Now
AS BETH NUDGED the dead man with her foot, Gideon stood trembling beside them, the gun hanging in his hand like a heavy dumbbell. “I froze,” he said. “I froze.”
“You didn’t freeze, Gideon,” said Beth.
Jax picked up his flashlight. “That was the exact opposite of freezing, Giddy-Up, you—”
“Don’t call me Giddy-Up,” he said. “Don’t fucking call me Giddy-Up. And I froze. Over there. I froze and then I panicked.”
“Overseas,” Beth said to Jax. “He’s talking about—”
“Yeah … overseas …”
“Well, you didn’t panic here, bro,” said Jax.
Gideon closed his eyes, saw gunshot flashes in the dark, heard children screaming. “I shot a kid. They weren’t supposed to be in there. It was dark. I shot a kid.” Beth grabbed his arm, walked with him back into the hallway. “Bullets … everywhere,” Gideon said, legs trembling, heart still racing from having unloaded his weapon for the first time since that raid. The colonel’s voice in his ear, Well done, soldier, there’s collateral damage in war, you either kill or be killed … “I shot myself. I’m not a hero. I panicked. I shot through my own leg.”
Instead of finishing the room-to-room search on the third floor, Beth, with the aid of Jax’s flashlight, ushered Gideon down the stairwell to the first floor, with soft words of come on, and let’s get you out of here. But when they entered the grand lobby, the front door was open again. They heard laughter to the right of the bar, and then a voice. “Shhh, he’s sleeping.” But with a lisp, so that sleeping came out thleeping.
Gideon disengaged from Beth’s hand lock on his arm, tried to pinpoint where the voice had come from.
Jax pointed his flashlight behind the bar, said of Mickey, “He’s still out.”
Beth said, “Then who else is in here?”
“I am,” came a hushed male voice in the shadows across the lobby.
Jax pointed his flashlight, saw nothing by the mural on the far wall.
Gideon pointed his gun again, realized he had no more bullets, but kept it aimed.
Beth said, “Show yourself.”
The flick of a lighter sounded—like an old-timey Zippo—and briefly, a section of the grand lobby was illuminated enough to reveal a crouched figure in the dark. There and gone again, swallowed by the shadows. The figure laughed.
Jax’s light hit that spot, but the man was gone.
“Who are you?” Gideon asked, following the shuffled movement.
“I’m Freddie,” the voice said, closer to the door now. “Firestarter Freddie.” Starter came out like thtarter. The laugh, and then, “I thtart fires. Thath what I do.”
He flicked the lighter again, allowed it to glow for two seconds and then it went out.
Jax shined his light, finally caught the man, running, hunched over toward the front doors. Beth fired, missed. Plaster dust puffed from the wall. The man laughed again, and just as Jax froze him in his light, and as Gideon started a run to stop him, the front door flung open.
Backlit by moonlight, the silhouette of something monstrous filled the doorway. Firestarter Freddie slithered out the door just as the beast came in. But it wasn’t a monster. It was a deer, ink-black like the three they’d seen out on Mallard Street earlier, except this one was large as an elk, with antlers to match the size. And as it craned its head to fit the rack of antlers through the doorway, Gideon saw crystallized breath jet out from the deer’s nostrils, like an odd change in temperature only they could feel.
If what was coming through that tunnel was getting larger and larger, Gideon thought, what could possibly come next?
Its massive hooves clip-clopped over the lobby’s checkered tile floor, cracking some of them under its weight. Jax hit it with the light, and through the haze of dust motes, the deer’s red, oval eyes lit up. Its hair was thick and black and contracted, standing on end, like he’d seen white-tails do when showing aggression. The horns were a deep shade of red with orange swirls and looked luridly wet in the flashlight glow.
Gideon said, “That’s blood.”
