Chapter 49

Isaac Milton

“How cometh death?” he asked me.

“Like the sunrise,” I replied.

“Like the whisper of a midnight breeze,

And like the rising tide.”

“And what of life,” he said to me,

“how do these few years pass?”

“Like the shadow of a cloud,” I said,

and dew upon the grass.”

- Elizabeth Eddison, “Aubade”

“I’d shay sho,” said a voice. “It sheemsh that our time ish already at an end.”

Abraham Black stood in the center of the street, one block down. Isaac had no idea how Black had made it sound as though he were right behind them. No one had yet noticed the ominous figure standing in the road. No traffic, and only a couple pedestrians in view, all minding their own business.

Black didn’t seem as ominous now. Perhaps it was the broad daylight in which he stood. He looked less like some dark demon now and more like a moth-eaten vagabond. One, of course, with two deadly revolvers. A cold breeze sighed through the cottonwoods lining the road on either side. The trees met overhead at some parts of the street, forming a lane that directed all attention to Abraham Black. All was quiet. School should be getting out soon, though. Some heroic instinct within Isaac urged him to lead Black out of town, thus precluding collateral damage.

Isaac raised the lens to his eye in the direction of Black. A kaleidoscope of darkness bloomed outward from him, shifting and spreading over the whole street, writhing up through the dark branches of the skeletal trees. The sight of this happening on the placid, innocent streets of Pikeston make Isaac suddenly nauseous.

Jacob positioned himself slightly in front of Isaac, between him and Black. “Isaac,” Jacob said in a low voice. “Take Charlie and get out of here. I know! Shut up!”

Isaac took a hesitant step backwards. But…where? Where was he supposed to go? And…where was Charlie? He looked around but did not see any white bird.

A battered green pickup truck pulled out into the street behind Black and turned in his direction. It slowed down as it approached the figure in the middle of the road. A horn honked briefly, politely. Without turning to look, Abraham Black drew one of his guns, reached around, and shot through the windshield of the truck. The sound of thunder crashed down the street. A moment of silence followed, a moment of shock as those nearby processed this. But only a moment.

“Run, Isaac,” said Jacob.

“Where?”

“Just run! Go!”

Isaac turned and ran. Where? Just away, for now. Yeah, that was good. Away in his present direction would take him to main street. Maybe on Main Street there were still police investigating last night’s event. Black didn’t seem as scary in the daylight; maybe the police could take him down. And what about Dwayne? Did Isaac dare lead Black to Dwayne? Yes, he realized. He did dare. With Dwayne, everything would be okay.

Thunder boomed out behind Isaac as he ran. It really did sound more like thunder than like actual gunfire. He didn’t turn around. He sprinted as fast as he could, which was not really very fast, and lamented having packed so much into his backpack. And where was that bird? Somewhere behind him he heard the snapping of fingers. Like Black’s voice, the sound carried strangely through the cool, bright afternoon.

He came upon Main street almost before realizing it. The same corner, in fact, where he had first met Black. He nearly collided with two police officers coming around the corner. He didn’t recognize them. Both of them held firearms; both of them paused briefly in surprise and lingered only long enough to see that he wasn’t hurt before running in the direction of Black. They seemed to be shouting something, but Isaac had a hard time hearing them. He couldn’t really hear anything. Everything was thick and slow and heavy. Eric used to joke about how Isaac didn’t handle pressure well. Well, Isaac thought that probably nobody handled Black well. Except maybe, hopefully, Jacob Hollow. And Dwayne. Black would not be able to kill Dwayne. Isaac knew this, somehow, the same way he knew that God spoke to Dwayne Hartman.

Isaac kept running. He made it to the cordoned-off area where the police were investigating the shooting from the night before. Several more police officers lingered there, perhaps confused by the thunder on this bright, clear day. But they saw Isaac, and they saw his fear. They attempted to calm him; he responded somehow, saying something. He didn’t know what he had said, even right after saying it. He needed to calm down. He needed to think. What would Dwayne do? Pray. He would pray.

Isaac took a moment to pray. He could never afterward remember what he had said to God there on the cold bright street, or if God had said anything in return.

He finished and looked up just in time to see Abraham Black round the corner. The sunny day was dimmer over in his direction. Black ignored the shouts of “freeze!” from the police as he sauntered to the middle of the street. Only then did he turn to face them, just like some gunslinger in an old western.

Isaac shrunk back behind the cluster of police cruisers. Officers stood between him and Black, but he still did not feel safe. Where was Jacob? Where was Charlie? It was a cold day, but bright. Cold. He was sweating.

Black stared them down from under the shade of his hat, and his faded, dusty coat drifted faintly to one side, and this time there was an actual breeze to justify the movement. Black tilted his head up to view the sky above; his broad leather hat accentuated the movement. Isaac could not help but look up as well, at the cracked sky. He thought he heard something up there creaking and groaning like pressured ice, not with his ears but with his mind.

“Sho,” said Black, and again his softly spoken words somehow carried through the thin air. “A showdown, ish it? Not much of one, if you ashk me. I don’t shee the cripple.”

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

“This is your final warning,” said a police officer through a megaphone. “Drop—”

Black’s guns thundered. Isaac flinched back behind a cruiser. Blood sprayed over him; he saw a line of deep red droplets appear on his hand. Men screamed in pain; returned fire. For several seconds, an overwhelming flood of sound pressed down upon him. Isaac closed his eyes and put fingers in his ears. Was this a nightmare? It had to be, right? He’d wake up…

Silence. It had come too soon, way too soon. Isaac, shaking, turned and peeked over the hood of the cruiser. Black stood, apparently unharmed, his huge silver revolvers gripped loosely by hands hanging at his sides. He smiled. He took a step forward.

