Jackson Bell - Trigger Finger

Easy, Bobby said. Make every round count. Make sure it hits home. You need to take a head shot first thing, and it needs to be a home run.

I took a step. Then another. The door grew larger in my field of vision.

What about the Mozambique drill? I asked. Chest-chest-head?

We don’t know what we’re dealing with, here. Bullets might not even work. But if they do, only a head shot’s going to do it; most of the bad shit in this world exists in the head. So blow his off .

I reached the door. I couldn’t see on the other side of it, and I couldn’t hear the bald man anymore. For all I knew, he stood right in the middle of my kitchen, waiting for me. With his leering face.

I thought of that face, and that did it for me. I took a deep ki breath and

Found myself at Magnolia Plantation.

Brandon stared at me from across the coffee table. Every muscle in my body jerked in a sudden spasm that made the boy jump back, like I’d tried to hit him.

I glanced all around. The posters in the conference room didn’t look familiar, but on second glance, yes they did. These were the ones hanging in here this winter, when I first started coming.

I patted my chest and looked down. Trench coat. Black gloves shoved in the pockets. Yes. Winter time.

Brandon spoke, but I couldn’t understand him. I looked back and found him staring at me intensely.

“What did you just say?” I asked.

“Other world real,” he said, pronouncing that last word wheel. “This a nightmare.”

My jaw trembled. “I need you to help me, man,” I pleaded with him. “I’m in the shit right now, I can’t be doing this, I need to stay there and handle this !”

He opened his mouth to speak and

“Keep going,” Dr. Koenig said. “Go back. You can do it.”

“I was just on my basement stairs,” I said. “About to open the door to the kitchen. Then, all of a sudden I’m at Magnolia Plantation. What’s happening?”

He leaned forward. “Go back. It’s almost over. Go there and come back to me. I’m not going anywhere. Go! ”

“How?”

“Just do it!”

So I closed my eyes and I did it.

I pushed the basement door open carefully, knowing it would squeal on its hinges if I moved it too quickly—it squealed anyway, and I winced. I had meant to oil that. I had meant to oil all the interior doors in the house once upon a time, but this hadn’t ranked highly on my list of priorities as of late, so I’d let it go. The mundane, I had learned, were slippery things. They tended to escape a man.

The door squealed and I stepped into the kitchen. A faceful of cool air struck me with enough force to turn my skin to gooseflesh, which only tightened more when I got a look at the sliding glass door just off the breakfast nook.

Broken. Not opened; shattered.

A pile of glass lay scattered on the floor around the table, the remains of the door that led from the nook to the deck outside. The light from over the stove puddled in it, manifold sharp edges of broken glass catching the light and reflecting it to irregular twinkles. I looked to either side, stopped and listened. Nothing. I shuffled forward, moving past the little hooks where we hung our car keys, and I froze.

A set of Ford keys dangled from the hook. Allie’s Explorer; her keys hung right there, where they always did. And that was fucked up, because those keys were supposed to be in Pennsylvania.

What are they doing there those keys aren’t supposed to be there did she drive home did she drive all the way home tonight why didn’t she call me WHAT ARE THOSE KEYS DOING THERE

And what about my rifle? I looked down in my hands and I wasn’t holding it anymore. I looked all around and didn’t see it anywhere.

I was unarmed.

My brain jammed then, overloaded with too much conflicted information. It froze, and the rest of me froze, and in that instant I felt the huge arm wrap itself around my neck, I felt the tip of a blade poking into my side and I knew who it belonged to—the Bald Man. He’d gotten the drop on me.

Dr. Koenig slung his legal pad down on the coffee table and shook his head. He leapt up from his seat and reached across to grab me by the lapels.

“Don’t do this now! You can handle this!”

“Where’s my gun?” I asked weakly, not understanding. “It disappeared. Why are Allie’s keys…”

“Don’t think! Just go!”

Back in my kitchen.

The forearm crushed my windpipe, wiry hair abrading my chin. The knife dug into my side. I felt where the tip had actually pierced my skin, but I was so hopped up on adrenaline that it didn’t hurt, not yet.

Bobby? Cried my panicked mind. Bobby, what do I do here? Come on, man, help me!

No answer from the Bobby in my head. The man with his arm around my neck said, “Be cool, man. Chill. I ain’t gonna hurt you.”

A deep, gravelly voice. A calm voice.

A familiar voice, one I had heard before. On the radio. And on the telephone.

“I ain’t gonna hurt nobody. You stay cool, you’ll be alright.”

My struggles weakened, not so much because of what he said but because my muscles suffered from lack of oxygen. I didn’t understand where my rifle had gone, not then, but my empty hands twitched at the air as if trying to grab it. I wanted them to reach up for the hairy arm, but they didn’t listen to me. I wanted them to drive elbows into the chest of this person pulling me into him, but they wouldn’t do that, either. I wanted to fight and nothing would cooperate with me.

My body had mutinied; I’d just come along for the ride.

“You fight me, I’m gonna have to cut you. So be cool, man. Just do what I say.”

I stopped struggling then. My hands fell to my sides. Obeying him, not me.

I had never felt so terrified in my life. I screamed orders that no part of me obeyed. A man—a bald man. He was white and he was bald and I knew this without looking at him

How how how do you know this Kevin how do you know what he looks like when you’ve never seen him before

My mind upended then. Cannons and capstans and lifeboats ripped away from my listing decks and splashed into a black, frozen ocean. And just when I thought I had sailed over the edge of mindless terror, I heard a sound that told me know, I hadn’t; I didn’t know what mindless terror was. Not yet.

“Kevin? Is everything okay?”

Allie. Calling up to me from the basement.

What what what the fuck

“Tell her yes,” the man hissed. “Tell her everything’s cool.”

Call 911, run, run, run, grab Abby and go out the back get out NOW

But my mouth had deserted me, too. I understood then that the mutiny was total. I commanded nothing.

“Everything’s cool,” I called back.

I understood what was happening now. Oh yes I did.

“Go back,” Dr. Koenig said again. “I know it’s hard, but I really need you to push through this, okay? We’re out of time. We’re completely out of time.”

Midafternoon. Nobody on the bench outside, although it looked like the nicest of days. I felt then like I wanted to go out there and sit on that bench. I decided that I would. Later.

I unrolled my battered Southern Rifleman and plopped it down on the coffee table. I pursed my lips and looked down at it, squinting. I breathed deeply, but I did it through my nose. I closed my eyes.

I opened them.

I remained in Dr. Koenig’s office.

“Kevin?”

I looked up at him and shook my head.

“I don’t know what’s going on here,” I said. I was lying, but just saying that felt good. I felt like if I said it enough, it would become true again. “But I’m done.”