Ken Douglas - Death Glitch

“ Behind you!” Lila shouted.

Izzy spun her guns around, firing without looking. By the time she’d seen what she’d done, a scrawny, little man with a big Mac 10 was dead on the ground.

“ Good job,” Lila said.

Izzy was breathing like a freight train. She fought to slow it down. Breathing under control, she said. “You knew him, the big man?”

“ I knew them all,” Lila said.

“ Yeah, I guess I forgot.” She took in a deep breath, let it out slowly. “So how we doing?”

“ Tucker’s still out there and he’s sly as a weasel and mean as a rabid dog. He’s not his father, not as sharp and not as cool under stress, but he knows how to use a gun.”

“ So what now?”

“ Thick as soup, this fog.” Glock in hand, Lila held out an arm. The weapon, along with her hand, disappeared in the grey muck. “What is this shit?”

“ Gerald, Weed, Lugar!” Tucker Wayne’s gravel voice pierced through the fog, like it had the strength of a powerful amplifier behind it. “Wilson, Grey, Smith!” A pause. “Call out your positions.”

Silence.

“ Speak of the Devil,” Lila whispered.

“ So, all down but Tucker?” Izzy said.

“ Yeah, sounds like,” Lila said. “I have to do him by myself.”

“ No.”

“ We could shoot each other in this fog,” Lila said. “So it’s best you stay here and stay low, till I finish it.”

“ No.”

“ Don’t have time to argue, Izzy,” Lila said. “You have to stay put and let me do this.”

“ Alright,” Izzy said.

“ Good.” Still flat on the ground, Lila pointed to the left with the forty-five. “The barracks is that way. That’s where he’ll be, inside waiting.”

“ How do you know?”

“ He’s not as brave or as reckless as his father. He’ll be playing it safe. He’s dangerous, but predictable. I’ll call out when I’ve finished it.” Lila started to turn away, when a low hum rumbled through the fog.

“ I can’t figure out where it’s coming from,” Izzy said.

“ It’s everywhere,” Lila said, “like the fog.”

The fog had effectively blinded them and though the rumbling hum hadn’t deafened them, it was getting louder, like a diesel truck coming down the road, till the sound leveled off, like the truck was running full out, but never getting closer.

“ What the-.”

“ Shhh!” Izzy put a finger to Lila’s lips as shots rang out, slamming into the house behind them. Still flat on the ground, Izzy put her mouth to Lila’s ear. “You were too loud, he heard you.” Just two words, that’s all it took for Tucker to zero in on their position. He was good.

Now Lila put her mouth to Izzy’s ear.

“ You go that way,” Lila pointed left, “to the house. Find the girls. They’ll probably be upstairs somewhere. Once I finish with Tucker, I’ll come to you and we’ll get outta here.” She squeezed Izzy’s arm, then pushed herself to her feet.

Izzy got up too and watched as Lila started off into the fog. No way was she going to leave her. So she followed, expecting any second for Lila to turn around and discover her.

Tucker Wayne had barely heard Lila’s voice through the rumbling noise, he let loose a burst from the Mac 10 in the direction he thought it had come from as the noise got louder, loud enough that it made thinking hard. He had to get out of the barracks. If he hadn’t gotten lucky and taken her out, she’d come for him here.

He clenched his hands around the weapon. He hadn’t gotten lucky. She was too good for that.

He killed the lights in the barracks, turning the building dark as the night. Then, easing his grip on the Mac 10, he moved from the front of the small house, through the living room to the small dining room, then the kitchen and on out the backdoor. He knew Lila Booth very well, but as well as he knew her, she knew him. He wasn’t a coward, but he was cautious. She knew that about him. She’d expect him to be in the barracks, so he wouldn’t be.

With a hand trailing the backside of the house, the way a boy would a picket fence, so he wouldn’t lose his way in the fog, Tucker went alongside it to the south side of the barracks. There was an old sycamore off to the right and in front of the barracks. His plan, if he could find it in the fog, was to move to it, hide behind it and, with the Mac 10 on full auto, shoot Lila Booth in the back when she passed by on her way to the barracks.

He moved round the back of the house, with a hand still trailing it, to the front, then he stepped out into the fog in the direction of the tree he couldn’t see. A few cautious steps and he was there.

But now he had a problem he hadn’t anticipated. He could barely see his hand when he held it out in front of himself, much less the barracks or the main house, which was where he’d imagined Lila would be coming from.

And she would be coming. Of that he was sure. When he’d called out to his dad’s men and got no reply, he’d known she’d prevailed and they were dead. Probably Peeps and the old man as well. He was on his own and he’d need a lot of luck to survive this night.

If only that damn noise would stop and if only the bloody fog would lift.

And as if Satan himself had heard his wish, the rumbling noise quit and it was quiet, like sound didn’t exist. He couldn’t even hear his own breath. And while he was marveling at that, the fog started to dissipate and in seconds it was little more than a haze and sure enough coming through the fog like she didn’t have a care in the world was Lila Booth, looking like a wraith in the mist with that duster and a pistol in each hand.

He could shoot her down now, but the slightest movement on his part would trigger a barrage of bullets. She was panther quick and panther deadly, waiting till she passed and was at the barracks would be the safer bet. The last thing he wanted was to face her head on. That would be suicide.

Izzy had been going in the general direction Lila had set out on. She’d imagined she was only three or four yards behind, but with the diesel like noise that seemed to be coming from everywhere and the blasted fog, she couldn’t be sure.

The noise stopped.

Izzy did too.

The fog started to fade.

Lila was about fifty feet in front of her and off to the left. Izzy had been going almost in the right direction, but not quite.

The cloak of invisibility vanishing, Izzy dropped to the ground as Lila broke right, sprinting like she was running for the tape. In seconds she was at the right side of the small house that Manny Wayne had dubbed as “the barracks.” If Tucker Wayne had been in there, he’d’ve seen her, but he hadn’t shot her.

How come?

And in the flick of an instant Izzy answered herself.

He wasn’t in there.

How come Lila couldn’t see that?

If Tucker wasn’t in the small house, where was he? Izzy looked over to the main house. It faced to the southwest, the barracks was off to its right and about a half a football field in front of it, affording Manny Wayne plenty of privacy while having his security guards not that far away. Could they have missed Tucker when they’d swept through the main house? Could he have been upstairs?

Izzy didn’t see any signs of life over there, so she didn’t think so, because if he’d been there with one of those machine pistols, he’d’ve cut Lila down.

She turned her attention back to the small house. It looked almost like the house she’d grown up in with her parents. It faced to the northeast, had a large bay window dead center in the front of the house, a window to it’s right, which in the house she’d grown up in would have been her bedroom, who knew what use it was put to here. And also like the house she’d loved, there was a front porch on the left, no porch swing here. Izzy imagined a living room on the other side of the front door, but that’s as far as her imagination would take here. This wasn’t the cozy little house she’d loved. There wasn’t any love here. This was a cold place.