Showdown (50 page)

A terrible set of emotions collided in his chest. He wanted to touch Kelly and tell her that she would be okay. That he would save her and their son. He wanted to tear the heart out of the man who was now watching them with a disconnected stare, like a robot assigned to a simple task.

He wanted scream. He wanted to cry. He wanted to kill himself.

Instead, he lay still.

Kelly closed her eyes and started to sob softly. He wished she would stop. He wanted to shout at her and demand that she stop this awful display of emotion. Didn't she know that emotion was now their greatest enemy?

“Fifty-eight minutes,” Dale said. “It's quite a long run.”

Carl slid his feet off the bed, stood, and walked to the window, thinking that he was a monster for being so callous in her moment of horror, never mind that it was for her sake that he steeled himself.

I'm in a nightmare, he thought, reaching for the gun. But the Makarov's cold steel handle felt nothing like a dream. It felt like salvation.

“Carl?”

Kelly's voice shattered any reprieve the gun brought him. Carl was sure that he would spin where he stood, shoot Dale through the forehead, and take his chances with the implant or whatever other means they had of killing him and his family. The only way he knew to deal with such a compelling urge was to shut off his emotions entirely. He clenched his jaw and shoved the gun into his waistband.

“I love you, Carl.”

He looked at her, forcing emerging terror back. “It'll be okay,” he said. “I'll be back.”

He grabbed both sides of the window, thrust his head out to scan the grounds, withdrew, shoved his right leg through the opening, and rolled onto the grass outside. When he came to his feet he was facing south. How did he know this was south? He just did.

He would go south and he would kill.