American Elsewhere - By Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,93

Glock at his leg.

“I can show you,” he says again, voice still soft and even.

Mona’s grip tightens on the Glock.

“I can show you so much,” he says. The man takes a step forward, eyes shining strangely.

And in the split second before he takes a second step, Mona swears she sees something in his eyes—or maybe behind his eyes—squirming, many little tendrils flicking about in the pools before his brain.

She’s so horrified by this that she almost doesn’t notice the gun go off. Even though she is transfixed by what she sees, Mona’s aim is as straight and true as ever: the flesh above the man’s knee, just where the quadriceps tendon connects to his kneecap, completely erupts. The man grunts slightly (and Mona can’t help but notice that it’s not a grunt of pain, but of surprise, as if the man is saying to himself, Well now that’s inconvenient) and falls forward to the ground.

Yet he does not fall completely. He supports himself with the other knee, steadies himself, and then lunges forward and grasps her right wrist.

There is the crash of lightning, and the world fills with blue, and she hears his voice say, “I can show you.”

She stands on the road, but the world is gray and thin and flimsy, as if made of fog and mist. There is a dark form beside her holding her hand, but she has no attention for it: her eye is immediately drawn to the countryside around her.

She can see the pale shapes of trees and shrubs and hills, but in places the countryside is pockmarked and filled with a bright blue light, as if massive spotlights are hidden in the hills. All of them are pointed straight up, shining directly into the sky, piercing the clouds and rising into the dark heavens.

Or, she wonders, is something above the clouds shining down onto these spots? And do they coincide with another vision she had? Did she not once see coils of lightning streaming down to brush these very places?

But as she stares at these glowing spots in the countryside, her eye eventually falls upon the faint form of the town in the valley. She can see through it, past it, underneath it, and when she realizes this she sees that the earth below the town and even under the mesa is not solid…

There is something underneath the town. Something buried there, sleeping, waiting. It is broken into a million pieces, it feels like. And though it is shattered, she can feel it turn its attention to her, dreaming of her, this lost, broken woman standing on the hillside…

And it recognizes her.

She begins screaming, and she writhes and rips her hand back and squeezes it…

There is a crash, and Mona is released. She realizes she has her eyes shut, and she opens them and sees she is still standing on the road, but the world is no longer gray and misty.

Then she smells gunpowder, and she realizes she has just fired the Glock again.

She looks around. The man is kneeling before her, face fixed in a look of complete surprise.

“Oh,” he says, and he falls back until he is sitting on the road.

There is blood pouring from his chest. She can see the tiny rent in his shirtfront with blood spurting out of it, and she slowly, stupidly realizes that she has put it there.

“Oh, fuck,” says Mona.

The man touches his wound and looks at the blood as if he has never seen such a thing.

“Oh, oh fuck,” says Mona again.

He sits in the middle of the road, still staring at his chest in shock. He looks around himself, contemplating his situation, as if he’s just tripped and he’s wondering who saw.

“Just… just sit there,” says Mona. She sticks the gun back in her pants and cautiously approaches him. “Just don’t move, you’ll make it worse. Lie down, and just…”

The Indian appears to come to some decision. He reaches into his coat and produces something dark and glimmering. It takes her a moment to see it’s a snub-nosed .38.

Mona doesn’t even pause to think. She dives to the right, behind the Charger, pulls the Glock back out, and points it at him again. “Don’t!” she says. “Don’t you fucking dare!”

But the man does not point the gun at her. He examines it, as if trying to remember how such a contraption works, before lifting it and sticking it under his chin.

“No!” cries Mona.

She stands up, but it is too late: the gun goes