Robert Liparulo - The 13 th tribe

“Tyler, no!” Jagger screamed, cursing the bells. “Stop!”

But the rattling drew closer, and Tyler appeared. He slammed into a side of the archway, grabbing it to stop himself. He was panting hard; beads of sweat glistened on his face. Immediately his eyes found Jagger, and he grinned and bolted for his dad.

“No!” Jagger said, holding up RoboHand, which was completely useless for making a stop gesture.

He realized the woman was moving, reaching across her chest to a pocket under her arm. She produced a pistol and swung it forward, sidestepping to avoid his aim.

He adjusted…

Tyler stormed up, arms wide. His shadow fell over Jagger, and Jagger sensed his dropping toward him.

She aimed.

Jagger pulled the trigger. Click. The firing pin came down on a spent casing or an empty chamber. He pulled again. Click.

She fired.

Tyler’s face instantly changed. The smile snapped into a silent scream. His eyes flashed wide. Pain and surprise twisted his sweet face into a stomach-churning mask that would make angels weep. He flew into Jagger’s arms. His head struck Jagger’s chest and he crumpled into his lap, a rag doll.

Jagger screamed. He dropped the gun and lifted his boy, bringing his face close. Tyler’s eyes rolled, found his, and communicated too much for Jagger to bear. His head dipped, came up, as though he were gripped by utter exhaustion, seconds from sleep. Through quivering lips he said, “Da-Dad?”

“I got you, Ty. You’re okay, you’re okay, you hear me?” Jagger said, wishing it, wishing it. He cupped a hand on the side of Tyler’s head, then brushed his fingers down to touch his son’s lips, as if trying to stop what might come out-blood, last words, a last breath. His fingertips left twin streaks of crimson across Tyler’s cheek. Using the prosthesis to support his son, Jagger reached his other hand around to Tyler’s back and felt warm wetness, so much of it.

“Dad?” Tyler said, barely more than a weak groan.

Do something, Jagger thought, but all he could think about was holding his son, holding him together, keeping him here.

“You’re okay,” he repeated automatically-the words coming out on gasping breaths. He turned his head away, whispered, “No, no, no, no..”

A shadow slid over him. The woman walked near and knelt. She held the pistol close to her chest, pointed at Jagger, and reached for Tyler’s hand. Jagger turned away from her, pulling Tyler with him, but she grabbed Tyler’s wrist, turned it. His hand opened, and a small black object rolled out. She took it and glared at the thing as though it were a bug that had crawled out of her ear.

“I was aiming for you,” she said, just loud enough to be heard over the bells.

Jagger pushed his face into his son’s neck. He inhaled Tyler’s fragrance; it still smelled new, clean, free of the bitter tang of post-pubescent perspiration. But overpowering it like cigar smoke in a flower store was the sweetened coffee/metallic odor of blood, growing stronger with each breath.

“Go to hell,” he said.

His tears poured onto his son as his hand found the hole in Tyler’s shirt. He stuck his finger through and tore the material away. He rubbed bare skin, slick with the lifeblood that Tyler needed inside, not out. He ran his hand up to the bullet hole, gently pushing the blood back in. He stroked more liquid up, squeegeeing it off Tyler’s skin, back into the hole, only vaguely aware that it was the act of an insane person. No matter how fast he worked, the blood kept coming, flowing out over his fingers, cascading down.

He shifted Tyler in his arms and realized the woman and injured man were gone. He leaned his son’s head against his left bicep, stroked his face, ran his fingers through his hair, smearing blood everywhere.

Tyler watched him, lids half closed. With great effort he opened his eyes wider, questioning. Jagger read in them a need to know: What’s happening to me? And more important, What’s going to happen next?

“My boy,” Jagger whispered.

Tyler smiled.

Jagger smiled back, but he couldn’t hold it. His molars ground together, and he raised his face to the sky. “Not him, Lord,” he whispered. “Me, take me instead. Please. Not him, not him…”

He lowered his head, touching his cheek to Tyler’s. He tried to stop weeping and couldn’t. He groaned. His head rolled back, and he was looking at the stars again. “Why!” he screamed, and the word became a long, loud wail.

As if realizing their defeat for domination of the night air, the bells clanged their last and faded away.

The helicopter settled onto the slightly sloping rock in front of St. Catherine’s, and Owen climbed out. He stared at the smoking hole that used to be the front gate and realized he’d arrived too late. He leaned back into the cabin and spoke to the pilot, who switched on a joystick-controlled spotlight mounted to the nose of the copter. It bathed the destruction in white light. He started toward it and stopped.

A woman was coming out, carrying someone over her shoulder, only feet, legs, and backside visible from this angle. He pulled his pistol and saw a small handgun clutched in her fist. Squinting, she aimed it at him, each of them watching the other over the barrel of a gun.

“Stop!” he yelled over the sound of the helicopter’s engine and rotors. “I can’t let you take him.”

She twisted her torso, showing him the man she carried. It wasn’t Creed.

Owen gestured with his head for her to leave.

“Get that light off me,” she said. “Or would you prefer I just shoot it?”

He signaled the pilot, and the light snapped off.

Pointing the gun, watching him, she stepped gingerly through the rubble. When she’d cleared the worst of it she picked up her pace, heading for the garden side of the monastery. As she passed his position, she rotated to keep her eyes and gun on him, sidestepping, then walking backward.

At the end of the great wall, she stepped back into the shadows and disappeared. Owen kept his pistol aimed at the spot and slowly made his way toward the entrance.

As Jagger lowered his head and closed his eyes, the bells continued to resonate in his mind, clanging unmusically, pounding, settling into an unwavering, high-pitched tone, a scream sustained through eternity.

Something touched his head, and he raised it. Tyler was looking at him, through him, with unfocused eyes. His son’s hand slowly smoothed the hair on the back of Jagger’s head, caressing it. He coughed, too quietly to penetrate the scream that filled Jagger’s skull.

Jagger said something-Tyler’s name, soothing assurances-but the scream stole his voice as well. Then other sounds did break through, rhythmic pulses, as if from a variety of drums scattered around a pitch-black stadium: his heartbeat, footsteps pounding and echoing in the monastery, the thu-thu-thu of a helicopter’s rotors.

They’re leaving, he thought. What he wouldn’t have given at that moment for a rocket launcher. But he’d give more, he’d give everything, to save his son-to move and get him help. Move! Scratching in a deep recess of his brain, like a fingernail, was the thought that if he just stayed there, if he continued to simply hold his boy, time would stop, the badness would stop. Hit the pause button, freeze-frame this moment forever, the two of them holding each other, and what would happen next never would.

But if he moved-if he did the very thing he knew he had to, what every cell in his body except that scratching fingernail screamed at him to do-then the movie would go on, fast-motion, rushing to events he didn’t want to experience.

One of those drums in the darkness rose in volume, drawing close, then stopped. A scream-real now-reached him like a slap across his face. He looked over Tyler’s head and saw Beth frozen at the end of the terrace. She rushed forward. Her body broke up, prisming into disjointed shards. Jagger blinked his tears away, and her pieces came back together.