenty feet away. If he can get to it everything will be fine. Thompson is working the phones and if he can get to the radio everything will be fine. He takes a step and his knees buckle and he falls. First to his knees, then to his side.
Thompson is working the phones.
He has a phone.
He reaches into his pocket for his cell phone. He can feel it. He doesn’t need to get to the car. He can just call nine-one-one. He’s never been on this end of an emergency call. If he can get Thompson on the line everything will be okay.
Everything will be fine.
Henry throws Maggie into the truck and gets in after her. She looks through the back window at her daddy. She hasn’t seen him in forever and there he is. He’s lying on the gravel. He’s on his right side and his chest is bleeding and his head is tilted down to the gravel and red blood is flowing from his nose and down his face and his eyes are closed. He isn’t moving at all. His right arm is stretched out before him. It’s flat on the gravel, palm up. Several feet from it is a gun. Maggie wishes he would pick it up and shoot out one of the truck tires. He could still stop Henry. Unless he’s dead. He isn’t moving.
‘Sit down, you little bitch,’ Henry says. He grabs her by the shoulder and shoves her down into a sitting position.
The truck roars around in a half circle, spitting gravel, and heads out of the driveway. Past a man with no face. A policeman with no face. She can tell by the uniform that he’s a policeman, but he has no face. And past another policeman whose chest is a red bowl filled with a thick black liquid that can only be blood.