Live Feed

The microphone was inches from Barry Gill’s face. He adjusted his backwards baseball cap more out of agitation than for comfort and leaned into the mic with all the serious intensity he could muster. Only five minutes into his show, he was already on a roll.

“Look around D.C. now, and you know what you won’t see? You won’t see any gangbangers roaming the streets looking for some poor soul to prey on. They’re all locked up, running scared, or holed up, waiting for the troops to leave.  In D.C., you also won’t see immigrant killers looking for their next victims, waiting to see who they’ll rob next. What do you guys think? You all saw what just happened in California a few days ago, where that young woman was murdered by that thug? If we had troops in Oakland, I guarantee that wouldn’t have happened then.”

He mostly kept his eyes locked on the camera lens to maintain a connection with his viewers for dramatic effect, but occasionally glanced over to the screen that showed the feed of his YouTube Live viewers' comments.

Somebody gotta say it!

100% 100% 100% 100%

Just get rid of them!

Most of the names of the viewers were fake handles to hide behind when the users spewed their filth, but a few used their real names proudly to express their hate: FatNinja, BigBad John 69, Shittin Kitten, or Eric Kaufman. They chimed in faster than Gill could respond.

“The Death Troll says that liberal policies got us here, and I agree. Cary from Texas says that Biden let in twenty million illegals. You got that right, my friend. That swarm is responsible for much of the mess we’re in. I say that if we’re gonna get out of the hole that last guy got us into, we’re gonna have to wade through a lot of shit for a while. That’s what our new president is doing now to clean up our streets.”

Amen brother!!!!!

FK those guys

Gill had been hosting these “Lives” for over a year now, and he’d found his niche. What started as a channel to discuss film from a man’s perspective had morphed into something more pointed. He’d begun just wanting to talk about how men are represented negatively in current film and television culture, but he noticed that his most-watched episodes were the ones that contained elements of racial bias or what he viewed as forced diversity. The heat and wild comments he generated on those videos and discussions brought him more subscribers, viewers, and eventually, revenue, than those simply about media. Bolstered by seeing the numbers and direction of the channel, Gill added more social and political content to his repertoire, and his viewership began to climb exponentially. He had found his niche in angry white men.

The live broadcast ended after another thirty-five minutes of hate and bile directed at brown people, black people, poor people, and anyone else who happened to come up as easy targets for the night’s overall topic. The episode was titled Minority on White Crime Epidemic EXPOSED After Oakland Murder | Trump Calls for 'DEATH PENALTY' so there was plenty of filth to go around for everyone. Gill sat, chin in hand, for a few minutes in his expensive desk chair, elbows on the desktop, and clicked away to review the night’s analytics, checking to see not just the overall numbers but also interested in a state-by-state breakdown. He wanted to get his numbers up in the blue states, Canada, and Europe. The red states were easy pickings, he thought, but he wanted to make inroads with his viewership in those tougher markets. He knew there were more of his target audience there. That's how he was going to grow. In a moment of self-doubt, he wondered how he would be able to maintain the high volume of content to keep these people satisfied and to keep the money rolling in. He just had to think back to the amount of hate in his comment section to remind himself that the world was full of people waiting, yearning to let their grievances be aired.

Satisfied with the modest but growing numbers and happy with the $578 in the tip jar for the night and the three shirts he sold from his merch store, he used an app on his phone to adjust the lights in his Spokane “studio” and stayed in his expensive chair, bathed in the one purple light that he left on. Then, with his phone, he scrolled. And scrolled. And scrolled. He sat soaking up more dopamine and hate by scrolling and clicking through Reddit, 4chan, and other popular sites to find angry, disaffected young men and what they were mad about.  He was beyond being gullible like the young men he was looking for, at least he thought he was. At 35, he felt he was beyond being manipulated or coerced, and he hoped to find younger, more receptive minds to mold or preach to. So far, his marketing plan seemed to be working: finding these hotspots on the internet where young men gather and complain, using a fake name to drop a couple of links to his videos, and waiting for new viewers to arrive. It’s just one of the things Gill had been doing to get new viewers, but it was effective.

The next night’s live show was on a new topic, but it was really more of the same. The episode was titled How Fatherlessness Created a Generation of Criminals | Spitting Hard Facts.

“I know a lot about this topic,” Gill said softly into the microphone and camera, striking a gentler tone than usual. “I grew up without a father around, and I may have gotten a little crazy. My mother must have had shit fits over me in my teen years. I ran with a few tough kids, and I had a mouth on me, but I never came close to doing what we see some of these animals in the streets are doing.” He paused for dramatic effect but continued in his softer tone. “But then, by the grace of God, I pulled myself out of that tailspin and pulled my head out of my backside. I joined the Marines right after high school and never looked back.” His tone started to rise with intensity. “Now, though, look at these other dregs that haven’t been graced by God or have the sense to pull themselves out. They’re gunning down store clerks and selling drugs whenever and wherever they want. They don’t have fathers at home to teach them right, and their welfare mothers are probably too strung out to do anything about it either.” His voice was sharp, and he looked straight at the camera, daring anyone to disagree with him. “The democrats have done everything possible to defund the police, so we can’t even fight back anymore, and the courts give the thugs so many rights that they can just waltz out of juvey or jail as soon as they walk in. What do you guys think about that? What have you guys seen?”

The comment feed, already active with a few comments from his regulars, lit up even more with viewers adding what they thought the problems or solutions might be.

NO FAULT DIVORCES KILLED THE FAMILY UNIT!!!!

they tells everyone that their victims

Tips were dribbling in at a dollar or five at a time, the usual pace. Then, from an account he’d never seen before came a tip for the amount he’d never received before on a live show: $500. He’d had several Lives where the total adds up to that much. That was rare but not unheard of. No one had ever dropped that much at one time before. If the amount wasn’t enough of a surprise, the username made him freeze: RickyRocket07.

No, he thought to himself, that must just be a coincidence. Despite his self-soothing, he did one of the worst things a live YouTuber could do: he froze for a spell and created dead air. After a long ten seconds of silence and with a shake of his head, he collected himself and began again in a voice less confident than before, but not before the image of a certain young, blonde teen was planted in his mind.

“Friends and patriots, I wanna thank RickyRocket07 for the generous donation to the show. You all know I use those funds to support the channel and causes that are in line with our shared beliefs, so this will go a long way in helping. Thank you, Ricky.”

RickyRocket07 had something to say about this in the chat.

My pleasure. I, too, had a rough time in my late teen years

Again, Gill froze, thinking about the similarities and odds of a coincidence, but gathered himself and spoke directly to Ricky. “I’m sorry to hear that, but it looks like you’ve recovered well and are doing OK for yourself.”

Yes. Much better now, but it was rough. Maybe I’ll tell your viewers about it sometime.

It was only through practice and repetition that Gill could hold his gaze into the camera. What he really wanted to do was to shut it all down, dim his lights, have a stiff drink, and sit in silence for a while to figure out what was going on. That had to wait; he still had more of the show to do. Now, though, he was without the steam and bile he had built up before the donation and the disturbing input from his guest. He shifted in his seat, took an extra moment to gather his thoughts back to the topic of kids without fathers at home, and started in again with a tangent about how social programs coddle society and that more young men should be compelled to join the military.

After another twenty-five minutes of screed, he ended his show with his usual reminders to his viewers to go check out his Patreon account, where patrons can get special behind-the-scenes access to him and can see content not found elsewhere. Within seconds of logging off, instead of his usual check of analytics and tip jar totals, he sat upright in his chair, turned his cap around, looked at the profile page of RickyRocket07, and found it to be mostly blank. Mostly. There were no profile or banner photos, and no information other than the user's hometown. It was listed as Rathdrum, Idaho. Gill knew the town well. He grew up in nearby Coeur d’Alene, and Rathdrum was where .... he didn’t want to finish the thought, but he couldn’t help himself. Images of Ricky Rocket came to mind.

Gill got up from his chair and grabbed a beer from his refrigerator, opened it, and drank half of it in one go. He had a twinge of regret for always drinking Michelob Ultra, always trying to keep calories down to stay fit and lean. Can’t be a fat slob like most of those liberals, he often told himself. Now, though, he wanted something heavier to drink, something stronger. He wanted to get a buzz on like–like he had that night, he recalled in a shock to himself. He had a bottle of bourbon in the cabinet that he kept for special occasions. Was this a special occasion? Would drinking make him forget or make him think about Ricky more?

He finished the rest of his beer in one more swig, grabbed another one, and then went back to his computer chair. Opening a search browser on his computer, he typed in a few keywords to aid his search: rathdrum, 2007, missing, richard lund, murder. Several articles popped up from the two local papers in North Idaho, as well as some older reports from CNN. They had a news crew up there for a short time until they finally found the dead body, and the furor calmed down a little. What all the articles had in common was a photo of Ricky, one that his mother gave to all the news sources. It showed a sweet young man with locks of bouncy blonde hair, smiling at the camera like it was his best friend who had just arrived at a party. His eyes were bright and wide, just like his smile, and his face radiated joy, reflecting his youth and enthusiasm. His face wasn't as joyful when he was finally discovered in the woods a few weeks after his disappearance.

Gill shook his head once and drained the second beer. It had to be a coincidence, he thought. No one knows. No one else was there. Ricky Rocket is dead and buried. He has been for a long fucking time.

Ricky Rocket was a dumb nickname, and Gill knew it even back in high school. Everyone did, but they used it anyway. The short, wiry kid earned it by being a sprinter on the track team and “moving fast” with the girls on the team. Someone said it out loud one day at a track meet in Post Falls when Ricky was just a freshman, and it just stuck. “Go, Ricky Rocket,” they yelled. The second meaning was earned later that season when Ricky was seen trying to make moves on some of the junior and senior girls on the team. By his senior year, his legend in the school established, The Rocket would be dead.

