I out distance Caleb easily, bursting out of the woods that hem the backyard of my house. My parents keep the lawn green all year long, and Nakia’s feet make no noise as she runs across the soft grass, until she hits the boards of the wooden deck. She pounds across the deck and slams into the glass sliding door, leaning against it with a groan, hammering her fist into the glass. “Help!” Her voice is high and panicked, and she shoots a terrified look over her shoulder. Caleb is only minutes behind. We don’t have much time. It’s tempting to slip through the sliding glass door and try to pull my mother out of bed, but if Caleb comes up behind her when I’m in there he’ll kill her.
Nakia doubles her efforts. Pounding on the door with both fists, alternately screaming for help and gasping for air. She presses her bloody face against the glass, looking like she’s about to collapse right there on the porch. My heart leaps when the porch lights come on. She’s awake. Mom comes to the door, her eyes wide with fear, clutching a baseball bat and dressed in a pink fuzzy nightgown. When she sees Nakia her eyes get even bigger, and she flips the lock upwards and drags the door open.
“Nakia, what on earth…”
Nakia nearly falls onto my mother, and Mom, god bless her, gathers the distraught, bleeding girl into her arms. “What’s the matter? What’s happened? Should I call the police?”
“Yes,” gasps Nakia, “but we’ve got to get inside, right now!”
“Freeze,” barks a voice from the shadows on the far side of the lawn and Caleb saunters forward, a smirk on his face. “Shit, I can’t believe I just said ‘freeze’. Like I’m on some lame cop sitcom.”
Nakia squeezes her eyes shut and moans out loud in fear. When Mom see’s the gun her face goes milk white. I can tell she’s struggling to stay calm. “What are you doing, Caleb?”
“What I have to,” he says, his breathing harsh. He grips the gun tightly, hands shaking. “I don’t want to, but I have to. I’m not going to jail for this. Not when she’s just as guilty.”
Nakia blanches and Mom lets go and backs away, looking from one to the other. “What does that mean? What did you do? What did you do to my daughter?” Her face crumples, her mouth twisting like she’s going to burst into tears. She already knows the answer.
“It was an accident,” Caleb pants, and he’s shaking violently now. “I’m not a killer.” He blinks rapidly. “I didn’t used to be. It was all a stupid accident. She came at me. She tried to attack me. The gun just went off.”
Mom wails. She bends forward, supporting herself with her hands on her knees. “No! No, no! My God, that can’t be true. That’s not true. You’re lying.” Her voice is loud, and I hope the others in the woods will hear it and put on some speed.
Caleb’s face twists, a bizarre mixture of pity and loathing. “I didn’t mean to, but I’m not taking the rap for this. Nakia’s just as guilty. Blame her. I’m done with all this insane shit. I’m sick of being tormented by some crazy ghost.” Blankness settles over his face suddenly,. “Where’s your husband?” he demands.
Mom clearly thinks he’s off his rocker, because she answers slowly and carefully, “He’s out. He’s out searching for our daughter, putting up signs, asking people. We weren’t going to give up you know.” Her voice cracks. “We love our daughter…and you took her away from us.”
Obviously dad didn’t tell her where he was really going.
“Fine, less witnesses,” Caleb says, like he didn’t even hear the second half of her speech, and he levels the gun at my mother.
I tense, ready to leap at him, but Mom is still talking, “Why did you cover it up?” Tears flood down her cheeks as she’s talking. She’s stalling him, trying to get him to mess up so she can pull her and Nakia inside and call the police. I’m so proud of her in that moment, for being able to keep it together under all this pressure. “Why didn’t you just tell the truth? If it was just an accident?”
“Are you kidding me?” Caleb says scornfully, “I had a gun, there’s no way they’re going to let me get away with this.”
“But now you’re going to murder both of us?” Nakia’s voice is surprisingly strong for someone who looks like they might fall over any second. She braces herself on the doorframe, “You won’t just get one life sentence, Caleb. You’ll get three. You’ll never get out of jail. Ever. Do you really want to ruin your entire life that way? If you stop now, I’ll testify in court for you, tell them it was an accident and bad judgment. You’ll get out in a couple years. But if you do what you’re about to do, your life is over.”
The gun wavers. “No one will know.”
“You think Larry will help you cover this one up?” Nakia says harshly. “Two more bodies? No way. He’ll pretend he never knew you. You just keep making these “mistakes” and you’re going to ruin your own life. It’s one thing to accidently shoot someone while your drunk, it’s another to murder in cold blood. Who do you think the police are going to look for if I turn up dead, and Bree’s Mom too? They’re going to go straight for you. They already think you did it. The police will arrest you right away.”
