Helltown - Jeremy Bates Page 0,45

cordite smoke. Light raindrops plinked off the nape of her neck. For a split second she considered turning toward the road and fleeing, running as fast and far as she could, because she didn’t know what was going on here, only that it was bad, really bad, and Noah might be dead and she might be too if she stuck around. Yet even as she contemplated this she was scrambling forward. She hit the porch steps on all fours and used the banister to pull herself to her feet.

The man had stopped a few feet ahead of her, oblivious to her presence, rifle pointed at Steve. He was saying something, but Jenny didn’t know what, couldn’t make sense of words right then, and it didn’t matter, because he was about to shoot Steve in cold blood.

“No!” she cried, throwing herself at the back of the man. She grabbed him by the shoulders and used her weight to drag him backward off balance. The rifle swung skyward as he fired. The bullet spit a chunk of wood from the porch roof.

Jenny crashed to her side. The man came down on top of her. He elbowed her in the gut, knocking her down the steps. She brought her arms up to protect her head, but still smacked her cheek against one tread hard enough to see stars and taste blood in her mouth. At the bottom she rose on her knees, expecting to hear another gunshot and to feel a round tear through her.

Instead she found Steve grappling with the grimy little man for the rifle. Bellowing like a caveman, Steve tore the gun free, shoved the barrel into the man’s stomach, and squeezed the trigger. The bullet passed straight through the man, exiting his back in a jet of blood. The man clutched his gut and fell facefirst to the deck.

Jenny scrambled up the steps toward Steve. He jerked the rifle at her. His eyes were glassy and sightless, like a doll’s, empty of whatever made him him.

“Steve! It’s me! Jenny!”

Steve returned his attention to the now dead man, who lay on his stomach, blood pooling around him. He tossed the rifle away, as if it had burned him.

“He killed Noah,” he said softly.

Jenny glanced at Noah, crumpled against the wall, his head bowed against his chest, as if he were snoozing. But he’d never be snoozing again, would he? He’d never be doing anything again. She hadn’t known any of Steve’s friends well, had met them for the first time this evening, but Noah had seemed most normal of the bunch. Jeff was a shmuck who thought he was God’s gift to women. Austin was immature, and from what Steve had told her, a borderline alcoholic. Mandy was funny but an airhead. And Cherry, well, she was named “Cherry” and dressed like a prostitute to boot. It was only Noah—soft spoken, dark, brooding, Noah—whom she had thought she would be happy getting to know better in the future, especially if he found a nice girlfriend and the four of them could double date.

“Are you sure he’s dead?” she asked, the words coming out wooden.

“The fucker shot him right in the forehead.” He drove a foot into the man’s side.

The man groaned.

“He’s alive!” Jenny said, and felt his neck for a pulse. “Steve, he’s alive!” She slipped her hands beneath the arm closest to her and flipped the man onto his back. His red T-shirt was saturated with blood. “Give me your pullover.”

“Why?”

“To stop the bleeding!”

Steve came back from wherever he’d been. “Stop the bleeding?” His brow knit. “Let him bleed! Fuck, Jen! He killed Noah! He tried to kill us!”

“You’re a medical student, Steve. You have a duty to—”

“Don’t give me that bullshit.”

“You want to have his death on your hands? Is that what you want?”

“It was self-defense.”

“That’s not what I meant. Christ, Steve!” She tugged her black elastic top over her head. She had nothing on beneath but her bra. The cool air bit her bare skin.

“Okay, Jesus, okay, Jen, here…” Steve removed his pullover and held it out for her.

She put her top back on, accepted the pullover, and pressed it against the man’s abdomen. “This is only going to give him a bit more time. You have to go call an ambulance.”

“There’s no phone.”

She stared at him. “What?”

“Noah and I already checked. That’s what started all this…” He shook his head. “Anyway, we checked. And the kid said they didn’t have one—”

“The kid? Where—”

“He’s dead. It was