Brian Evenson - Last Days

Three dead , he thought. But four bullets. But still human.

He started along the road, keeping to one side of it. Ahead were a few lights, the heart of the compound.

Two bullets left , he thought, and then wished he'd thought to ask for a Browning.

He passed a row of houses, light coming out of most of them, then turned down a smaller road, keeping to one side, houses a little more spread out now. He entered a third, smaller, tree-lined alley that dead-ended in front of the small two-story building he had briefly lived in.

From there, he backtracked, searched around until he found the path cutting away from the road, its crushed white shells luminous and unearthly in the darkness. He followed the path carefully, keeping to one side of it to avoid crunching the shells beneath his feet.

The path moved into the trees, then dipped down. There was, he remembered suddenly, a security camera somewhere, affixed to a tree, and then he wondered how many cameras he had already passed without noticing. Did they broadcast to the guard box by the gate , he wondered, or to somewhere else? He should have gone inside the guard box, at least looked, but it was too late now.

There it was, an angular irregularity high on the shadow of one of the trees. He pushed his way through the brush and back into the trees and around the camera, slowly working his way back to the path, which turned out to be difficult, because the path had curved away. He followed the path uphill where it widened into a tree-lined avenue.

There, in front of him and behind its fence, was the old manor house, some of its windows lit and casting a gentle glow on the lawn. There was still, Kline noticed, the smell of burning in the air. It grew stronger as, crouching, he came closer. The lawn was darker in spots and probably burnt away, streaks of smoke all up one side of the building. Looking through the fence he saw, near the entrance, a pile of lumber, a bandsaw. At least , he thought, I made an impression.

What now? he wondered, and started searching for the guard. There he was, just inside the fence, there near the gate. What now? he wondered.

He stood up and moved rapidly toward the gate.

"Don't shoot," he said. "Don't shoot. It's me, Ramse."

"Ramse," said the guard. "What-" and by that time Kline was close enough to shoot him in the head.

Only the guard didn't go down. He seemed instead like he'd been switched off. He just stood there unmoving, his empty eye socket open, the side of his head torn away and oozing. Kline lifted the gun again, but the guard didn't even respond. He slowly lowered the gun, then helped the guard first to sit then lie down. He left him there, staring into the sky.

One bullet left , he thought. Still human.

Mostly , he thought, and moved toward the door.

He knocked, and the door opened slightly.

"What is wanted?" asked the guard, and then saw Kline's face. He tried to close the door, but Kline already had the barrel of the pistol wedged in the crack and shot him in the chest. The guard fell back, gasping, trying to raise his gun prosthesis, but Kline was already through the doorway and on top of him, forcing the man's arm to fold the gun prosthesis back so that when it went off it fired into the guard's belly and was muffled between their two bodies.

Kline held still and listened, keeping his hand over the guard's mouth as the man slowly died beneath him. The shots, despite being muffled, still echoed down the hall, or so it seemed to Kline, right on top of the gun.

He waited, but nothing happened. How is it possible , he thought, that nobody heard? He rolled slowly off the guard and lay beside him, gathering his breath. He was soaked with blood now, wet with it from neck to knees. The guard beside him was even bloodier, though his face was pale as porcelain, expressionless as a plate. Kline sat up.

Out of bullets , he thought and dropped the pistol. He reached for the gun holstered at his waist and then hesitated, picking the first gun off the floor. He ejected the clip, reloaded it.

Six bullets left , he told himself. Still human.

I've beat the system , he thought, and then thought, no . This was simply a sign that he'd already stopped being human and wasn't planning on coming back.

How was it that they had done it? he tried to remember, staring at the end of the white hall. Two times? Three times?

Three, he thought it was. He knocked three times and waited. Nothing happened. He tried it again and heard movement on the other side, and a moment later the door opened and a guard pushed his face out, his single eye puffy with sleep, and Kline shot him dead.

How many does that make? Kline wondered idly, and then was amazed that he didn't immediately know. He shoved at the door until he'd slid the dead guard forward enough that he could squeeze his way in and step over him and into the stairwell. Slowly he started up, only beginning to become aware of the smell that the blood he was covered with seemed to have. It reminded him of something, but he couldn't place it. What if the Pauls are right? he couldn't help but wonder. He tried not to think about it.

He stopped at the third and final landing. Very carefully he opened the door a crack, half-expecting to see a dozen guards there waiting for him, but he saw nobody. I can't be killed , thought Kline, and then thought, I'm slowly going mad.

No , he thought, as he opened the door wide and stepped into the hall, quickly.

He made his way to the door at the end of the hall, pressing his ear to it. There was a sound from the other side, a low and constant humming, and occasionally something rising above it.

He pushed at the door's lever with his elbow, found it unlocked. Slowly he pushed it the rest of the way down, opened the door, slipped quietly in.

It was different inside from when he had last been there. The walls were in the process of being redone, covered with sheetrock that wasn't yet taped or painted. The varnish of the floor, especially near the door, was blistered and scorched. Borchert's simple pallet had been replaced by a hospital bed, identical to the one Kline himself had occupied. The humming was coming from a machine beside the bed, from which a tube ran, connecting to a breathing mask covering Borchert's mouth and nose. He was lying in the bed, swathed in gauze. What Kline could see of his skin was red and peeling and puckered, his hair all gone save for a ragged, ravaged clump. Beside him, sitting in a wheelchair, her back toward Kline, was a legless nurse in a starched white uniform, her back very straight, in the process of replacing the dressings around Borchert's foot.

Kline moved slowly forward. The nurse, still working on the foot, chatting idly, didn't hear him. But Borchert cocked his head.

"Who is it?" he said, into the mask, his breath fogging the plastic. His voice was flatter than normal, Kline noticed, not quite Borchert's voice, something seriously wrong with it. It was, he realized, the voice he'd heard on the telephone in the hospital.

"There's no one," the nurse was saying. "It's just me."

Borchert opened his eyes and Kline saw that both eyes were opaque and dull, seemingly without pupil. Blind. He took another step forward.

"There's someone here," said Borchert. "I can feel it."

The nurse turned slightly and caught sight of Kline out of the corner of her eye, froze. Kline pointed the gun at her.

"You're right," she said.

"Who is it?" Borchert asked.

"It's him," said the nurse.

They stayed like that for a moment then the nurse turned back, finished winding the dressing. Kline came quickly behind her and struck her hard on the head with the pistol butt. She slumped, the top half of her collapsing onto Borchert. Borchert winced. Kline dragged her back into the wheelchair, wheeled her to face against the wall, where he could see her, and set the brakes.