Erased

        Tess Yancy stepped onto the crosstown bus, tossed four quarters in the fare box, and headed towards the middle of the bus where there were empty seats to be found. As the bus lurched forward, the voice coming from its radio speakers read the sports headlines.

        In today's Belmont Stakes, Strodes Creek goes off as a 6-5 favorite.

        When she heard that, a smile snaked across Tess's face. She clutched her purse close and sat at an empty window seat. Five minutes later, as the bus neared the stop at Garland and Davis, she swallowed hard, slipped her hand inside the purse, and patted the ivory handle of the .38 caliber revolver. The closer Tess got to Barney's Bar & Grill, the heavier the gun felt.

        Tess's eyes drifted upward when the patter of rain on the bus's roof intensified and she muttered to herself. “Pouring, that figures.”

        Looking at the upcoming intersection, she saw the orange glow of a lit cigarette in the clear bus shelter. The war inside of her raged on, and her heart pounded in perfect sync with the surging pulse in the big vein at the side of her neck. As the bus neared the shelter, Tess wiped away the fog on the inside of her window. In the shelter, the person behind the cigarette came into sharper focus, but she still couldn't see well enough to make out a face. She could see that it was a man, tall, thin, and wearing some sort of light sweatshirt with a hood. Something about this man gave her a stab of dread, but it didn't last long. The debate raging inside held the lion's share of her attention.

        Are you really going to kill a man? Rabid animals who need to be put down kill people, you're not an animal!

        It's not killing a person. Jarvis is the animal, and he needs putting down. I'm saving Nathan's family! A woman and her two kids ... two innocent f*****g kids!

        If you shoot him in the head, that's going to be messy. Do you want blood and brains all over you?

        If I shoot him anywhere else, it may not kill him. I don't want that crazy b*****d coming after me.

        Who do you think you're kidding anyway? You can't even step on a bug, and you think you're going to shoot a man?

        The hiss and screech of the air brakes shook her from this internal debate and she sighed. She gave the Smith & Wesson a final, almost loving pat, and stood up. She gingerly tossed her purse over her shoulder so as not to bang the gun against her side again, and started up the aisle. As she neared the front of the bus, she caught the driver's eyes watching her in his rear-view mirror and her stomach clenched. She felt accusation in his gaze. You couldn't have convinced her of the truth, which was that he was just wondering what was taking her so long to disembark.

        “Thank you ma'am. Have a nice night.”

        She answered with a nod, and looked out the door at the rain. She stepped across the river raging in the gutter, onto the curb, and into the shelter where the man with the cigarette stood.

        The rain outside had a trapping effect that kept the air in the shelter thick with his smoke. Perhaps it was because of that smoke, or perhaps it was the fear of what she was about to do, but Tess's eyes began to water.

        “Nice night out, huh,” said the man, his face still hidden by the darkness and his hood.

        To Tess, his gravelly voice sounded like the voice of a black man she'd once known. In her purse, her fingers snaked around the grip and onto the trigger.

        “Yeah,” she said without looking at him, “if you're an otter.”

        He laughed. “What's a pretty little girl like you doing in this part of town on a night like this?”

        This made her pulse jump. What did he mean by this? Was this a threat? Was this b*****d going to ruin everything by making her shoot him before she even got to Barney's and Nick Jarvis? She glared into the darkness hiding his face with as much menace as she could muster.

        “Don't you worry about me,” she said with what she thought was the icy steel of Clint Eastwood, “anybody f***s with me, they'll wish their parents never met!”

        Her heart thumped through twenty seconds of silence while she waited, and hoped that she'd convinced him of the imprudence of messing with her.

        But he chuckled. With that mousy voice, her attempt at a menacing snarl was genuinely funny. Anyone would have laughed.

        “Old Harry wasn't bothering you,” he replied, “you came into Old Harry's shelter. Old Harry was just being friendly, making conversation, showing you a little honest concern. You can't be much older than Old Harry's little girl. What are you? 'Bout twenty-five?

