“Time for a taste of your own medicine,” Josh said.
Josh put out his arm with his thumb up and gradually turned his arm. When his thumb pointed down,
Josh shot Kelso in the face.
John Kelso’s laughing stopped.
Josh tore out of the house, the gun still in his hand.
Faces at the windows of the neighboring houses peered through curtained windows. He leapt into the car, throwing the gun into the passenger side foot well. Police cars approached from both ends of the street, still several hundred yards off in the distance. He roared off in his car, not bothering to turn on his lights. He turned left into a small residential street without stopping at the four-way stop. It was a minor diversion that would slow his journey by moments, but he would
avoid the cops.
He checked his mirrors and was relieved to find no police cars in pursuit. Josh made a turn onto another street and he saw a speeding squad car tear across the next intersection heading for Bell’s house. He was clear of them. The cops wouldn’t be knocking at his door; well, for a while, anyway. Neighbors probably had his license plate number and his fingerprints were all over the house. It wouldn’t take them too long to track him down.
His journey home was more frantic than the road
race to Bell’s. Josh drove more recklessly and more dangerously. With what was at stake, he had no choice.
His family’s safety was paramount.
What has Kelso done? How has he gotten to Kate
and Abby? They were questions he could only guess at with a deep-rooted fear that scared him. He would never forgive himself if they were killed as a result of his mistakes. His fear and loathing tasted sour in his mouth.
Although Josh reached speeds of eighty miles an
hour in some places on the residential roads, it was still too slow. The speed of light would have been too slow for him. He didn’t know how much time his family had before it was too late, so every second counted.
He turned onto his street. The car slewed across the road, the back end threatening to overtake the front.
Rubber shredded off the tread as the tires squealed in pain. He raced up to his house and stamped on the brakes. The car ground to a halt in his neighbor’s front yard after plowing two wild furrows with its wheels.
Kate’s minivan was parked outside. It meant they
were inside, or so he hoped. If they weren’t, he didn’t have a clue where they could be or have a hope in hell of finding them. Josh had put a bullet through the face of the only man who knew where his wife and child were. He should have brought the hit man with him.
Josh reached for the gun in the foot well. His reckless driving had tossed it around inside. Blindly, his hand leapt from place to place in the car’s darkened interior.
The vapor lights provided poor illumination for
the vehicle’s cabin. His hand found the bulky steel lump under the front passenger seat and his fingers wrapped around the weapon. He burst out of the car.
“Please be okay. Please be okay,” he quietly chanted.
Josh tried opening the door, but it was locked. He fumbled in his pockets for his key and cursed when he realized his keys were still in the car. He tore back to the car and yanked them out of the ignition, almost snapping the ignition key off.
“Kate, Abby,” he bellowed. “Are you okay? Answer
me, it’s important.”
Running back to the door, he searched for the door key, finger dexterity impaired by the cumbersome
pistol in one hand. Finding the key, Josh jammed it into the lock, twisted it and threw himself against the door.
The explosion tore the house apart. The blast blew windows outward, scattering glass far and wide. Flaming wood shake was projected high into the air, imprinting the sky with comet-like heavenly bodies.
Lengths of siding snaked across the neighborhood like balloons inflated, then released. The concussion spat the house contents into the street. The garage door shoved Kate’s minivan aside and embedded itself in an SUV three houses down the street.
The sound, although deafening, was impressive— orchestral in nature. The blast’s thunderclap was interlaced with shattering glass. Glass fragments tinkled on the road surface like waves crashing on shingle. Burning shakes thudded into lawns like the hooves of Derby runners approaching the first furlong. Crackling house materials rounded out the symphony.
Neighbors already awakened by Josh Michaels’s dramatic arrival had time to witness his house be torn
asunder in a spectacle of color and sound. The price of admission was expensive. Neighboring homes had their windows blown in and debris burned on their lawns.
Josh was flung into the air, protected from projectiles, the blast, and the heat by the door ripped off by the explosion.
He landed in the front yard with the door on top
of him. He kicked off the door and got to his feet. He ignored the ringing in his head and the aching in his bones.
Hearing and feeling the blast was no preparation for what he saw. His home was a burning skeleton—every single part was aflame. Nothing and no one could have survived that. It struck him. His family was dead. He dropped to his knees, his hands to his head, the gun in his right hand pressed up against his ear.
“They’re dead. I’ve killed them,” he screamed above the roar of the fire.
For several moments, Josh was alone in the street. None of his neighbors ventured from the confines of their homes. The event was too astounding. Exploding houses didn’t happen here. Eventually people appeared and gathered into groups discussing the occurrence. No one approached Josh. Everyone kept a healthy distance from the blaze and the homeowner with the gun. Even from the other side of the street the flames dried the skin on their shocked faces. God alone knew what perils lay ahead for any person who went near the catastrophe.
Josh knelt on his scorched lawn unable to come to terms with the meaning of the disaster. The people he cared most about, Kate and Abby, were dead because of him. It didn’t matter what he did to improve his plight. He had now suffered the worst kind of punishment.
If he had let it happen, let Kelso kill him, maybe his family would be alive—maybe a lot of people
would be alive. But there wasn’t much point to if; there wasn’t much point to anything anymore. Everything he held most dear was gone. Josh raised the pistol to his temple.
The blaze-watching crowd gasped as their neighbor put the gun to his head. What were things coming to— was their neighborhood going to hell?
A car screeched to a halt behind Josh.
“Josh! Put the gun down.” Bob Deuce flew out of
the car.
Josh ignored the shouts and closed his eyes. The
flames were so strong that even through his eyelids, red and yellow images danced before him. He took a deep breath and held it. He tightened his finger around the trigger.
Bob threw himself on top of Josh and slapped the
gun away from his head. The gun roared and the slug kicked up a chunk of lawn. Sprawling, both men fell closer to the burning house, the heat intense on their bodies. Their clothes, heated by the flames, felt hot enough to combust. Bob wrenched the gun from Josh’s grasp, then yanked his friend to his feet. He shoved Josh toward his neighbors.
The crowd parted at the sight of the weapon.
“I’ve got to get you out of here.”
Grabbing on to anything he could grasp—an arm, a shirt collar—Bob dragged Josh forward. The man had no
