After Darkness Fell (10 page)

“We never go anywhere alone,” I reminded her.

“I know.”

“You just said...”

“I’ll be all right.” She removed the Uncle Mike’s holster and set it and the .45 on the kitchen table beside the .357.

Alarm shot through me. I didn’t like that at all. “You’ll need a...”

“I’ve got this.” She reached behind her and patted the .38 Ladysmith in the pancake holster in the small of her back.

This wasn’t like her. After what happened this morning, I hadn’t expected her to act like this. She’d apparently built up some sort of wall on the way home and had locked me out. Part of me felt that way, while another part told me otherwise. She was going through hell and needed some time to sort things out. If I didn’t stand in her way, she’d have an easier time of it. As a result, her wall might come down easier and much sooner. But if I made things difficult, both of us would suffer.

If all she needed was a little time, the least I could do was let her do what she wanted, even if it meant standing helplessly by and watching her walk away.

A sense of dread hovered around me like a heavy cloak. It was past dinnertime and would be dark in an hour or so. I knew I didn’t want her walking around out there in the dark all alone. “Are you sure you don’t want me to...”

“I’m sure, Moss.”

“Then you’d better take a flashlight.”

“I won’t be that long.”

That made me feel a
little
better. “I could make some sandwiches for later. You’ll probably be hungry by the time you...”

“I really need to be alone.” She turned and went back outside.

My heart raced as I hurried over to the kitchen window. I pushed aside the sheer curtains and watched as she passed, climbed the stoop and went up the drive that led to the woods.

I went back to the table and stared at her .45 sitting in its Uncle Mike’s right beside my .357. The significance of what Fields had just done registered strongly, and I quickly found that I couldn’t look at her gun without my stomach turning into knots. I turned away and eyed the clock on the wall. 4:55. I’d give her half an hour. That would give her plenty of time. When she came back, we could talk this out over a drink or two before dinner.

I had no idea what I could do to help her process what happened, or what I could say that would help her rid herself of her demons. I didn’t know what I’d done to cause all this. I’d reacted to the crisis in my usual way, handling the situation the best way I knew. I may have done everything right, but it still couldn’t help Fields.

She was breaking down. According to my own personal observation, several things had contributed to this. What happened outside this morning undoubtedly headed the list. The shotgun aimed at her face had certainly been a major factor. The biker’s gut wound had helped things along as well. Our nightmare in the loading dock, as we hid behind the barrels, had also contributed in giving her own personal horror a slight nudge.

It might have been all of that ... or none of it. Her nerves might have started tearing down even before we drove to the store. This could very well have happened in the bedroom of the house we’d visited earlier, when we saw someone named Don lying dead in his bed, cradling a dead cat, while his father bent over him, urging him to wake up.

In this new world of every unimaginable horror, I couldn’t expect someone like Fields, who’d spent her life caring for people, to adjust very well. I’d always been afraid that it would only be a matter of time before a spirit like her would rebel, before logic and reasoning would cause her to break down.

But I couldn’t just stand by and watch it happen. I had to somehow bring her back. We were a team; we’d been handling things ever since we first met. Together, we could handle anything.

At 5:30, I got up, grabbed the .380 Cheetah and a flashlight, and went outside. It was already cooler than it was when we’d come back. It would be dark in less than an hour. I stuck the .380 in my pocket, got out my keys, and locked and bolted the back door. Then I ran down the walk and hurried up the hill.

I expected to see her as soon as I reached the clearing, but there was no sign of her. A sudden inner coldness made me shiver, but I forced myself to ignore it, and kept walking. A hundred yards later, just as I’d entered the woods encompassing of the heart of the property, I began calling for her.

“Fields!”

I stopped walking and waited.

Silence.

I told myself it was much too soon to panic, so I kept on. I had a ways to go before I’d reached the rear of the woods, which turned into lush pastureland my grandparents used many years ago to graze their cattle. This was the same path Uncle Joe and I used during our talks those few weeks we’d spent together before the doping finally took his life. Those afternoon walks held fond memories for me. I hoped nothing happening tonight would change them for me.

Still no sign of her.

The sun began setting, and my scalp buzzed.
No
.
I won’t panic. Fields is out here. She’s working out her problems and has lost all track of time
.

I called for her again, this time louder. “
Fields!
”

No answer.

The buzzing in my scalp grew. I moved more quickly, the flashlight beam darting everywhere as I covered the narrow sloped trail that cut through the pines. I was careful to lift my feet to avoid deadfalls, tangled weeds and fallen limbs. Now was not a good time to twist an ankle.

The sudden possibility made me wonder. What if Fields had suffered a mishap? She might have twisted an ankle, or tripped on a fallen branch. If so, she would have answered my calls, right?

Unless, of course, she’d hit her head.

I struggled to dismiss that possibility. This was woods and pastureland; if she fell, she’d land on weeds, or soft grass.

Deadfalls were lying everywhere. She could have twisted her ankle, fell, and hit her head.

No. She
didn’t
fall and hit her head. Fields was careful. She took care of herself. She was a
nurse
, for God’s sake. She was coordinated. And graceful. She wasn’t lying unconscious on the ground out here; she was walking around, trying to sort things out. And she wouldn’t run off, wouldn’t desert me. She was upset and scared and confused. She needed time to think, to rationalize. She needed time to be by herself.

But she’d
never
leave me.