Beth nodded in agreement and motioned them both toward the open door. The deer clip-clopped, aggressively prancing in a circle. It faked an attack and they all jumped back. “Go,” Beth said. Gideon inched his way toward the door, but stopped, because he was tired of going. Tired of running. Tired of being Giddy-Up Gideon. “Gideon, go,” she said again. But he didn’t. Jax stayed put too, eyeing the deer, keeping his flashlight trained on it, as if daring it to come get him. Gideon recalled what Maddy had said about these deer, about how they hunted. And it sure looked like this one was in the middle of hunting season, because that was blood dripping down those sharp antlers. Beth said, “Jax, don’t do anything stupid.”
But Jax, Gideon noticed, suddenly looked dead in the eyes, like he was done with life, and it scared him. Jax said to the deer, “Come get it, you big Bambi motherfucker.” Flashlight in one hand, gun in the other, Jax aimed both between the deer’s eyes, and fired.
Gideon and Beth hunkered down, shielded their eyes.
The bullet hit the deer somewhere in the neck area, startling it, but only for a second or two because it then went into a head-lowered charge toward Jax, who fired now out of desperation, fired screaming out of rage and grief and missing because of it.
Gideon yelled, “Jax, no!”
Beth fired, once, twice, plugging the deer both times in the ribs, but the bullets were not enough to slow it down. The antlers drove into Jax’s chest and neck with powerful ease and the deer kept plowing, not stopping until it had Jax pinned against the wall next to the bar, antlers so deep the deer had stuck itself to the wall, with Jax screaming, pinned.
Panicked, the deer pushed its antlers deeper into the wall. Jax looked to be screaming, but very little sound came out, like his lungs and windpipe had been punctured. He flailed at the antlers but had no way to wrestle himself free. Blood flew and Jax cried out in anguish. The deer pulled back, huffing, spitting, hooves pounding in a desperate attempt now to free itself.
Jax’s flashlight had dropped to the floor, the beam rolled along with it, settled. Beth stepped in and out of the light, firing until empty, but the deer, although slowed by the wounds, still battled to undo itself from the wall, from Jax. Its hooves slipped and fought for footing atop the blood-soaked floor. Gideon approached.
Beth told him to stay back, but he kept going. Because fuck this thing.
“Gideon, what are you doing?”
He didn’t know but stopped a few feet away from the struggling deer. Contemplating how best to wrestle the antlers from the wall and therefore free Jax from it, feinting like he was preparing to seamlessly enter a moving jump rope on the playground, waiting for the right time to make his move. He saw fear in Jax’s eyes and didn’t like it, so he jumped.
Beth yelled, “Gideon.”
But Gideon barely heard her. He climbed atop the bloody, black deer from Lalaland, gripped the roots of those antlers, and held on. He pulled and wrenched and heaved back with all his strength, while the deer lost footing, stood upright again briefly, and then slipped, bucking Gideon like a bull. Gideon, with his hands blood-soaked, regripped and pulled, this time, with the deer’s help, freeing it from the wall. Jax dropped to the floor, wheezing, choking up blood. Beth knelt beside him, pleaded for him not to die. But Gideon wasn’t done with the deer, who was slowly dying but not yet gone. He regripped the antlers and plunged the deer’s head into the floor, once, twice, and after a third time it finally stopped fighting. It spasmed on the tile floor of the Beehive, and Gideon, face covered with the deer’s blood, stepped away to watch. Convinced it was no longer a threat, Gideon approached Beth and Jax, whose eyes were wide open with fright. Gideon feared he was dead until Jax blinked, long and slow.
Beth held her husband’s hand and cried right along with him.
Gideon knelt on the other side, held Jax’s other hand.
Jax’s head lolled to the side. His eyes found Gideon’s. Jax grinned, mouth bloody. “Hey … Giddy-Up.”
Gideon choked out a sob, said, “Shut the fuck up, Jax.”
“There ya … go,” said Jax, skin pale at the edges of the flashlight glow. “Take care … of my boy.”
Beth sobbed.
Gideon reached over and touched her shoulder. He squeezed Jax’s hand. “I will.”
“And tell my … dad …” He trailed off.
“I will,” said Gideon.
Jax breathed his last breath, and it came with a smile.
Beth closed his eyes.