Colin Harrison: Afterburn

"Who walks with this?" Tony asked, standing now and folding the paper into his shirt pocket.

"We do," answered Paul.

"Who? Him?" Tony pointed at Rick.

"Where are Jones and Tommy?" asked Paul. "You said-"

"They're still driving around looking for her." Tony considered the cell phone in his hand. "This thing went dead."

Morris waved his gun. "I don't like this situation."

Paul pointed at Morris. "Call him off, Tony, he's a hothead."

Morris kept the gun pointed at Rick, smiled.

"Christina?" Rick yelled, feeling sick, blinking too much.

No answer.

"I'm going to shoot this guy, Tony!" Morris widened his stance and put a second hand on the gun.

"Call him off!" Paul cried. The room echoed.

"Why can't I hear her?" asked Rick.

"Because we got her taped up, you fuck."

"Tony!" cried Paul, in a crouch. "Tell your guy here to just slow down, right? There's a way out of this, there's-"

Morris fired.

Paul staggered. The shot had caught the top of his head. Blood fountained two feet upward out of his skull, then he dropped to the wooden floor, legs quivering. Rick stepped forward, screaming, and shot at Morris awkwardly. Morris grabbed his thigh. I can't shoot this thing, Rick thought, but he hobbled forward and emptied his second barrel. He was off again. Morris grabbed his face and fell to one knee, moaning into his hands, blood dripping down his green baseball jacket. He stood over Morris. Now I kill you, Rick breathed, mouth full of spit. You killed Paulie.

"My eyes," cried Morris. "My eyes!" Rick clubbed him in the head with his shotgun, once, the same one-armed movement as jamming a shovel into hard earth. Morris fell over, sucking breath. Rick waited. Morris moved. He hit him again, savagely, using his knees, then a third time. Then he waited. A lot of blood from the mouth and ears. Then he hit him three more times, to be sure.

Rick looked up, chest heaving, his work done. Tony was scurrying into the darkness toward the doorway, moving quickly for an old man. Rick lifted the shotgun, then remembered both barrels were empty. The pistol was deep in his coat pocket. Tony disappeared, a door banged. I can't catch him, he thought, not on this foot.

Rick walked over to Christina. She was taped heavily.

"It's me," he said softly. "It's Rick." He was going to have trouble getting the tape off with just one hand. "Wait a minute."

He trudged over to one of Morris's toolboxes and found a pair of scissors. He returned to her and laid his one hand on her head. "It's fine. Don't worry." He cut the tape carefully so that first she could breathe and then she could see.

"He's still alive! He's still alive!" she cried. "Oh God, Charlie!"

"He's your friend?" Rick followed her, kicking at a loose screw on the floor.

She stood over the man. It looked as if pieces of his backbone had been cut out. Christina put one finger on the man's face, stroking his cheek.

"My brother's dead," Rick said, voice numb. "They killed him."

"Tony got the money, the piece of paper?" she asked.

He looked at her. "Paulie's dead." He was hard and full of hate for everything and everybody, even her. "I missed you so much," he said, his voice a hoarse whisper.

She touched the old man one more time. "Is he still alive? He's still… warm."

"Not really. Not with all that blood gone."

"He's dying because of me."

"Everybody here did." He walked over to his brother. When he looked up, he saw Christina in the half-light of the doorway across the dark room, watching him. She turned to go, saying nothing, leaving Rick by himself.

He would survive, oh fucking yes! Just hold. Hold! Hold! Squeeze your legs, Charlie-boy, get the blood back up, you weakling, it's just the G-forces… He heard the gurgling rattle of his own breath

… the men yelling, then gunshots… I'm still… eyes shut, just tired. The G's on his back were… he could take them. I'm still, I am, I'm breathing, I'm here. He tried lifting his head, but the pain jolted through him. Were his eyes open? No, they weren't. Dark inside the visor. Heart felt slow. Did he tell… he didn't-no, Ellie, I… wanted me to explain, but I didn't, they wanted… not about Ben or Julia, either. He lifted his head, fell back as he went into a fifteen-degree roll, the nose of the F-4 scratched rough by a million clouds. I'll go three-sixty, the horizon line rotating clockwise, air-show stuff. Plenty of fuel. No ordnance, just two lieutenant colonels down on the desert looking up with binoculars. Watching you to be sure you checked out. Couple of stiff-assed instructors. He'd be stationed in Wiesbaden, West Germany, in a week, President Johnson getting pissed at Uncle Ho. Stand on your tail, kick the throttle to the afterburner stop, and accelerate vertically, baby, climb at Mach 1.6 for three thousand feet, eyeballs egg-shaped from the G's, then pull back the throttle and slow, slow, slow until… until you just hang in space, free, as free as anyone who ever lived, then drop a flap and let the plane fall over in the air and tumble until you reverse the verticality, nose down, no spin, no shimmy, throttling up again, this time toward the earth, death-diving, bright knife falling from heaven, the earth your sky, head pounding badly, need oxygen, he'd adjust his mask, but he could see the boy… running across a field… Charlie, come back here this-skinny legs, knees pumping… seeing it, seeing his children running in a field, the children running in the rice paddies beneath him, the fire from his nose cannon cutting a water buffalo in half, the children sinking into their deaths, but that was later and I was never… the number was two hundred and seventy-nine, as he'd figured it, a river ferry one of those times, and a bus, never told the number, Ellie, never told anyone, but I promise I… he loved children, he did, he loved when Ben and Julia climbed in bed those mornings, breath full of milk and cereal, play with us, Daddy, play with us… I will, I will, I am, I am still conscious, eyes closed, don't tell them, won't let you play the last game of the season if his mother at the kitchen sink, turning, accidentally saw him naked when he was fourteen stopped looking at him, Charlie, please call your father to dinner, Dad, I got into the Air Force one and too much, Manila Telecom sneaking back, jinking and stunting, tearing at him, pulling bloody rags out of his lungs, stock price dropping cold! I want to take a warm bath, Ellie, I'm cold, Charlie, I'm sorry, there's no-but I'm cold, Ellie, I'm very please call the guys downstairs slow heart said they can't fix it, there's no warm I'm cold here Ellie I'm fucking cold we pay eight million from a dead man's and there's no- that, that scared me, Ellie, can't feel my did you tell Ben and Julia? Even Ben? But what will you do Manila Telecom is coming I need to fax the statement to the board of directors, because I can't quite- squeezing, Ellie! standing on my heart! everything cold I'd cash out Teknetrix now before… Tower, tower, in a spin you told Ben and Julia you told them spinning dark thirsty because I can't hold it much Ellie I'm thirsty and cold, this girl they tried who is she I don't know yes, please, I am, I am, sweetie, I have my finger in the ring now, ready to pull I will, I am to avoid blackoutspin blood hurricaning in his head one and two pullring duck before ejection-

Heavy as a load of bricks, she thought as she trudged along Columbus Avenue, that's how I feel. But she'd finally decided to tell her mother. Why not? She had to tell someone. She'd been living as Bettina Bedford for more than a month now, working a few shifts as a waitress, laying low, living in her little shit room on 106th Street. Mostly she walked, staying hunched inside her secondhand coat against the fall wind, no makeup, not meeting anyone's eyes. Right now she wanted only to buy a few groceries and get back to her room. Maybe sweep a bit to calm herself.