Paul Curtin - Gray Snow

A thought. A realization. He didn’t know if he had hit him. Didn’t know if Sean was dead.

He jumped back into the seat and hoped his stupidity hadn’t cost him another shot. He leaned the rifle back. Sean’s body lay face down next to the stump, a spring of blood erupting from the center of his jacket. Michael pulled his head back and shook it. He returned his eye to the scope and saw Sean’s arm move. Watched him reach up toward the stump and pull himself closer to it.

The thought never crossed his mind that the first bullet might not kill him. Bullets kill. One should have been enough. More shots were required, but he hadn’t prepared himself to take them.

He steadied his hand and pulled the bolt back, and a hot shell ejected from the side of the rifle. He pushed the next round into the chamber, locked the bolt forward, and aimed down the scope again. He looped his finger against the trigger. Aimed for Sean’s head this time. Sean scarcely moved below, only making an inch of progress toward the stump before stopping and resting. Michael squeezed the trigger.

The gun popped and the wood above Sean’s head exploded into a puff of splinters. Sean flinched and looked as though he was trying to turn around. Michael discarded the shell and put another round into the chamber. He didn’t even think the third time. Just acted. He fired again, and the bullet hit Sean in the back. His limbs went limp and sank into the snow. Michael waited. Sean’s head had collapsed onto the base of the tree trunk, unmoving. He had done it. Sean was dead. Kelly was safe. Elise and Aidan were safe.

He was safe.

And he had just killed someone.

The sounds erupted from downstairs as if the whole time he had been in a bubble that just burst. He heard a woman’s voice.

Elise.

“What’s going on?” she yelled from downstairs.

He staggered off the stool and into the hallway. He threw up. Gagged once more and threw up again. His ears were still ringing with the sound of gunshots. He felt like the room was tilting, as if the world were inverting. He reminded himself that he had needed to do it. Needed to.

No choice.

With his hand running across the wall to keep his balance, he made it to the stairs. They expanded and contracted in his vision. He shook his head, gripped the railing, and descended one long step at a time, unsure if his knees would buckle and he would tumble down. He kept himself steady.

When he got to the bottom, Elise was already there. His vision had stabilized, but he struggled to keep the scant contents in his stomach from rising up his throat again. Aidan was in her arms, his fingers shoved in his ears. He didn’t blame the kid for being scared. Every gunshot since this thing started brought new terrors, new pains. This one would be the worst of them. He remembered losing his own dad, how it hollowed out a piece of him he could never quite replace. He promised himself that he would be there just like a father for the kid. He owed him that much.

“Was that you shooting?” Elise asked, frantic.

Michael walked around her, moving her to the side with his forearm.

“Michael, is Sean upstairs? Did he shoot someone else?”

He went to the shotgun, lifted it from the ground, turned it to the side, and pulled the action back. The sound cut through the room, and he looked back at his panicked sister. He turned and walked toward the garage.

“Michael,” she shouted. “Michael, what’s going on? That was gunshots. Did Sean shoot someone else?”

Sean would shoot no one again.

He stomped toward the garage and slipped his boots on, not stopping to tie them. He leaned the gun on the wall and put his coat on. Picking his weapon back up, he turned toward Elise, feeling sorry for her, thinking about how this would crush her. He couldn’t imagine losing Kelly. But some things had to be done.

He flung the door open and rushed into the chilly garage amidst the screams from Elise for him to talk to her, to say something. He ignored her. He approached the closed backdoor to the garage. The doorknob was freezing cold. He pulled it toward himself, opening the view of the backyard. Including Sean’s unmoving body.

He took one cautious step forward, raised the shotgun toward it, and then took another. Sean lay just twenty feet ahead of him. He inched across the snow that Sean had packed down and cleared. The air pricked at his face and ears. Mild gusts of wind. Everything seemed calm except the rush of blood to his head and a chill running through his body, knowing he was about to face the man he had killed.

Snow and ice crackled under his boots, one agonizing step after the next. The area around the body was speckled with blood, and the base of the trunk was stained red. The holes in Sean’s back steamed. Michael adjusted his grip on the shotgun. He needed to see. Needed to face what he did.

“Michael,” he heard Elise scream behind him, “what are you doing?”

He came upon the body and paused. The man’s limbs rested against the wood in the most unnatural of positions, one arm below his body and the other reaching out for something. Michael lowered his weapon.

“Michael,” Elise yelled from the garage.

He bent at his waist and put his hand on Sean’s shoulder, ready to turn him over.

Elise called out, “Michael, where’s Kelly?”

He froze, his hand gripped around a shoulder that should have been broader, sturdier. His eyes shifted and for the first time he noticed the blonde strands of hair rising out of the hood of the coat, tossed up and blown about in the wind.

AMIND THAT fails to plan, plans to fail, so the adage goes. Michael was never much of a planner. If he hadn’t been at Sean’s house the moment of the disaster, he would have been dead long ago. But luck was good to him, and so he survived the last six months because of a man who did plan. Sean always anticipated—never reacted. Men lose their cool when they’re reacting, so he decided early to be proactive.

Michael had never understood that. He was always reactive. It didn’t matter that Michael was trying to turn Elise against him, because by the time Michael realized the threat, Sean was already way ahead. She was always the glue of the family, the bridge between everyone. Whoever won the heart of Elise, won it all. Always the way it was. So Sean just needed to convince her to look past his transgressions. Until she understood.

But Michael was too busy reacting. So his plans failed.

Sean stuck the axe into the stump when he felt his phone vibrate. The attackers had taken the generator, but the solar panels and batteries kept him with just enough juice to keep his essential devices going strong. He knew why it had vibrated before he looked at the screen. He darted into the garage, set his rifle against the wall, bit his glove at the fingers, pulled it off, and then swiped at the phone. The bluetooth video feed he had set up in Aidan’s room played back to him with a new image every five seconds. He watched Michael take a seat behind the gun. The sneaky bastard. He expected less subtlety from Michael—like using the shotgun in the living room. That was Michael’s style. The rifle in Aidan’s bedroom was the method he was sure Michael wouldn’t go for. But, Sean planned. And so he didn’t fail.

He slipped the phone back into his pocket. Michael would hear him coming up the stairs, and if he could get the gun free from the mount on the window, then Sean would walk into danger. It was a slim chance, but he didn’t want to take the risk. Ideas jetted back and forth in his brain before it settled on one.