The thought made Gill stir from his torpor and got him moving again. He finally clicked through his analytics, scrolled through the comments on the video, checked his monetization settings to ensure everything was as it should be, and then checked the email account associated with his channel. Littered among the comments from viewers, requests for collaboration, and sponsorship offers was an email from a Gmail account: RickyRocket07. A tingling sensation began in the center of Gill’s chest and radiated outward like a star in all directions. When the tingling numbness reached his fingertips, he clicked the email to open it.

The email contained a photograph and three words. Nothing more. The photo was grainy and poorly lit, and if you didn’t know what you were looking at, it might have been hard to tell exactly what or who was in the photo. Gill knew. Gill knew exactly what and exactly who was in the photo. It showed a truck, a dark truck, sitting somewhere at night. His truck. The only illumination came from either streetlights or lights in a parking lot. The angle of the picture was from the left rear side, showing that the truck was a Ford F150, and there were two occupants. Most of the license plate was visible, and it showed to be an Idaho plate. You couldn’t see the face of the driver, only his outline, but you could clearly see the passenger's side profile. Just as importantly, you could see his bouncy, blonde locks of hair.

The three words were, “You were seen!”

The feeling in his chest intensified and pulsed and generated a heat he’d never felt before as his mind leapt to the many possibilities of how his life just might have turned to shit.

*               *               *

Half a state away, safely ensconced in a studio apartment above the garage at her parents’ house in Boise, Sara Lund refreshed her browser and saw that she no longer had access to Gill’s YouTube channel.  Good, she thought. That meant that he had seen the email and had blocked her account. Donating that $500 hurt financially, but she felt it was a good way to get his attention. Sara wasn’t positive that Gill killed her brother until he blocked her accounts. Until then, she had only suspected it, felt it in her bones.  She had gotten to him, and he thought he was safe. The real fun was to begin now.

Despite her years of self-denial and lying to her therapists, regardless of the built-up walls of self-defense she had constructed to keep herself safe from the memories of Ricky’s murder and her negligence, all it took was a mention in the news that a new Shake Meister was going to be opening near her home to release all those years of darkness. It was a breakthrough, a long time in the making, and the clarity for her responsibility in her brother’s end washed over her, wiping away her fears of consequences for her actions, leaving only the long-simmering hatred for the one she now knew in her heart was responsible. Lying dormant under all the years of pain from her brother's death, the failure of her parents to accept that she was still alive, her own long-standing addictions, and her feelings of unworthiness was a little kernel that had been the cause of much of her consternation. Her remembrance of a repressed fact brought about gut-wrenching sobs and a river of tears and snot of a volume she had never before produced. But that released memory, that hidden memory that had been tucked away so long under layers of shame and alcohol and drugs, meant so much to her. She remembered. She was the last person to see her brother before he was killed.

As soon as the clarity hit her, she went right to the basement in her parents’ home, where she’d moved back into after yet another relationship breakup and emotional breakdown. She opened one of her boxes of old things from her youth and found what she was looking for: an old blue Razr phone and charger. After charging it up for a few minutes, it came to life, and she checked the photos. And there it was. The picture she knew would be there. The photo she took on a whim as her brother drove off, leaving her at the Shake Meister in Post Falls to wait for her friends to give her a ride home.

“I'm gonna tell him,” Ricky said to her earlier that night.

“Whatever. I think you’re crazy. Barry’s not like that. He’s not gonna understand. What if mom and dad find out? They’ll freak out,” Sara said back to her older brother.

“Yes, he will. I know he will. Mom and Dad are gonna have to find out soon enough.”

Other than talking about the logistics of her getting home, that was the last conversation they ever had. Sara saw him as he drove off in Gill’s truck, and for no reason that she could ever verbalize, she snapped a quick picture with her phone. She never saw her brother again. His recovered body was so deteriorated that they had a closed-casket funeral. Her brother’s murder and disappearance were still unsolved even after all these years. With this new piece of information, this photo, this memory that she had willingly kept back then, suppressed for so many years, now refreshed, maybe she could get the case reopened.

A wave of guilt and shame washed over her as complicity in never sharing the image with the police at the time or telling them about Ricky’s last ride. She wanted to at the time, but was so worried about letting Ricky’s secret out that she never did. Having her parents know Ricky’s deepest identity, his deepest secret, would have shamed them to no end. They moved away from liberal California to avoid such “evil” impulses. She sat at her desk, head in hand, and replayed the time the deputy asked her if she knew anything at all that might help, and she just said, “No.” The self-loathing washed over her for a full minute before she shook it off. Enough of that, she thought. The blocking of the accounts, Sara felt, was something that only a guilty person would do — and she had a plan for that.

*               *               *

Gill went live a few minutes later than usual, 9:04 pm Spokane time. He’d gone back and forth about cancelling the whole show, but his need for ego gratification won out, and he started with his regular, confident self.

“What’s up, guys! Sorry for the delay. Had some tech difficulties, but I’m here now. Today, we’re gonna talk about the modern military, how it’s gotten too “woke” and what is being done by the new regime to instill a more killer mentality instead of all this soft shit we see now.”

The live feed comment section, already abuzz with activity, came alive even more.

GO WOKE GO BROKE!!!!

Its not like it was when i was in

“That’s right, DragonDawg. Times have changed. Even since I got out only a few years ago, things have gotten so soft. As you all know, I was a Marine for a bunch of years, and we knew how to kick some ass. Now, the rules of engagement they have to use make sure that they’re always fired upon first. A Marine has to die before we can fire back. That’s what the last administration gave us. That’s what the new guys are trying to fix.”

The comment section, still lively, started to come alive with unusual activity. RickyRocket07_2 posted a hyperlink time and time again. Nothing more. No message or text, just the link. It must have been posted forty or fifty times before Gill noticed it, interspersed between the comments of his viewers.

What the fk is this?

FKN SPAM!

Whos posting this

Gill saw the username and had a good idea what the link went to without even opening it. He right-clicked on the name and blocked them, hoping he had done so before anyone opened the link. Blocking a user removed all of their comments, and Gill noticed that all the links had disappeared. He hoped he was safe.

You guys see that pic? WTF was that about?

Hey, Barry! Who in that truck?

Hoping to cover his own concerns and distract his viewers from the distractions, Gill went back into his diatribe about the “woke” military. “When I was in Iraq, we knew what we had to do and we did it, but just a few years later, when that old man had us tuck tail and run out of Afghanistan, good Marines died because we had gotten too soft under his administration.” However, there was a segment of viewers who weren’t following his lead.

Wasn’t Ricky Rocket the guy that donated $500 yesterday?

Whered they go?

Y’all see what else that site said?

That chilled Gill. He had blocked the user, so he no longer had the link. While half-heartedly keeping up his banter, he wondered what else was on the end of that link. There was the picture he had been sent, he was sure, but what else? He hoped that if it stopped now, everything would just blow over and return to normal. One of his viewers had other ideas.

You gotta check this out!!!!! Gonna be a good show tomorrow. Lolz!!!!

A user named TigerBomb posted the link along with the comment for all viewers to see on the live feed. Gill, entirely forgetting about protocol and the fact that he was live on air, indulged his curiosity and clicked on the link. It went to a YouTube video that, when played, showed a still image that had been sent to him the night before, but in this one, the license plate on the truck was blurred out. The title of the video was WHO KILLED ME, and superimposed over the photo near the top was floating text that gave a date and time for a live broadcast!

"Fuck!” he said aloud for all his viewers to see. “Look, folks, I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t like my show being hijacked. I’m gonna cut this one short tonight. I’ll see you next time.” He ended his show without his usual outro and end music. After cutting the video feed, he sat still in his chair, thinking of all the possibilities of how this could be hell on him, but he still suffered from the illusion that he could escape the weight of what was happening.

*               *               *

With the end of Gill’s live broadcast, Sara was just getting started. At her desk, she raised her hand to move aside a lock of curly blonde hair that had fallen in her face. When that only partially succeeded, she blew at it from the corner of her mouth, finishing the job. She had a message prepared and went through every video on Gill’s channel to paste it. It said, “Come find out who Barry Gill killed back in 2007!” and gave a link to a YouTube Live scheduled for 9 pm PST the next night. Not coincidentally, Sara scheduled it for the same time as Gill’s show. After ensuring that all his videos and Shorts conveyed the same message, she visited the SubReddit devoted to Barry Gill’s channel, r/BarryGillLive. She left the same message on several of the posts. Lastly, she did the same to about fifty of the posts on his show’s Facebook page, just to make sure the older crowd saw the message.

“Yeah. Fuck you,” she said out loud to no one when she was all done. Back straight, leaning forward, her elbows resting on the edge of the small folding table she used as her desk, Sara rested her chin in her hands and felt a swell of energy and self-empowerment she hadn’t experienced for years. Going to the police would have been too easy, she thought. She would do that also, but she wanted to make that fucker squirm for a while first. Now, there was nothing to do except wait.

She stood up quickly from her desk, knocking over her empty teacup, and headed over to her red velvet couch. The couch didn’t fit the decor of her current light green room at all. It was from a previous life, from a brief time a few years ago, when she had a modicum of happiness in her life, when she thought she had love. What she had, she realized too late, was the right combination of denial and alcoholism to make her feel like she had enough balance in her life to maintain the appearance of happiness in a co-dependent relationship. The relationship ended, but she salvaged the funky retro couch and an expensive mattress out of it all. That, and material for even more therapy.

