The light suddenly became significantly brighter. Puzzled, I looked up at the sky and concluded that I must have had another short spell of unconsciousness. Now, in the better light, the bushes I hid behind appeared worryingly scrawny. Bautista would spot me if he really looked hard.
The dawn chorus of local birds picked up, drowning out all other sounds, including Bautista’s rustling or crawling sounds if there were any. Everything now depended on my line of sight but I dared not raise my head too high – the movement would surely attract his attention like a magnet. I had to content myself with what I could see through gaps while lying low. Across from me lay the edge of the trees, where Bautista would have to emerge. I scanned them left to right, back and forth, again and again. Nothing moved.
Have I got it wrong again?
Then something disappeared. I shook my head and for a second thought I was hallucinating. Then it dawned on me; the tall, dark shape I had taken to be just another tree trunk, glimpsed between branches, had been Bautista himself. He was on the move. To somewhere better, closer to me.
Instinctively, I glanced behind me as if he could suddenly appear out of nowhere. He wasn’t there, not being a miracle worker or the invisible man. I felt angry at myself, then smiled. My nerves were strung out. Of course they were. Bautista and I were like exhausted heavyweight boxers about to enter the final round, and the winner would be whichever one of us could deliver a last, deciding punch.
He kept me on tenterhooks for several more minutes until I finally saw the tall grass move where I had started my belly trek across to the compost box. He must have found my first dribbles of blood. Now all he had to do was follow them . . . He crawled slowly along the trail I’d so exhaustingly and painfully made for him. I watched as grass parted and low bushes stirred in response to his progress. My plan was working. It just had to keep working all the way along.
At the halfway mark, where I’d left a spurt of fresh crimson blood, Bautista paused. The top of his shiny black hair showed from behind a patch of prickly, dark weeds. Like a dog sniffing the air, he was checking the area ahead of him, around and above the compost box. His head rose higher and glaring white eyes inspected my position. For a heart stopping moment I was certain that he was staring straight at me. I knew if I made the slightest movement those demonic eyes would lock on me.
Slowly the head disappeared and the wild grasses began to part again. I expelled a long held breath through sieved teeth.
Closer . . . ever closer. As he neared the compost heap he paused again, but this time only for a second or two, before starting to crawl up the far side of the mound, out of sight of anyone hidden behind the compost box. I was sure now that he’d set his mind on making his way over to the box, approaching from immediately behind it. My grip tightened on the Sig Sauer.
When he got to the narrow area between the bushes where I was hiding and the compost box, I would have to act fast. Once he looked down behind it and saw that I wasn’t there, he’d immediately be on highest alert. He didn’t have far to go now. I wiped a trickle of blood from my eyebrows, rose ever so slowly to my knees, and waited.
Suddenly he was there, his body slanted forward, head low, peering down. He held his arm out ahead of him, parting the grass, his thick sausage fingers clenched around his automatic. The intent beast of prey, ready to fire the instant he heard the slightest sound in front of him. He put his head over the top of the bank and looked down.
Now was the perfect moment, it was now or never. I stood up, my heart pounding in my chest, and took silent cat-like steps around the bushes; my Sig Sauer aimed at Bautista’s broad back. Another silent step . . . must get a little closer. At that moment, the sun chose to emerge from a cloud over my shoulder behind me. My dark shadow moved across Bautista’s body up to his head.
Suddenly he froze. Every muscle in him seemed to swell and turn to stone. He knew what the sudden shade over him meant.
“You’ve lost, Bautista.”
He tilted his head until he was looking at me out of the corners of his eyes. I could tell exactly what he was thinking.
“Don’t do it,” I said, and his gun arm became still again.
“Then you do it, if you can,” he spat.
I brought up my other arm so that both hands held the Sig Sauer, steadying the barrel.
“You can’t, can you?” Bautista sneered, “You can’t even do it. You didn’t deserve her, you worthless shadow of a man.”
“Wrong,” I replied. I took another step towards him. Now I completely blocked the sunlight, making Bautista’s prone form black as night. “I’m the shadow of your death, Bautista, the last thing you’ll ever see. As far as you’re concerned, I’m the shadow of a killer.”
I pulled the trigger hard, again and again, firing shot after shot into Bautista’s broad back. His body jerked several times then lay slack and still.