        “Old Harry asks a lot of questions that aren't any of his business.”

        They stood in silence for several more seconds, Old Harry smoking his cigarette, and Tess staring through the rain at Barney's Bar & Grill.

        “You ain't thinking 'bout going in there, are you?”

        The guy had gone from an ominous sounding threat, to some personal protector whom she'd never asked for, and did not particularly want. This old man could get in the way. She didn't look back at him, just barked her answer. “You aren't thinking about minding your own business are you?”

        He smiled, the rain began to ease up, and her anxiety increased. It would happen soon. She took a deep breath, and began to summon her courage.

        “Hey, I'm just sayin'. That ain't the kind of place I'd want my daughter going in.”

        The rain began to let up.

        “Oh, you're my father now?” she snapped. “Look, as much as I've enjoyed our little get-together, I've got to be on my way.”

        She started to walk away, but he called out to her before she got far. “Hey!”

       She stopped, rolled her eyes, and turned toward him with an exasperated expression. “Now what?”

        “You be careful in there. Old Harry likes you for some reason, don't know why, just seems like I been knowing you forever.”

        She couldn't suppress a smile. “Okay Old Harry, you take care too.”

        With that, she vanished into the drizzly night, marching towards Barney's, where drunken patrons trickled out of both doors. Tess turned right, onto the unpaved alley that ran along the side of the bar. She walked down the alley towards the lone street light, one car back from the only GTO in the area. When she noticed the GTO, she took two steps backward out of the circle of illumination cast by the street light, and into the darkness, just as the brutish Jarvis staggered out the front door. Those two steps also took her into two inches of mud.

        “S**t!” she hissed as the mud oozed over the tops of her shoes.

        But she didn't move. Jarvis was coming down the alley, his shambling steps in perfect rhythm with her ragged breaths. She was so scared she wondered if he might be able to hear the pounding of her heart. But Jarvis began to look like much less of a threat. In fact, she began to wonder what she was thinking, why was she about to kill this big oafish looking teddy bear of a man. But she didn't have her the luxury of time to reflect. What was going to happen was cast in stone, unless she had the courage to change it. Jarvis was four feet from his car now. He was leaving here and going to the Jobe home. If she was going to do this, it had to be now. If she didn't kill Jarvis now, he would fulfill his murderous destiny within minutes.

        She sucked in a deep breath, and stepped out of the shadows. Her arms were extended, both hands wrapped around the gun as her bladder threatened to let go.

        “Jarvis!” she barked.

        He dropped his keys as he looked over, and squinted in her direction.

        “Is that ... a gun?” he stammered, slurring the words 'is' and 'that' together. “Are you gonna … shoot me?”

        Instead of running, he laughed disdainfully, and staggered a few steps toward her. Her heart raged with fear and anger, her knees weakened, and her bladder let go just a tiny bit. Fight or flight mode kicked in and she went on autopilot.

        The Smith and Wesson roared. A hollow-nosed slug smashed into Jarvis's head above his left eye, and exploded into three large fragments and a dozen small ones. Each large fragment tumbled off on its merry way through his brain. The back right side of his head exploded in a crimson halo, his knees gave, and he crumpled to the wet ground. At the same moment Jarvis's face slammed to the alley, the pistol hit the mud with a splat.

        In that split-second, Tess had vanished … literally into thin air. Only footprints in the two-inches of mud, and the Smith & Wesson remained.

Reviews

[Einstein Noodle]

Held me alll they way through. Very fine character development in Tess says i! She is believable. How she views the bus driver's "accusatory glare" ... and Old Henry .. like a guardian angel in disguise ... the finality of the ending is a strong resolution for me, the reader. It's a stand alone short story or the first chapter of a whole tale. Love how she just disappears from the scene ... leaving just the rain, mud and what's' left of Jarvis. Nice job Swine Guy! glad your back and posting!
E.