Lying down on the soft, plush couch, her goal was to not move a muscle other than to breathe, to let her mind adjust to stillness, and then to work through the details of her presentation the next night. It was a fine goal, but like so many others of hers, it failed. She stayed still, but her mind whirred with thoughts of her many failures concerning her brother’s memory; her failings from that night. She knew there was no way she could have saved her brother, but maybe she could have said something earlier about him going away with Gill in his truck. Maybe that would have done something. Maybe this and maybe that. Her brother was dead, and now she was certain that Gill had something to do with it. She was taking action, and she felt better than she had in many, many years. Despite her desire to fulfill her nightly habit of getting white wine drunk, she didn’t have the urge to blot out the feelings. She wanted to feel things tonight.

*               *               *

As long as it took Sara to paste all the comments on his various posts and videos, it took Gill three times as long to find and delete them, but that was only after followers had seen them and either liked the comment or made a comment underneath it. There was no way to know how many of his followers had clicked on the link, but looking at the page where the Live was scheduled, he could see that the user, the original RickyRocket07, had grown a following of a few hundred subscribers. Checking back at the video/picture that was posted the previous night, he saw that it had over 5,000 views and more than 100 comments. Scrolling through them, most of them expressed confusion or bewilderment over the meaning of the image, but a few shocked him.

He’s exactly the kind of guy who would do something like this.

These fkn guys!!!! Always with these guys

Had anyone asked him, Gill would have said that it had been years since he’d thought of Ricky Lund, but the truth was that he thought of him in some way every single day. Sometimes it was just a passing thought about his feelings from that night, and other times he recalled each and every second of what had happened with crystal clarity. Tonight, waiting for 9 pm, was one of those times. He remembered their talk. He remembered what Ricky told him. He remembered his disgust and anger, and he remembered pushing Ricky away. He remembered the sound of Ricky’s head hitting the rock, and he remembered all that blood. He remembered all of it. An IMAX movie with full Dolby sound played in his head of his shameful actions afterwards. How he knew no one knew they were parked at an old, abandoned logging road near Rathdrum Mountain. How he buried the body under all those rocks, and how he went back to town like nothing happened.

As the 9 o’clock showtime approached, Gill wanted nothing more than to dive deeply into a bottle of something stronger than Michelob Ultra.

*               *               *

In the past week, since she discovered that Gill was a YouTuber and her plan became clear, Sara had learned a lot about technology. She taught herself all about the ins and outs of YouTube videos and livestreaming, but more importantly, she looked up all she could about creating deepfake videos using commercially available AI. Those two tech pieces combined to make what Sara hoped would be a powerful tool for her to impart some pain on Barry Gill, perhaps not as much as he deserved, but a little would suffice before the deputies did their duty. She had her prerecorded video ready for the Live session and waited.

At nine, exactly, she went live and hit the play button on her dashboard. Her screen, and those of the 2,377 viewers who were waiting for her, showed a young blonde man standing in a scrubby pine forest, looking serious and waiting to speak. His slightly curly hair was messy, but in an endearing way that highlighted his good looks. After a five-second pause, he began the speech that Sara had generated for him.

“Hi. I’m Ricky Lund, and I’ve been dead since 2007. I died somewhere in the woods outside of Rathdrum, Idaho, and only one person knows exactly how and where it happened. One night, in late 2007, this person and I drove in his truck away from the Shake Meister in Post Falls, and I was never seen alive by anyone else ever again.”

Ricky’s almost realistic self disappeared from the video and was replaced by the still image of the truck. This one didn’t have the license plate blurred out.

“That’s me in the passenger’s seat of that truck, and you’ve probably guessed by now whose truck that is and who that is in the driver’s seat. I’m not alive to tell you what happened after we drove away that night,” Ricky’s avatar held for a few seconds, where Sara wrote in for it to make a dramatic pause, “but that person is. They can tell you all about what happened afterwards. They can tell you what we talked about that night, the secret that I revealed, and all about why they never said anything to the police about our trip that night.”

*               *               *

Barry Gill watched the video while seated at his desk, keeping an eye on the comments as they rolled in.

Who tf is Ricky Lund?

I’ve found a link to a news article about this. I’ll post it.

Is Gill spposed to have done this? Is that what this is all about

Other viewers started posting old news links to the stories about Ricky’s disappearance and the eventual discovery of his body. Gill squirmed in his seat and felt a trickle of sweat roll down his back. That starburst in his chest was back again.

*               *               *

Sara watched as AI Ricky finished the speech she had programmed for him, an almost smile on her face.

“An hour ago, an email was sent to the sheriff’s department with a copy of the photo you’ve seen and a statement from the person who took it. In that statement, the person shares more about what I was going to tell the other person that night. That might be the reason this person killed me, but we won’t know until the deputies speak with him.

This is a person many of you know, who many of you follow on this platform. It’s someone who talks an empty talk of bravery and manhood, but was a coward when it counted. I suppose we’ll know more soon enough.”

The video ended and was again replaced by images, this time a series of them depicting the real Ricky Lund at various times in his too-brief life: Ricky as a baby, Ricky dressed as a pumpkin for Halloween, and another of Ricky just after a track race, smiling and waving to someone off-camera. Sara felt the tears welling up, but she fought them back. She didn’t feel that she deserved to cry; she’d done enough of that. She wanted a drink, but she thought she’d done enough of that, too. Instead, she stood up, walked away from her desk, and threw herself face down on the bed she had salvaged from the wreck of her last relationship. It was three days until her next therapy session, and she’d have a lot to talk about.

*               *               *

His followers, or at least the viewers of the Ricky Rocket video, kept the comment section of the video abuzz, and Gill read them with a sense of dread.

Gill’s a killer?

Oh, damn! Ya know the police are moving right now

Dude better have some answers

The starbursts in his chest didn’t stop now. They came so fast and so powerful that they all ran together in a solid series of pulses, keeping him both stunned and energized. He couldn’t stay motionless anymore. He jolted up from his chair and pushed it back, knocking over the lightstand behind him. This caused a quarter of the room to get darker, but it was the corner he wanted to get away from. He paced the faux-wood flooring and used his foot to shove the coffee table out of his way when he decided that he needed more room to move.  A wider path seemed safer, he thought.

“Fuck it!” he said aloud and went into his modest white kitchen to fetch the bottle of bourbon he’d been avoiding the past few nights. The bottle was tucked away in the same cabinet as the Bloody Mary mix, vodka, and tequila. He felt better knowing he had all that to fall back on if the bourbon wasn’t enough. He had another fallback, too. Something more final.

His 9mm sat on the shelf in his closet in a secure case. He had other handguns, but this one, a Beretta, was special. It was the model that he carried back in the Corps. They hadn’t gone to the range together in more than a year, but every once in a while, Gill took it out of its case, stripped it down, used a lint-free cloth to rub it clean, and gave it a tiny bit of oil before putting it back together and working the action a few times. It was a calming, almost hypnotic act that took him back to happier times, to when he felt a purpose in his life, to when he wasn’t just floating around in space, making it all up as he went along. The Marines, even in the dangerous times, maybe especially during those times, gave him direction and a sense of purpose after all the lost feelings for what he did to Ricky. Now, all that was going to come out into the open. Now, questions would be asked. Now, he’d be ruined.

Gill pulled the case down from the shelf, opened it, and pulled out the handgun. He dropped the magazine and cleared it to ensure it wasn't loaded, then reloaded the magazine but didn’t rack a round into the chamber. Instead, he went back out to where his drink was waiting for him on the kitchen counter, grabbed it, then went to his overstuffed chair, his thinking spot, and held his pistol close to him in one hand, drink in the other.

He knew they’d be coming, and soon. The police, or maybe the sheriff’s department. Someone would come. They'd ask questions about that night. His secret would come out.

He heard a car pull up in front of his building and knew who it was. He listened to the car doors opening and then shutting again. Gill had a choice to make.

The Toilet Fairy

It was among the most ridiculous things any of us had ever seen in our lives, yet the damn thing felt like part of the family somehow. She had sat upon the upper lid of Gramma Andy’s toilet tank for all the years and all the visits we made to her house in Santa Rosa, staring at us boys as we stood to do our business. Her porcelain face and torso were smooth and mostly pristine, the look of an angel, but Lord knows how many men and boys’ private parts she’d seen in her day. She had a grand variety of colorful, billowing dresses that covered the extra roll of toilet paper underneath, the selection chosen to match whatever color hand towels my grandmother had out at the time.

From an early age, we knew the doll’s story. It came from Germany with our grandmother in the 1950s when she emigrated here as a young woman. The post-war years proved to be too much for her, and she jumped at the chance to come to a land with so much opportunity. She came with only her dreams, a suitcase, and the Toilet Fairy. Only, it wasn’t the Toilet Fairy back then. Then, it was only half a doll on a stick —a childhood puppet that kept my grandmother company during the dark days of the war and the sometimes darker years that followed. How and when it became the Toilet Fairy was a mystery to us grandchildren, but we knew that the ugly thing had had a colorful life.

After Gramma Andy’s passing, our mother adopted the creature and kept it as a part-joke, part-heirloom in the display cabinet in her beautifully appointed San Francisco living room. The thing stuck out among her collectables and other oddities, always catching the attention of visitors. We kids just rolled our eyes whenever someone mentioned it, or we made jokes about how many times it had seen us pee. We ostensibly hated the thing, but it had always been a part of our lives.

Then our mother died.

