she is crying, she feels like the whole inside of her is shut down. She would be surprised to learn tears are on her cheeks. Tears are so useless. There is no time for useless.
Curtis eyes her. She is about what he expected some middle-aged crazy chick hoping someone else will fight her battles. She pays her taxes and expects the cavalry on call. What could he possibly want from her? “I don’t want anything from you.” His tone suddenly tinged with ire, “I don’t want anything from anyone. I would’ve thought that was obvious.”
“I could use some help,” she demands.
“My hero days are over.” He points to the footlocker. “Gun’s in there. Help yourself. Just bring it back.” Alison kneels down and rummages through the footlocker. She finds a small caliber handgun.
She asks, “Is this big enough to kill someone?”
“If you’ve been taught to aim.”
“I was absent that day.”
“You’ll have to dig around in there for the ammo.”
She begins to haul things out of the trunk and onto the floor.
“I’m not a particularly neat person.”
“What are you some kind of hermit?”
“Hell, no. I talk to people all over the world. It’s the way I like it. Connected and yet blissfully uninvolved in the tribulations of others.”
Every second she is away from the lodge, she is wondering if her family is still alive. She begins to feel panicky. “I can’t find ‘em! Where are the bullets?”
“They’re in there.”
She turns on him with palpable vitriol, “Look, I don’t know if you’re a psycho, an asshole, or just a damn coward, but I need bullets and some clue how to load and fire this thing.” He feels slapped; it is jarring. Alison’s strength is born from quaking desperation. It impresses him. She walks over to where he sits. She puts her hands on the table so they are face-to-face. She drops the battle-edged energy and lets her voice come through, a voice that has the quality of all mothers in pain. Leaning in, “They are going to shoot my little boy.” She reaches through the cobwebs draping Curtis’ long capitulated conscience. “His name is Jimmy. He’s nine years old.” Curtis hears these words as though he were his old self, before it all. After a pause of connection, Curtis swings his chair around and cautiously lowers himself to the cabin floor revealing the utter uselessness of his legs. Alison stands aside as his arms pull him over to the footlocker. In another time, in another place, she would have felt genuine sympathy, but there is no room for that now. She is becoming a hunter; the aperture of a once expansive mind has closed down to a single focus. She feels no pain from her scratches and bruises. She doesn’t notice the blood dripping down her cheek. All she thinks now when she watches Curtis crawl is that he will not be as useful as she’d hoped.
Moments later, on Curtis’ dilapidated porch, Alison loads the gun. He remarks, “Hope this old thing works. Haven’t tried it in years.” Alison raises the weapon and aims. “Wait!” he stops her.
“What?”
“Stop.”
“Why?”
“The sound will carry. Might as well announce you’re here over Hobbs’ P.A.”
“Thunder. I can use the thunder as cover.”
“Good you’re smart. You’ll need it.”
“I need the SEALS.”
“You will have to separate these guys to have a chance. Take them out one at a time.” She nods her head. Her chin shakes a little. It is the only visual evidence that she is holding back emotion. Curtis continues, “Course, they are stronger and better armed.” A flash of lightning and she counts.
“One banana, two banana, three banana, four…”
Crash thunder.
She confirms “Four and a half.”
“Storm’s moving away.”
“So I go on five.”
“On five.” And they wait. She stares into the night and waits for lightning. She waits for it. She wills it.
* * *
Back at the lodge, Kent has been left behind with the hostages. In frustrated moves of callous disrespect, he drags and kicks Mike’s body out the back door. Hank exchanges a look of condolence with Dan who is dazed having just witnessed the murder of his best friend. Julie cries soundlessly with only her shoulders moving up and down slightly. Ed looks powerlessly at his weeping wife and wonders just how short their new lives together are going to be. Bruce and Grant who are sitting cross-legged have leaned all the way forward until their heads rest on their knees. Bella manages to stroke Dan with one of her tied hands.
This swimming feeling in