Ryan Westfield - Staying Alive

“I’m glad he had enough sense to kick the ladder down,” said Georgia. “You know, if it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“He’s nice, Mom,” said Sadie. “He’s trying his best.”

“Sometimes that isn’t good enough,” said Georgia. “Things are different now, Sadie. You’ve got to take this all seriously.”

“I am,” said Sadie. “I do my chores like everyone else. I keep a good watch. I’m getting better with a gun.”

Georgia didn’t say anything. She didn’t know how she could instill in Sadie the attitude that she needed to have.

Georgia’s thoughts turned towards the man that she had shot. It had left a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach, one that she couldn’t get rid of, no matter how much she told herself it was necessary.

But if given the chance, Georgia would do it again in a heartbeat. She was ready to shoot to kill. She wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger when the time came. Not for those men. She’d heard them talk. She may not have known their names, but she knew what kind of people they were.

“Do you hear that?” said Sadie.

Georgia heard it. She didn’t answer. She was too busy listening.

It was the sound of a car engine turning on. Georgia knew it must be the van. She hadn’t heard any gunshots, so there couldn’t have been a gunfight. It must have been Max or James moving the van out of the reach of the guys in the house.

“What’s going on?” said Sadie.

“Shh,” whispered Georgia.

Georgia was worried that the moving van might attract the attention of the men inside the house.

And she was right.

A moment later, she saw the door open.

Georgia had her eye glued to the scope.

A leg came out the door.

Georgia squeezed the trigger. She felt the kickback from the rifle, and her ears rang.

She’d fired too soon. She cursed herself. She’d literally jumped the gun. It was all the suspense of waiting, building up. But that shouldn’t have affected her. She was used to hunting. But she still wasn’t used to hunting people.

“You shot him!” said Sadie, much too loudly.

The man screamed in pain. He collapsed to the ground, falling out of the doorframe and onto the porch floor. He lay there, screaming, holding his leg.

Georgia waited and watched. She was holding her breath.

“Mom!” hissed Sadie, but Georgia ignored her.

Georgia was waiting to pull the trigger again. She was telling herself she was saving ammo by not firing and killing the man on the ground. She was telling herself that it was a strategic decision, that the second man might exit, and that she’d need to fire quickly to take him down.

But deep down, Georgia knew that she was hesitating because she didn’t want to take yet another life.

She knew she had to do it.

Seconds ticked past. They felt like an eternity to Georgia. She had tunnel vision, and the sounds of the world around her had faded. Her ears rang, and she wasn’t aware of anything but the man in her scope.

Georgia gritted her teeth.

She pulled the trigger.

The bullet struck him in the head.

Georgia breathed out.

Sadie didn’t say anything.

No one else appeared in the doorway.

Two down, one to go.

A gunshot rang out on the other side of the house.

“Mom!” said Sadie, tugging on Georgia’s arm. “We’ve got to get over there.”

For once, Sadie had some good advice.

Georgia snapped herself out of it. She didn’t look again at the dead man on the porch. She’d done what she’d needed to. She wasn’t going to apologize to herself for it.

Georgia sprang to her feet.

“Come on,” she said, taking Sadie’s hand and tugging it. “James and Max need our help.”

Part of Georgia wanted to stay back. Or to tell Sadie to stay back. She wanted to keep Sadie safe, but she also knew she might need her help in protecting Max, and more importantly, James.

“Ishould have just stayed in my apartment,” muttered John.

Lawrence, for once, didn’t have a positive message to impart to John. He remained silent.

When they’d heard the chanting, John had led them further west to a bar that he’d frequented in his younger years. It was one of those trendy microbrew places that brewed its own beer.

John had gone there so much that he’d become friendly with the staff and eventually the owner. After one particularly intense late night session of drinking, John was forced to take the owner’s keys away from him in order to prevent him driving home seriously impaired.

Because of what might be called an indiscretion on John’s part, he never visited that bar again. He’d slept with the owner’s sister, who was married at the time. The owner found out about it, and left a series of threatening voicemails on John’s phone. John had never been the type to confront situations like that head on. He preferred to deal with the abstract world of numbers, focusing on his financial work and tuning out the world at large.

For some reason that he never could quite figure out, John had kept that set of keys. He’d kept them in his briefcase, toting them around every day. Maybe he thought that someday he’d get the guts to face the owner, who had been a real friend to him many times, and patch things up. But John never acted, and the keys became a reminder of his own cowardice.

The bar wasn’t in the best neighborhood, and the doors were of thick steel, with good locks. But the key still worked, and the door opened for John and Lawrence.

They sat at one of the booths. Lawrence sat bolt upright, his hands folded on the table in front of him, as if he was meeting a new client. John slouched, his legs stretched out on the plush leather booth, his back resting against the wall.

A couple candles burned in front of them on the table. They had been hard to find in the near pitch-black bar. The moon was bright that night, but the bar had never been known for its windows.

Lawrence had drunk two entire large bottles of seltzer water, found behind the bar. John had drunk two as well, along with two beers. Now he was working on his third.

They’d been eating salted nuts constantly, and while they weren’t ideal, they did slowly start to quench the raging hunger that John felt.

“So I don’t get it,” said John, suddenly turning his head and staring at Lawrence. “I don’t get your whole deal.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you sound just so… This whole thing about helping people… It sounds like bullshit to me.”

“And why do you think that?” said Lawrence.

“I don’t need your therapist crap,” said John. “Like I said, none of that matters now.”

Lawrence shrugged. “I’m not trying to change your opinion about me,” he said.

“Look,” said John, taking a long sip from his beer mug. “I’m headed out of here. Out of the city. I’m probably going to die. But I think you should come with me.”

“And why is that?”

“Because beneath all this ‘helping people’ crap, I know you really want to get out.”

Lawrence shrugged. “I’m not sure I’m following you.”

“Well,” said John. “You came here with me, didn’t you? Did you do that for purely altruistic reasons? I mean, what help have you provided me so far? Sure, you told me to get inside. That helped, but I’m pretty sure I would have figured that out myself. It’s hard to miss that crazy chanting. It’d be hard to miss the screams…”

“Like I said, I’ve always been helping people. What I didn’t say was that I always do the best job, or do the right thing… I haven’t known how to approach this problem… Maybe I didn’t do a good job, but who could?”