Ryan Jahn - The Dispatcher

She ducks once more behind the stairs, hiding in the shadows there with the weapon gripped in her now sweating hands. She can’t decide what to do. She can’t decide whether to put the weapon away or use it. If she doesn’t do this now she might not have another chance. There are strange voices upstairs, there was banging earlier, and Henry yelling.

But the plan was to wait for Henry to leave. Another couple hours, no more.

Except Henry may not leave. She has no idea what’s going on and she cannot count on things happening like they normally do.

This might be her only chance.

She’s not going to wait. When she attacks Beatrice the woman will scream. She’ll scream and that will draw Henry. When Henry comes running down to see what happened she’ll slice his ankles too. He probably won’t be down for good, but that doesn’t matter. As long as she has time enough to get upstairs and out the front door that doesn’t matter at all.

She can do this.

It can all still be okay.

The stairs creak as Beatrice makes her way down. Her breathing is heavy and somehow thick. Her feet drag across the wooden steps, and the steps sag beneath her weight.

‘Sarah?’ she says.

Maggie does not answer. She stands in the shadows beneath the stairs gripping the weapon. Her breath is still in her throat: dead air: waiting for what happens next.

Another step down from Beatrice and her right ankle is now in front of Maggie’s eyes, visible between two planks of wood. White and soft and easy to reach-easy to cut.

She can do this.

Her heart pounds in her chest.

Her face feels numb.

She can do this. She knows she can. She has to do it, so she can do it. That’s how it works. She is not too weak for what must be done. She is strong. She is strong and brave. Her daddy said so. Her daddy once told her she was the bravest person he ever met.

Beatrice lifts her left leg to bring it down next to the right.

Maggie lifts the weapon with both hands and hacks at the flesh between the boards, drawing a red line where before was unblemished white skin.

Blood splashes on Maggie’s hands and arms. It is hot. Much hotter than she expected it would be.

Beatrice screams.

Back up. Watch the sun rise from the western horizon. See clouds in the bleached denim sky once blown apart by the wind pull themselves together again. Cars reverse down streets. A shattered drinking glass reconstructs itself and flies up from a tile floor and into Roberta Block’s right hand and she sets it into a sink full of soapy water and unwashes it. A turkey vulture flies backwards through the sky. Genevieve Paulson sits in bed in her parents’ guest bedroom and tears roll up her cheeks and vanish into the corners of her eyes. Her daughter Thalia unsays something that unbreaks her heart and walks backwards out of the bedroom door and down the hallway to where her grandma is unbaking cookies. The hour hands on all the time pieces spin counter-clockwise, pulling their ticks and their tocks back out of the time stream to be spent once more. Now stop.

The same turkey vulture hangs motionless in the sky above the Deans’ house just south of Crouch Avenue like it was nailed into the blue.

For a moment everything is very still. Then-after a beat: exhale-time moves forward once more. The turkey vulture flies over the house and toward the woods, trying to catch a scent of death in its nostrils.

And Henry Dean steps through the front door of his house, keys dangling from his index finger. He’s out of beer and wants a couple-three more before heading to work. And for work. A good buzz helps the night pass. He walks down the steps and across the gravel driveway to his truck. He yanks open the door and slides the seat of his Levis across the seat of the truck, stopping behind the wheel. He starts the engine and shoves the transmission into first, releases the clutch, and gasses the thing with a booted foot. The tires spit gravel and the truck gets moving.

When he hits the street he makes a left, and then cracks the window to get a breeze in the cab of this Ford-brand oven. But he doesn’t turn on the air conditioner. Henry refuses to use an air conditioner. People managed for thousands of years without them and he’ll be damned if he’s gonna prove frail and womanish by using one hisself.

Sweat trickles down his forehead, catches on a thick gray eyebrow, and holds there a moment before rolling along the arc of hair and running down the side of his face. He smears it away with his palm, pushing it into his retreating hairline.

Then he turns left on Main Street and heads toward Bill’s Liquor.

Some ways down, through heat fumes rising from the cracked asphalt, he sees several cars parked on the shoulder of the road up ahead and pulls his foot off the gas.

‘What the hell?’

He downshifts to third, then second, then first as he approaches. Two cars from the Tonkawa County Sheriff’s Department and one from the Bulls Mouth Police Department. A sheriff’s deputy is sitting on the hood of one of the county cars, staring at nothing in particular and smoking a cigarette.

Henry brings his truck to a stop and rolls down his window.

‘Hey, dep,’ he says, ‘how the hell are you?’

‘All right, Henry. How you doing?’

‘Can’t complain.’ He smiles. ‘Hot, though, ain’t it?’

‘Shit yeah, man. Hotter’n a pussycat in a pepper patch.’

‘What’s with all the police?’

The deputy glances over his shoulder, sees nothing of concern, and leans toward Henry conspiratorially.

‘You really wanna know?’

‘No, I ast ’cause I wanted you to lie to me.’

‘Bodies.’

Henry’s face goes numb. He tries not to show it.

‘Bodies?’

‘Little girls. Two or three of ’em buried in the woods.’

‘No shit?’

‘None.’

Henry forces a surprised whistle and the shake of a head. ‘Well, I’ll be goddamned.’

‘Indeed.’

‘What kind of bastard would go and kill little girls?’

‘The sick kind. Probably raped ’em first.’

Henry feels his face go hot, feels anger clamp down on his chest like a pair of channel-lock pliers. He’s no rapist. He’s a family man. He loves his wife and would never cheat on her. Especially not with a rape to no little girls. He feels an urge to reach out his window and grab the deputy by the collar and slam his face against the metal door of the truck. Instead he nods and says, ‘Probably did. It’s a sick world. I hope you catch the son of a bitch.’

‘I’m sure we will,’ the deputy says.

‘Well, good luck to you,’ Henry says, tossing off a sharp salute.

He puts the truck into gear and lets off the clutch and presses the gas and continues south on Main Street. As soon as he knows the deputy can no longer see him the life drains from his face and his friendly expression sags into a dead scowl. The light leaves his eyes and his mouth curls down at the corners.

His mind is a gray fog which no thought can penetrate, which nothing can penetrate but an uncomprehending animal dread. But as he approaches Hackberry Street he sees Chief Davis’s car heading toward him, and behind it a red 1965 Mustang, and that clears the fog in a hurry.

They found the bodies. It won’t be long before the police figure that two plus two equals four. Even if there’s no evidence on the bodies themselves-and his guess is that with all the science they got these days the police will find him all over them-they’re on his property. He’ll be the first person they question. They may even get a search warrant. Sheriff Sizemore is friendly with some judges that might make it happen in a hurry. If they get a search warrant they’ll find Sarah. If they find Sarah it’s over.