Elisha's Bones - Don Hoesel [92]
I start forward, toward the sounds. I don’t know why except that to head into something—even unprepared as I am—is better than waiting and letting that thing come to me when I’m in my nightclothes. I quickly tiptoe through the living room and peek around a corner, just in time to see a man emerging from the master bedroom—only he’s moving with the stealth and strength of someone much younger than Jim. I fight the impulse to jerk my head back, knowing the darkness is my friend but that I have a better chance of remaining unobserved if I hold still.
A sick feeling washes over me as I watch this person pause and, apparently, get his bearings. I can only imagine what he’s left in the room behind him. I hope that I’m wrong.
The intruder turns and I see his silhouette in profile, the gun in his hand. It’s not until he starts for the stairs, toward Esperanza, that I feel a white-hot anger building inside me.
Then it hits me: I don’t have a weapon. All I have is the element of surprise.
So I launch myself from around the corner, intent on tackling this person and wresting away the gun, but I haven’t counted on the combination of hardwood floor and bare feet. My right foot slides forward on the floor and I feel my knee give, bending in a way for which it was never designed. Sensations of heat and tearing race through my leg, and for a terrifying second I can’t see anything. But the immediacy of the pain recedes and I recover just as the man turns toward me. Mustering the remains of my balance and my anger, I lunge at him, reaching for his gun hand.
He gets off a single shot, muffled by a silencer, before I’m on him. I start beating his face with my closed fist while my other hand fights to keep the gun pointed away. I’m not sure how it happens but I’m suddenly on my back and he has my forearm in a solid grip. He brings the gun around as my free arm flails to grab hold of it. I still can’t see his face—just a dark spot hanging a foot away. It’s like fighting Death, with his obscuring robe and terrible sickle.
I bring my knee up into his midsection, causing him to break his grip. I pull back and aim a punch that connects with a jaw that feels like iron. The gun’s muzzle emits a flash and I smell sulfur, and it takes me a moment to realize that the fact that I’m registering the smell means the bullet missed its mark. I lash out again and twist away, and I hear the sound of something hard striking the floor.
I’m looking for the gun before I’ve stopped rolling, and it can only be providence that has me land on top of it. I push myself to my knees and scoop it up. I have half a second to find the trigger and pull it before his shoulder hits me in the chest. There’s a flash of energy and of unrestrained power, forcing my arm back so that my elbow strikes the floor.
And then I’m beneath two hundred pounds of dead weight.
I don’t fully process that he’s dead until I have the chance to breathe again. As I lie there, drawing large draughts of air, I realize that life has left him and that what’s ended up on top of me is a husk. A very heavy husk. I struggle to push him aside, pressing the handle of the gun into his armpit and placing my other hand on his sternum to shift him enough so I can squirm free. I push myself up to a sitting position. As my eyes cross up and down the length of the body, I feel a numbness come over me. I’ve never killed anyone before, and my mind, while still in an agitated state, is grappling with the finality of what I’ve just done.
I stand and it’s only then that I notice the large wet spot on my shirt, soaked through to my skin. Even without being able to see it, I know it’s his blood on me and not my own. I have to fight the urge to vomit. Forcing myself to stay calm, I start toward the dead man, setting the gun down and rolling him over. In the darkness I can see little of his face, except to determine that he was young. I lean in closer—close enough that when