Spilled Blood

52

When Chris was one block from the church in St. Croix, the Lexus floated off the pavement.

The flooded engine died. Dank river water filled the base of the car, and the sedan spun in a lazy circle. Chris pushed open the door and stripped off his seat belt, and he spilled out of the car into a foot of rushing rapids. The current shoved him to his knees. His silver car, driverless, rammed an oak tree and ricocheted away, bouncing downstream through the town like a pinball.

He didn’t have time to grieve for his car. The river popped with an odd splash no more than a foot away from him. Simultaneously, the crack of a rifle shot blasted and reverberated in his ears. Chris rolled right, deeper into the water, and when he looked up at the church steeple, he saw a long gun barrel poking out through the louvers, aimed downward. He scrambled forward on his knees, and another bullet buried itself in the water and mud.

Chris ran, trying to stay on his feet. He reached the wall of the church, where he was out of view from the shooter above him. He was wet, cold, and dirty. His phone was gone, lost somewhere in the water. He reached around to the small of his back and found Marco’s gun still lodged tightly under his belt. He slid it into his hand, but he didn’t know if it would fire, not after the gun had spent time swimming in the swollen Spirit River.

Marco.

He’d had his revenge. Florian was gone. So was Mondamin. So was the heart of Barron. The trouble was that revenge knew no boundaries, and the river didn’t stop its destruction at the city limits. It kept flowing, kept flooding, kept growing, carrying everything away in its path.

Chris stayed under the eaves of the church and followed the wall to the corner. Ahead of him, no more than fifty yards away, he saw Hannah’s house, now an island in the deepening lake. Trees and street signs grew oddly out of the water. Behind one of the corner beams on the porch, he spotted movement, and someone waved frantically and called for him in a high-pitched voice. His heart stuttered. It was Olivia. She was in the last place he wanted her to be. He couldn’t stop her or hold her; instead, he watched in terror as his daughter bolted from her hiding place and splashed down the front steps. She was in the open, coming for him. Another shot tunneled into the rushing river, barely missing her.

‘Olivia!’ he shouted, his choked voice carrying over the flood. ‘Get inside!’

She ducked behind the steps, but he could see her face and the pink flash of her T-shirt. Her hands gripped the iron columns of the railing. The water swirled around her. ‘It’s Lenny!’ she screamed back at him. ‘He shot Johan!’

‘Get inside!’

‘I can help. I can talk to him.’

Another rifle shot dissolved in echoes. He didn’t see the ripples of the bullet. As the crack died away, Olivia broke cover again. He held up his hands frantically to stop her.

‘No!’

She froze in place. She glanced back at the front door, but she didn’t move.

‘Olivia, get back! Get in the house!’

She looked panicked by the power of the rapids. She was an easy target, a stick figure in water up to her knees. He knew he needed to get to Lenny before he fired again. He waved Olivia back to the house one last time and charged up the church steps out of the water. The river hadn’t risen above the top step, and inside, the foyer of the church was dry and quiet. On his right, a twisting staircase led into the steeple. He ran for the stairs and climbed around the spirals toward the bell chamber, taking the steps two at a time. Marco’s gun was slippery in his hand. There were no windows and no light in the square stairwell; he was blind. Above him, to his horror, he heard the blast of another shot, and in the close confines, the explosion stung his ears. He heard the singing of the bells, rattled by the echoes. He listened for what he feared – a scream from his daughter outside – and was relieved when he heard nothing.

Natural light beamed out of the gloom. The trapdoor in the floor was just above him. It was open. He squatted and climbed another step, high enough to glimpse the claustrophobic interior of the steeple. It was no more than ten feet square, with a low roof and an arched, slatted vent on each of the walls. Light streamed through the louvers and made parallel shadows on the floor. The bronze bells and wheels occupied most of the space. He heard Lenny’s feet shuffling and his panicked breathing. The boy was immediately to the right of the gap where Chris needed to climb.

Chris shoved his torso through the trapdoor. He led with the gun. Lenny stood there, aiming his rifle at Hannah’s house through the louvers. He wasn’t even four feet away.

‘Lenny, stop,’ Chris called sharply.

The boy reared back in surprise, stumbling against the opposite wall. The rifle clattered to the wooden floor, but Lenny grabbed a pistol from his belt and shoved it in front of him, pointed at Chris. His eyes were wide, almost drugged. His gun arm quaked. ‘Get the hell away from me!’ Lenny screamed. ‘I’ll kill you!’

They pointed guns at each other. Neither would miss.

‘Listen to me, Lenny. Listen. You don’t want to do this.’

‘Shut up!’ the boy shouted, waving the gun. ‘Get out!’

