John Miller - Upside Down

In a grand gesture, Hank pulled Millie to him and kissed her passionately before he leaned back to study her face.

He saw, but didn't see, the lines, the way her face had changed into that of an older woman. The gray in her hair mattered so little. To his heart, Millie still looked eighteen years old, with a face as smooth as polished agate. After almost forty years, he could still picture her as he'd first seen her-standing behind the counter in a department store selling perfume.

Millie looked over Hank's shoulder and tugged at his sleeve. “Look there. That child looks like…”

Hank turned. He saw a figure pedaling a bicycle furiously toward them. The helmet with the hood pulled up didn't disguise the familiarity of the drenched features. “Faith Ann,” Hank finished.

The child leaned the bike against the wall and ran into the restaurant across the street. Through the restaurant's window they could see that the child, who looked exactly like their niece, was talking to the hostess.

“It's her,” Hank said. He opened the umbrella, and they stepped off the curb. Immediately, Millie cried out and Hank knew she'd wrenched her ankle. She insisted she could walk just fine. So, supporting his wife and holding up the umbrella against the downpour, Hank looked up and down the street to check traffic. Not seeing any headlights close enough to be a danger, he walked Millie toward the restaurant. “What in the world is that child doing out in this?”

Faith Ann turned from the hostess and ran outside.

Hank asked his wife, “Where's Kimberly?”

“Faith Ann!” Millie called out.

Faith Ann saw them coming and her face filled with emotion. She waved frantically. Hank couldn't tell whether she was laughing or crying.

Halfway across the street, Hank heard an accelerating engine and tires on wet pavement as a car roared up the street behind him. There was no time to clear the thoroughfare, so he drew Millie close. Keeping himself between his wife and the onrushing monster, he formed the smallest possible obstacle and prayed the driver would go around them, since there was a world of room to do that.

He saw the child's pale, wet face-her mouth opening to scream and her eyes locked on his. He shook his head, praying for her to look away.

As Millie tightened her grip on his arm, he was aware of a sudden pressure and… the sensation of taking flight.

A single image had fueled Faith Ann's frantic dash to the restaurant. All the way over she pictured the Trammels sitting at a table in the restaurant, and she knew that, as soon as she saw them, she would finally be safe. She had almost burst into tears when the hostess told her that the Trammels weren't there, that their reservation wasn't until eight. With twenty minutes to kill, Faith Ann went outside intending to lock her bike and wait for her relatives to show. Then she spotted Hank and Millie across the street, waving at her and looking worried. Millie was leaning on Hank and walking funny. Barely able to contain herself, Faith Ann started over to meet them halfway but stopped abruptly when she heard the roar of an onrushing car. Hank froze in the middle of the street. Faith Ann glanced at the car, then back at Hank.

Unbelievably, the SUV didn't veer or brake. It just hit them. She heard the impact, saw her uncle and aunt launched up into the air, and stared after the dark vehicle, which sped off down the street.

For what felt like forever, Faith Ann stood frozen in the driving rain, stunned. Others ran into the street. Several people yelled, “Call 911!”

911. The police are 911.

Approaching cars skidded to a halt. People kept pouring out from the restaurant and the bar across the street, moving like a gathering mob toward the broken figures lying in the street.

Faith Ann reached Hank. A man wearing a jacket and tie was kneeling down beside him with his hand against Hank's neck. The man shook his head sadly, then went to kneel down beside Millie. Faith Ann looked down and saw that her uncle's left eye was open and rain was filling the socket. His face was sliced open and rosy water ran off it in sheets.

Feeling like she was being pressed under a great weight, Faith Ann left Hank and walked over to where her aunt was lying in the intersection, illuminated by the streetlight. The same man who had checked on Hank hardly touched Millie before he stood up, shaking his head. Faith Ann wondered if he was a doctor, because he didn't look all that affected by what he was doing.

Faith Ann stared down. Millie's features looked like they had been mixed up in a red batter and poured onto her head. Her limbs were at impossible angles. Faith Ann realized that she was turning away-no, that someone was holding her by her shoulders, turning her around. The kneeling man wearing the tie was looking into her eyes and talking, but Faith Ann couldn't focus on the words. “Are you all right?” he said.

Faith Ann nodded.

“Darling, did you see the accident?”

She nodded again.

“Are you with those people?”

“I'm fine,” she managed to say.

“Where do you live? Do you live near here?”

“Where are your parents?” a woman asked. She was holding an umbrella over the man in the tie, who was already soaked.

Faith Ann pointed back toward the restaurant where her bike was. It wasn't anything she thought about before she did it. She just didn't want to talk to the man any longer.

“She lives in the neighborhood,” the woman told the man. “She'll be fine.”

“Go on home,” he told Faith Ann calmly. “This isn't anything for you to see.”

She took a few steps, then looked back to where cars had stopped and people were getting out of them. Through the rain, she saw the strangest-looking man limping toward the intersection. He wore a long raincoat, a white cowboy hat, and matching boots, and he was using a walking cane for balance.

The man in the white cowboy hat removed his coat to expose a bright red suit with white accents. His belt was also bright white. He spread the coat over the body in the wet street as gently as a mother might cover her sleeping child, then went to Hank and knelt beside him.

A siren was wailing in the distance. Faith Ann turned back to the restaurant and joined the crowd on the sidewalk beneath the awning. She moved to her bike and put a hand on the crossbar. She tucked her wet hair behind her ears and snugged her hood.

She saw the blue lights approaching, but she remained standing there because she had absolutely no notion of what else to do.

Paulus Styer hadn't planned to run down the Trammels with the Rover. He despised the sloppiness of it. He liked precision, especially in his wet work.

He had the stolen taxicab waiting nearby with his driver, the second man. Up until the kid showed up out of nowhere, again, and screwed everything, the plan had been to see that Nicky Green never got to the restaurant. Then, when Green didn't show up, the Trammels would have called a cab, and Styer's taxi would have picked them up. He'd have met the cab a few blocks away and clipped them while they were still in the backseat. His stocky accomplice in the Lexus, two blocks away, was the plan's wild card-ready to do whatever Styer needed him to do. When Styer saw the Trammels come out of the bar and spot that kid, he knew instantly the plan was dead, so he'd pulled out of his parking space and mowed them down.

He was glad the child hadn't run out to meet them, because he would have had no choice but to hit all three.

After hitting the Trammels, Styer sped off, stopping only after he was far enough away to safely hand off the vehicle to his second accomplice for disposal. He had climbed out of the Rover and walked briskly on a parallel street back to the accident scene. Once there, he took a few seconds to admire his handiwork. The Trammel woman was obviously dead. Hank wasn't yet, but he would soon be.