Paul Curtin - Gray Snow

Michael looked at Elise. “The hell’s going on?”

Footsteps thundered down the stairs. Elise held onto her chest. Sean came to the base with a shotgun in one hand, a pistol in the other, and one of his hunting rifles slung around his shoulder. He ran up to them and extended the weapons, the shotgun to Elise and the pistol to Michael. When Michael showed him the shotgun he already had, Sean nodded and offered the pistol to Molly. She looked down at the weapon but didn’t move.

“Sean, what’s happening?” Michael said.

“I don’t know yet,” he said, shaking the guns. “Come on. Take them.”

Elise and Molly looked at one another and took the weapons from him. He slung his rifle around his chest and put the stock to his shoulder, the barrel pointing at the floor. The woman’s cries of pain seemed to pierce into Elise’s ears. “Did you shoot someone?” Elise said.

“I shot two people.”

“You—” Michael started.

“They were approaching the house. I think one’s dead.”

Elise shook, but she sensed nothing of the same in Sean. He was matter-of-fact, calm. “You killed someone?”

Andrew said, “Are those men coming back?”

Sean extended his hand to silence everyone. “I think I killed one of them. Got him with one shot. The other scrambled. I think I hit her too, but I don’t know.” The woman wailed from outside. “Pretty sure I did.”

“Who were they?” Michael asked.

“Don’t know. She fell behind a snowbank. I can’t get another shot on her.”

“You don’t know?”

Sean stared him down. “We’re really going to have this discussion right now?”

“Listen, I’m just—”

“No, you listen. This isn’t the world we had before.” He shook his head. “They raped your wife, and you still don’t get it.”

“Fuck you, Sean.”

“What’s rape?” Aidan asked.

Elise shut her eyes.

“Great, just great,” Sean said.

“I’m just trying to wrap my head around this,” Michael said.

“Wrap your head around this: there might be more coming. They sent reconnaissance before, there might be more to come. Elise, go cover the garage door. If anyone tries to get in, you shoot. Michael, cover the back. They might try to get in through there. I’ll be scanning the front and back. Molly, take everyone downstairs. Grab the blankets and heat packs.”

Everyone scrambled. Elise stumbled toward the den. Her vision blurred as if she was drunk. All the blood seemed to drain from her head. She kneeled behind a chair that faced the garage door and readied the shotgun in that direction. The woman screamed and moaned into the cold, dead air, the sound muffled by the walls. Elise’s sight narrowed over the weapon. She wondered how someone with evil intentions could scream like that woman. Maybe, she considered, most people would scream like that as their life approached such a dramatic end. Both good and evil people, if there was any distinction.

NO ONE TRIED to invade the house, but that didn’t mean the woman outside died peacefully.

When the sun rose, she started wailing and moaning again. Sean couldn’t escape the sound no matter where he went in the house. It was like a sharp pick slicing through his ear canal and scratching against his skull. She wouldn’t stop. She wouldn’t die.

He suspected people may be watching the house, waiting for an opportunity to ambush. It was Elise’s turn to cut wood, but he wouldn’t let her. For an hour midmorning, the woman made no noise and he let his hopes rise, but she returned with an even more bitter scream. She cried for the man lying dead next to her. She cried out to God to end her life. Sean wanted the same thing. He guessed she would freeze to death sooner rather than later, but she wouldn’t give up her life.

He tried to put on the best face he could, act like he was in control of his emotions, but inside he was breaking down. By noon he was at his scoped rifle in the upstairs window, hoping she would pop her head up so he could finish it. She wouldn’t feel any more pain. But she stayed hidden and wailed on.

It wore on everyone else too. Sean caught Molly in a secret meeting with Michael, Sean coming around the corner, Molly shooting a glance back at him and then turning away. Michael tried to act like they were just chatting, but Sean saw. Yes, he saw. Molly never had a problem looking her father in the eye before—he knew his daughter. And he knew Michael. Could imagine Michael turning her against him, whispering deception into her ear. Telling Molly how brutal and unnecessary his actions were—like he wasn’t making the hard choices to defend his family. Michael had never understood the situation they were in and still didn’t.

They parted, and Sean followed his daughter into the kitchen. She tried to rush out toward the living room. “Molly,” he called out.

She stopped and turned, her face splotchy, cheeks a hint of red. “Yeah?”

“Is everything okay?”

She forced an unnatural smile. “I’m fine, Dad.”

“You sure?”

She put her hands into the pocket of her oversized hoodie. “It’s okay.”

The woman outside wailed, and Sean cleared his throat as if it could cover the noise. “You know why I did it, right?”

“Did what?”

“Shot the woman. Listen, I wish it hadn’t happened this way. I just don’t know—”

“That’s not it, Dad.”

He didn’t believe her. If she was telling the truth, she would look him in the eyes instead of tilting her face toward the ground. “I know some people think I didn’t need to shoot anyone. But you have to understand, I did what I thought was right. Everything I do, I do because I’m looking out for you guys. I know the woman is in agony, and I’m not happy about it. I wish I could stop her pain. It’s awful—”

A tear dropped from one of her eyes. “Dad—”

The woman outside screamed again, and for the first time yelled a name:

“Sean!”

He froze. Then she said it again. Molly covered her mouth. He stared past her toward the door. The woman called again, asking if Sean was there. He saw beyond the wall to her, taking a step forward. Molly’s voice became muffled and distant as he moved closer to the front door. He came into the living room, and Elise emerged from somewhere, shock etched into her face, shock that he could have hurt someone that knew his name . Her lips moved, but he heard nothing. Just kept looking toward the front yard. The woman outside would turn everyone against him.

She needed to go.

His intestines twisted like he was digesting razor blades. He had killed someone before. He had shot the woman’s companion just last night. He could do it again.

His thoughts bounced to the opposite conclusions—ones that told him it was murder and he should bring her inside. She knew Sean. That had to count for something. The woman screaming outside wasn’t trying to invade their home. She didn’t have evil intentions. He shook his head. She needed to go. They had nothing to give her. She was a goner. And his family was beginning to hate him over it.

She knew him, yes.

But she had to go.

He turned to leave, Elise calling out for him, her words drowned out by a loud ringing in his ears. The ringing beckoned him toward what he needed to do and killed any dissenting thoughts. “Travers was right,” he said, interrupting whatever Elise was saying. She stopped. He said, “We’re still living in our sanitized little world like we can still live by the same rules.”