About Henry Fellows (Chapter Three Concluded)
Post 80:
Episode Nine:
On Killing And Innocence: The Chronicles of Henry Fellows
Chapter Three Concludes
Thicker and thicker it falls upon our “hero.”
Nothing but labored breathing.
“Hey. Your buddy’s dead. Didn’t want that. Don’t want to kill you either. Give it up. Any chance you tell me who you are?”
More breathing.
“Come on. It’d be a big help.”
More nothing. His nervousness is starting to catch. I’m starting to realize the gravity of what’s happening and it does kind of suck. Perhaps it’s just my strange ways, but I always found that in the pitched heat of life or death there are small ponderous moments where everything slows down. I don’t mean respite. Moments when there’s a choice, to deny instinct and slump into cravenness, give up the fight. I’ve been running and fighting for so long. I let that weakness flow through me and then let it out, like spitting up bad medicine. It’s getting to him. It’s in his breathing. Can’t let it get to me.
“Throw down your gun, Fellows,” I hear. Okay, so the guy knows my name. Something I could assume, but hearing a stranger say it out loud is arresting all the same. The loneliness of my existence is made more real. I press the clip release on my 9mm and see I’m nearly full. Thirteen rounds. One in the chamber. Might as well use them. Dropping down I fire at an angle through the broken windows of the car. I don’t have a clear shot but the bullets are enough to make him move just enough from behind the front right wheel. He’s stuck his foot out. I take a breath and catch him through the heel. There’s screaming, but mostly now he’s just firing into the car as I roll back around the side and the front where he’s squirming. I hear the desperate sound of his empty chamber and get to my feet, walking slowly toward him.
“Enough, kid.” He’s sitting up, writhing in agony as I approach. My gun is aimed center mast.
“Throw it,” I say. His weapon’s empty but there’s nothing comforting about a guy waving a pistol around. Take your peace of mind where you can get it. “Who are you? How do you know I’m here?” The hope is that he’ll talk. Dude doesn’t have a lot of options, braying like a mule and reaching for his heel.
“Traitor” is the only reply offered. Strange. It’s spit more than spoken. Only about six feet away I get a better look at his face. Damn. Just a kid. Either he was too impetuous for the job or he wasn’t given the right intelligence concerning his target. My guess is both.
“Don’t want to talk, huh?” I ask. It’s hot and this kind of scene attracts attention; need to get moving.
“You and your family are dead,” he says, reaching once again for his heel. It’s not the wound he’s groping for; I can see that now. He’s got a backup on his lower leg and it’s in his hand. The chrome of a small revolver catches in the sun. I want to yell stop but act on instinct, firing two rounds into his chest.
No time. I remember the fuel leaking into the car and pull both bodies fully inside through the broken windows. Taking out their wallets and keys I light a match. It feels a bit Viking to burn the dead, but there was blood in the car, some of it mine. With modern forensics they’d probably find some remnants of me. I can’t have the official authorities closing in tighter, not yet. Ascending the hill toward the BMW, I hear the car going up in flames. The heat behind me is like a kick in the pants, telling me to hustle. Time to switch cars again and regroup. Driving down the feeder road I look for the nearest entrance back onto the freeway. My hands are shaking. There’s some blood on me from the cuts, not too bad. But the shaking. More than usual. Two men dead. Two men I’d never seen or met. Don’t like what the last one said about my family. Not good.
I’m still a killer. The idea of turning myself in floods back into my brain. Still a killer.
Henry Fellows, wrongfully accused. And not an innocent bone in my body.
