Adrian McKinty - The Dead Yard

“Farther down there,” Gerry said. “There he goes, come on, Kit, gently does it.”

They came closer, but I couldn’t look. Have to judge by sound alone. Have to judge it just right.

I waited until I could hear his labored breath and when I felt they were practically on top of me, I let go of the goddamn tree.

Feewooo, whack.

It smacked into them with a satisfying crash.

“Fuck,” Gerry screamed as I ducked round the tree.

The branch had cracked Gerry in the skull, splaying him backwards. Kit had rolled with the blow and was getting up again but Gerry was down; he’d dropped the shotgun and his little leather pouch of shotgun shells. I jumped him, punching him hard on the nose and the throat and in his cheek and his right eye.

Then I rolled off him fast, grabbed Kit by the hair, and smacked her with a two-handed uppercut that sent her sprawling into a tree five feet away.

Gerry was fumbling for something in his pocket.

I bent down and grabbed the shotgun.

Gerry had taken out a revolver, he was trying to point at me, but he was probably seeing double from the punches I’d just given him. He pulled the trigger and the shot was so clumsy it nearly hit Kit.

“Drop the gun, Gerry,” I demanded, pointing the shotgun at him.

He pulled the trigger again, this time missing by only a few feet.

I unloaded both barrels into him at close range. They took his head off, blowing his skull to pieces and scattering blood, brains, skin, and eyes over the lower limbs of the tree. The headless torso bucked wildly for a moment and fell forward.

Kit screamed and shot at me with the 9mm.

I hit the ground, grabbed the bag of shotgun shells, broke open the shotgun, removed the spent casings, reloaded, and jumped behind the nearest tree. 9mm rounds slammed into the space where I’d just been. She was a better shot than her old man. She must have lied to Touched about going to the range. Either that or she was a quick study. The latter. Kit was good at everything.

I heard her click out an old clip and slam home a new one.

She began shooting again.

I was in a bad position here, protected by the thin trunk of a pine tree and a couple of spindly branches.

At this range a lucky shot could sail right through the trunk and take me out.

Just up ahead, though, there was a little rise and a huge fallen tree that looked like excellent cover. A big tree that had toppled horizontally into the wood in the last year or so. An old log, easily about five feet in diameter. No 9mm was sailing through that motherfucker.

Fuck it, I said to myself and rolled forward, got up, limped for it through the snow, hobbled, limped, and I was goddamn there before Kit saw that I’d made a move and managed to get a shot off.

I dived behind the thick trunk.

Heard a couple of shots thud into the wood.

I got to my feet. Looked.

And yeah, there she was. I could see her easily, reloading. I rested my elbows on the trunk, pointed the shotgun, and took aim at her. An excellent position for me, a terrible one for her. I was protected right up to the shoulders by the fallen tree. She was exposed and to kill me she’d have to aim uphill into the light snow and then get me with a head shot.

She finished reloading and saw that I was standing up.

I waved to her.

She stepped out from cover and carefully held the 9mm, aimed, shot. A bullet clunked into the trunk in front of me.

“Kit, put the gun down. I don’t want to have to kill you, but I will. If you shoot, I’ll have to shoot, and this thing is going to blow you apart,” I said.

“You killed my dad,” she said, her voice quivering.

“Kit, I’m sorry. I had to. It was him or me. He understood that, Kit. He was a soldier, like me. He knew that. Him or me.

But you don’t have to die. Put the gun down on the ground.”

She hesitated. Closed her eyes. Wiped the tears, snowflakes from her face.

“You killed him,” she screamed and she began walking towards me, to narrow the distance and get a better shot.

“Kit, stop walking and put the gun down. Do it now,” I commanded.

“You killed my dad,” she said and stared at me with those cobalt eyes, that tubercular face, those serious lips.

“Kit, I’m not kidding, this isn’t a finesse weapon, this thing will fucking kill you. Put your gun down now, and put your hands up.”

“You killed my father, he was all I had in the world,” she said, sobbing hysterically.

“Kit, listen to me. He wouldn’t have wanted this. You’ve done your best, you’ve fought the good fight, now put down the bloody gun,” I yelled.

But she wasn’t listening.

She kept the 9mm pointed at my head and walked steadily up the rise.

Sober.

Determined.

She stepped over Gerry’s outstretched arm and squinted into the snow.

Her feet were bare.

Her Hello Kitty pajamas soaked through.

The sky was clearing but there were still snowflakes on her arms and a light breeze blowing the loose strands of hair out of her face.

“Don’t do it, Kit. If you shoot at me, I’ll have to kill you. I won’t have any choice. Please. Put the gun down on the ground and put your hands up,” I begged her.

She shook her head. She was only ten feet away now. The pistol wobbled in her right fist.

“Drop the gun, Kit. Please.”

Carefully, she placed her left hand underneath the right to steady herself. She closed one eye. Took aim.

“I’m sorry,” she said and pulled the trigger.

The bullet missed by mere centimeters. I was desperate now.

“Kit, please, I’m begging you. You’ve got everything to live for, your real mother and father live in New York, Lilly and Hector Orlandez are their names, they-”

I gasped as the second bullet scorched up my left arm. It staggered me for a millisecond. It was only a superficial hit but it made me instantly react and squeeze the trigger on the shotgun.

The right barrel erupted in a spout of fire.

She fired one more time as the full force of the shotgun slammed into her, throwing her off her feet, eviscerating her, gouging a dozen holes the size of quarters in her chest and abdomen and throat.

She tumbled backwards down the slope.

“Kit,” I screamed and dropped the gun. I scrambled on top of the horizontal tree, fell over it, crashed to the forest floor, and crawled to her.

Kit was lying in the snow. Her chest was open, exposing a destroyed mass of gore that had once been her internal organs.

Blood pouring everywhere.

There was no question.

The wound was fatal. The damage to her heart alone would be enough to erase her name forever from the big black book.

“Oh God, Kit.”

I cradled her face.

She was so beautiful.

Kit, it didn’t have to be this way.

My mouth opened to speak, to say anything, to comfort her, but there were no words. Her eyes blinked. A tear fell.

She whispered something.

I leaned in. I couldn’t hear. I shook my head.

I didn’t understand.

“What?”

With a superhuman effort she finally spoke:

“I love you, too, Sean,” she said, and happy that she had communicated this thought, closed her eyes and breathed her last.

The sun rises to banish specters. They’ll watch me no more, these dead men. I’m glad. I was getting nervous under their reproach. And I’m becoming cold. The icy air penetrating through my soaked clothes. Gathering me away and into it. An ache to add to all the other aches, another rebuke for all I’ve wrought.

The sun rises over the wooded hills and clears those heralds tutting over the killing ground. Two women as well as the three men. One of them unarmed. But there was no other way that I could see. And that stupid kid, didn’t he at least get out of here?