Desolation

He stopped at arm’s length from her, first examining her tray to see if she had eaten her food. She had made sure her bowls were emptied into the five-gallon paint bucket they’d given her for a latrine. She also acted the part, pretending to be drugged, having difficulty opening her eyes as she croaked, “That you, Butch?”

CH leapt forward so that his mouth was an inch from her ear. “Cut the bullshit, Ms. Lieutenant Sinclaire, or would you prefer I call you ‘Starbuck’?”

Melanie, careful to not move her upper body, was poised and ready to spring at the right moment.

“That line of shit may work on my son, but it doesn’t wash with me. I know you’re an astronaut and you crashed somewhere around here. I saw your uniform.”

She clutched a steak knife; she had found it under a kitchen cabinet when she was held up there and managed to spirit it down to the cellar. Any moment now, she told herself.

“The only reason you’re still alive is because we can’t find your ship yet and my idiot sons keep beating you senseless before I can get you to talk. But you seem good enough to tell a line of shit to my spawn, and now I’m plumb out of patience.”

She swung her arms and the knife around and up.

“Either you tell me where—”

Melanie plunged it upward deep into his throat. The rush of warmth over her fists and down her arms told her she hit the carotid. She watched the life drain out of his face. Feeling revived and stronger, she pushed up on the blade moving it closer to his brain. His eyes bulged, his mouth slacked, and a torrent of blood continued to pour out. His heart worked harder against his dropping pressure, until it spurted with each beat over her face. His fight over, still she drove her knife deeper until he was lifeless and she was holding up his corpse with just her grip on the knife. Releasing him, his body leaning into her, she was able to reach around to his key ring.

“Hey Pop, you all right down there?” yelled Chase, the near-eunuch son.

The key ring released easily and she found the right one quickly, unlocking her handcuffs. Then, she pushed his heavy body away. It slumped into the large puddle of blood around them.

A few tentative footsteps down the stairs, then Chase stopped and lowered his head to see an overturned lantern, casting light away from the woman and something else he couldn’t see. He took a couple more steps down.

She reached down and unholstered CH’s .45 Colt revolver, just like the one she’d learned to shoot on her family ranch in Wyoming. She jumped up, calmly held the revolver out steady, and cycled a round by pulling the hammer back, all while walking forward with deadly purpose. Without hesitation, she pulled the trigger. The explosion was followed by a hollow ringing, that oscillated with every beat of her heart.

Chase fell backward, either from the bullet’s heavy impact or from surprise, or both. His heavy frame slid down a few of the stairs and stopped. A small red circle grew on his T-shirt.

She scaled the steps two at a time, cycling the next round, until she was standing over him. She watched him stare past her helplessly, his chest rising and falling rapidly. His eyes held fear and the knowledge that his miserable life was coming to an end quickly. A stream of red ran below him and down the stairs. She had slaughtered enough animals on the ranch to know his death would come soon, without her doing anything to hasten it.

“How does it feel being the helpless one?” Her anger and hatred blasted out of her eyes. “This is because I didn’t get the job done the first time.”

Lowering the gun to Chase’s crotch, she looked one last time at his face, and just as he yelled “nooooo” she pulled the trigger.

A faint noise above, almost impossible to hear over the church bell ringing in her ears, told her she was not alone. Her head popped up and there was Butch standing in the doorway, holding a rifle at ease, his mouth agape. Before she could raise her gun, he dropped his, turned, and ran, his footsteps echoing throughout the house, up another set of stairs before a door slammed in the distance. No other sounds now but the ringing.

Melanie let go of the gun. It clacked and clattered before coming to rest at the bottom of the stairwell, spent of all energy like her. She collapsed into her palms, her withheld emotions breaking loose like a thunderstorm in summer. Her body shuddered in self-loathing for what she had been through and what she had been forced to do. She remained this way for a long time, until she was empty, forgetting that Chase’s blood collected around her. The red stream slowly ran down one step, pooled, and then ran down to the next. Finally, it surrounded her bare feet, its sticky warmth reminding her of what she had just done. She needed to leave, now.