It suddenly occurred to me that Fields might have already gone back to the house. It was possible, wasn’t it? She could have circled around on the other side of the trees and gone back that way. I might have reached the woods at the same time, and missed her completely. For all I knew, she could have already unlocked the door and gone inside.

She was probably wondering where I was. Hopefully, she wouldn’t come back out and look for me. She’d realize that I’d gone out looking for her and would return soon.

I glanced at my watch. It was now 6:15—forty-five minutes since I’d left the house. If I didn’t soon get back, Fields would definitely think something happened to me and would come back out and start looking for me.
I need to turn around and hurry back
...

My thoughts stopped abruptly when the toe of my tennis shoe connected with something that made me lose my balance. I fell flat on my face in the thick underbrush.

Luckily, I’d fallen onto soft earth and hadn’t hurt myself. I hadn’t even dropped the flashlight. I sat up and crawled back to search for the object that had caused my mishap. The ground was much too dark. I switched on the flashlight and slowly moved the heavy white beam around in a wide arc. As soon as I saw the dead limb protruding from the grass, pointing to the dead tree stump directly to my right, my head grew hot, and I told myself that what I was seeing wasn’t actually what was really there. My fear had obviously decided to take over. It had switched on my imagination, making me see something that actually wasn’t there.

My nerves quivered as I forced myself to crawl closer. I kept the beam trained on the object sitting on top of the stump, ordering it to change, to turn into something else.

But it didn’t change. It remained there, defying me.

When I forced myself to admit what I was looking at, my blood turned cold and my heart thundered.

Fields’.38 Ladysmith sat in its pancake holster on the tree stump.

I stared in total disbelief, my mind refusing to accept the horrible sight. I couldn’t touch it, couldn’t pull the flashlight beam away. All I could do was stare helplessly and force myself to accept the fact that Fields’ .38 was indeed lying on a stump five feet in front of me.

My first thought was that it had fallen out of her holster during her walk.

No. That wouldn’t wash. The holster clipped onto her belt and snapped into place. If the gun wasn’t fastened properly, a fall or sudden stumble might cause it to wrench loose, but the holster would stay hooked to her belt.

If the gun had accidentally fallen out of its holster, Fields would surely have noticed. She would have picked it up, shoved it back in place and snapped it shut.

The .38 was a light-weight, compact pistol. The only one way it could have been placed on the stump was if Fields had taken it off and left it there.

I couldn’t accept that possibility. Fields would never have removed her gun and holster. If someone had snuck up on her, she would have grabbed the gun, whipped it out and used it.

But what if she hadn’t had enough time?

What if it had happened too quickly for her to react?

I didn’t want that image floating around in my head. This would mean there were others wandering around like the two we’d killed this morning.

But even if there were others out there, I still couldn’t accept such a scenario. Fields was upset and depressed, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t alert. She had great eyes, superb hearing, and terrific instincts. If someone had snuck up on her, they would have had to be close. Perhaps they were hiding in the brush. Even so, they would have had to be moving fast, and would need a Taser...

Stop it! You’re being paranoid. You need to think this thing out rationally
.
Just because Fields’ pistol is lying here doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a band of psychos roaming around in these woods
.

First of all, I had to determine what happened. If someone had snuck up on her, he would’ve taken her gun. But it was right there, and since it hadn’t been fired...

Had
it been fired? I hadn’t heard anything while she was gone. The sound a gun made could be heard at a considerable distance. Even if Fields had fired it while I was in the house, I would have probably heard it.

In any event, I had to pick it up and study it. I couldn’t tell if it had been fired just by looking at it.

My left hand shook horribly as I reached out for it. Just before my index finger connected with its cold, smooth surface, I froze. Something inside me told me I couldn’t do it, that I really didn’t want to, while another voice told me it didn’t matter what I wanted, or that I couldn’t do it. I
had
to do it.

I finally forced myself to grab it, cringing at first, as if I’d just been scalded, then groaning as my fingers closed painfully around it. I held my breath, fighting to maintain my grip, to resist the urge to open my hand and let it drop silently to the soft grass.

You can’t let it go
.
It belongs to Fields. If you let it go, you let her go, because right now, it’s your only link to her
.

The insane reasoning worked, and I tried picking it up. It was much heavier than it should have been, and actually fought to keep me from pulling it. I realized right then that a corner of the holster had caught on vines growing next to the stump. I pulled it free, and before I knew it, I had the cursed weapon in my left hand.

Then I closed my eyes and forced myself to sniff the barrel. It took me two seconds to conclude that the gun hadn’t been fired.

Fields had apparently heard something, unsnapped the holster, and placed it on the stump.

But why? What had she seen? Had she heard something? If she’d seen or heard a threat, why hadn’t she used the gun?

I had to figure this out, to consider all possibilities.

The first one, of course, was the one I really wanted to believe—that she might have actually gone back to the house. But that made no sense because she wouldn’t have left her gun.

She might have heard something in the bushes, grabbed the gun, heard another sound and grew frightened. In her panic, she could have dropped the gun and forgotten it entirely while racing back to the house. She’d been in a troubled state most of the morning and afternoon; the sound of a rabbit or squirrel scampering about in the brush could have sent her over the edge.

That wouldn’t wash, either. The gun hadn’t been dropped, but carefully unclipped from her belt and placed in the center of a tree stump not far from a deadfall blocking a path we’d used several times before.

It was getting darker. In another twenty minutes, I wouldn’t be able to see ten feet in front of me.