I had already moved to Germany to teach, but mostly to reconnect with the country and my German heritage. It had always been a void inside me. When my grandmother moved to the U.S., she married an American, adopted a bland last name, gave her children American-sounding first names, and stopped speaking German. Instead of Wolfgang, Claudia, and Lothar speaking German around the house, Robert, Linda, and Thomas spoke American English. In her desire to move forward and assimilate, she left her country and culture behind. My mother continued that pattern of leaning into American-ness, but there was always a whisper of something inside of me that knew there was something more to be learned. Maybe it was the memory of how my grandmother pronounced “w” and “v.” Maybe it was in how she always had a layout of cold cuts, cheese, and bread when guests came over. Maybe it was that damn Toilet Fairy who carried history and memory like a torch across a foggy field to keep something alive inside of me.

"When it happens, you don’t have to come back over,” my mother said on the phone a few weeks before she passed, “You were just here this summer.”

“Won’t there be a funeral or something?” I said it like I wasn’t speaking to my mother about her own death.

“Like I’ll care. I know you’ll miss me. I don’t give a shit what other people think if you’re not there.” In her illness, my mother had lost some of the refinement from her upbringing. Within the month, she slipped away to join her mother.

My sister Marie had the unpleasant task of dealing with our mother’s possessions. She was both the eldest and the geographically closest. I, the baby, safely far away chasing yet another dream, was once again shielded from responsibility. Our dead brother was also free of his duties here.

“I want the Toilet Fairy,” I said when asked which of Mom’s things I wanted. “I know just where to put her.” It was an impulsive ask, and I hadn’t thought of it until the instant my sister brought the subject up. Just the mental image of the cursed thing brought to mind the dusty rose color of the tiles in Gramma’s bathroom, the cloying scent of the decorative hand soap, the rough feel of the fairy’s wool dresses, and the little scar on her left ear from where my grandfather had to glue it back after I knocked her off her pedestal trying to peek under her dress when I was five.

“Don’t put it on your toilet lid. You’ll creep out all the men.”

I rented the cottage outside of Darmstadt that I did because, based on an old photo, it looks like the one my grandmother grew up in: a white stucco rectangle with a tiled roof and a garden with a half-wall. In another photo from that era, my grandmother, perhaps eleven or twelve years old, sits in a wooden chair near the fireplace, holding the Toilet Fairy as she was before we knew her: a half-doll on a stick. I don’t have a fireplace in my cottage, but I have a wood stove with a shelf above it. That will be the new home for the fairy when she arrives.

When I click on the tracking number for the package my sister sent, I see that it has been stuck at the DHL distribution center for almost two weeks now. I can see the Toilet Fairy, with all of her colored dresses, sitting alone in a box, scared and lost somewhere in a warehouse. It’s not the homecoming that I would have chosen for her.

Hex

The door front opened, triggering the bell, and announced that drinking down at the pub would have to wait a while longer.

“Fuck,” the artist whispered in the empty back room. “I’ll be right there,” she shouted.

Rubbing her palms against her face to infuse herself with new energy, she thought of the worst possible tattoos that she might be asked to create, lifeless ones that drained her: something cute on a teen girl’s ankle, a tribal band for a frat boy, or a skull for one of the local chuds.

“Fuck,” she whispered again. A vision of a single ice cube melting away in her glass of bourbon filled her with both warmth and sadness; warmth from the escape from the boredom of her life and sadness because she knew that’s all she really had to look forward to most nights. She shook off the negative thoughts and made her way to the front of the shop. The heavy, dark curtain she pushed aside served as a demarcation between where she could relax and where she had to tolerate people.

The man stood patiently, with the look of someone in banking or finance: 50s, lean and fit, clean-cut, bland and conventional in his dress. He hadn’t been in for months, but his presence now meant that something exciting had happened. Inside, her mind leaped and whirred while her body felt a surge of warmth starting at her center and radiating out. For an instant, she thought how sweet her Jim Beam would taste later at the bar–but it could wait.

“Well, good to see you again. Let’s get to it,” she said with a face and voice that hid her enthusiasm. With a slight smile, she waved him over to the work chair. “Tell me about it.”

Removing his suit coat and dress shirt, he pulled up the left sleeve of his white undershirt, exposing a grid of hexagonal cells on his upper arm. Several of them were already filled with her previous efforts. The most recent addition, the deer head with Xs for eyes, stood out for its new colors. He sat in the chair and spoke in that deep, slow voice the artist had to admit, almost made her want to switch teams.

“This one was different from the others. He was ...,’ the man paused and looked out the shop’s front window to find the right words. “He was a disappointment as far as humans go.”

“Yeah? How so?”  She knew the question was pressing him, but her excitement made her impatient and curious. He returned his gaze from the window and looked at her directly.

“He was rude to our server when we went for lunch. I didn’t much like him even before that, but that did it for me. He’s like a cartoon of a man. We talked our business, and he went back to the construction site.”

A dozen questions filtered in her mind, but she knew from their past sessions that he would only tell her enough to inspire creativity, not to quench her curiosity.

“I knew he’d be alone there after the work crew left. Hell, he basically told me where to find him by himself. I did it and left him right where he could be found as soon as someone comes in again. That won’t be until tomorrow morning.”

“This was just a few hours ago?” the artist asked, leaning forward in her chair. “You’re saying he’s still lying there.”

“Yes. I haven’t heard anything in the news about it yet.”

“That’s fucking hot!” Still leaning forward, she shifted in her seat. “You know they’re gonna want to question you about it.” His lack of response was loud and reproaching enough to put her back into silence.

“What do you think so far?” the man asked after a quiet patch. “What do you see?”

“Well,” the artist started slowly, looking down at her tattoo gun as if that’s where the ideas came from, “we have a man, a cartoon of a man, lunch, construction site. What did he have for lunch? What kind of restaurant was it?”

The man gave a quick smile, possibly because he was amused by the oddness of the question or maybe because he was uncomfortable having to share a detail. “He had chicken and pasta in a garlic sauce. It was just some diner he said he goes to a lot. Nothing fancy.”

The artist leaned back in the chair and slumped her shoulders. She looked out of the same window the man had, hoping for similar inspiration. When it struck, she leaned forward.

“So,” she said and placed her hands on her knees. “I keep coming back to cartoon, chicken, and something from a construction site. I’m thinking a hammer. That has a nice, clear shape to it. That sound like the highlights to you?” she asked.

“Cartoon, chicken, hammer? Very interesting. Let’s go.”

She leaned forward and rolled up his sleeve a little farther, scrunching it as high up on the man’s left shoulder as she could, and exposing more of their previous creations. The field of connected hexagons covered the shoulder and much of the upper arm, twenty-four in all, each one and a half inches wide. Twelve of them were already filled in with previous art: the deer was for the “poacher who hunted without permission”. There was the Big Dipper with a purple and green wash of Northern Lights behind it. It was for the girl from Alaska that he met while up there on a work visit. He never gave a reason why, but he said she was a “disappointment.” The artist had a hundred questions for each of the twelve pieces, none of which would ever be answered.

The man didn’t wince when she put the tattoo gun to his skin. He never did.

Managing

Managing

---

One summer, I killed my father. OK, I didn’t actually kill him, but he died, nonetheless. He wasn’t my real father, either, but he felt that way a little bit. I probably could have stopped it from happening, but in my youth and fear, I failed to do the right thing.

The Darmstadter Hof was and still is a local icon. Some would call the granite building a relic, but a family member of ours had owned it and managed it for nearly ninety years. The ‘Hof’ sits snugly in the middle of the town marketplace, and over the years, though the area's fortunes rose and fell with the economy, our place stayed open to welcome travelers. Its Art Deco design went in and out of style, but the patrons always came; some left a lasting impression on me.

I am now the General Manager, but I didn’t start that way. Throughout my school years, I’d work in one menial position or another, finally making my way up the gold jacket of the desk crew, a prestigious position in our fine hotel. I started as a busboy in the restaurant for two summers. Then, I was a driver for the shuttle van for two more summers. That was fun because I interacted with people more and got out of the building. Even though most of my driving was only to the airport or seaport and back, getting out and seeing the city was always an adventure.

Most times, my passengers would engage with others in their party, discussing their trips or business dealings. It was the lone travelers who brought the best conversations for me. I met a few cool people, a lot of chatty types excited about their adventures, and more than one older woman who would have liked to show a younger man an interesting time. At least, that’s what my young man fantasies hoped for.

The first summer I drove, one man in particular caught my interest. He barely spoke to me the first time I transported him from the airport, but he had an almost recognizable air. I didn’t notice right away, but as I was loading his luggage, I was soon struck by how he stood, his stance, and the cut of his shoulders. There was something familiar in them. We drove along, and I’d peek at him in the rearview mirror to see his salt and pepper hair as he stared intently out at nothing. Even his button-down shirt and lack of a tie were reminiscent of someone missing from my life. And it finally hit me: my father.

Now, at this point, my father had been gone for eight years. Not dead, just disappeared. He left my mother and me in the mid-‘80s to live his life and hadn’t been in touch since. The man in the van certainly wasn’t my actual father, but his presence, his similarity to my father, stunned me into an uncomfortable silence. I don’t think he minded because he just stared off into the distance and sat quietly the whole ride. At the hotel, I wordlessly unloaded his belongings and was rewarded with a $20 bill, a firm handshake, and a genuine “thank you.”  I don’t know why, but I remember feeling like crying.

I saw him again the following summer, but this time, the early morning drive was to the airport. He recognized me from the previous year, said a fond hello, and sat in the van's front seat. He sat quietly for the first ten minutes of the ride, but then he looked at me and told me a story.

“My wife and I used to both come on these trips to the ‘Hof’ for weekends back when we lived in the area. Back when …,” His words trailed off.

“Yeah?” I said. I wasn’t sure where to go with this at the time. I didn’t want to step into saying or asking something upsetting. “Is she...still with us?” I thought this was a smart and diplomatic question.

