A Girl's Guide to Guns and Monsters - Martin Harry Greenberg [93]
Suddenly, Melinda knew. “Kaylee, shoot it!”
“But, Mommy, I might—”
The snake hissed, coils constricting.
Melinda wasted her last breath on two more words. “Trust me.” Then, dizziness overturned thought. Her lungs screamed in agony, her bones seemed to creak and shudder, she felt as if she floated in a sea of pain.
A bang crashed through Melinda’s ears. At last it’s over. The pain vanished in an instant, leaving only a dull ache. As if from a distance, she saw Kaylee collapse from the kickback, the shotgun tumbling from her grip. Melinda appreciated that she saw this much in what had to be the moments just after death. She could not imagine the buckshot penetrating the snake and not her as well.
Yet, the moments before the end seemed to stretch into an eternal, ringing silence. She watched Kaylee throw the gun aside, watched the girl run to her side and reach for her hand. “Don’t bother,” Melinda said, shocked that she could speak. “I’m—” I’m what? I’m clearly not dead. The realization came in a shock; and, to her surprise, it disappointed her.
Melinda sat up, backpedaled from the bleeding snake, and caught Kaylee in her arms. “You were so brave, Kaylee-Kitten. So brave.”
Kaylee caught her mother, tears wetting through the fabric of her pajamas. “Mommy, I think Paige . . . I don’t hear her . . . sleeping.”
Paige. Melinda pressed Kaylee gently to the bed and ran to the crib. Paige lay utterly still, her eyes closed, her expression more peaceful than Melinda could ever remember. A slight smile touched the corners of her scarred lips. She made no snoring sounds, and her chest did not move. “Paige?” Melinda shook her body, limp, as always, but, somehow, more so. “Paige!”
The eyes did not open. The expression did not change. Only then, Melinda noticed the chips on the bars, the holes in the bedding, the single tiny opening in Paige’s pajama shirt, at the level of her heart. She died. With the same shot. At the exact same moment as the broch de shlang.
Kaylee sat on the bed, talking. “Mommy, I was scared to shoot it, scared I might hit you, too. But then, Aunt Ruthie was here, and you both told me to trust you. And she helped me point the gun just right . . .”
Just right. Melinda stared at the hole in Paige’s pajamas; and, suddenly, it all made sense. I wasn’t the host. Paige was the host. Realization went deeper. The curse is over. Kaylee is safe. And her children. And their children. She wondered if her father would find great-great Aunt Ruth dead, too, in the morning. God bless her ancient spirit.
Melinda ran to Kaylee, catching her into an embrace. “Oh, my brave, brave, dear child. I wasn’t the one strong enough to save our family. You were.”
Kaylee could not possibly understand. “I love you, Mommy.” Her gaze went past her mother. “And I’m so sorry about Paige.”
Melinda looked at the massive and bloody snake corpse on the floor, still as stone, clearly dead. “Paige went quickly, without pain.” She felt certain of her words. The expression on Paige’s face convinced her.
“We knew God would take her sooner than later; we had thought much sooner. But she had ten years to live, a whole decade of kindness that only a scarce few with her condition ever get.”
Kaylee clung to her mother. “Mommy, can we call Daddy?”
Melinda could use some understanding. Though still shaken from the events, though grief had only just begun to fill her soul, she needed a kindred soul beside her, the only one who could truly share her pain. She lifted the phone and prepared to dial 911. “As soon as I finish calling the police, you may.”
“He’ll come, you know. Anytime. He loves us.” Melinda spoke words she had not in years. “You know, Kaylee, I believe he truly does.” She could scarcely imagine their family coming together again, hated to think that such joy could spring from the death of loved ones. And, yet, she felt certain it would. Once again, they would become a family.
Melinda had