Ryan Jahn - The Last Tomorrow

‘What the hell is this guy doing?’

Sandy looks up at the deputy. The deputy is squinting at the windshield, confusion on his face. Sandy looks out the windshield and sees a large barn-red truck approaching them. It’s in their lane, and seems to him that it’s leaning toward them as it rushes forward.

The deputy honks his horn.

The truck continues toward them, straight and steady, as if it were on tracks, and rather than slowing down appears to be gaining speed.

Sandy watches it with his mouth open. He doesn’t feel afraid. He feels instead a strange exhilaration. He unconsciously grinds his bruised finger against the armrest. They’re going to crash. He’s sure of it. He’s sure, too, that the man in the truck means for it to happen. He must.

The deputy honks the horn again, then, when the truck continues undeterred, changes lanes, yanking the wheel to the left.

‘Fine, you stupid son of a bitch,’ he says, ‘we’ll trade lanes.’

Sandy watches the truck. It continues on its path. He was wrong. They aren’t going to crash. The two vehicles are going to pass without incident. It’s almost too late for anything else to happen. But something else does happen. The truck makes a hard turn toward them, leading with its rusty grille, and Sandy can see the face of the driver behind dirty glass, a fat face with a scraggly beard and yellow teeth revealed in a grimace or grin and black porcine eyes.

For a moment the world freezes.

Somewhere a feather floats gently to the earth.

Then an explosion of noise, like being inside a thunderclap. Sandy’s body is thrown forward, then to the side. The deputy makes a frightened animal noise. Something smashes against Sandy’s face. His shoulder twists with pain. The world spins, then flips upside down, all the trees now rooted in the green sky.

Sandy falls to the roof of the car.

The car wobbles. There’s a crinkling sound and the weight of it shrinks the distance between the roof and the seats. Windows explode from the pressure.

He looks toward the deputy.

The deputy is standing on his shoulders, his neck bent at a strange angle, his feet caught under the crushed steering wheel. He groans and flecks of teeth crumble from his mouth and run down his cheek toward his eyes on a tide of mucus and blood.

Sandy lies on the roof of the car, dazed. He’s too much in shock to know how badly he’s hurt, or whether he’s hurt at all.

So he simply lies there.

4

Fred leans down to the floorboard on the passenger’s side of his truck and grabs a red brick. He doesn’t know how it got there, but he’s glad he has it now. He has to make sure the folks in the deputy’s car are dead, and it seems to him the damage he does with a brick will look an awful lot like something that might have happened in a car accident, so with it gripped in his meaty fist he steps from the truck and walks toward the deputy’s car, which is upside down on the side of the road.

The wheels still spin. A dripping sound comes from somewhere. A groan.

‘Is everybody all right in there?’

Another groan.

Fred walks around the car. He leans down and looks in through the shattered side window. A sheriff’s deputy hangs upside-down, legs pinned in under the dashboard, drool and blood running from his mouth and into his eyes, into his hair. Pieces of windshield jut from his face. His mouth looks like a saw blade, teeth jagged.

‘You all right there, fella? You look an awful mess.’ The deputy manages, despite the angle of his neck, to turn toward Fred. He groans pleadingly, desperation clearly audible despite the lack of any actual words.

‘Don’t you worry,’ Fred says. ‘I’ll make it stop.’ He brings the brick down hard into the deputy’s face. There’s a strange two-stage wet sound, like something heavy breaking through a thin sheet of ice, then splashing into the liquid below. The deputy tries to scream, chokes on his own blood, and sprays a mouthful of it. He puts his arm out to block Fred, or to push him away, or to punch him, Fred can’t tell which, but the arm is broken, seems to have developed an extra elbow, and its movement is strange and somehow inhuman.

‘Don’t do that,’ Fred says. ‘It only makes it sad.’

He brings the brick down again, and again. And again.

Finally, the deputy stops moving.

5

Sandy knows he’s next, knows it without a doubt, and knowing it he knows too there’s but one thing for him to do: run. The problem is this. He feels lightheaded and sick and isn’t sure he could walk, forget running. But he thinks he’s going to have to try, because what’s the alternative? Lie here and wait to have his brains bashed in? Let’s just call the whole thing off. No, he won’t do that. He’s gonna have to run. He’s gonna have to try. And he’s gonna have to move now, right now, because the man outside the car is getting to his feet, is walking around the vehicle toward him, his feet grinding against shattered glass, and he has a bloody brick gripped in his fist, a brick he’s already used to kill the deputy.

Then Sandy sees the deputy’s revolver.

It lies on the roof of the car surrounded by blood and shattered glass and broken bits of plastic. It’s black. It has a wooden grip. He isn’t sure he knows how to shoot it, he’s never fired a real gun before, but it seems to him it offers a better chance than running. It seems to him it offers a much better chance.

He wraps his hand around the grip.

‘What d’you got in mind for that thing?’

Sandy turns toward his window.

The killer sits on his haunches, looking at him, the brick he killed the deputy with gripped in his fat hand. A long string of blood hangs from it, thick as snot.

‘Were you gonna shoot me with that thing?’

Sandy doesn’t respond. He swallows. His throat is dry.

‘How old are you?’

Sandy knows he needs to respond. Every second he can keep this man talking is a second he remains alive. But the words don’t want to leave his mouth. He feels trapped in an unresponsive body.

Finally, though, he makes himself speak: ‘Thirteen.’

‘Thirteen years old. What did you do that someone wants you dead?’

‘I,’ he swallows again, licks his chapped lips, ‘I don’t know.’

‘That’s a shame.’

The killer moves in toward him, and he swings the gun around and aims it at the man’s face. He thumbs back the hammer, having to push down with both thumbs to make it click the way he’s seen in movies. It’s more difficult than you’d think. The cylinder rotates a notch. The metal trigger is cool beneath his finger.

‘You got some fight in you, kid. I respect that. But I got no time to fuck around.’

He reaches for the gun.

Sandy pulls the trigger.

The gun kicks hard, almost causing him to punch himself in the face with it. Flame shoots from the cylinder as well as the barrel, burning Sandy’s left hand, burning his index finger. He’d expected it to be like the.22 rounds, but this was different, deafeningly loud and intense. He blinks, shocked.

The smile falls from the killer’s face. A moment later the rest of him falls too, tilts to the left and drops, hitting the moist earth like a burlap sack filled with potatoes.

Sandy crawls out of the car and gets to his feet. He looks down at the killer. The killer turns his head to look back at him, one eye opened, the other nothing but a black hole. He reaches for Sandy’s leg, grabs his khaki pants, says please. Sandy pulls his leg from the killer’s grip and kicks the hand away.

He licks his lips, aims for a second shot.

6

Fred isn’t sure why he can’t open his left eye, but knows he can’t. The world over there has vanished. But with his good eye he can see a small boy standing over him. The gun in his right hand looks enormous, like a cannon. The boy looks down at him. There should be panic in his eyes, after everything that’s happened there should be panic in his eyes, but there isn’t. There isn’t even pity there. There’s nothing in his eyes at all. It’s like someone turned off the switch. He reaches for the boy’s pants and says please. He wants to make the boy understand what’s happening to him. The boy pulls his leg away, kicks Fred’s hand. He points the gun at Fred’s face. Fred cannot believe this is how it happens. He simply cannot believe this is how it happens.