“Yes,” was all he said. After a deep breath and a sigh, he continued. “It was for our anniversary weekend, and we thought it was a good way to rekindle some fun or romance or...,” he waved in the air to indicate he couldn’t find the words, “or whatever.” He paused for almost a full minute. I could see he wanted to say something, but he hadn’t found the words or the energy yet. Now that he had been in the van longer, I could smell what must have been last night’s alcohol coming through his pores. I’d driven enough hungover guests to recognize the odor.

“She stopped coming with me a couple years ago.” He let out another sigh. “I wish she would start trying again.”

Arriving at the airport saved me from the awkward situation. Another $20 bill, another firm handshake, and another genuine “thank you” later, he was gone again.

The next time I saw him was the following summer, my first in the gold jacket and on the 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. shift.

He had just left the hotel lounge when he saw me across the lobby. “Hey, kid,” he said a little too loudly for the late hour. “You’re moving up in the world. Gold jacket looks good on you. Who’d you sleep with to get that?” He approached slowly, in slow, smooth, controlled steps, and I could smell the whiskey that had loosened his tongue.

"I worked very hard to get here,” I said a little indignantly. Then, with a little smile, I let the truth slip out. “Well, my mother is the General Manager, too.”

“Oh, shit!” he said, leaning back from the countertop. “I didn’t mean anything by that.” He shooed away invisible flies as if to wave away his faux pas. “Anyways, good for you. You’re probably livin’ the dream, aren’t ya?” He leaned back onto my counter with both hands as if the answer to this question was really important to him.

I didn’t like the question or what it implied. I didn’t like it because I wasn’t livin’ the dream. I was livin’ my mother’s dream: graduate with a BA in Hospitality Management, follow up with a master’s in business administration, work all the positions at the family hotel, and eventually take over for her as the general manager. If I just follow that path, I’ll make her happy. But it wasn’t my dream. I wasn’t sure what my dream was back then.

I lied. “Yes, sir. I’m working towards my professional goals.”

“That’s great, kid. I’m so glad to hear that. I’m proud of ya. I remember you when you were a busser in the restaurant. Now look at you.”

“You saw me back then?” I said, only half believing him. But how else would he know if he hadn’t seen me?

“Sure. I been coming here for years, you know that, and I see what’s what. Now look at you.  Well done, young man.” He leaned back from the counter and shot me three times with the finger guns he drew from his side holsters. “Pew! Pew! Pew! Congratulations, bud.” He toddled off to the elevator down the hallway and disappeared.

I’d been seen. This man, who wasn’t my father, saw me. This man, who reminded me of my father, was proud of me. I was profoundly shocked to the edge of tears. My mother, granduncle, and co-workers had expressed pride and pleasure for my promotion, but it wasn’t the same as if my father had done so. This man, this stranger, was the closest thing to it that I could imagine.

It would be another year until I saw him again, the late summer of ‘95. Again, he was coming from the bar, and it was again whiskey that loosened his tongue. He leaned on my counter as if he owned it. “I don’t see a ring. You married? Engaged?”

“No, sir. That’s not in the plans for me just yet.” The truth is I had no romantic options at the time that would make marriage even a remote possibility.

“Good. Don’t rush into that. Once you do, everything changes. Same with having kids.”

I never knew if he had kids. It never came up. He wanted to say more but seemed to be having trouble finding the right words. His mouth would open like he was about to speak, but then it would close. He held his hands in front of him like he was holding an accordion. Still, the words didn’t come, so I helped.

“Has today been a rough day for you?”

He dropped a bombshell on me. “You can say that. I finally left my wife. Or, maybe she kicked me out. I’m not sure.” He gave a little laugh. “She said not to come back from my little pity vacation this year.”

How does one respond to that? Instead of trying to say something wise or comforting, I went with the first thing I could think of. “Yeah?” Wise words, indeed. If the end of his relationship wasn’t enough, he shared some more disturbing information.

“Yeah. Our son disappeared eleven years ago. Fourteen-years-old and he just up and vanished from the neighborhood. We’ve never heard from him since. We’ve been trying to keep our shit together since then, but I just can’t anymore. I can’t be there for her. I can’t stand being without him, and…,” he looked down, avoiding my eyes, “I can’t stand being with me. I can’t stand being me. I guess we’ve both had enough of it all.”

The lobby was silent except for the whir of the ceiling fans. From the bar, I could hear the staff closing for the night: the clinking of glassware, the moving of tables, and the laughter from the employees enjoying the end of their shift. There was nothing to break the silence of the moment except more from the man.

“I want him back so badly. There’s so much I want to say to him. I want to hold him, ya’ know? I want to tell him I love him and that I’m sorry I wasn’t there for him. I just want him back.” He wasn’t crying, but it seemed he was close to it. The alcohol and his demons were doing their work. His left arm leaned on my desk, his eyes were still downcast as if in recollection, and he stayed still in place, as if any movement would scare away all the memories of his son.

This was outside the bounds of any other discussion I’d had before, and at that point in my life, I didn’t know my social obligation in that situation. Part of me wanted to shuffle him out of the lobby so no one would come in and get upset by such a conversation, but another part, the part that had been left behind by a father, wanted to hug the man and let him tell me all the things that he wanted to tell his missing son. I love you. I’m proud of you. I’ll always be there for you. Instead, I sat stone quiet as he let his mood pass.

He looked back up at me. “I’m sorry to drop that all on you, kid. I don’t know where it came from. It’s just been a helluva day, ya’ know?”

“I’m sure it has,” I said in a voice softened more from timidity than true compassion. I had no idea how to handle so much weight. Rather than being bold enough to find words of comfort for the man, I was stunned into silence because of what I wanted to hear. I love you. I’m proud of you. I’ll always be there for you—instead, nothing.

After a moment, he collected himself, took a cleansing breath, and straightened out his shirt and coat like it would wash the sadness off of him. He apologized for sharing so much and mumbled a quiet good night to me. I watched him walk down the hallway to the elevators and disappear. A few hours later, he would be dead.

The next evening, I came in to work to hear that the man had passed during the night from an apparent overdose of prescription medication. The loss hit me more than one would expect, more than just a regular guest's passing would. We’ve had guests die before and plenty since then, but it always seemed more of an administrative problem than an emotional one. This was different.

The shift passed with as little human interaction as possible. My behavior was curt yet professional with those who came to the desk, but I wasn’t in the mood to talk in-depth with anyone. There’d been enough of that for a while. I wanted that man to come in again. I wanted to let him talk some more. I wanted to ask him about his son. I wanted to ask him question after question to keep him talking about what weighed him down. I just wanted to see him again, to know that he was ok. But he wouldn’t come in.

All these years later, and many times since then, I’ve thought of that man and my lack of courage, of my selfishness. The man died because I wanted him, my ghost father, to tell me he was proud of me and that he loved me. Instead, in that instance, I was the only person in the world who had the power of life or death over him, and I could have said the words that could have let him live, maybe just for another day, but he would have lived. I should have talked to him and told him that his son knows that his father loves him. It might have made no difference at all, but I’ll never know because I failed.

Deadlined - Prologue

Deadlined - Prologue

---

Deadlined, now available

Jonathan Robert Scotts was going to die tonight. He settled into his comfortable camping spot beneath the eaves of the South Hayward BART station tracks for the last time, his impending death by gunshot coming within minutes. This wasn’t something Jonathan, JR to his friends, had anticipated, but he wasn’t one to live a calendared life. Having lived on the streets for the better part of two years, his social activities didn’t call for much planning.

Luckier than most of his peers, he got a modest disability pension from the VA. It wasn’t much, just enough each month to get drunk a few times before the money ran out. Outside of that, Scotts relied on handouts from the two churches on Tennyson Road. Sometimes, he could dumpster dive behind the markets, but there was often too much competition from his fellow street dwellers for whatever treasures they might contain.

He wanted to be around his family, but he’d burned those bridges. They still lived down the road in Fremont, but they’d grown tired of his bullshit. They’d grown tired of his lies, and they’d grown weary of him stealing from them when he needed some kind of fix. There were only so many times they wanted to retrieve JR from county lockup.

The day arrived when they no longer came, and he could only hitch a ride to Hayward. Then Hayward became home. JR tried downtown around the bus and BART station but found it crowded with too many hardcore drug users. The industrial areas lacked food or booze sources, and the prime foraging spots along Mission Boulevard were already occupied. After a few weeks of exploring and experimenting, he found his way to the Tennyson corridor and made it his home—for what that was worth. Sure, he had to break camp every night, but that didn’t take long, and it was easy to pack with him on the bike he had stolen. He’d never been robbed, the BART police never rousted him, and only the strongest of winds could bother him in the faux cave beneath the tracks.

Tucked away under his blue tarp, sipping on the last of his malt liquor bottle, he weighed the idea of whether to take a piss now or hold it in through the night. He wanted a better life, and he had a plan for it. He wanted to have his disabilities re-evaluated to see if he could get a better pension. He’d qualify for VA medical care if he could get a high enough rating. If he could do that, maybe he could get to rehab. With rehab, JR almost teared up at the thought he might get his family back.

He’d fucked up so much, so many times. He knew his family would never forgive him, but he’d wanted to try. He had no idea how to get sober and had every excuse and opportunity to keep drinking as things were now.

Sleep approached as he thought of his ex-wife, Debra. She hadn’t remarried, so maybe he had a chance. He recalled their first dates, how they met, how they kissed and made love. It made him sad. He turned in his blanket to face the concrete wall, took a heavy breath, and eventually slipped into slumber.

JR didn’t know how much time had passed, but he woke with a jolt when his tarp and blanket were jerked away. Was he being robbed? For a moment, he felt relieved, knowing he had nothing to steal.

That comfort ended with two quick spits of light from the gun barrel pointed at him. For the briefest of instances, images of Debra passed through his mind before the final shot entered his brain, and he slipped to the other side.