‘I can’t do that,’ Chris told him. ‘My whole family is trapped across the street. I need your help.’

‘Kirk’s dead!’

‘I know he is, but don’t throw your life away over him.’

The teenager shook his head. ‘It’s too late. Don’t you get it? I already killed somebody.’

‘No, you didn’t. The man at the garage isn’t dead. It doesn’t have to end like this.’

Lenny hesitated. ‘I don’t give a shit anymore.’

‘I think you do.’ Chris let his gun hand go limp. Slowly, he laid the revolver on the floor of the bell chamber where Lenny could see it. He raised both hands. ‘I’m coming up, okay? Let’s talk.’

Lenny backed up, flush against the wall. He hadn’t lowered his own gun. Chris climbed into the heart of the tower but didn’t try to draw closer to the boy. Dust hung heavy in the streams of light, and old cobwebs dripped from the ceiling. The wind in the vents made a whistling noise, and the large, brooding bells sang a bass chorus. Lenny’s face was streaked with dirt and blood and split with shadows.

‘Do you think I’m a coward?’ Lenny asked. ‘Is that it?’

‘I think Kirk was a coward. Not you.’

‘Kirk was a hero, man.’

Chris shook his head. ‘No, he wasn’t. He was a sadist, a bully, and a killer. I don’t think you’re like him at all, Lenny.’

‘He was my brother.’

‘Maybe so, but he did bad things, and we both know it.’

‘Don’t talk about him like that!’

‘You know what he did. You know what’s right and what’s wrong. I don’t need to tell you that.’

He took a step forward. Lenny cocked the weapon, and he froze.

‘Stop!’ Lenny demanded, his voice cracking.

‘I just want you to put the weapon down. You’ve seen what’s happening outside, Lenny. You’ve seen the river. We’re running out of time.’

‘I shot Johan,’ Lenny said.

‘That’s why we need to get out of here right now. He needs a doctor.’

‘I don’t care about him.’

‘What about Olivia?’ Chris asked. ‘Do you care about her?’

Lenny blinked in rapid succession. He cocked his head as if his neck were in spasm. ‘She hates me. She wishes I was dead.’

‘That doesn’t matter. If you care about her, then you won’t hurt her.’

Chris watched fear and indecision play across the boy’s face. He studied the small patch of dirty wooden floor between them and knew he could jump for the gun, but he’d probably take a bullet in the stomach as he did. Lenny was alone and had nothing to lose. He looked at the floor and saw that Lenny had an arsenal here in guns and ammunition. The boy could hold out, firing, for hours if he chose.

They didn’t have hours. They had minutes. He had to go.

‘That’s it,’ Chris said. ‘I’m done with you.’

‘What do you mean?’ Lenny asked.

‘It means I can’t stand here trying to convince you that a real man would help me. You’ve got to make that decision for yourself. I have to get to Hannah’s house. I have to get to my family. If you want to stay up here and shoot me, go ahead.’

‘I’ll do it,’ Lenny swore.

‘Go ahead. That’s what Kirk would do, right?’

‘Kirk wasn’t afraid of anything.’

‘Good for him. Me, I’m scared, Lenny. I’m scared of losing my wife and daughter, and that’s why I’m leaving. You do what you have to do.’

Chris turned around. He tensed, awaiting a paralyzing shot into the center of his back. He could hear Lenny panting behind him, torn with doubt. He left him alone. He took the first step through the trapdoor without looking back, and he disappeared down into the black confines of the tower. Lenny didn’t move, and he didn’t fire. That didn’t mean the kid wouldn’t change his mind and pick up the rifle again while Chris was in the no man’s land between the church and Hannah’s house.

He reached the base of the stairwell, and his feet landed in icy water. The river had risen into the belly of the church. He kicked his way toward the doors and had to throw his shoulder against the glass to force it open. Outside, he stared in disbelief at the inland sea running wild over the town, chocolate-brown, surging and tumbling over itself in deep swells. The water was thick with debris: chunks of concrete, whole trees, remnants of walls and windows carried from houses that had been eviscerated. The air bristled with the noise of impact, wood on metal, metal on wood. The short distance to Hannah’s house was a minefield, virtually impossible to cross.

In the middle of that minefield, he saw something that made his whole body turn cold with despair.

No, no, no, what did you do?

On the street in front of the house, Olivia clung to the few dry inches of metal pole on a STOP sign protruding out of the water. It was a fragile life raft, and the sign flapped as the river roared by, threatening to peel away her hands and carry her downstream.

He saw her, and she saw him, and her voice erupted in a desperate scream.

‘Dad!’