Jim was already running.
Sprinting blind, knees jerking and popping over the uneven terrain. Divots and gopher holes ready to snap a leg or twist an ankle. He tripped over an anthill and tumbled into the corn stalks.
Another blast from the shotgun. Back there, but not aimed at him.
Puddycombe.
His leg was on fire, leaking bad and slowing him down but he kept running. The ancient stone fence rose into view. He swung his bleeding leg over and fell to the far side. Looked back the way he came.
Corrigan trudging through the field after him, lantern swinging in his hand.
He looked west. A speckle of light peeked through the chestnut trees. The last thing he wanted was to lead the crazed gunman to his home but there was nowhere else to go.
He moved on, limping and falling in the dark, the lights of the house guiding him. Maybe Emma was gone, packing Travis into the truck and driving to Norm’s. He could barricade the house, call the police. Pray that they got here in time.
Corrigan had fired both barrels. How many hulls did he have in his pocket? He glanced back and saw the twinkle of the lantern. Pixie light moving through the dark. He didn’t look back again.
Tangling in the chokecherry bush, he pitched forward and tumbled onto his lawn. The lone bulb of the porch light left on.
The truck was still in the driveway.
He collided into the backdoor and bounced off of it. Forgetting that he told her to lock it. He banged on the glass. “Emma! Open the door.”
The window went dark. Didn’t she know it was him? Jim looked back the way he came. No sign of Corrigan, no ghostly light in the dark fields.
He pounded the wood and didn’t stop, cursing Emma to open the door. When the lock turned he almost knocked her to the floor getting inside.
Emma stopped cold when she saw his face. Flecked with blood, the raw panic in his eyes. “What happened?”
“Where’s Travis?” His eyes worked the room but couldn’t find his son.
“You’re bleeding.”
“Travis!”
“God, sit down. Let me see that.” Emma pulled a chair close but he waved it away. If he sat down now he wouldn’t get up.
“We have to get out of here.” He grabbed her shoulder to stay upright. “You drive.”
Travis ran into the room and looked out the window. “What’s going on?”
“Get away from the window!”
The window exploded over Travis’s head. A brick bounced and banged across the floor. Broken glass everywhere. Everyone on their knees. Emma pulled the boy to her, hands through his hair looking for cuts.
Travis pulled away, gaping at the shattered window. “What was that?”
Jim killed the lightswitch. “Stay down.”
The boom of a shotgun blast outside the house. Then another.
Jim inched up over the broken window sill. Two tires on the pickup were shot out, flat and dead. Corrigan broke the shotgun and reloaded. Calm and unhurried. Out duck hunting on a chill October day.
Emma’s hands pulled him back. “Get away from there.”
He pushed Travis towards the hallway. “Keep down. Out the back”
Exactly where they would go, he didn’t have a clue. Hiding inside wasn’t an option, the bastard would just blast his way in. And then where would they be?
Doubled over, Emma crabbed to the kitchen. The backdoor left open. From there, they could run straight into the fields where Jim knew the terrain. At the very least they could hide in the dark, all night if they had to. Make their way up the road when it was safe.
The kitchen window burst over their heads. The lantern hurled inside and shattered on the linoleum. Kerosene splattered over the kitchen, igniting instantly. Flames traced the fuel across the floor, licked up the walls. The old curtains blazed up, curling and blackening in a toxic stink.
They backpedalled away in a panic like swimmers spotting a jellyfish. Back to the front door, Jim leading the way but stopping short, Emma knocking into his back. A shadow filled the window in the front door. It jostled from a hard kick.
“Down!” Jim lunged at the basement door and flung it back. Wooden steps leading down. There was nowhere else to run.
The hallway between them and the kitchen was already a rectangle of fire.
Corrigan stood in the grass looking up at the house. The flames in the window glimmered up his dark eyes. The farmhouse was shabby and old, almost as old as his own house. Renovations and repairs overtop a dryrot skeleton of post and beam.
It would burn nicely.
He went around to the front and up the porch steps. The picture window a gaping mouth of shattered teeth. The door was locked, that was expected. Resting the stock against his hip he raised the barrels square at the knob. It incinerated under the gun blast. A gaping maw of splintered wood and gunblack. It kicked in easily.
There would be no reprieve for old Jim this night. The son of a whore had tried to kill him and you couldn’t let people get away with things like that.
What would the neighbours think?
Travis pulled the chain overhead, popping the dusty bulb on and making everyone blind. Jim snapped it off again. The darkness was total until their pupils shuttered all the way open.
“What now?”
“Quiet.”
They listened to the crackle of fire in the kitchen. Then the report of the shotgun, shaking the timbers of the house. The sound of the door being kicked open.
The thud of boots overhead. He was inside.
Travis’s chest was heaving. He never did well with dusty rooms and now dust salted down from the unfinished ceiling, dripping from the floor joists at the boots stomping across their floor. He looked at his dad. “Is he gonna kill us?”
“No,” Jim said. He felt Emma’s eyes but he couldn’t look at her. “No, he’s not.” Lie or no, there wasn’t any other answer to give.
Corrigan stalked into the parlour. Empty, he moved on. A closed door near the hallway, a closet or a room he didn’t know. He kicked it open and fired blind. Cans blew off wooden shelves, preserve jars exploded. Nothing more.
Pressing on. The doorway into the kitchen was orange with flames. Another closed door on his left. Same routine. He booted it open and let the shotgun rip. Paper and books somersaulted. A cramped office, also empty.
He unhinged the shotgun and reloaded. One more closed door, then the stairs leading to the second floor. Choices. If they were upstairs, he would simply let them burn.
“Jim! Come out!” Snapping the rifle closed, he took another step towards the kitchen. The heat rolling out from the back of the house toasted his cheek, like peering into the grate of a blast furnace.
“Come out, Jimmy! Come out and I’ll spare the woman and the boy!”
Emma covered her ears at each report of the gun. The three of them huddled in the dark, listening to the man blast his way through their house. She looked at Jim as they heard the ultimatum. Travis’s eyes darted between his parents and the basement door.
Jim stumbled through the dark to the window on the north wall. The only one in the basement, and so small.