Oscar Braga looked forward to the killing on this night. It was an idea a long time coming, and that time was now.

While traversing this busy corridor commuting to and from work sites, he had seen the patterns of people in this area and kept mental notes on their activities. He’d seen where the homeless gathered, where they hid and nested. A few weeks back, he’d parked his truck and scouted this area to get a more intimate feel for which dark corners held his targets. He had found the alleys and corners that gave shelter to those he despised.

Tonight, he would clean the streets and make a better world for those remaining, he thought solemnly.

Tennyson Road ran east-west and crossed Hayward just south of downtown. Lower-middle-class neighborhoods saddled its length up and down with a few strip malls, churches, and schools thrown in. Once gentrification took hold, the area’s glory days were behind it and, if lucky, ahead of it. For now, though, it had more than its share of homeless souls seeking refuge from the world’s economic woes where and when and how they could.

The South Hayward Bay Area Rapid Transit station was the site of his first planned contact. Braga didn’t know if it was a male or female, only that this silhouetted figure would be in its usual spot, as it had been every time he’d checked in the past few weeks.

Braga had been keeping himself calm during the roundabout walk from his truck to this starting point, but knowing he was about to commence his wave of cleansing, he was both scared and excited beyond words. His breathing was quick, and his heart rate elevated like he was about to begin a trip on a roller coaster. But he was ready.

He walked westward along the north side of Tennyson, dipping low to avoid the BART tracks in a half-underpass. Braga shined his flashlight into the eaves of the underpass to check for anyone unaccounted for. Had there been occupants in that dry area, he’d have to skip this first kill, but he already knew from his weeks of prep work that no one had taken up shelter there. Braga wanted a clean start with no potential witnesses. At other spots, he’d easily be able to kill any witnesses, but not at the beginning. Too open, too busy with traffic, too well-lit.

Head on a swivel, he reminded himself while keeping one of the massive concrete support pillars between him and his target. One flickering light cast his shadow intermittently upon the stone. It was a short path and worth the risk. Traffic was clear.

Once on the other side, he steeled himself, pulling the suppressed 9mm pistol out from the front pouch of his black hoodie. It was an old military surplus Beretta 9mm and probably had a few thousand rounds sent through its barrel—maybe even a few in anger. It would work for tonight’s mission.

With one final glance over his shoulder to the street behind, Braga turned and hustled up the concrete incline toward the eave, where it met the underside of the BART track overpass. There it was, in the same spot it had been every time. Tonight was its last night of being a drain on society. Reaching his target, Braga seized the edge of the tarp and blanket the person used as protection from the world and whipped it away, rousing him in a start. It was a man, after all. Before the man could make a sound and while staring into his rheumy eyes, Braga overcame the rapid rise of the man’s stench and placed three quick rounds into him: two in the chest and one in his face. No time to enjoy the victory. He had more to do.

Three blocks west, someone had made a home of tarps against the tall noise abatement wall, partially protecting the adjacent neighborhood from the sounds of passing trains. The wall kept him safe from the elements but not from predators.

Braga grabbed the tarp that served as the man’s home and ripped it away. Held in place by ropes and bungee cords, it didn’t get torn down altogether, but it did expose the alarmed occupant to the cool Hayward night.

The man’s panic didn’t last long. Two quick shots to his chest, with another well-aimed shot to his forehead, ended any possible emotion or commotion.

Braga crossed over Tennyson again to a small camp in the shadow of overgrown oleanders near the corner of the recently refurbished strip mall two blocks west. There were the usual businesses, all closed: a laundromat, bar, liquor store, taqueria, check cashing store, and a doughnut shop—minimal illumination at this hour.

As soon as the lights from a passing van faded, Braga used the noise to cover his movements as he headed toward the far side of the lot and oleanders. Walking a slow arc to avoid making a straight line to the bushes, he noticed movement to his far right while focusing on his target area. A man shuffled toward him. No, not toward him, but in the direction of the shade and shadow and safety of the overgrown plants. The approaching man carried a bundle, probably sleeping gear he’d stolen.

Braga took a chance to see if anyone inside was sleeping. He looked around in the gloom while adjusting his eyes to the darkness. Two, no, three people were sleeping in their blanket cocoons. The suppressed 9mm had nine rounds remaining, ready to go in Braga’s grip.

The homeless man with his belongings stepped between two overgrown oleanders. As the shadows of the heavy branches embraced him, blocking the light, Braga greeted him with two quick shots to the chest. Only one of the three vagrants inside the impromptu camping spot stirred from the muffled gunshots. Though they were in the shadows, Braga could see his dark Central American features and greeted the man’s shocked appearance by placing two rounds into his forehead. Neither other camper stirred.

Five rounds left. He put one into each man’s heart and followed it with another into where their heads would be. He gave the second man an extra round in his skull just for fun.

Motionless and silent, he absorbed all the sights, scents, or sensations he could from the scene: spent propellant from the multiple rounds, the metallic tinge of blood, human filth of the routinely homeless, the wash of noise from the rare passing car, a distant train. Nothing close that would present a threat.

Start at the beginning with The Stone Harvest.

He reloaded his pistol and surveyed his latest kills for signs of life, satisfied they were all ex-homeless and would no longer be a burden on society. As at the other scenes, he left his spent shell casings behind. He had stolen all the ammo, making it untraceable back to him, and wiped down each round when loading them into the magazine. No chance of leaving a print behind.

The next kill site was two blocks west on the other side of the street. An auto repair shop sat on the opposite corner from a brightly lit 7/11, its lights a blanket of hope and a sense of security to those ensconced in it for the time it took to buy a late-night pack of cigarettes or a Slurpee.

Braga walked to the kill site, the shadowed side lot of the shop, and played this stop differently, knowing he had a full magazine. He quickly placed two rounds in the chest of each of the three sleeping victims he knew frequented the place, short Latino men who appeared to be in their forties. Then, taking a bit more time, put a final round in each skull.

He had no more attacks planned out. His truck waited a few blocks away, and if the night’s killing ended here, he’d be OK with the body count. Nine. About as he expected. Naturally, he wanted more, but prudence demanded he take precautions. If he really wanted, more targets could be found in the dark alleyways behind nearby businesses or tucked under bushes at parks. He’d learned in his many trips up and down Tennyson that no matter the hour, there were always stragglers lurking about in the landscaped areas he could add to the count. The fat one without shoes who often stopped traffic by walking right into the middle of the street, regardless of how busy it was. There was also the gal who slept in front of the Mexican market and changed her clothes on the sidewalk. He also knew of an old man who pushed his two shopping carts up and down Tennyson and made his home wherever he felt.

There was always more.

Between here and his truck, the most likely spots to find safe prey were behind the Life Church community center, outside the 24-hour Jack in the Box, or near the park library. They all looked busy. Busy with animals camping out and stealing both space and air. Braga knew already, but he triple-checked his ammo count. Loaded with a new magazine and two more ready, he had one other quiet spot to check.

Ruus River was the local name for the cement creek that ran perpendicular to Tennyson. It was part of the city’s rainfall-runoff abatement that gathered all the rainwater from the Tennyson Basin. It brought the water to the shoreline during the rare storms that dumped so much rain and runoff into the area that the regular drains and gutters couldn’t handle. During the drier seasons, like now, the river served as a pathway for those trying to stay out of the streetlights. The county fenced off the area where Tennyson and the river met, but the chain link fencing wasn’t enough to stop the natural flow of humans on this primate game trail. Braga found a place someone had cut their way through to make a path. There’d been no rain, so the concrete river was dry except for a bare trickle down the center of the channel. The tunnels under the road proved too dark to see anything, but the stench of human filth was thick. He gave his eyes a moment to adapt, then noticed a motionless human silhouette at the far side of the street leaning against a pillar.

Braga made an arc around and behind the man, walking past the target with about ten feet between them, making side glances in his peripheral vision. He couldn’t tell if the homeless man was asleep or unconscious. Odd. He was more than asleep.

He’d seen this man several times shuffling up and down the street, wrapped in his old blanket, looking as bad as he smelled. Whatever alcohol or drugs he had gotten hold of had incapacitated him enough that no matter what noise Braga made, he wouldn’t have roused. This wouldn’t be a killing. It would be euthanization. This pathetic piece of shit needs to be put out of its misery, out of OUR misery.

He changed his mind about how he wanted this kill to play out and slipped his Beretta away. He pulled out the five-inch lock blade from the rear pocket of his pants and used his thumb to bring the blade into position. Smooth is fast, and fast is smooth.

Taking a quick step toward the target, he dropped to one knee, clasped a gloved hand over the homeless man’s mouth, and slid the blade with ease directly into his eye, dead center of the socket. The man’s body convulsed violently, his upper torso lurching toward Braga before flopping into stillness. He kept the pressure on the knife until the man’s body relaxed completely and then pulled it free, not bothering to check for a pulse, but he didn’t get up immediately.

Braga wiped the bulk of the gore from the blade onto the homeless man’s blanket and stood. Concerned there may be blood on his face or hoodie, he couldn’t do anything except for a quick, cursory wipe with his sleeve. He retraced his steps back to the cut in the fence to see if anything was different, any new people, or maybe someone not there who was before. No. All looked smooth and clear.

Passing back through the fence, he noticed a slight uptick in traffic, which could mean more eyeballs to see him, but mostly, it meant more noise and movement in which to remain concealed. Several parking spaces were empty on the side street where he parked. A few locals headed out to work, he assumed.

On his walk, he pulled out his cell phone and turned on the camera to check for any splatters on his face. There were none, but there was some blood near the right cuff of his hoodie. He’d have to get rid of it, but that’s why he bought cheap ones.

