THUGLIT Issue One - [24]

It was all worthless now. The flood of the spill sites saw to that.

Time to liquidate.

He crammed the Dopp into a satchel bloated with his safe’s six-figure cash supply, slid into his work boots and turned out the light on ten pairs of Italian loafers.

It made him want to whistle Dixie as he sauntered for the kitchen to meet Darly.

He spotted Chrissie instead.

Big Dan frowned. It was impossible not to when one saw Chrissie-the woman’s worry lines had taken a washboard to her face. Anything that might’ve been pretty about her was sagged like a saddlebag.

Her scowl was turned to Darly. She gave her dad a flick of her eyes. They were fixed on the.357 in Darly’s hand.

“Chris?” Big Dan said. The frosting feeling in his chest soured and sank heavy. It made him aware of the air choked by stinging chemical from the spill. “What’s going on?”

Darly swung the gun at him. Something struggled unsaid behind the stitch of her lips. The affectionate interest in her eyes was now a desperate hunger.

“She shot Andrea is what’s going on,” Chrissie said, a lifetime of Benson & Hedges croaking her tone. “Shot her own mother. Put her in a coma.”

“Shut up,” Darly said, snapping the Magnum back at Chrissie.

“Might’ve killed her. Might’ve killed her own mother.”

“Shut up!”

“Darly,” Big Dan began. The gun’s aim cut him off, almost swayed him. His body felt like brick, head like a balloon, chest burning.

“I came here to tell you because you must’ve changed your damn phone number on us again,” Chrissie said. Big Dan ignored her. He cared only for his granddaughter, beautiful and rabid, and for getting out with her.

“Darly, we can still work this out,” he said, forcing his legs forward. They managed one step. It made the women flinch.

“How? Lawyers?” Darly smiled, all sweet poison. “You’d lose.”

“We can just get out of here,” Big Dan said, demanding another step but failing.

“Are you serious?” Chrissie yelled. “She shot Andrea, Pa! She’s going to prison!”

“I’d take care of you,” Big Dan said.

Darly’s stare softened. He stepped toward it.

Softness only survived a moment. The blaze came back to her eyes, hotter than before, with pain fueling it.

“I’ve heard that before,” Darly said, smile twitching as something in her fractured, “from my bitch of a mother.”

Big Dan reached. Darly’s gun boomed.

He came to after a long instant like snipped film. His cheek was on the Milanese tile. His body felt like someone else’s.

The stink of cordite, car fluid, and the sweet penny smell of blood stained everything he breathed.

Chrissie lay a few feet away, eyes gaping like the fist-sized hole in her throat. He could hear the front door open. The storm howled in Darly’s exit.

Big Dan gathered his breaths. Each had to be wrestled in. Each brought more strength. He collected enough to try taking his feet.

It took half a minute-shoving his palms into the blood gumming the floor, bending his knees, head screaming like it had when his Pa lashed him.

He fell.

He breathed deep twice.

He fought up again.

Big Dan’s house wheeled around him as he went upright and staggered for the door. He let it spin. He let his nerves scream and collapse. He had to get to Darly.

She was escape. Life. Salvation for them both.

The rain embraced him with a beating: Punched his head. Pushed his shoulders. Yelled into the pits of his ears.

He wouldn’t let his old man beat him this time-the girl was still in sight.

Darly jogged ahead through toxic mire that gripped over her ankles. She’d made it to Chrissie’s Toyota truck parked under the Potter Chevy sign. Big Dan failed to call out, lungs filled with caulk.

She fumbled at the lock.

He forced shuffle after shuffle through the sludge, until his boot hit highway tarmac.

She wrenched the door open.

He drove himself faster.

She was haloed by the interior light, face bright as a baby photo, eyes just like his.

He fought words out.

“Darly! Take me with you!”

The fight robbed his wind. His next step faltered. His knees broke the flood mire, buckled on the highway, pitched him forward.

Darly looked back in time to watch Big Dan fall.

He watched, face half in the muck, as she slid into the Toyota without pausing and started it up.

He tried to watch her drive away. Tried harder than he ever had at anything. Needed to see if she at least looked back.

The flood rose to shut his open eyes.

A Clean White Sun by Mike Wilkerson

Waiting for her.

Hours spent kneeling and praying with her paperback copy of Falconer in my hands, the book’s cover speckled black with her blood. The terrazzo floor is cold and hard beneath knees raw and burning. Unrelenting, I rest my head on the edge of the bed’s bare mattress, close my eyes and wait for her.

Fading. Booze and Morpheus proceed to conspire against me, allowing only micro-second cuts, flashbacks of a final blinding glance. Numbers blip on a gas pump as Audrey smiles at me through the passenger side window, holding the book she’s been reading to her chest, the white sun on her mahogany skin. I can smell the sweetness of her perfume cutting through the thick vapor of oil and gas and stink of this world.