Alan emerged into the far side yard of the Hood place slowly and looked around.
All was quiet. There were no shouts, no cries, nothing. Only Alan knew something was going on. Jimmy and Brett had to be around somewhere.
The silence chilled him.
What had Ron been running from?
Was is so bad that he didn’t want to be a part of it, or had he fled for fear of his life?
Heart thumping, Alan rounded the corner of the house. The first thing he saw was the case of beer on the steps of the porch and cans scattered across the lawn. He then looked at the shed and saw something that didn’t make any sense — light was coming up from the ground in the center.
Alan walked closer and realized that there was a trap door leading down into some sort of cellar beneath the shed. When closed one would only see the dirt floor of the shed.
A small but steep stairway led down to another open door. Light came from within. Blood marked a path on the steps. More was pooled in a puddle on the ground, some of it smeared through the doorway as if something had been left there for a second and then dragged in.
Not something, someone.
A figure passed by the doorway causing the light to flicker.
What was Brett doing to Jimmy inside?
Alan began down the steps his mind wishing he had his own gun.
He was halfway down when there was a sudden movement in front of him and a cry of, “Oh shit.” The bullet punched through Alan’s shin before the sound of the shot even reached his ears.
“Ahhhh!” Alan cried while falling down the remaining steps, both hands going to his right leg. It felt like someone had taken a red hot sledge hammer to it.
He hit the concrete with his shoulder and rolled over onto his back. Screams shattered the night and for a moment nothing but the agony mattered.
Then a dark figure was looming over him, gun in hand. He braced himself for a bullet to the head.
“Alan?” the figure asked.
The figure twisted which allowed the light to illuminate him. It was Jimmy. His older brother had shot him in the leg.
“Oh God!” Jimmy shouted. What have I done! “Alan, what are you doing here?”
He had been so focused on getting Brett into the fallout shelter and trying to set it up to look as if he had been the one who kidnapped the girls — all the details weren’t in place but he knew he could make it look good if given time — that he had forgotten to close the trapdoor.
“Jimmy,” Alan said. The word was swimming in pain. “You shot me!”
“I didn’t mean to,” Jimmy said.
Alan looked down at his leg.
Jimmy followed his gaze and could see bone within the hole.
Alan’s face went white.
“Here,” Jimmy said and quickly went to the shelf and got a blanket, his eyes glancing at the two girls and then at Brett who was silently convulsing on the floor, bright red blood bumbling up from his mouth and nose, all within Alan’s line of sight, but so far seeming to go unnoticed. He returned to Alan and handed him the blanket. “Press this against your leg.”
Alan did.
“Let me help you sit against the wall,” Jimmy said. He took his little brother by the shoulders and shifted him around so that he didn’t have to balance himself while holding his leg. “How’s that?”
“Better,” Alan said through clenched teeth.
“Alan!” a voice screamed.
Jimmy pointed the gun toward the door, but this time managed to hold his fire as Tina came down the steps, her tight floor length skirt making it difficult to maneuver down them, her blue heels held in her hand.
Jimmy lowered the gun before she could see it and said, “Tina, go back up.”
At the same moment her bare foot came down in the pool of blood.
“Jimmy?” she questioned while looking down at the ground, a gasp starting to build. “Oh Jesus Christ!” Her eyes saw Alan and then shifted toward Jimmy.
“Tina, it’s okay,” Jimmy said. He then watched as her eyes focused on something beyond his shoulders.
Outside police sirens began to echo.
“Jimmy?” Tina said quietly, fear running through her veins. “Is that Samantha King and Megan Reed?”
Jimmy followed her gaze and said, “Yeah.”
The two girls looked dead, their bodies just hanging there, toes able to touch the ground yet not even making an effort to support their weight.
Not far from their feet was Brett, head cocked toward them, mouth slightly open, eyes wide. He wasn’t moving. Blood stained his lower face and the floor beneath his mouth.
“Shit,” Alan said and then winced.
“Tina, can you help him hold his leg?” Jimmy asked.
Tina saw the blood soaking through the blanket that Alan was pressing against himself and said, “Did you shoot him?”
“It was an accident,” Jimmy said. He then looked at the gun. “It’s okay, I won’t hurt you.”
“Jimmy, why don’t you put down the gun,” Alan said.
Jimmy looked back at the girls again, and then down at Brett and then at the gun. Tina had no idea what was going through his head, or what was going on period, yet in that brief moment he seemed to decide something.
“I can’t,” Jimmy said to Alan and then to Tina, “Please help him hold his leg.”
Tina did as she was asked, her shoes dropping to the floor as she quickly bent down to press her palms against the bloody blanket.
Alan groaned.
“He needs a hospital,” Tina said.
“I know,” Jimmy said. He looked toward the doorway. The police sirens were louder. “They will be here soon.”
“Jimmy, what’s going on?” Tina asked.
Jimmy didn’t answer. Instead he looked at the gun and for a moment Tina thought he was going to shoot himself, but then someone appeared up by the door and shouted down, “This is Deputy Paul Widgeon with the Sheriff’s Department, is everything okay down there?”
A dark look came over Jimmy.
Alan must have seen it too and recognized what it meant because he suddenly shouted, “Jimmy, no!”
Tina followed his cry with, “Jimmy!”
Rather than listening to the two Jimmy pushed by them into the doorway, waited a second, and fired.
Tina screamed.
More shots erupted.
Jimmy dropped the gun and turned toward them. He took two steps into the shelter, a stunned pale look on his face.
A hand went to his chest where blood was starting to darken his exposed shirt. He then looked at Tina and Alan and said, “Sorry.”
Blood spurted from his lips with the word.
Silence somehow settled upon them despite the sirens above.
Jimmy took another step, but this time his foot didn’t hold his weight when it came down and he fell to his knees, eyes rolling back as his body settled into the corner between the doorway and stairs.
“Shot’s fired, officer down,” Deputy Lawrence Milberg said into the radio while kneeling next to Deputy Widgeon.
“I’m okay,” Deputy Widgeon said. His voice was incredibly weak, but that was to be expected given the impact he had sustained. “Just help me up.”
“No, stay down for a moment,” Lawrence said. Then, “Who’s down there?”
“I don’t know. They shot at me and I shot back. I don’t know if I hit them.”
Another deputy arrived on the scene and peeked down the trapdoor. “I got a body on the stairs!” he shouted.
“Help us!” a girl cried from within.
“Come out with your hands in the air,” the deputy replied, gun pointed down the stairs.