Approaching his truck, he unlocked the passenger side with the fob he had secreted inside the wheel well and got to work. He removed his hoodie, placing it along with his pistol, gloves, shoes, and knife inside a plastic bag. He put his regular sneakers back on. Next, he pulled a package of baby wipes from the glove box before cleaning his face and hands. Those dirty wipes went into the plastic bag, too. He brought out a small bottle of hand sanitizer, the kind with a substantial alcohol percentage. If he missed any blood, the sanitizer would destroy any DNA value it held. Lastly, he switched out of his “work” shoes, stuffing them in the bag, too.

Braga gave himself a final visual inspection before climbing into the driver’s seat, feeling good about his appearance. He pulled from his spot, headed northward along smaller streets, and reviewed his after-action checklist. Moreso, he thought about the drain on society caused by his ten victims and the incalculable gain to the community because of their deaths. He knew no one gave out medals for this sort of thing—but he felt they ought to.

Seaworthy

Seaworthy

The sea boiled with millions of little silvery fish darting and dashing whichever way their hivemind commanded. In one moment, they’d head towards the rocky shore. In the next, they’d head away from it. The school would dive down and right away they’d change course and rush the surface, rippling the grey-green water and creating a great tinkle of splashing. Others quickly took notice. 

One by one gulls came until the angry sky above the herring swarmed with them. Again and again, they would throw themselves like lawn darts into the sea, disappear for a few seconds, then return to the surface with a mouthful of fish. Sometimes they would fly off to savor their prize. Sometimes they would eat their catch while floating on the water. Sometimes they would fly onto the gunwale of my dinghy to eat their prize. 

Taking on so much water from the rain and the waves, I was terrified I wouldn’t make the shore. My trawler was already under, its flotsam being kicked about by the rough water of Dixon’s Entrance. The decision to abandon ship was an easy one. There was no way I was going to be able to put out the fire that had spread from the engine compartment. My old boat was a goner, and the only way out was over and away. Unfortunately, the dinghy was older than the trawler and hadn’t been used or even inspected for years. Now, with a storm rising, I was in the middle of the choppy sound, a mile from land in a waterlogged craft that might only have a half a mile of life in it. On shore, the Sitka Spruce, poplar, and hemlock patiently stood, not caring if I made it to them or not. Part of me didn’t care, either. I was so mad at myself for letting that engine overheat. The fire was my own damn fault. My negligence. 

Mine! Mine!” the gulls yelled as they circled the school of herring. Their black and white feathers stood out from the dark, mottled clouds only because of their flapping. A bold fellow, a huge male, stood proudly on the prow of my tiny boat, oblivious to me and my angry, desperate rowing. Perhaps his belly was already filled from feasting, but I’ve never known a gull to stop eating when there’s food around just because they’re full. 

Back in the water, more silver slashed through the water, but bigger this time. A two-foot-long arrow shot through the school, separating it into two parts. Another silver missile came and separated it yet again. The three schools reformed into one and the herring waited for the next attack. When it came, it came from below. A Coho salmon rose from the water, mouth agape, pushing a small group of herring with it. The tiny fish that didn’t go into the salmon’s mouth fell back safely into the chilly water.  

More salmon came. More salmon jumped and rushed and dove at the herring. The school of little fish divided and rejoined time and time again, splitting for safety then coming back together for the same reason. Hundreds were lost to the salmon. Thousands, perhaps. The dozens of salmon were feasting with ardor and gusto—until they weren’t. 

One of the salmon froze mid-attack, paused in space, looked around, and darted off in a seemingly random direction. From under my dinghy, a harbor seal with its dotted grey coat shot out towards the school of herring. It ignored the smaller fish and went at some salmon that were in the middle of their own attack. The seal must have gotten one on the pass because it rose halfway out of the water with the big silver fish in its jaws before diving into the deep with its catch. More seals joined the fray, swimming and skipping through and along the water in pursuit of a meal. The first seal reappeared with less of the salmon than when it first went under, modest rivers of blood dripping into the salt water. It dove again and reappeared, each time with a smaller piece of salmon in its mouth until the fish was gone.  

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All the while, I kept working the oars. As fascinating as the show may have been and as worthy of narration from Sir David Attenborough as it was, I still had a leaky craft to deal with and a long way to go across a rough bay before I was safe. My gloveless hands complained in their special way and my shoulders pinched and moaned with every row. My wet weather gear kept me dry enough but it also made for a limited range of motion, making each stroke a huge effort. It also kept my sweat trapped inside and close to my skin. I was nowhere close to shore, but I was already fantasizing about the fire I was going to build that would get me dry and keep me warm. 

An immature bald eagle with its dark head of feathers swooped near me and scuffed the water in a failed attempt to catch one of the salmon that was swimming away from the seal fracas. That drew my eye to the next layer of calamity. Three orcas expelled their air in the middle distance halfway between me and the site where my trawler went down. One of them, a massive beast, had the bent-over dorsal fin of an elder, probably having swum this bay and sound for decades. It probably knew every curve and contour of the shoreline and every inch of the depths and was teaching its younger companions the same.  

In their rabid hunt for salmon, the seals seemed initially oblivious to the orcas but when the big white and black killers came within 100 feet, they couldn’t help but notice them. Several scattered and fled right away. A few stayed to take an appraisal of what was happening, perhaps, like me, wondering if the fire might go out on its own. The seals would plunge down and swim around then pop to the surface to check where the orcas’ fins were. They'd dive when the orcas did and stay afloat when their antagonists would. I didn’t like that they kept pace with me as I made my way to land, like I was a Pied Piper for marine mammals. I wanted to be free of this mess as I had my own trouble to deal with. Sadly, the animals didn’t agree. 

The orcas circled me, and the seals stayed close. My boat lurched as the massive elder swam under me, lifting me with its wake, as it made a feint towards the seals. It was hoping to break up the pack, sending them in different directions. It didn’t work though, as the four remaining seals stayed together, swimming in a choreographed ballet of escape. The smallest of the orcas must have attacked the foursome from underneath because he came up and out of the water where I had last seen the seals. Now the seals scattered in separate ways, abandoning their plan. Another orca, the third and last of them, made a bold rush towards a target, raising the level of the water. The deep guttural cry of a struck sea dog was loud even over the wind and rain as crimson frothed in the salt sea. But the hunt wasn’t over. 

Only two seals remained. One must have made it out safely and the last two bobbed, weaved, and swerved as the two orcas without a catch continued their maneuvering. The orca that had a seal played with it off in the distance, tossing the body up in the air, blood and saltwater spraying in a whirl as the carcass danced in its arc. The two other orcas made a lazy pattern around me, keeping the seals close by, preventing them from escaping. I continued rowing, the orcas circled, and the seals fretted. Nature moved along in its own, unique way—until it didn’t. 

I was about 200 meters from shore. My hands afire. My back singing, hoping to be heard. Instead of facing the orcas any longer, instead of trying a bold escape through the water, instead of giving up and dying, the seals did the unexpected: they came aboard. First one, then the other, they leapt up from the water into my bow, exhausted and scared. They stared at me for an instant and read correctly that I wasn’t a threat. I was worried about them jostling us all overboard into the waiting mouths of the orcas, but they settled down quickly enough. Immediately, the killer whales came close to the boat, I stopped rowing for fear of hitting the beasts and upsetting them. I’d often heard that they’d never attacked humans, but I wasn’t of a mind to give them a chance to prove that information right or wrong 

The biggest of them came alongside us and stared at me, judging me with its big black eye. Water dropped off its bent dorsal fin and onto my coat. As it cleared my boat, it flicked the side with its tail, I think just to let me know what it could do if it wanted to. My guests remained quiet and polite as the orcas slowly swam away towards their friend with the kill. 

I began rowing again, offering a silent prayer to a god that I hadn’t been familiar with in quite some time. The remainder of the voyage to the shore was uneventful. No herring, gulls, eagles, or salmon. Just my two passengers, neither of whom helped me bring the dinghy ashore once we struck the pebbly beach. They stayed in the bow until I jumped out and started to pull. That was their cue to leave. They scooted up the beach, away from me and stayed out of the water. I tied the boat off to a heavy rock and started the fire that I had been wanting.  

Fire. A dry, warm fire. Flames and wet wood crackling on the stony beach high above the tide line. The spruce poplar, and hemlock that had been oblivious to me bow had me as a neighbor I undressed down to my skivvies and laid out my clothes on sticks to dry by the fire. Surrounded by these scarecrows, I slowly regained some life, unsure if I deserved to.

Rules of Engagement

Rules of Engagement

A short story in the Karl Warren universe

It was only a .22 rifle, but with the right kind of rifle and the right kind of round, a person could take care of all manner of unfriendly creatures scurrying around a farm. 

Though not the best shot in the world, with a good scope, which I had, any menace within 100 yards or so would be dead or, at the bare minimum, would at least have been given notice that their presence wasn’t welcome. I knew this because my parcel on the outskirts of Westwood was big enough that I could plink away with my varmint gun and not have anyone complain. Hell, the nearest neighbors, the Powells, were a mile down the road.  There were a few tree stumps down the way from my barn that I used as my targets, but I’d never dream of harming a living thing unless it was a threat. The only reason I had the rifle was not to keep away armed invaders but to keep my girls safe, my chickens.

I’d become more protective of these girls than I ever thought I could be. Though I grew up in semi-rural Missouri, I wasn’t a farm kid, and my family never raised anything more than a couple of dogs over the years. Chickens were something that my friend Sanchez, the Chief of Westwood PD, foisted on me. Even though they had a rooster, Big Red, as their sovereign, they were MY girls, and they quickly became a stand-in for all the people I couldn’t save while on the job. I even named a few of them as such.

