husband.
Once the City Council found that its growth had been curbed, and they no longer needed Daniel or the scores of others stretching their resources, massive cuts were made. This made Corinne feel justified in her, now standard, routine of going to work and doing little or nothing else once she got home. She would sit for hours on the couch, reading her romance novels, lost in a world that revolved around her.
Sitting in the silence and dark, Corinne listened to the groans of the house from the basement, thinking about all of the stories that her mother had shared with her about Allen Moore. Rebecca, mercifully, had fallen back asleep just as Corinne heard someone quietly walking around upstairs. She started to hate the hollow feeling of being scared, which endlessly churned her insides. More than the fear itself, she was angry. Corinne did not see how she could live like this, or how she could watch Rebecca grow up like this. Corinne knew she would have to stomach her new fear of Daniel, if only for a short while. She needed his help.
Corinne had only fired a couple of guns before, and it was always after someone else had loaded it and handed it to her “ready-to-go” during the compulsory training days. She now realized that she needed to know how to use Daniel’s shotgun to accomplish her forming plan. Corinne’s father had owned a beautiful, glossy, wooden shotgun before dying. Daniel’s shotgun was ugly when compared to her father’s; drab green and plastic.
Daniel had shown Corinne his father’s hidey-hole when she first moved in. Stashed with the other mean-looking gun was the ugly shotgun. Daniel had made a big show of it when he opened the wall panel, taking everything off the wall hooks and removing two screws above the seam that ran along the middle of the wall. The opening held the guns in the left baffle and ammunition, sealed in bags, was stacked up in the right.
Corinne knew she could get to the shotgun, but just getting to it was not good enough. She wanted to know how to intimately use it. She wanted to never be afraid again. She never wanted to see her daughter this afraid again, either. Daniel may not understand the situation yet, but she did.
……..
Daniel, now lucid after his anger induced stupor, walked carefully back into the house. He felt oddly guiltier about seeing the aqua colored drapes and rod on the floor than, what he assumed was, the father and two sons that he had just killed. Assisted by the flashlight, he walked down the hall to the bathroom, his feet sticking slightly with each step. Sitting on the edge of the bathtub, he wrenched his feet into view to clean and bandage them with a comprehensive first-aid kit open beside him.
Turning into his bedroom, Daniel donned the oldest, threadbare clothes and shoes that he could find for his next grisly task. He grabbed the spare magazine for the pistol from the top shelf of the closet and returned to the living room to retrieve the battle-tested gun. Daniel stuffed the freshly loaded pistol in the right front pocket of his old work jeans, and the spent magazine into the left.
Daniel painfully hobbled over to the top of the stairs and stopped cold. Instead of going down them, he called hoarsely, “Everything is okay, Babe. I’m alright. I…uh…have to take care of a few things. I’ll be back down in a little bit…You guys alright?”
A pause ensued, which lasted longer than Daniel was comfortable with. Finally, Corinne could just be seen walking slowly to the bottom of the stairs. She stopped where it was just possible to see up enough of the stairwell to ensure that it was, in fact, Daniel. “Rebecca is sleeping again,” she whispered. “Are you sure you are alright?”
Daniel knew that it was not concern in Corinne’s overriding timbre, but he figured the stress of the situation warranted her some slack. Daniel, of all people, could understand the anger in her voice. As compassionately as his coarse throat could manage, Daniel croaked, “I’m fine, Core. I just wanted to check on you guys.” He fought the urge to rush down and hug his wife. Knowing that if she saw or smelled the bits of flesh clinging to him it would most certainly make her recoil and get even more upset, Daniel resisted. He calmly continued after catching his suddenly missing breath, “I…I need to find