Tim McGregor - Killing Down the Roman Line

“Maybe he’s not here,” Puddycombe said. The men exchanged looks, ears cocked for any sound. Crickets, nothing more.

Hitchens nodded at the vehicle. “He’s here.”

No one moved. Berryhill’s reluctance algaed over the rest of them, dampening their anger and grinding their momentum to a crawl. The old house loomed above, defying them.

Jim felt a tremor in his knees, a wobbliness like his legs were ready to turn and run away on their own. Nothing here seemed right. Too still, too serene.

“Do we call him out?” Puddycombe shifted the tire iron to his left hand, smeared a sweaty palm down his shirt.

“No,” Jim said. “Let’s get his attention. Who’s got the gas can?” Berryhill raised the canister for him to see. Jim nodded to Corrigan’s vehicle. “Burn that.”

The big man looked at the can then the SUV then to Jim. Like he didn’t understand what was asked of him.

“Pussy” Combat Kyle’s voice sounded alien to them all. He snatched the can from Bill and spun the lid off. Splashing gasoline over the hood, the roof and down the back, gleefully dousing it head to stern. He soaked a ring around the tires and flung the can under the FJ. Kyle produced some matches and lit the whole matchbook on fire. He flung it onto the vehicle and stepped back. The FJ went up with a great whoosh, the whole vehicle cooking in flames. Heat rolled off it in shockwaves that forced the men back. Hitchens, holding his homemade Molotov by the neck, stepped back even farther.

Kyle pranced and clapped his hands at the bonfire, deranged little arsonist that he was.

Jim turned away, letting the heat ripple up his back. He pumped the Mossberg’s action, spitting a round into the chamber. Shouldering the stock, raising the barrel to the front door.

Nothing happened. The door didn’t burst open, no one came running out. The rotten old house just stared down at them as if bored.

Is that all you got?

Puddy backed away from the fire. He couldn’t believe they had just torched the man’s car. How long until the gas tank blew? He yelled to Jim, “He’s not home!”

“He’s playing us.” Jim lowered the barrel and hailed the house. “Corrigan!”

Nothing. The only movement the mirrored flames in the window glass.

“Screw this.” Hitchens dug a lighter from his pocket and lit the rag wick of his bottle. “We’ll smoke him out.”

The bolt action in one hand and the Molotov in the other, he marched up the steps, dripping dollops of flame behind him like bread crumbs. Armed to the teeth, Hitchens kicked the door open and swung back to hurl the incendiary through the doorway.

Boom.

A muzzle flash hot on the report from the shotgun blast. The back of Hitchens’ head blew off. Brains and bone splinter sprayed over the porch.

Every man dropped to the grass.

Except Hitchens. Still on his feet with the top of his head gone, wet drapes of scalp flapping loose. Blood pulsed up over shattered teeth and spilled down the jawbone swinging loose on a webbing of tissue. It didn’t look real.

The legs folded. The body dropped to a sitting position and keeled over like a felled tree. The Molotov clunked over the steps and rolled onto the lawn. Flames sputtered in the wet grass but didn’t extinguish.

Jim tasted dirt on his tongue, he’d hit the ground that hard. Someone was screaming his head off, alternately cursing God and begging for his help in the same breath. Puddy? He couldn’t tell who.

Where the hell was Corrigan?

Sliding the gun out from under his ribs, he swung it around and propped his elbows in the grass. Drew a bead on the door and fired. The front door splintered. The screaming stopped, the screamer holding his breath.

No movement at the door. Nothing in the windows—

A flash in an upper window. Blue steel in the fire light. Gun barrels.

Jim flattened, heard the crack of gunfire. Something hot bit his calf. He didn’t stop crawling and clawing until he rolled up behind the rusting hulk of an oil tank. The sting in his leg burned hot and salty.

Something nudged his arm. Bill, hunkered into a foetal ball beside him, back hard against the tank. “Jesusfuckingchrist,” he hissed.

He gripped Bill’s arm. “Easy. You’re okay.”

“The fuck? The sonofabitch is shooting at us!” He yanked his arm from Jim’s grip. “It wasn’t supposed to go like this!”

Jim would have agreed if the sting in his calf wasn’t sizzling. He pulled up his pant leg, the calf slick with blood. Too much blood to see ho w bad it was. His heart banged away and he couldn’t slow it down, knowing too well that the faster his heart pumped, the sooner his heart pumped blood to the buckshot spray in his leg.

Berryhill was right. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. Hitchens with his head blown clean off, himself with a leg shot to hell. What the fuck were they supposed to do now?

You kill the son of a bitch. That’s what you came here for.

Jim craned his neck, inching an eye out past the shield of the tanker. Scoping the house. Nothing. The lantern still on the porch, peaceful looking. Hitchens sprawled down the steps, twisted at the waist in an unnatural way. Still and quiet. Nothing so still as the dead. The bottle nearby, its rag popping and roiling but still alight. How long before it blew?

Jim scoped the house again. “Goddamnit. Where is he?”

Berryhill snapped his head up and around, looking for the chicken-door in a spookhouse ride. He uncoiled his legs and rolled into a sprinter’s crouch. “We gotta get outta here. He’s gonna shoot us all.”

“Easy, Bill.” Jim grabbed Bill’s belt to stop him from rabbiting.

“Fuck this!”

Bill slapped his hand away. Shot up and sprinted for the road. Feet pounding loud on the earth, arms pumping. His back as wide as a bullseye.

“Bill!”

Berryhill didn’t look back, putting yards away fast. Cover him, Jim thought. That’s what they did in old war movies, didn’t they? Lay down fire on the enemy to cover Bill’s escape. He edged out from the end of the tank to favour his gunhand. Swung the shotgun up and—

Corrigan straddled the porch, bold and exposed. Rifle shouldered and aimed.

Boom.

Twelve gauge buckshot shredded Berrhill’s back, rippled up his legs. The big man pitched forward, hurtling into the witchgrass where he vanished from sight.

Jim pressed hard up against the tank, blinking madly at what his eyes just saw. Some thought buzzing around his head. Two shots. Corrigan’s weapon was double-barrelled. He had to reload, meaning he was vulnerable.

He swung around the tank and fired without even aiming. Nothing to hit but the house. Corrigan was long gone. Leaving himself open. He flattened back up against the tank and looked to his right. Hissed into the dark. “Puddy! Where are you?”

“Jim?” Puddy’s voice was shrill and disembodied in the night air. The pub owner, out there in the dark somewhere.

“Get over here.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Goddamnit Puddy, On the count of three, you come running!”

Puddycombe refused and cursed his name. Jim racked the slide, spinning out the dead hull and counted off loud and clear. One two three. He stepped out from behind the tank and fired but the trigger locked up. The gun didn’t fire.

Jim blanched. He pumped the slide to clear the jam and blasted the house without aiming.

Puddy bolted into the open and dove for cover behind the rusting tank just as Jim withdrew to safety. The barkeep’s eyes saucered in a desperate hope. “Did you get him?”

“No.”

He pumped the slide again, emptying the smoking shell. He pumped the slide one more time but all that spun out was one unfired round. Just one.