There was Cassandra, a tiny white bantam named after a little girl who thought the pain of life was too great to continue, so she ended it herself. I had a vibrant and loud Rhode Island Red named Mandy, after a lively and loud restaurant server. She was killed by a stalker that no one, us cops included, took seriously until it was too late. Swimmer was an odd-looking mixed breed with a crooked leg. She was named after a young guy whose swim team teammates bullied him so hard because of his physical imperfections that he thought it best to steal his stepfather’s gun and kill himself. I got to help clean up that mess. I can’t change the past—but I can do what I can to save my chickens. So far, I’ve done a better job protecting them than humans.     

My time is open and my responsibilities are few. I wake, drink cheap coffee on my porch, work on rehabbing my 20 acres from a hay field back to a prairie, and tend to my flock. Since leaving the department, that’s been my life—that and heavy drinking.

The dangers are different here. I don’t have bullies, stalkers, addicts, or pedophiles. I have crows, hawks, barn cats, and the worst of them all: coyotes. So far, I’ve been lucky to have not lost a bird, but the threat was always there.

Big Red knew the fucker was around. Maybe he saw him, or maybe he smelled him—if chickens do that, the big fella, also a Rhode Island Red, did what he was supposed to do. He alerted all the girls ranging a little too wide afield and started corralling them closer to the barn. 

I was lucky to be outside in the garden, so I saw and heard him react. Since we’ve been having these scares lately, I kept my .22 outside with me and leaned against the fence where I could quickly grab it. I reached for it and got into a firing position. Even though my military years were spent as an MP with only limited rifle time, I did the best my training allowed—even though my main threat was probably a varmint and not a team of insurgents trying to take out my team. 

I moved from the never-used goat pen back to the door of the coop. Some of the girls knew well enough that the day was about to get worse, so a few of them started flitting their way in through the wooden coop door even though it was an hour before night-night time. Big Red was in the field with about ten of the girls, but they were 20 yards away from the woodline. The long grasses and shrubs had built up so thickly there, and I always worried when my flock wandered close. Mainly, the area was home to bunnies and opossums, but I knew that it also provided cover for feral cats and coyotes. Today was one of those days that I regretted not burning down the whole strip of brush between my field and the neighbor’s, giving the predators a place to hide and myself a clear field of fire.

Why didn’t I just go over there and scare off whatever was out there? Why couldn’t I make enough human noise and leave enough scent by peeing to let any four-legged trespasser know this was unsafe land for their kind? Why didn’t I do something more than wait to kill something? Watching through the scope made the scene seem unreal, like a video I could observe without emotion or investment.

As I said, I may not be the best shot in the world, but at this distance, about 50 yards, and with my firm firing position, I’d have great odds of hitting what I shot at. I was standing, but my left hand was leaning on a fence post, and I rested my rifle stock on my left thumb. As I only had about a 10-yard piece of the woodline I had to cover, the lateral range was nothing. 

The girls in the field returned to pecking and scratching amongst the grasses and late summer wildflowers, but Big Red was still alert. He knew something was up and that something was in the woodline. Through the scope, I could see the signs of his distress: the extra uprightness of his head, his quick head motions, and firm gaze. I wanted to ask him why he didn’t just hurry the girls back home, but I was busy watching and waiting for what might happen next. Did I want something bad to happen? Or was I afraid to pull the trigger again?

He was a mechanized infantryman. Never one of my favorites to begin with, but that’s my prejudice. This particular soldier was a serial abuser, apparently, but we didn’t know his history at the time. We just knew he was drunk and that he had a gun—and his wife. I wasn’t even on patrol, but I happened to be on duty working an investigation and close by with a weapon, so I was dispatched to assist. 

I was the initial responder to their home and cocked it up pretty badly. I came in too hot, made too many demands of the guy, and generally made a mess of an all-too-tense situation. Maybe I could have backed out and waited for the special response team, but with the wife present and in danger, I couldn’t just leave.  I was committed. The Patrol Supervisor was the next on the scene, and he helped de-escalate as well as he could, but the guy was a fucking mess, out of his mind with alcohol and anger. We were in a no-bullshit showdown.

The wheat grass and sagebrush moved in a way that suggested something other than the wind. I adjusted the positioning of my aim accordingly and waited. Despite not seeing the creature, I assumed it was a coyote. I could imagine its brown, black, and grey fur all bunched up and ready to pounce on one of my girls. Whichever one it went after, Big Red would probably throw himself at the wild dog and make himself a target. That’s how “chicken” chickens are. They’re far more brave than that slander carries. The wind came and blew my memories back to the South.

One could say things had escalated poorly. Sergeant Davis continued to talk to the infantryman in a casual-as-one-can-be voice despite the pistol the soldier was waving around. Davis had his hands in front of him so anyone could see he wasn’t holding. His job was to communicate with the guy. My job was to cover him. I was 12 feet away and had a good angle. I thought he should have drawn his weapon, but he was senior to me. What do I know?

I’ve never killed an animal before. I might have killed ants, cockroaches, and flies around the house as a kid, but I wasn’t one to pull wings off butterflies or swat at bees. Mother instilled this in me. She saved all of her pent-up compassion on others,  and despite the self-harm in her last few years, never killed spiders or bugs that wandered inside our seemingly respectable home. Instead she trapped and released them outside. I recall my brothers, before their untimely deaths, trapping and torturing a house mouse, and when Mother found out, she raised holy hell for a week. Had Father been around, she’d have left it to him, but she had to handle discipline herself—so no video games for a week, but she always relented after a few days.

The punishment, or at least the threat of it, worked, but what carried more weight was her delight every time she saw a butterfly or moth. She marveled at them. For bees, she suggested that those clunky bugs had no business being able to fly their fat bodies on such delicate and tiny wings. Every year at the state fair in Sedalia, she would drag me around to every animal in the exhibits, chickens, rabbits, and goats especially, and tell me everything she knew from her childhood years as a 4-H kid. It wasn’t just the stick of punishment but the carrot of her love and amazement with these creatures, too. Her appreciation became infectious, and I never intentionally harmed any animal—even humans.

Corporal Jeffrey Pennington was his name and there was no calming him down. Sgt Davis would get the man’s ravings under control for a brief moment or two, but then the man’s demons would swirl with the booze and come up with another reason to be angry and hateful toward the world. I waited, weapon at the ready. He waved his pistol around and held onto his wife’s belt, keeping her between us. Though I had a clean shot now and then, he’d never actually pointed his weapon at any of us. He talked a good game, but our limitations were pretty clear: we can’t shoot unless there is imminent danger. There wasn’t yet. Just a lot of anger, alcohol, and a gun being waved around.

The grass and brush made for excellent concealment but not great cover, the difference being that cover can shield one from munitions and concealment only from sight. As soon as I saw the coyote, I could have taken a shot and killed him. I could only see his back, but I had a good enough idea where his head and heart would be that I felt I could take a shot and take him out—but he hadn’t pointed the gun yet. He was just waiting and watching, weighing the odds of a rush into the field. 

Maybe he had picked up some human scent. Maybe it was too early and bright. Maybe he knew the chickens could put up a fight he wasn’t unprepared for. Maybe, maybe, maybe. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t violating the rules of engagement yet. He just sat there waiting in the brush and the grass, sniffing the air, weighing the odds. 

Maybe Pennington weighed the odds, too. Maybe he thought he could lash out with his anger and gun yet still be victorious. Maybe he thought he could kill his wife, and then we would solve his problem for him by killing him. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

The coyote sank down a little, and its rear end hiked up like it was preparing for a rush. In the field, Big Red upped his game a little, squawking more and flapping his wings. The hens took heed and scrambled back home, more out of fear of Big Red than anything else.

“Fuck you and fuck her!” Pennington screamed at Davis. My life is fucked! You can’t help me.”

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We both noticed that Pennington was amping up and that his gun was getting closer and closer to his wife’s head. Davis’s pleading had become just noise to the drunk soldier, and we both knew time was short. Davis didn’t drop his hands, but with the hand closer to me, his left, he curled his last three fingers, leaving only the thumb and forefinger, making a pistol. We all knew this sign as a “go” sign, and it was the last thing I wanted to see. It meant I was free to shoot when I had a clear shot. 

I couldn’t see the coyote’s head anymore; it was just its backside and tail twitching. It must have been doing that little dance that dogs and cats do before they attack. I should have shot.

Its tail twitched again, then became still. Even in the lessening light of the golden hour, I could see it clearly through the scope. I still could have dropped the weapon and run out there making noise, whooping and hollering. Instead, I waited, looking through the scope, finger on the trigger. Davis wasn’t there to give me the signal.

I took my shot. The recoil from my service weapon, a Beretta 9mm, was minimal and allowed me to send one more round at Pennington’s head before he separated from his wife and collapsed as if someone had turned his light switch off. I was expecting a scream from the wife, but she remained exactly where she was until Davis pulled her towards him, all without a sound. My training had kicked in as I stepped close to the body and kicked his pistol away from him. 

The crack of the rifle echoed off the low clouds and the nearby mountains. Big Red and the gang barely flinched, but I couldn’t see the wild dog’s tail. Did I get him? Was it lying in a heap, bleeding out, thinking of its family? Did I kill it outright, and its breath and warmth are leaving it as I stand here?

The chickens parted out of my way as I made my way through the high grass to the treeline and hedgerows where my bullet went. The wild roses had withered, but the ninebark was full and flush, so there was plenty of space for a varmint to hide and to cover the sight of his escape. There were no blood spatters. No nothing. He had escaped silently. I’d have to be satisfied that he probably got the scare of his life, or so I told myself. At least, by not killing him, I could play video games tonight.