J. Konrath - Fuzzy Navel

The spiderweb gets larger. The window bends, indents. Then his foot busts through.

Phin continues to kick, widening the hole until he can slip inside, avoiding cutting himself on the glass while climbing into the front seat.

His head hurts. So does his arm. And the tumor on his pancreas feels like a piranha trying to eat its way out of his insides.

But when Phin touches the sniper rifle, he can’t help but smile.

“The truce is over, Alex,” he says.

IGET TO THE GARAGE as fast as I can, which isn’t very fast. The house feels more like a ship, rocking to and fro in the waves, making it challenging to stand. I stop in the doorway, feel for the light switch, and stumble over to the workbench.

I’m looking for the gun Phin said he dropped.

The light is just a single bare bulb, maybe a sixty-watt, and my loopy vision is further impeded by a black eye that’s puffed halfway closed. There are boxes strewn about the garage floor. Some Christmas decorations. A few books. I don’t want to let go of the bench because I’m afraid I’ll fall over, but I don’t see the gun from where I am. I’ll have to go searching.

I take two steps toward the mess, moving a box aside, peering beneath it. Nothing. The floor is cold, causing me to shiver. From inside the house, more gunshots.

Sniper fire.

I wondered if it was Phin who saved my life, grabbing one of the sniper’s rifles when he ran outside. It might have been Alex, who didn’t want anyone else to kill me because she was saving that particular pleasure for herself. Either way, I caught a break. Now I needed to capitalize upon it.

I kick away a piece of cardboard, almost lose my balance. No revolver underneath. A faint breeze tousles my hair, and I follow it and see the broken window, hidden behind the stacks of unopened boxes. If Phin dropped the gun in that maze I’ll never find it.

More gunfire. But this is from inside the house. It’s loud, even louder than firecrackers.

The Desert Eagle.

I don’t want to think about what that implies, but I do anyway. Even if the refrigerator door is thick enough to block the bullets, at close range the shooter can aim around it.

My last image of Harry McGlade – of, God help me, my brother – was of him charging the Ravenswood sniper, trying to save me.

I hope Harry’s okay.

First Swanson bites it. Then Pessolano gets shot in the neck. The cherry on top is getting whacked full-body with a refrigerator door.

The blow knocks the wind out of Munchel, ramming him into the wall, sandwiching him against it. Like a true soldier he manages to hold on to the Desert Eagle. Unfortunately, Munchel’s arm is at his side, immobile, the door pinning his wrist. He can’t raise the gun, and has no leverage to push away from the wall.

A second shot whizzes through the window. Munchel jerks at the sound, but he isn’t the one who gets hit. Munchel stares at Pessolano writhing on the ground – the man’s leg looks like it has sprouted another knee in the middle of the thigh.

Another shot does the same thing to the opposite leg. Pessolano clutches at his throat, making a face like he’s screaming, but no sound is coming out. Munchel is horrified. It’s too much to watch, too much to bear. He squeezes his eyes closed and wiggles, trying to twist away from the refrigerator door. With a grunt and some hip action, Munchel frees up enough room to get his gun arm loose. He brings the gun around, shoots behind the refrigerator door where he guesses his attacker to be, the Desert Eagle sounding like cannon fire.

The one-armed man pinning him to the wall backpedals. Munchel fires at him twice more, his bullets pinging into the door as the man falls. Munchel has no idea if he hit the guy or not, but he takes a quick last look at Pessolano, sees his friend’s remaining good limb get turned into cube steak by more sniper fire, and decides he doesn’t want to be in this room any longer.

He sprints away from the big bay window, out of the living room, following the path of the chick cop through the kitchen and to a doorway. Munchel finds her in the garage, her back to him, rummaging through a large stack of boxes.

James Michael Munchel raises the big Desert Eagle. It’s time to end this.

NOISE, FROM BEHIND ME. The Ravenswood sniper charges into the garage, and when he raises his pistol I throw myself forward.

Two shots in quick succession, both missing. The sound is painfully loud in the enclosed garage, echoing off the concrete floor. I tumble over a container of books, roll, and land on my butt, my body forcing a trench between two stacks of boxes. The single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling isn’t strong enough to penetrate the crevice I’m in, so I can’t see a thing.

I cover my head and wait for the sniper to start firing again.

He doesn’t. Instead, he starts kicking boxes, knocking them over, swearing and yelling. A crack opens up between crates, and I see he’s brandishing a knife now. One of those survival models, long and unwieldy, with a serrated blade. His face is a picture of anger and frustration.

“Come out of there, you split-tail bitch!”

I get on all fours, back away. There’s a breeze coming from my left – the broken window. Maybe I can make it outside. I crawl toward it, keeping low.

He pushes through ahead of me, cutting off my escape. He’s only a few feet away. He grins, baring yellow teeth.

“There’s my girl. Stay down. I like that position.”

If I got scared by creeps talking trash, I would have quit the Job after a week. Threats don’t bother me much. Knives, however, do.

“Where’s your friend?” I ask. I hold out a hand, touch the wall, keeping an eye on the blade.

“Casualty of war.”

I keep my voice even, keep the fear out of it. He seems like a guy who would be turned on by fear. “You don’t seem too upset about him dying.”

The man smiles. “He knew the risks.”

I stretch up onto my knees.

“Is that was this is?” I ask. “A war?”

“Life is a war. We have to fight for every little bit we get.”

“War is for soldiers,” I say. I shift my weight back onto my toes. “You’re not a soldier.”

He points the tip of the knife at me. “I AM a soldier!”

I lean back into a squatting position. “Soldiers don’t kill innocent people. They don’t threaten girls with knives. What’s your real job? Construction worker? Assembly line at a factory?”

I see that hits a nerve. The sniper snarls and rushes forward, slashing. I leap at him rather than away, getting inside the swing of the blade, throwing a hard right into his stomach and then driving him backward with my shoulder. We get tangled up, push through some boxes and up against the workbench.

I latch both hands on to his wrist, keeping the knife away. The Ravenswood sniper fights against my grip, then suddenly seems to realize he has more than one hand, and uses his free one to punch me in the face.

I hold on tight, tucking my chin into my chest. He hits me on the side of the head – in the ear – and my legs give out. Then he connects with my cheek and I release his knife hand, falling backward, my consciousness slipping away.

“I don’t work in no goddamn factory, bitch!” he screams. “I’m the best goddamn soldier you ever met!”

He switches his hold on the knife so it angles down, raising it up over my head.

I’m in no condition to stop him.

I’VE GOT HARRY in my sights. He engaged in a brief tussle with the remaining sniper, the sniper shot at him, and Harry fell onto his back, right on top of Mom. I can’t tell if either of them got hit or not. He’s still moving, but doesn’t seem to be in any particular hurry, which might indicate an injury.