The Killing Hour

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Well, fuck it. So this is the way it’s going to be. The cancer. . Christ, none of it even matters in the end. Coffin shopping and picking out a suit-it’s no longer his problem. This is the moment of truth. The moment where he gets to meet his maker and ask him the big question-what the fuck?

The pain in Landry’s leg is so raw, so intense, that at this point he’s actually welcoming death. Can’t be worse than this. His throat is burning from all the screaming, it feels like he’s swallowed gasoline with a Zippo chaser. The gunfire has left a high-pitched whine in his ears, which has eaten through to the core of his brain and is now eating its way back out. He can feel his heart slowing down. He’s losing it.

He doesn’t want to die. He’s made the biggest mistake of his life by coming out here tonight, and he’s going to pay for it in the biggest way possible. There is no going back. No do-overs. This is far from the justice he pictured hours ago, but in a way it’s justice nonetheless. He came out here with the thought that he was doing humanity a service. All he was doing was making a mockery of everything he believed in.

What a mistake.

How can he have been so stupid?

The cancer? The pills?

No. That’s just a bullshit excuse. It was the anger. That’s what made him stupid. He’s angry at the city because the Christchurch he grew up in isn’t the same Christchurch he’s been living in for the last five or ten years, and it’s certainly a far cry from the Christchurch he’s going to die in. So yeah, he’s angry-he’s angry because he has to see the depravity others don’t have to see. He got to see the dirty mechanics of the world, and now he’s gotten caught up in the gears.

He has wasted the last week of his life. He’s spent it dying when he should have focused on living. Of course none of that matters now, not out here, not in this shithole of a forest where years ago one of God’s assholes brought a woman out here to die, only to do it again a few years later.

His eyes are filling with blood. At least that’s what he thinks is happening. Maybe it’s the blow to the head he took earlier. Maybe the fall. There are shapes moving in front of him, and these shapes turn as red as the landscape he sees them moving across. Everything is wet. The gunshot wound isn’t enough to kill him, but the blood loss is. Trained paramedics couldn’t save him now. There’s no hope. Not for him. Maybe for Feldman and the girl.

He digs his fingers into the damp ground and twists himself toward Cyris. His killer is facing Feldman and the woman, the shotgun firmly in his hands. Landry uses his arms and his good leg to crawl forward. He starts to close the distance.

One of those shapes in the red landscape is Charlie. He grins. He guesses he’s on a first-name basis with the guy, now that he’s about to save his life. When he wanted to kill him, it was Feldman. Now it’s Charlie. He nods at Charlie, and Charlie nods back. Message received. He reaches into his right pocket. Charlie took the keys to the handcuffs, but not both sets. For as long as he’s been a cop he’s always carried a spare handcuff key in case his own cuffs were used against him. It’s a trick that Theodore Tate taught him. Of all people, Tate is the last person he wants to be thinking of right now. He curls his fingers around the key and pulls it out.

Unbelievably, his hands are steady. The key slots in on the first attempt. He undoes the left bracelet and leaves the right one attached.

He crawls closer to Cyris knowing this is the last thing he will ever do.