Stolen Souls

66

EDWIN PAYNTER HAD never held a gun before. When he grabbed it from the floor, he wasn’t sure if it was as simple as pulling the trigger, or if there was some trick he wasn’t aware of. For all he knew, he might end up having to throw it at the policeman.

But it was indeed as simple as pulling the trigger. It had sent a shock up through his elbow and into his shoulder, and his arm tingled. And his ears whistled. And it caused a heat and hardness in his groin.

Now he had the policeman at his mercy, blinking stupidly up at him like the dog he had owned as a teenager—the dog that had continued to gaze at him with witless adoration, even as he calmly kicked it over and over again until its eyes dimmed and its tongue sagged in its reddened sputum.

Paynter liked this gun. It was noisy and it hurt his arm, but it felt good to use it. He looked at the policeman’s gun lying a few feet away and wondered if it had the same kind of bullets. It appeared identical to the one he now pressed against the policeman’s forehead.

“Have you ever shot anyone?” Paynter asked.

The policeman hesitated. “No.”

“I don’t believe you. Have you ever been shot?”

“Yes,” the policeman said.

“Did it hurt?”

“Yes.”

“Were you scared?”

“Yes.”

“Are you scared now?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” Paynter said. “I am an instrument of the Lord, and fear is the only proper response. It took me years to learn that. When people looked at me strange, when girls didn’t want to talk to me, I thought there was something wrong with me. But there wasn’t. They were acting like they were supposed to act. Afraid.”

He stood upright, keeping the pistol aimed at the policeman’s head.

“What did he say your name was? Lennon, I think. Well, Mr. Lennon, it’s time I was going.”

The policeman’s breathing quickened, his chest rising and falling. Paynter tightened his finger on the trigger, feeling the pressure, the hair’s breadth between terror and forever silent. The policeman screwed his eyes shut and raised his hands in some pointless effort to shield himself.

Enough, Paynter thought, just—

The floor rushed up at him and the pistol boomed, sending the bullet into the concrete. He had a moment to wonder what had slammed into him, sending him sprawling on the floor, before something hard struck the back of his head.