Daniel Palmer - Helpless

Rainy thought the boy looked exceptionally frightened. She took a cautious step backward. As she did, Rainy focused her flashlight beam on Mitchell’s hands and found the reason he looked so afraid.

“Gun!” Rainy shouted. “He’s got a gun!”

A burst of flame erupted from the barrel of Mitchell’s weapon. Rainy fell, smashing her lower back hard against the unforgiving sill. The bullet whizzed over her head. Her nostrils filled with the acrid stench of gunpowder. The fall and blow to her back took Rainy’s breath away.

Stunned, Rainy couldn’t control her slide down the stairs. She bounced down each step, slamming her back against one stair’s edge, sliding to another, and repeating the painful pattern a dozen times over on her way down. Even with her ears still ringing from the gunshot, she could hear the flashlight clattering as it tumbled into the darkness.

The dark of the stairwell turned bright again, but only for brief flashes. Rainy heard two quick pops. The bullets fired from Mitchell’s gun slammed into the stairs where Rainy’s sliding body had just been. Splintered wood peppered her face and hair. Rainy aimed her weapon at the flashes of light and pulled the trigger. Her unsteady hand jumped with the gun’s recoil. She heard a grunt, followed by the sound of a body falling. Rainy finished her slide down. She expected to slam into the stairwell wall, but Mitchell’s body cushioned her impact.

Rainy felt around in the inky darkness for his weapon. Soon her fingers brushed against something steel. Rainy pushed the weapon down the remaining stairs. Still fumbling in the dark, Rainy felt something wet and sticky to the touch. A flashlight beam lit Rainy from above. Behind her, Rainy heard a woman’s scream. She turned to see Adriana hurrying down the stairs, her flashlight beam jostled wildly with each unsteady step. The light danced back and forth, creating a miniature strobe.

Rainy could see what had made Adriana scream. Mitchell lay slumped on the landing with his back pressed up against the wall. Blood pooled around him.

Adriana reached the landing and fell to her knees. She caressed Mitchell’s cheek, shining her flashlight on his face.

“Baby! Mitchell! Can you hear me?” Adriana put her ear to Mitchell’s chest. “He’s breathing! Call an ambulance. Hurry!” she shouted.

“I’m on it,” Carter yelled from above.

“Give me your flashlight,” Rainy said. “I’m going to check the fuse box. We need light.”

Adriana handed Rainy her light. Rainy used the flashlight to look around. She could see the distraught mother stroking her son’s face with blood-covered hands. She checked Mitchell, making sure he wasn’t still armed. She also could see where she’d shot him in the shoulder. Another few inches to the right and he’d probably have been paralyzed, more likely killed.

The kid was hurt, but he’d live.

“Where did he get a weapon?” Rainy called to Adriana as soon as she reached the basement.

“It’s probably Roland’s gun,” Adriana shouted back. “Mitchell knows where he keeps the key to the gun safe.”

Rainy needed only a couple minutes to locate the fuse box. She flicked the breaker, and the basement was engulfed in light. Rainy stood in place, waiting for her eyes to adjust. She walked back up the stairs to the landing where Mitchell lay groaning. Adriana knelt by his side.

“He’s not going to die,” Adriana said, her voice desperate.

“No,” Rainy said. “He’s not.”

“You’ll make sure he’s taken care of?”

“Of course,” Rainy said. “The ambulance is probably on its way.”

Adriana walked back up the stairs. To Rainy, it looked as if she were in some sort of trance, almost floating.

“Good,” Rainy heard her say. “My boy will be all right.”

Rainy checked Mitchell’s pulse, pleased it felt so strong. Carter raced down the stairs, carrying a first aid kit.

“Found this in the kitchen,” Carter said.

“Can you hear me, Mitchell?” Rainy asked.

Mitchell just groaned.

“You’ve been shot twice. I’m going to administer first aid. You’re going to be all right. Stay with me, okay? You stay with me now.”

Rainy cut away Mitchell’s bloody shirt with scissors she found inside the kit. She protected her hands with latex gloves, then used a wad of gauze to apply pressure to the wounds. Rainy and Carter both looked up the stairs as soon as they heard a door slam.

“Go check it out,” Rainy said to Carter.

Carter bounded back up the stairs, returning moments later. He called down to Rainy. From Rainy’s vantage point, the outline of Carter’s figure standing in the doorway’s threshold looked aglow.

“It’s Adriana,” Carter said breathlessly. “She’s gone.”

Moonlight danced across the rippling quarry water. Roland was somewhere in the dark woods. Jill was nearby, too. A waterproof duffel bag rested on the quarry bottom, some sixty feet beneath the water. Roland had given Tom his flashlight. Even with the moonlight, Tom needed that light to locate the bag.

“I’m going to have to come up another way,” Tom said. He could hear Roland but didn’t know where he was standing. “The cliff is too steep for me to get back up here. I’m going to have to take the longer way out.”

“That’s fine, Tom,” Roland said. “I’ll watch your light. You just get the job done and come back to the Spot.”

Oh, you bet I will, Tom thought. With a big surprise, too.

Tom looked out over the water. He raised his arms high above his head and took in a deep breath. He kept his clothes on, opting to sacrifice some mobility for the extra layer of warmth. He breathed in four sharp, quick breaths. To build up his final oxygen supply, he gulped the air like a fish breathes on land. With his legs bent, Tom propelled himself off the quarry’s ledge and into the air.

He went into his dive, confident he’d gone out far enough to avoid hitting the railroad ties below.

Tom’s body pierced the water’s surface with barely a back splash. The air was cold, but the water was freezing. At first, Tom was too stunned to swim. The cold felt as if it had stopped his heart. But he was already ten feet deep, and his body had angled to let him dive even deeper. Tom used dolphin kicks to descend. The flashlight’s beam cut through the darkness and offered only a pinhole-sized glimpse into the infinite. He kept close to the quarry’s smooth rock wall as he sank.

In the navy, he could hold his breath longer than most other SEALs. Five minutes was his record. But out of practice he had three, maybe four minutes of surplus oxygen in him at best. To conserve oxygen, his body would soon begin shutting down nonessential functions. Eventually, the essential ones would stop working as well.

Tom’s skin went numb and blood pounded in his ears as the pressure in his head built up. It was coming, Tom thought. That irresistible, desperate need to breathe. It was coming, and a lot sooner than he expected.

Keep pushing…. Don’t give in…. Don’t try to breathe.

Tom kept his body inverted as he sank. His chest was on fire. The tightness in his throat held down the most intense pressure building up in his lungs. He might have given up and surfaced had he not reached the point in the dive where the cliff face jutted out.

Tom guessed that he’d traveled forty feet down. Perhaps as deep as fifty. Ten or so to go. Tom’s mouth began to open. Water seeped inside. Stale tasting. Frozen. Terrifying to take in. He tried to close his mouth tight. But he couldn’t control his own muscles. He was losing consciousness, too. He couldn’t resist the urge to open his mouth even more. It was ready to take in water for air.