Paul Cleave - Joe Victim

Melissa stops firing. People are running in all sorts of directions.

He peers around the edge of the door and back up at the church just in time to see Joe and Melissa disappear inside. The old man who was trying to talk to Joe is still standing on the stairs. He looks unsure of what to do. Schroder knows the feeling.

He tucks the gun under his arm and reaches for his cell phone. He dials one-one-one. “This is Carl Schroder,” he says. “I’m currently under fire from two suspects-Joe Middleton and Melissa X. Send backup,” he says, then gives the name of the church and hangs up.

He drops the phone back into his pocket. He still hasn’t called his wife. Why the hell did he keep putting that off? If this were an episode of The Cleaner, then that’d mean he’s about to get shot. That’s how TV works-you start talking about a cop who has a family, and two minutes later that guy’s starfished on the ground with blood running out of him. He points the gun ahead and makes his way out from behind his car. He has a promise that he has to keep.

She knew this was a mistake. Should never have come here. Hell, for that matter she should never have helped Joe escape. She could have gone anywhere, just her and Abigail. Only now she’s backed into a church and no doubt the police will be on their way. She has about twelve bullets left and nothing else.

“Let’s go back out the front,” she says.

“He’ll shoot us,” Joe says.

“No. He’ll just try to shoot us.”

“What’s going on?” Joe’s mother asks, and Melissa thinks she could spare a bullet on her. If it came down to it, she could probably spare two or three-one into the head, then two more into the head just for the hell of it.

“He’ll do more than try,” Joe says.

“Others will be on the way. We have to do this fast. We have to go back out there and we have to shoot him and then we have to leave. We can drive a few blocks and ditch the car and steal another. Or take one of the others that’s already here. Damn it, we could have been home by now. This was a waste of time because your stupid fucking mother spent-”

“How dare you,” Joe’s mother says, and Melissa points the gun at her.

“Don’t,” Joe says.

“Why?” Melissa asks.

He opens his mouth to answer and comes up with nothing. “We can use her as a shield,” he says.

Melissa pulls him toward her and kisses him hard but briefly on the lips, then pushes him away. “You’re going to make a great father,” she says.

She grabs Joe’s mother, who resists for a few seconds, and then Joe grabs her too. They push her ahead of them toward the church doors. Melissa holds a gun to the woman’s head and Joe opens the door and then they step back outside.

Schroder has made his way to the bottom of the steps. He’s wearing a sling because his arm is broken or wounded or something. He points the gun up at them, but he has no clear shot. It’s Joe’s mom, then Melissa, then Joe-all in a straight line.

“Let her go,” Schroder says.

“Put your gun down or-” she says, and that’s when Joe’s mom stumbles, trips, then suddenly she’s rolling down the stairs toward Schroder. Joe moves to the side to try and reach her, but is too late.

For a moment both of them are exposed to Schroder.

And then two things happen at the same time. Walt steps in between them to try and reach Joe’s mom. And Schroder and Melissa open fire.

“What’s-” is all Walt can manage because a moment later Melissa’s bullet is rattling around in his wrong-on-so-many-levels skull. He stays standing as if being shot in the head is a momentary distraction, an annoyance, and then he’s waltzing down the steps taking the same path my mom took.

The shot Schroder took has gone high and wide, but he points his gun at me to take his second shot. Before he can, I pull Melissa in front of me, which ruins the shot she’s about to take, and ruins Schroder’s shot too. Instead of him shooting me, he shoots her. I can feel the impact of it.

I back into the church as Schroder takes his third shot. Another impact into Melissa and I get back through the church doors, dragging her with me. The door closes behind me. I lay Melissa on the floor next to the priest.

“You fucker,” she says.

“I’m sorry,” I say, and I truly am. “It just. . just happened that way.”

There are twin pools of blood forming on her chest. She raises her gun toward me and I reach out and take it out of her hands before she can fire it. “I can make it quick,” I tell her.

She shakes her head. Then she laughs. “I can’t believe you did this to me.”

“I didn’t mean to,” I tell her again, and it’s true.

“Abigail,” she says.

“I’ll look after her,” I tell her. “I’ll do everything right by her,” I tell her. “Where is she?”

“She’s safe,” she says.

“Don’t let her grow up without either of her parents,” I tell her, and I tell her this because I really need to know where Abigail is being hidden. I really need the safe place.

“Bullshit. You just want somewhere to hide out.”

“I promise you that’s not the case,” I tell her.

She laughs again. “I’ll tell you,” she says, “because I have no choice,” she says, and she hands me a key.

I don’t know what she means by that, but she gives me the address.

“Leave me the gun,” she says.

“No.”

“I’ll take care of Schroder,” she says. “Go out the back. Go through the cemetery. Make your way out onto a different street and steal a car, but do it now. Go now!”

I’m about to lean down and kiss her when she coughs up a small amount of blood.

“I love you,” I tell her.

“You have a funny way of showing it.”

I leave her the gun. I don’t know why I trust her, but I do. I run to the back of the church and turn to face her, but she’s not looking at me, instead she’s looking at the doors, pointing the gun toward them, and she’s talking to somebody, but I don’t know who. She laughs, and the only words I can make out are Smelly Melly. I have never in my life felt this guilty about a person. Or even guilt.

I go through a doorway into a corridor. I reach a back entrance and then I hear two gunshots that sound different from each other and then nothing. I go out the door and there’s a car parked there. It probably belongs to the priest. I climb into it. I don’t have the keys, but not having keys has never been a problem for me. I get it started and I drive around to the front of the church and there are no police cars, just people from mom’s wedding hiding behind other cars. I get out onto the street.

I keep driving.

After a few blocks I can hear sirens approaching.

I turn off so we don’t share the same road.

For the first few minutes my heart is racing so hard it feels like it’s going to pop right out of my chest. Then it starts to calm. Ten minutes into it I’m feeling pretty good. Good enough to look back over the last few hours and think that it all went really well.

I already miss Melissa.

It takes me another twenty minutes to get to the address she gave me. It’s a secluded house where the closest neighbors aren’t in looking distance. It’s a long shingle driveway and there’s a lot of land here. It’s not a modern place, but it’s not old either, and it looks comfortable. This place is going to be my home for the next few months until I can figure out where to go next.

I park around the back. I unlock the back door. I can hear a baby crying. My baby. My heart starts to speed up again. I make my way toward the sound. It’s a bedroom. I open the door. Inside is a woman. She looks to be in her twenties. Her hair is a mess. She’s wearing no makeup. She’s wearing clothes that look like they haven’t been washed in weeks. And there’s a metal chain going from her ankle to the metal pipe of a radiator. She’s trying to calm the baby, trying to feed it. This is what Melissa said when she said she had no choice but to tell me where the baby was. The woman looks up at me.