Caleb studied her face as Jane walked toward the doorway. Her dark eyes were sad and she had cried a little. She looked tired and her movements were strained, as if she had spent the last fifteen minutes running invisible laps around the hospital room.
Caleb stepped aside as Jane opened the door.
“Are you okay, Jane? You look exhausted,” he said.
His client threw him a quick smile. “Just fine. Let’s go. There are some things we need to get to.”
She walked past him, and after closing the door Caleb quickly followed her. Together they walked through the cramped hallways, ignoring the hideous green walls the best they could. Soon the exit came into sight.
Caleb was happy to be outside where the fresh air blew away the sour mix of antiseptics and disease that had assaulted him. The wind was rough, even for the time of the year, and it helped clear his mind as much as his nose.
“Where to then, Jane?”
“Slightly out of town, actually. Beyond the church.”
“The Toaves mansion?”
“In that direction, but we’ll take a left turn before the sandy road instead of going to the mansion.”
Caleb didn’t know what she wanted out there. He had memorized the map that came with Agent Bradford’s documents and knew there were only endless stretches of mostly unused fields in that area.
It wasn’t his place to question his client, however. It was his job to accompany her, protect her when necessary, and to keep his mouth shut and his thoughts to himself.
The town hospital stood at the eastern edge of town, and together they made their way farther west. Soon they passed the bus station where they had first arrived and the scent of Juan’s Mexican Grill teased their noses with its spicy allure. Beyond lay the main road that divided Brettville into east and west and where, to its left, the town center officially started.
Brettville’s center was a curious collection of relative conveniences. A few stores carried the daily necessities but their anonymous nature was easily drowned out by the unique characters that inhabited the town.
Sparky’s Diner stuck out like a sore thumb, with its flashy yellow walls and the slogan ‘Our Food Is A Real Zinger’ printed in bright blue on the front window. The ‘Z’ in ‘Zinger’ was, of course, a lightning bolt.
Ray’s Liquors was far more subtle in its appearance. Its boring brown exterior was nuanced only by the dark green signpost near the entrance announcing the alcohol waiting inside. On a small chalkboard was written, ‘Behave because Ray has a gun.’
Arts & Crafts & Antiques was a tiny store at the edge of the center. Anything you needed for your art, or your craft, you could get there. If Isabelle, the elderly woman running the store, didn’t have it, she could order it and it might or might not arrive in a month or so. The store’s real claim to fame was a stamp collection that nobody was ever allowed to see. Some skeptics said the collection probably didn’t even exist.
Caleb liked Brettville. It reminded him of an innocence that he had felt as a child, but that had vanished from his life throughout the years toward adulthood. People here understood how to live: within their means and without the pretense that you found in bigger cities. The town was small and simple, but pure and honest. When you entered it you felt yourself removed from the rest of the world and all its problems, shielded by the grand circle of large pines that guarded Brettville’s borders.
A sickness had settled upon the small town, however, and Caleb followed his client that seemed, at least, to have a clue about how to cure it. Together they passed Sparky’s Diner, where they had eaten breakfast not too long ago, and it was then that Caleb felt a sudden itch.
The itch started in his feet and quickly moved its way up to his knees where it jumped to his groin. It nestled there briefly before it crawled up to his core and touched the beginning of his chest.
Caleb tried to scratch it but found that he couldn’t reach the itch. As if, somehow, it had dug into his skin and now tormented the muscles underneath.
The itch intensified with every step he took until the sensation became almost unbearable. It worked its way up from his chest to his neck, where it threatened to choke him with its cruel embrace.
Caleb thought it might be allergies. It was the only explanation he could think of, even if he had never had any before. Maybe the pines didn’t agree with him, or there was something else in the air. Anything, whatever. What else could it be?
And then the itch climbed into his very skull and wrapped its ugly little voice all around his brain.
Caleb groaned as he kept walking. The sensation was almost unbearable but he had a job to do. A client to follow. To watch her. To watch Jane Elring. To watch Jane Elring. He kept repeating the same sentence in his head. He would focus on it. It would get him through the torment. It was temporary, Caleb knew.
The itch turned into a violent burn and still Caleb went on. Whatever this was, it would pass. Everything always passed. The good, even the bad. Everything always, eventually, became a bad dream that could only hurt you in the night. Could only get to you in your sleep.
Caleb wasn’t asleep.
“Hey, you glorious bastard!”
Caleb recognized the voice instantly, though it couldn’t possibly be him.
He turned his attention across the road where the sound had come from. He could see Ray’s Liquors’ dull exterior and the green signpost that promised a wealth of booze inside those depressing, dark brown walls.
“What?! We don’t say hi?!”
Caleb looked beyond the signpost and saw John C. Reilly standing in the bar’s doorway. The ginger bastard with his ugly smile waved at him with one hand, holding an M240 machine gun with the other. There was blood in his eyes, almost as red as the horrible buzz cut desecrating his freckled face.
Caleb knew then and there that Reilly was going to shoot them all. He was going to shoot the old woman just about to pass by. He was going to shoot the mother putting her little son in the back of the car. His bullets would pierce the buildings and kill everybody inside.
And he would shoot Jane. He was going to shoot Jane.
With the pain in his head almost killing him Caleb jumped for his client and pushed her against the sidewalk.
RATATATATATA RATATATATATA RATATATATATA
The machine gun’s terrible roar killed all that stood in its way. Bullets soared over Caleb’s head and the scent of blood rose into the air.
It was the screams. It had always been the screams that were so fucking terrible in his nightmares. They were real now and they echoed through the haunted streets of Brettville.
Caleb listened as the gunfire died down. He pushed up his chest, only then relieving the pressure of his body on top of the small Jane.
“You’ll be okay,” he whispered to his paralyzed client.
Caleb got on his feet and just as he did so a mighty blow cracked his skull. He fell back against Sparky’s Diner’s yellow wall and watched as Reilly pulled a knife from his army belt.
“No, you fucker! No! Not again, you motherfucker!”
But the ginger bastard didn’t listen to Caleb. Instead he knelt down next to Jane, grabbed her by her hair, and lifted her head. With a terrible grin he cut the young woman’s throat.
Caleb’s tortured head was dizzy and confused. He could barely breathe and he had no strength to stop Reilly. He had no strength to do anything. He never had any strength anymore to do fucking anything.
Reilly admired his handiwork as Jane’s blood flowed from her open neck and drenched the sidewalk. With a finger he scooped up some of the blood and painted his lips a bright red.
Caleb cried. Helpless tears ran down his hopeless cheeks.