Matt Hilton: Judgement and Wrath

Caitlin Moore opened the door to her living room and stepped into Hell.

Or that's how it seemed to her for the remaining three minutes and twenty-seven seconds of her life.

The clock began ticking when she pushed the door to with a nudge of her hip and reached for the light switch with an expertly aimed elbow. It was the usual Friday evening routine. Coming home from Collinwood High School with her arms filled with books and test papers for marking, she could hit the switch every time.

Except this time blackness prevailed.

'Goddamnit,' she muttered under her breath, swinging round to place the papers down on the sideboard next to the door.

It was the creaking of the easy chair by the TV that made her pause.

'Are you awake, Nate? How about giving me a hand here? The power's down.'

Nathaniel Moore was also a teacher at Miami's Collinwood High. But Caitlin's husband was a track coach and didn't have to attend the Friday evening tedium of the faculty meeting. He always got away three hours earlier, picked up Cassie from the sitter and went home. Once Cassie was tucked up in bed, and a couple of Jack Daniels were residing in his belly, Nate would doze in front of the wide screen with the Discovery Channel doing its best to cover his snores.

Routine.

'Nate?'

But tonight's routine was blasted into smithereens.

There'd be no supper. No cuddling on the couch while watching a late movie. No fondling their way to bed where a rejuvenated Nate would prove he was still a jock when it came to stamina-based sports.

'Hello, Caitlin.'

The voice was soft, but still enough to shock her to the core. She jerked, her spine knocking on the sideboard, papers spilling from the pile. That wasn't the voice of her husband.

It wasn't the voice of anyone she knew.

The easy chair creaked again, and there was a shifting of the darkness around her. The mystery voice was on the move.

She almost turned for the door.

Then she remembered Cassie.

Eight-year-old Cassie would be asleep in her room. If she ran, what would happen to Cassie? What had happened to Nate?

A flashlight was thumbed on, the beam stark in Caitlin's eyes. She croaked, throwing an arm across her face.

That rush of movement again and a hand clamped on her throat. The fingers were long and slim, but they felt like steel where they dug into her flesh. Caitlin's lungs bucked in her chest.

She had no way of resisting. Air gone, she didn't have the strength or the will to fight. She was turned in a lazy circle then ushered to the centre of the room. Sparks popped and fizzed behind her eyelids. Without air she'd be unconscious within seconds. Then the fingers were gone from her throat and she was retching: gag reflex on overdrive.

'Hello, Caitlin,' the voice said again.

'Who are you?' Caitlin gasped. 'What do you want?'

The light was still in her eyes. She couldn't make out the figure behind its beam. Did she know the voice after all?

'I want to give you a choice.'

The torch went off and darkness slapped its hood over Caitlin's head. Around her a breeze eddied. The stranger was on the move again. Caitlin swung with the breeze, trying to determine where the stranger was now.

'Do you love your family, Caitlin?' The voice was barely more than a whisper.

'More than anything. Please! Don't hurt them. I'll do anything you say.'

'Anything?' the voice sounded strangely disturbed. 'You'd debase yourself for them? You'd lie down and give yourself to a stranger?'

'Anything,' Caitlin sobbed. 'Money! You want money? I'll get you money.'

'I don't want money, nor do I want your body.'

'Then, what?'

'I told you. I want to give you a choice.'

There was a metallic click above her: a bulb being turned in its socket. Pearlescent light bathed the room.

And Caitlin saw the figure and knew that her life could be counted in seconds.

He was tall. Slim almost to the point of emaciation. His face was too pale, a wax mask that made Caitlin think of a reflection in a steamed-over mirror. His hair was silk-fine, as pale as his skin, and hung to his shoulders beneath the wide, circular brim of a hat. His coat was shabby: a long, ankle-brushing raincoat that was missing all but the topmost button. A thin silver chain looped from one side to the other, where something bulged in the pocket. On his feet were grimy deck shoes that were threadbare where his toenails pushed against the fabric.

The stranger had a look about him that spoke of sleeping under cardboard, drinking from bottles concealed within brown paper bags, and ranting at alcohol-induced phantoms.

But Caitlin knew: this was no street person who'd found access to her home. This man was the type that even the hardiest of the streetwise shunned.

Two things told her.

The silenced pistol he held loosely in his hand.

And the stone killer intensity of his eyes.

'I'm going to give you a choice,' the man offered again. 'Who will you save, Caitlin? Nate or Cassandra?'

Caitlin followed his gaze. On the opposite side of the room, two wooden chairs had been dragged from the kitchen. In each of them sat the people she loved most in the entire world.

Nate was bound and gagged. He strained at his bonds, his eyes huge. In contrast Cassandra was very still, her features lax.

A wail swelled in Caitlin's throat.

'Make your choice, Caitlin,' whispered the man.

How could she? How could she? How?…

'Cassandra has been anaesthetised,' the stranger said. 'If you choose Nathaniel she will never know. Do I kill her, Caitlin?'

Nate's veins were standing out on his temples like blue ropes. He was shaking his head in denial. Caitlin met his eyes and he sank back in the chair.

'Please,' Caitlin said, 'don't harm our daughter.'

The stranger nodded. Then shot Nate in the forehead.

'You made the best choice. Your child will be safe now, Caitlin. You can rest easy.'

Then he lifted the gun to Caitlin's face.

Sometimes you make rash decisions that you instantly regret. Other times you just have to go with the flow.

Like when I walked into Shuggie's Shack — a roadhouse north of Tampa, Florida — and parked myself on a stool at the corner of the warped and stained bar.

Shuggie's is the kind of place that self-respecting souls avoid unless they're dragged inside by the hair. The tables are planks nailed to barrels, seats 1970s retro-vinyl from the first time around. The atmosphere is redolent with beer fumes and cigarette smoke, and the stench of unwashed bodies. Tattoos seem to be the order of the day. Muscles and hair, too. And that's just the women.

You finish your meal of grease over-easy, and the kind of gratuity you offer the staff is thanks that you get out with your face still intact.

I was made as a cop by every man, woman and beast in the place within the time it took me to catch the bartender's eye. Every last one of them was wrong, but I wasn't averse to letting them wonder.

'Beer,' I said. There didn't seem to be any choice. It was that, or chance the brown liquid masquerading as liquor in the dusty bottles arranged on the shelf behind the cash register.