Jackson Bell - Trigger Finger

She looked up at me.

“We have to let her finish out the school day,” she said.

“No,” I said. “You guys need to leave now.”

I shoved the pistol and a box of bullets I’d picked up at Wal-Mart on the way home across the table at her.

“I’ll help you pack,” I told her. “I have a feeling he’s coming tonight.”

Today—this evening, really—Dr. Koenig wore a suit. The remnants of one, more accurately; the wrinkled trousers screamed for a visit to the drycleaner’s and the white shirt begged to tag along. He had rolled the sleeves up to his elbows, the collar unbuttoned, the red and blue striped tie loosened to reveal the collar of a crewneck undershirt. When he shifted in his chair, the faintest outlines of a sweat stain showed through around the white collar. It was April now, and growing warmer every day. The blast-furnace days of summer stirred in the near future.

He started in about me not bringing Allie almost right away, but he stopped when I told him I had a plan for ending all this. I told him I’d sent her and Abby to Pennsylvania. Now he crossed one leg over the other and tapped his pen on his legal pad, frowning. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

I nodded. “It’s the only idea. He won’t hurt them if they’re not home.”

“This is the man—the creature, really—who makes golems and sends them after you.”

I nodded.

“What makes you so sure he won’t send golems after them?”

“Because he’s had a million opportunities to do that and he hasn’t tried it,” I said. “I get up in the morning and I go to work. I stay at the office all day, sometimes part of the night. We live out in bumfuck, so if he wanted a shot at them…”

I turned my palms up to the ceiling and shrugged.

“…then I couldn’t stop him. It’s always been like that. He wants us all together. Because this… thing he wants to do only has power if I’m there to watch. He doesn’t just want to destroy my family, Doc. He wants to destroy my soul. Everything I am. He wants this to be my fault. He wants to show me. Because I am defiant.”

“So your plan is…”

“I’m going to throw down,” I said. “Tonight.”

Southern Rifleman , another tight little tube. I had switched plastic covers to one less clear, but also less clingy. The translucent but textured plastic cover allowed me to roll it any way I wanted and it wouldn’t bind. I rolled it now.

“I’m going to lock and load and I’m going to sit on my stairs and I’m going to say game on, bitch, bring it. Don’t send your people out here, you pussy, you come out here yourself.”

“And he’s just going to… come?”

I raised my head and lowered it in a slow but certain nod. It did sound a little crazy, spoken aloud—but I believed it.

“He is.”

“How do you know this?”

“You ever have a gut feeling about something and you know you’re right, you just can’t put your finger on how you know you’re right? Like, have you ever had a patient and before you’ve talked to him five minutes, you know he’s crazy?”

The stare he gave me in reply told me very clearly that I was just such a patient.

“That’s it,” I said. “I’ve been having this rape dream for months, but only recently have I woken up remembering it. And I can’t help but feel like he’s coming to do it soon. It’s just a feeling Doc. Call me psychic.”

He folded his arms and studied me. I didn’t much care for the way he looked at me, because I’d looked at Brandon Cross that same way when he first told me about sliding. When he’d told me he was a Navy fighter pilot with a recurring nightmare that he was a retarded kid in Burlington.

“I want her in here,” Dr. Koenig said, completely ignoring what I’d just said, “but you’ve kind of ruined that for me by repeatedly not bringing her. So why don’t we call her and conference her in on the rest of today’s session?”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because she’s driving. I don’t want her talking on the cell phone and driving at the same time.”

“I see,” Dr. Koenig said.

“You see what? There’s nothing to see. She’s on I-95. You’re a Yankee; you should appreciate somebody not wanting his wife yakking on the cell on a road like 95.”

“It’s just interesting to me how you keep coming up with these reasons to not bring your wife to our sessions.”

“No offense,” I said, “but I have other things to worry about right now other than making you happy.”

April showers bring May flowers; the kiss of spring comes in the rain, not cold but cool, the vanguard of nature’s awakening. I had never minded spring rain nor the gray skies that normally sent me into a depressive tailspin, because they heralded winter’s permanent departure. The gray skies and rain meant no more frozen mornings. April served as a mop-up operation, locating and neutralizing the remnants of January and February. So I could deal with April showers. I could deal with them just fine.

But I had a wife and child on the road that afternoon, so on that night, April showers made me worry. After dinner, the idea that they would get in a car accident possessed me, which led me to call Allie eight times between the hours of twelve and three. When she didn’t call back, I resorted to text messages. Like the telephone calls, these grew progressively more desperate as the hours wore on. By the time my phone finally beeped at 7, my nerves had frayed so much that I jumped out of my office chair.

A text from Abby’s phone.

We’re here. Im on Abbys phone.

Why didn’t U answer my calls? I texted back.

My phone died. U on your way home yet?

Still @ office.

B careful. ILY.

I actually typed my response all the way.

I love you too.

I arrived home that night later than usual. The house stood in total darkness, no windows glowing, no exterior lights burning. Inside, I found only silence. I stood in the kitchen and listened to it.

“I’m home!” I called out.

No one answered, of course; I had sent my family away for their own safety. Tonight, it was just me. Me and this big, isolated, silent house.

This is what it would be like , I thought, if I’d hesitated. If I’d let those fuckers win.

But I hadn’t let them win. And their boss man, the Bald Man—I wouldn’t let him win, either. Instead of climbing the stairs to change, I headed directly into the basement. I opened the gun safe and took out the AK-47. I sat down at the bar and stripped it down, the way Bobby had showed me. Then I cleaned it.

Clean it good, Bobby said. Or the shit’ll jam on you. All you need is one hung-up shell casing to end your game.

I put it back together. Not a single speck of dust remained.

Looks good, he commented.

“Thanks,” I replied.

Now lock and load.

I had two magazines for the AK-47, and now I loaded each with thirty rounds of ammunition. I didn’t expect to need all of them, but a man never knew. I suspected no one in history had ever ended a fight thinking damn, I brought too much ammo.

Like the Boy Scouts say , Bobby said, be prepared.

“Damn skippy,” I replied.

When I’d loaded each magazine, I slammed one into the receiver and chambered a round. Then I headed upstairs to the ground floor. I stepped out on the porch and stood there with the door open behind me.

There was no breeze. There where my yard ended and the woods began, the trees stood stock-still, silently crowding the gravel drive down to 62. I looked at the place where the drive disappeared into the darkness and pictured the bald man.