The Tempest by A.J. Scudiere (story read aloud .txt) 📗

He gathered guns as he left the house. Weighted down to the point where he could feel it, he pushed back at the hate and despair in him. He was leaving with more ammo on him than he came in with. And that was just the leftovers in the guns. Jesus, he could start a militia with what he was carrying. But he knew better than to leave it for the few he’d left behind to get any stupid bright ideas.

The girl followed him up to his vantage point on the hill, baby expertly balanced on one hip. Lee guessed life was bad when following the gunman looked like a good idea. He pointed to an ear-safe distance and watched as the girl hunkered down and managed to cover both her own ears and the baby’s. He didn’t look at them again, knowing he wouldn’t like what he learned.

Instead he trained his focus on the doors to the house. He planted bullets at the feet of anyone who tried to leave. When he saw the sirens in the distance he started gathering his things, but stayed put until car doors were opening up and bullhorns were put to use.

His hand gestured to the girl to follow him again, and she obeyed, even as he tugged the plain ball cap a little lower. It wouldn’t do for her to see his face. He knew what the tale from the house would be. All they’d be able to accurately give was the average mouth and square jaw. His eyes would be described as everything from savior blue to silver to gleaming red. In some descriptions he would quote the bible and in others he’d have horns. Every hair color imaginable would be conveyed and some would say ponytail while others would swear he was bald. Few would get the color of the nondescript ball cap right, or even if he was wearing it.

But if the girl got a good look she could give him away. So he walked ahead and kept the bill low. He thought about packing them into the car, but the car was a piece of work and he couldn’t afford to ditch it. Which meant he couldn’t afford to put them in it. And he didn’t have car seats anyway.

That thought almost made him laugh out loud. Car seats were from another world. Certainly one this girl and the baby hadn’t lived in. He led them through trees and along back streets, leaving them at a park. Without making eye contact, he told the girl to wait an hour, pointing out the clock on the bank, then to go into the church across the street and tell them about her and the baby. He told her to ask for sanctuary. Even though she didn’t know what it meant, she needed it.

Two months later he had done his research and was in Chicago to take out one of the people who was in the ring responsible for him. Only rarely did he allow himself luxuries, and today he got one. He stood in front of the lot where the house had stood. It was, of all things, a daycare now. No one would move into the house he’d left behind. And no one wanted to put their own home on that site. There was an Indian burial ground feel to the place, he knew.

Regardless, the new daycare buildings denied him the simple moment of looking at the front steps and imagining Sam and Bethy climbing up them, groceries in hand . . . he didn’t get any further than that.

He had walked away, thinking that he had gotten a little better, a little further from the pain, or maybe just a little colder.

But now he pushed out the back window of the house he himself had just violated, as close to happy as he got. This last guy hadn’t died of gunshot wounds per se. Lee had found a better method, thanks to a nice handful of anatomy books hidden in the cabin in the Appalachians. The first three rounds, fired through the silencer and purposefully sunk into the plaster walls, had effectively corralled the guy and made him scared. But the fourth and fifth, the only two intended for the victim, had punctured lungs.

Lee felt lighter just thinking about it. The man hadn’t bled to death, although he had bled more than Lee had expected. He was still pooling in his own living room, having asphyxiated because the bullets had punctured the chest wall. From his reading, Lee had learned that lungs collapsed without an intact chest cavity. If it were only one side, then there was simply a lot of pain and terror, and the lung could be re-inflated at the hospital.

He had enjoyed watching this man who had given the orders, or at least rubber-stamped the massacre of his wife and daughter, suffer the inability to breathe air. Lee hadn’t been able to watch as long as he would have liked, because the wheezing and kneeling and chest grasping‒the look that life was denied to his victim‒hit a little too close to home. He remembered doing just those things himself when he’d found the broken bodies and the blood that had splattered so many directions that everything was red. The cops had later said they couldn’t tell what had been his wife’s and what had been his daughter’s. So, very quickly, Lee had shot out the other lung and watched this asshole smother in open air.

While it had been brutal to relive those moments, it seemed perversely fitting. If he could steel himself a little he might just keep using this method. He hopped to the ground, leaving bent grass beneath his feet. He considered a nice gut shot before deflating the lungs next time. It would require more reading.

Knowing full well that he was leaving blatant evidence of his entrance and exit, Lee continued. What did he care if they knew who he was? They’d