“You talk a lot for a person who’s got a gun pointed at her head,” Caleb says coldly.
“Think about it,” she pleads. “Think about what you’re doing.” While Nakia is talking she’s backing away from Mom, moving towards the second level of the deck. She’s obviously trying to get Caleb focused on her and give Mom a chance to duck inside the house.
Caleb only glances at her, and the pistol stays on my mother. “You get up there with her too.” He jerks his head to the side. “Go up onto the top deck and stand beside her.”
Mom climbs the steps slowly, and Caleb follows her, until they’re all standing on the top deck, Dad’s project from last summer that was never finished. It has no railings, and no entrance into the house. There’s nowhere for anyone to go.
“Don’t bother trying to talk me out of this.” He lets the pistol drift, first on Bree, then on Mom. “It’s too screwed up, there’s no other way.”
“The neighbors will hear the bullets.” Mom’s voice only shakes a little. “They’ll call the cops. They’ll find the bodies and they’ll know it was you.”
“I’ll think of something…”
While they’re talking I’m creeping up the steps, drifting up behind Caleb. Finally he takes a deep breath and puts both thumbs on the hammer. There’s a metallic click as he cocks the gun.
“Freeze!” Voices ring out from the edge of the forest. Holt and Love both melt from the shadows, guns trained on Caleb.
Holt’s face is grim. “Put the gun down. You don’t want to make things worse than they are.”
Caleb’s face crumples, and for one heart stopping moment I think he’s going to just give up and have a good cry. Maybe even go quietly. But then his gun comes up again, pointed straight at Nakia. His voice is shaky, pitch climbing higher, borderline hysterical.“You think I won’t shoot her?”
“It isn’t worth it,” Love says, his voice loud and calm. “It isn’t worth a couple life sentences, is it? You might be able to get off on this one, but not if you shoot her in cold blood, boy. You do that…then this is over.”
He’s using the same tone you would with an angry child, level and soothing, a little bit lecturing. Like Caleb’s been caught stealing chocolate chip cookies. No big deal.
“Aren’t you sick of hiding? Don’t you want it all to be over with?” Love says.
“Shut up!” Caleb’s face is red, and his hand is trembling so hard that the gun is shaking.
Nakia’s voice is raspy, “If you shoot me, Bree will never stop haunting you. She’ll make your life even more miserable. And I’ll stick around and help her.”
“There are no ghosts.” His face crumples again, and this time his eyes fill with tears. His voice is breaking in places, like an adolescent kid. He’s falling to pieces right in front of us, but who will he take down with him? “It was all in my mind. I’m crazy.”
Mom’s eyes are huge at all the talk of ghosts. I wonder if she’s remembering that glimpse she caught in the hallway. Whatever it was that she saw. A shadow? A reflection of my face?
“Put the gun down,” Holt’s voice is hard, she edges forward. “We’re not going to ask you again.”
“I’m not going to jail!” Caleb leaps across the deck and Nakia screams as he grabs her arm, wrenching her towards him. He snakes one arm around her throat and presses the gun to her temple.
“We’re leaving,” he says, and now his face is calm.
That might as well be my cue. I hurl myself at him wildly, shoulder making contact with his arm, spinning past him, yanking at Nakia, grabbing her wrist and pulling her away. Caleb shouts and staggers backwards, eyes wide. He can see me. He stares with wide eyes, and everyone else stares at him in astonishment.
Love says, “What are you looking at right now, boy?”
Caleb doesn’t answer. The gun comes up, pointing right at me. I just smile at him. “You can’t hurt me anymore, Caleb.”
When it goes off the crack reminds me of thunder. The start of a storm. The bullet passes through me. It must. I don’t feel it. I don’t feel anything.
A strangled sound from behind me. I turn to see my mother, eyes wide and filled with tears. She has both hands over one side of her stomach. A splash of red blooms through her fingers, spreading on her thin night gown like a blossoming rose. She sags forward, bending at the waist, bare feet smacking the wooden boards as she weaves back and forth, struggling to stay upright.
There is a second shot as one of the officer's fires, and the sound of the gun clattering to the deck is loud in the silence. Caleb’s face is paper white, and he clutches his arm, blood oozing through his fingers.
Dad’s voice is like a wounded bear. “No!” He flies to her, faster than I’ve ever seen him move. His arms encircle her and they both sink slowly to the deck.
“Mom.” My voice is wavy with tears, tight with panic. Behind me I can hear the metallic scratch of handcuffs tightening. Caleb doesn’t even protest, his head hangs forward, as if all the fight has gone out of him.
“It hurts,” Mom breathes the words out. The blood is draining from her face.