Stephen Hunter - Black Light

“No sir, I give you my word,” said Jimmy. “This one was my deal the whole way. It was all my fault. Old Bub had nothing to do with it. We’ll git you back to your mama in no time. You might even get to go home tonight.”

“Do you think? do you think? I miss my mama.”

An image of his mama came before Bub. She was an immense woman, usually harried, sometimes quite mean, but he loved her just the same. He remembered a time when he and some other boys had set fire to a cat after dousing it with kerosene and it had run just a little bit, screaming horribly, before it collapsed into a smoking heap, and he had felt so bad, and his mama had pulled him into her arms and rocked and rocked him and in her abiding warmth and under the ministrations of her calm heart, he had fallen asleep. That was his favorite memory.

“You just do what Mr. Earl tells you,” said Jimmy. “It’s going to be all right.”

Bub turned onto the dirt road. He paused, feeling the car slip a little into the soil.

“Go on,” said Jimmy. “Just a bit farther. I’m afraid old Earl missed it, goddammit.”

They edged ahead until they were swallowed by corn, the corn seemed to lean in from each side, like it was attacking them, and Bub had a brief spasm of fear.

“Jimmy?” he asked plaintively, feeling his voice rise just a bit.

“There, there,” said Jimmy.

The headlights prowled ahead on the dirt road, and in time they came to the state police cruiser resting on the side of the road.

“Here we are,” said Jimmy.

Earl watched as the car came slowly into view, swung around the curve, then pulled off to the side of the road fifty or so feet away. Whoever was driving switched off the engine. A little gray dust still floated in the air. The car, cooling, ticked and creaked a bit but neither of the two men inside moved.

For maybe thirty long seconds it was quiet. Then Earl switched on his spotlight, throwing a circle of illumination in the front seat of the automobile. He recognized Jimmy Pye, raising a hand to block out the harsh glare. Jimmy was blazing in the beam, his natural colors turned flame-white, his thick locks of hair golden.

“That’s bright, Earl,” he called.

Jimmy! Earl thought. Goddamn you, Jimmy, why’d you go and do this goddamned thing?

“All right now, Jimmy,” Earl called out. “You move real easy.”

“Yes sir,” said Jimmy. “Can Bub call his mama? He’s awful upset about his mama.”

“We’ll take care of that in a little bit. Now I want you to come out first, Jimmy, I want to see the gun held by the barrel in your left hand and I want to watch it tossed until it lands in the dirt. Then I want you, Bub, I want to see hands, I want to see the gun held in the left one by the barrel, I want to see it in the dirt. You got that? This is going to happen nice and easy.”

“Yes sir, Mr. Earl,” called Bub.

“Okay, let’s do it.”

“Hey, Earl, you sound like Joe Friday. This ain’t Dragnet . Hell, Earl, it’s only Jimmy Pye and his little cousin,” said Jimmy. He unlatched his door, then, showing his hands, kneed the door open and stepped out. His hands were high and empty.

“I’m going to get the gun now, Earl,” he called, and reached down with his left hand and removed a pistol from his belt. He threw it forward, where it landed in the dust, kicking up a little puff.

“Okay, Bub, you slide over, and out you come, the same way.”

Bub scooted forward along the seat and pulled himself out. Where Jimmy’s posture had been nonchalant, even arrogant, Bub was tight with tension. Absurdly, his arms flew straight up like a grade school boy aping an angel’s flight. Earl could see his knees shaking.

“The gun, Bub. Did you forget the gun, Bub?”

“Oh-unh,” came a little choke of despair and terror from the big boy, “it’s still in the car. You want me to get it?”

“Turn around, so’s I can see you’re unarmed,” said Earl.

Obligingly, the big youngster pivoted and Earl saw his belt was empty.

“Okay, Bub, you turn back around and set them hands against the roof of the car, next to Jimmy.”

“Y-yes sir,” came the plaintive cry, as Bub turned and leaned.

“Now, y’all stay like that real steady. I’m coming across, I don’t want any sudden moves.”

“Hurry up, Earl, the damn skeeters is eating me alive,” called Jimmy.

The spotlight locked on the two boys, Earl reached down and unsnapped the flap over his Colt Trooper. Then he reached back and removed the pair of handcuffs from his belt case and another that he’d stuck into the belt.

He started to walk across.

“Damn!” said Jimmy, slapping suddenly at his neck where he’d just been stung. “Goddamn bugs!”

It happened so slowly yet so fast at the same time; Earl’s eyes followed as Jimmy’s hand seemed to go back to the car but at the same time, in a maneuver that made no sense at all, Jimmy was curling, pivoting, turning and he felt himself say “Jim—” when he saw the gun and he couldn’t figure it out because the gun was on the ground, he’d seen it hit, and he saw the—

FLASH

—before he heard any noise and he felt the—

WHACK

before he heard the noise too, and then he heard the noise and saw the flash again and

WHACK

from so close, so very close, and the next thing he knew he was on his knees and somebody was running at him and he heard the noise again and it was Bub.

Bub ran at him and seemed to stop as a red spider crawled across his T-shirt front and his face was drawn and terribly tense with fear. But still he came crazily at Earl, like some kind of monster, his arms outstretched, his mouth working, his eyes wide like big white eggs, coming on as if to crush the life from Earl.

Earl fired. He couldn’t even remember drawing.

Bub went to his knees.

FLASH.

Earl turned as Jimmy fired again, then again, both misses as he slipped back into the corn. Earl imagined a sly grin on Jimmy’s face and more than anything to wipe that terrible grin away, he squeezed the trigger four more times, four booming blasts, the gun bucked in his hand, the four shots as fast as any that ever came out of his tommy gun, until the gun clicked dry.

What the hell is happening? Earl thought, not in words so much as in bright flashes, spangles, fragments of light and hot metal that danced through his mind.

Then he saw he was still in the light, still on the ground, and around him the cars towered and beyond the cars the corn towered. He slithered backwards, out of the light, waiting to be shot, but no shot came. He heard steps, the rush of corn being shoved roughly aside, the sigh of the breeze, no other sound.

He got behind the cover of his cruiser. Bub lay on his back, covered in blood.

“Mama!” Bub screamed. “Oh, Mama , hep me, please, oh Jesus, Lord, I don’t want to die.”

There was no sign of Jimmy.

Reload , he told himself, putting out the gun before him and reaching over with his off hand to unlatch the cylinder and reach for ammunition.

But he had no off hand. Or at least it didn’t work.

He looked and saw he was covered with blood. An angry black pucker oozed black fluid just below his elbow, the blood coursing down to his fingers where it dripped off. He couldn’t move the fingers. The arm was dead broken. His left side was covered in blood too, his uniform and trousers soaked in it.

Am I going to die? he wondered.

Well, if I am, goddammit, I better reload just the same .

With his good thumb, he managed to pull back the cylinder latch and shake the cylinder out. Turning the gun upward, he shook and shook until one at a time all six shells fell out. He wedged the gun between his knees and, again one by one, picked shells out of his cartridge loops and threaded them into the cylinder. Big .357 soft points. With a snap of the wrist, he flicked the cylinder shut.