The Killing Hour

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

I pick up the gun. Cyris is walking in a slow circle. He’s holding the flashlight. He has it pointed at his face, and he’s flicking it on and off. On and off. I keep the gun pointed at him as I move over to Jo. She’s still alive. I pull the tape off her face and blood comes out of her mouth.

“Hang on, Jo, please, you have to hang on.”

“I. . I want you to, to. .” she says, and she sounds out of breath, and I know what she’s going to say. She wants me to shoot him.

I put my hand up to my lips in a shushing gesture.

“Charlie. .”

I reach into one of my pockets. My cell phone is in there. I pull it out. Then I switch it off.

“Charlie?”

“I called the police earlier,” I tell her. “They’re on their way. The phone line has been open the entire time. They’ve heard everything,” I say, but I don’t want them to hear what’s going to happen next.

“Then where are they?”

“They can’t be far,” I say.

“Shoot him. Please, Charlie. Shoot him.”

“He’s done,” I tell her. “Look at him.”

“This isn’t like it was six months ago at that bar, Charlie. You need to shoot him. I won’t hold it against you.”

Cyris starts patting the trees. And talking to them. I can’t hear what he’s saying. Then he smiles at one tree more than he’s smiled at the others. It must be his favorite. Not that it’s much of a smile. Dark blood falls from his mouth in hanging clumps. Some teeth are on angles, some run flat against the roof of his mouth. Others are split, most are completely gone. But he keeps smiling. He hugs the tree. He wraps his arms around it and talks to it, and then when he pulls away he keeps one hand on the tree and the other on the flashlight, on off, on off. Over and over.

Then he starts walking. He doesn’t go anywhere because he keeps holding on to the tree, but his legs are going up and down, going through the walking motions. He tells the tree something, and I’m guessing he might be talking to his own personal ghost.

“Help will be here soon,” I tell her. “Just focus on staying with me. Please.”

“I’m not. .” she says, and she coughs for a few seconds and I think she swallows down some blood. “I’m not going anywhere,” she says.

I want to unhook the wire from around Jo’s neck, but I also don’t want to take my eyes off Cyris.

“Charlie,” she says.

“Yeah?”

“He’s a bad man,” she says. “If anybody deserves to die, it’s him.”

“I know.”

“There’s no way the police will send you to jail. He killed one of them,” she says. “They’re probably going to give you a medal.”

I’m not so sure about that. In the distance I can hear sirens.

“Charlie. .”

“I know,” I tell her. “I know.”

Action Man, do your thing.

I point the gun at Cyris. My back is hurting. I can feel blood dripping down my side. The wound back there is starting to feel like it’s on fire. I adjust my aim. Cyris’s head is moving side to side slightly in his mock walk. He looks as happy as a man can whose mouth has been shattered and whose face is burned. He seems. . well, strangely, he seems at peace.

I pull the trigger.

My arm bucks upward from the recoil. The bullet catches Cyris in the side of the head. His head snaps to the side and blood arcs out from the wound and then he drops like a rock, breaking his grip from the tree. I feel no pity for him. Only revulsion. He lurches upward, his throat gargling as blood bubbles from his mouth. He starts to convulse, one hand flipping from palm up to palm down over and over two or three times a second. I fire another shot into him, this one also into the head. The convulsing stops.

I lower the gun. This is how it feels to kill a man. I’ve played my part in the deaths of four others this week, mostly through bad decisions and being a fuckup, but not this-this is cold-blooded, calculated, not even self-defense. I’ve killed Cyris and if the game-show host came and asked me to sum up how I felt in one word, I’d say fantastic.

I think Jo is feeling the same way. Or close to it. She remains silent the whole time. The game show is ending. The purple light of the killing hour is here. Evil has gone. He is not dead, but he has forgotten my name.

Remembering all too clearly the mistake I made the other night, I keep the gun pointed at Cyris. I walk up to him. He looks dead. I don’t doubt it, just as I don’t doubt one more shot into his head isn’t going to hurt. So that’s what I do. I can sense Kathy and Luciana watching me, but what I can’t tell is whether or not they approve. I would hope they do.

Jo looks scarily pale as I walk back over to her. I drop the gun. Cyris won’t be coming back from the dead this time. I move behind the tree and loosen the wire, and Jo manages to stay on her feet for a few seconds before slumping down. The sirens are getting closer. They’re almost here. The knife is sticking out of Jo and that’s where we leave it. It’s probably the only thing stopping her from bleeding to death.

“You’re going to be okay,” I tell her.

“We’re going to be okay,” she says, and she grabs hold of my hand and tightens her grip on it.

I can see lights flicking through the trees. Help is here. I keep holding my grip on Jo’s hand as the voices get closer, and then they are here, guns being pointed at us, somebody is shouting, but I don’t let go of Jo, not until I’m pulled away. I’m pushed facedown into the ground and I’m put in handcuffs and the wound in my back brings me close to checking out for a bit, but I hang on. I’m able to turn my head toward Jo and watch as they help her. There are more voices, then paramedics arrive, and they tell us the same thing me and Jo told each other a few minutes earlier-that we’re going to be okay.

A guy introduces himself to me. His name is Detective Schroder. “Want to tell me what happened here?” he asks.

A couple of officers get me to my feet. Suddenly they seem to realize I’ve been shot too.

“Not until I talk to a lawyer,” I tell him, and Kathy and Luciana would be proud, and Landry wouldn’t be. Still in cuffs, I’m carried to an ambulance on a gurney, and from there it’ll be a trip to the hospital. And then to the police station. It’ll sure as hell make a nice change from all this nature I’ve been seeing lately.

We travel through the Real Word, and Jo’s words travel with me-We’re going to be okay, she said. And after all we’ve gone through, there’s no reason to doubt her.