He stopped in mid-step, then swiveled so abruptly that his coat swirled around him. He froze with the revolver in his right hand extended, aiming at something that Isaac couldn’t see.

Black, fixated on whatever he saw, appeared to have forgotten about Isaac. This was his chance. But…what was Black looking at? Jacob?

Black’s outstretched arm began to shake slowly. But no, not shaking. It was tracking something. Something small, flying through the air. A butterfly. A tiny blue butterfly that Isaac could barely see. The tip of Black’s revolver tracked the butterfly’s erratic path as it flitted out over the road, unaware or uncaring of the death therein.

The blue butterfly wandered in Black’s direction. Black leaned back, then took a full step in retreat, and then another. He finally froze as the butterfly fluttered right over him. His gun, pointed up, followed the insect’s erratic movement perfectly.

The butterfly settled onto the shining silver tip of Black’s revolver. There it flexed its wings a few times while Black leaned away from it in a way that was nearly comical. But after a moment the butterfly again departed. This time Black’s weapon held fast as the tiny blue menace fluttered off.

Silence.

The moment ended when Black’s arm swiveled and fired down the street away from Isaac. Somewhere, a man screamed in pain.

Black straightened. He turned to face Isaac once more. He took a step. And then another.

“Isaac, I said RUN!” shouted Jacob from above and behind. Isaac looked up just in time to see Jacob Hollow leap from the top of the bank, a good twenty-five feet up.

Jacob’s momentum carried him nearly to Isaac before he began to fall. But something happened in air around him. A tracery of light spread out from him, tiny filaments of color threading the air, first a few, then dozens. In the blink of an eye, they knitted themselves together into the outline of enormous wings, raised high over Jacob’s head. The outline filled with sparkling color and the wings plunged down. A gust of air made Isaac adjust his glasses.

The lift generated by the heaving flap of the brilliant wings carried Jacob over Isaac’s head and in front of the police cruisers. There he dropped to the ground, a dozen paces in front of Black. And when he struck the ground, he snapped his fingers.

Something had always been a little strange about the sound of Jacob snapping his fingers. In an almost undetectable way, it could be heard not only with the ears but with the mind, like the cracking and creaking of the sky above. This snap was different. There was hardly any sound at all. Instead, the snap resounded through the earth, through the air, through Isaac’s bones, like massive slabs of iron clapping together, like a profound and sudden rupture of something on the edge of awareness. When he snapped, all the dust on the street swept outward in a shockwave. When the shockwave hit the police cruisers it tossed them into the air like toys, and Isaac as well. It was all strangely quiet.

Isaac shouted in surprise and put his arms up in front of his eyes, certain that he would be crushed between the ground and a police cruiser. His vision flashed white. He heard the sharp cry of a hawk. He felt steady pressure against his back rather than the sudden jolt of impact.

He struggled to identify the “up” direction. He saw the sky, cracked like the screen of a computer. Clouds drifted by, glitching as they passed over the cracks.

He lay on the cold pavement of the street, right on the faded yellow lines. In front of him, Jacob Hollow struggled to his feet. With one bloody hand Jacob held his left side. A dark stain had soaked the lower left of his grey hoodie. Facing him, unmoving, Abraham Black. And right in front of Isaac, Charlie in the form of a hawk hopped anxiously back and forth.

Abraham Black raised both of his revolvers. How many shots had he fired? Did he ever need to reload? Eric would know if he were in this situation; he would have counted. He would be cool, he wouldn’t panic. And Jim. Isaac wished Jim were here. Because Jim…if they were indeed in a story, Jim was sure to be the central protagonist. Because Jim was Good. Jim mattered. Isaac himself was dispensable, he was sure of that.

The wounded Hollow and the unrelenting Black watched each other carefully.

Isaac thought: am I going to die here? Dwayne’s voice came to him, so vivid that for a moment he thought he actually heard the gravelly voice speaking. It was an old conversation, from a camping trip. “Isaac,” he had growled in the cold starry night, “at any moment, you may be required to give an account of your existence.” Isaac had never understood that, and had never thought too much about this ominous declaration afterwards. But now, here he was, looking at Death, and he could think of nothing else.

Isaac realized that at some point he’d taken out Jim’s rendition of Black. And in his other hand he still held the lens.

“Pleashe,” said Abraham Black at last. “Let’sh end thish.”

“No,” said Jacob, his voice strong in contrast to his unsteadiness. He swayed slightly on his feet. Isaac could not look away from the two of them. He was frozen, a deer in the headlights.

“Why?” said Black with a curious tilt of his head. “Ish it jusht the way you were made?”

Jacob shook his head. “No. I chose to do this. We can still fix it.”

“I am not intereshted in fixing it.” He looked up once more to the breaking sky above. “It ish far too late for that.” And without more ado, he fired both of his revolvers.

Jacob snapped, but his left hand exploded in a red mist. He fell to his knees, crying out in pain.

Isaac struggled to his feet but once again hesitated, unsure of whether to run or stay and help Jacob. How could he help?

“Shorry, kid,” said Black.

Thunder boomed through the empty street.

It took Isaac a moment to realize what had happened. His neck felt warm. He put a hand up to his throat and realized he couldn’t breathe. He coughed, and blood sprayed from his lips. He hit the cold pavement before being aware of falling, and only then did he feel the pain. The pain. So much of it.

Dying? Shot? Yes to both. He had always hated shots. Ha. Haha. With the bad jokes, even to the end. He had them all. All of them. And now he was going home. That wasn’t so bad.

He tried to say “I’m sorry,” to the One whom he had surely disappointed. But he couldn’t speak. He couldn’t see. He felt cold. Everything went white, and he heard the cry of a hawk.

And then there was nothing.