John Lutz - Fear the Night

A bullet snapped past Repetto’s ear as he struggled to unholster his revolver. His hands, his fingers, felt clumsy and insensitive. He seemed to be in a different, slower time frame than the man with the rifle.

Another shot-not as loud.

The wounded cop was sitting up, firing his 9mm at the Sniper. The gun was bucking in his hand.

Suddenly realizing he was in a cross fire, the Sniper leaped from the platform onto the tracks and sprinted toward the adjacent platform for trains running the opposite direction.

A play of light and press of wind, and Repetto realized a train was roaring in from that direction on momentum, trying to make its last stop as the system shut down.

He realized it was a break for the Sniper. If he made it to the opposite platform, he’d be on the other side of the incoming train and could make his getaway.

And he was going to make it.

Not only that, he was on a lower plane now and Repetto couldn’t get a bead on him through the people lying and kneeling on the platform. Both he and the wounded cop had stopped shooting. There was no choice. Repetto had completely lost sight of the Sniper now.

The bastard was going to make it!

The Sniper knew he had it timed. As he bolted to cross in front of the oncoming train, he paused and turned to send a final bullet in the direction of Repetto, so he’d duck his head and not make a lucky shot with a handgun from that distance.

Simple risk management. How he’d survived for so long and would continue to survive and taunt his pursuers.

The rifle cracked. No chance of actually hitting Repetto, but that wasn’t the purpose of the shot. The Sniper saw Repetto lower his handgun and duck, as if on cue.

No, on cue. It was the Sniper directing this scene.

Seeing Repetto, seeing the oncoming train, seeing everything , he spun back around, lowering the rifle, and took a few confident strides, knowing his timing was perfect.

“You! Hey, bro!”

The voice again. Not a cop. Not “Hey, bro!”

The Sniper turned his head and saw a ragged homeless man. A freak, an outcast, but someone vaguely and achingly familiar.

“Hey, bro! Brother!”

Brother? Who was he?

The man raised an arm, and at first the Sniper thought he might be aiming a gun at him. But the man’s hand was empty. He simply stretched out his arm and spread his fingers wide, as if trying to reach across time and distance and touch him. As if trying to make any kind of human contact.

He did touch something.

The Sniper felt it in his heart, in his core.

Quickly he recovered from his surprise and regained his stride to cross in front of the oncoming train.

But he knew his timing wasn’t so precise now.

Repetto saw the Sniper twist his torso to get off a quick shot in his direction. He ducked instinctively, then raised his head in time to see the Sniper almost freeze and stop running.

The moment froze with him. Then the Sniper lowered his rifle, tucked in his chin, and sprinted hard to cross in front of the train.

But he seemed to be the one in a different, slower time frame now.

The decelerating train struck him squarely and he halfway disappeared beneath it.

Steel wheels, and something else, screamed on the rails as the train dragged what was left of the Night Sniper past Repetto, past Bobby, and another hundred yards down the tracks.

Repetto strode faster and faster toward the front of the stopped train, stepping around or over people who were just beginning to sense the end of danger and starting to rise. The dead Sniper was acting as a vortex, drawing everyone to converge at the same point. Even the wounded cop had made it to his feet and was trudging in that direction.

Everyone was moving that way except for a raggedly dressed man limping slowly in the opposite direction, toward the exit to the street.

Repetto noticed him and dismissed him from his mind.

He no longer mattered.

The Night Sniper murders were ended.

The city began to breathe again at night.

Dante Vanya was the lead item in the news for weeks before receding to the inside pages of the Times. Then he dropped from mention to join fabled serial killers like the Night Spider and Son of Sam in the city’s lore and history, the subject of scholars rather than of the NYPD.

Repetto returned to active retirement and a deepening relationship with Lora. They both became closer to Amelia. Almost losing her had jarred them into a different perspective and appreciation for a present that would too soon become the past.

A month after the Night Sniper’s death, Meg moved in with Alex and began a tentative relationship that was a healing process for both of them. She’d thought it was her task to teach Alex how to live and trust again, and was learning every day that she needed his help as much as he needed hers. It was for both of them a sometimes troubled and painful relationship well worth the effort, because they both knew what could be on the other side of the pain. A price for everything in life. Meg believed it. She saw it every day in her job. She saw too many people who didn’t believe it, who didn’t live it, slowly drowning. The parallel world of the cop. She could live in it now. With Alex, she’d found understanding. They’d both found understanding.

As a reward for her diligence and initiative, Officer Nancy Weaver was promoted and honored in a public awards ceremony and assigned to the Detective Bureau’s Special Investigation Division’s Major Case Squad. Her future in the NYPD appeared bright enough to blind.

The mayor recovered fully from his gunshot wound, affected a slight limp even though he’d been shot in the chest, and basked in his new status as the most heroic figure in New York.

Bobby Mays, who was the first to suspect the Night Sniper and try to alert the police, became a local, then a national celebrity. As he granted interviews and became the subject of TV and radio talk shows, public sympathy for him grew. After his national appearance on the Today Show, a fund was established to finance his medical expenses. Public sympathy would guarantee him the help he needed. A chance.

On a warm fall evening, Repetto and Lora were dining at an outside table at an Upper West Side restaurant across from Central Park. They were on the way to the theater, so they were eating light, knowing there would be a snack later that night. Repetto had declined desert and was sipping decaffeinated coffee, while Lora was working on a latte.

“Isn’t this where that young stock wizard and author was shot and killed?” she asked.

Repetto placed his cup in its saucer and glanced around. “My God, it is. Lee Nasad! I’d forgotten. Am I getting old, Lora?”

“Of course you are. We both are.”

“Everybody is,” Repetto said.

“Not Dante Vanya and his victims.”

“Point taken,” Repetto said, and raised his cup to sip.

“I called Zoe Brady yesterday to see if she wanted to meet for lunch. She put me off. She did mention she was resigning from the department.”

Repetto wasn’t surprised. He watched a young couple across the street, both in sweatsuits and wearing bright white jogging shoes. The man was pushing one of those baby strollers that held two infants side by side.

“You didn’t ask me why Zoe was quitting,” Lora said.

“Uh-uh, I didn’t. Why is she?”

“She said she’s going into private practice. She’s done enough public service and decided to earn more money. Thought she owed it to herself.”

“Maybe she does.”

“The way she was talking, my impression was we were never going to lunch together again.”

“Clean break,” Repetto said. “Good for people sometimes.”