From The War Beneath, Chapter Two

…

Paul found the Louisville Slugger where Deirdre told him it would be. The age-worn wood felt smooth in his hands. He gave it a practice swing, found it lighter than expected. Powerful enough to stop a modicum of trouble, but how much were they expecting? He turned back to the hallway to ask and saw Deirdre bathed in candlelight, a finger pressed against her lips. He nodded, and she turned back to the door.

Paul retreated from the threshold, pressing himself against the wall by the table and chairs of the eat-in kitchen. Cold adrenaline pulsed in his veins, his heartbeat growing louder by the second. For all the locks on her doors and the vacant, boarded-up decay of Squatter City, he’d never thought of Deirdre’s place as particularly dangerous. Until now. A clatter of claw scraped hardwood; the cat running up and down the stairs.

“Scram,” Deirdre whispered.

Samedi gave a plaintive mewl.

“Scram!”

Paul braced himself against the plaster.

The cat went through the kitchen, paused at the cat-flap on the back door to glance back at Deirdre, and then exited.

Paul swallowed, tightening his grip. He heard the scrape of metal against leather as Deirdre drew her revolver from its holster. His senses sharpened around cat-dander itchiness and the absence of all other stimuli.

“Shit!” Deirdre yelped.

The sound of shoes scraping hardwood, Deirdre in retreat.

Something crashed into the door, splintering wood. The hammer on Deirdre’s gun cranked back. Paul closed his itchy eyes, trying to be quiet and breathe steady in growing panic. Another groan of breaking wood, the front doorway threatening failure. A gunshot filled the hall, loud enough to make Paul jump.

“You’re fucking with the wrong house!” Deirdre shouted.

A third crash against the door followed.

“Deirdre!” a voice called from outside. “Don’t make this harder’n it has to be.”

Paul couldn’t place the man’s accent—Quebec by way of Georgia, all the vowels falling wrong.

“Randall?” Deirdre asked. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“’Fraid not.”

A basso blast echoed from outside and wood shrapneled down the hall. The door banged open.

Deirdre’s gun barked twice. Paul winced at the sound again, too loud in the tight, empty house and the silent, lightless night.

Another shot boomed from a larger gun outside. Wood and plaster splintered to pulp under buckshot. Paul sucked air through his nose, trying to slow his runaway heart. Sweat slicked his palms around the grip of the bat. Seconds ticked by in silence.

“Look, Deirdre, I hate to do this to you, I really do,” Randall called from outside, “but the stars are right and the fog’s brewing up and there’s not much more need for the niceties. Now, I bet that’s your six-gun you’re holding onto, and there’s still four of us unwounded, so if I were you, I’d do the smart thing and set it down.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Deirdre yelled back, “How do I know you won’t chop me when you get in here?”

Randall’s laugh echoed deep and loud. “We known each other for years, Deirdre. You know I don’t wanna hurt you. You’re one’a the good ones. Besides, if I was gonna do ya, I would’a done it already. Got four shotguns out here and enough shot to turn your house to Swiss cheese.”

“Get off my property.”

“What, you gonna call the cops? Maybe after they get you for squatting they can take a sniff around your basement, eh? Come on, now, let's not waste any more time with this. Look, Zeke ain't even mad you shot him.”

Someone outside groaned a disagreement.

“Oh, come on, Zeke. You'll live.”

“You don’t get more after this, Randall,” Deirdre said, her voice calm and icy. “I’m the only one in the goddamned state who makes this shit. You fuck with me and you’ll never see another bag of it.”

“Don’t think we’ll need much more, in earnest. Now, you planning to put down the gun, or are we gonna have to start off enough fireworks to bring every cop this side of the border down on your little homestead?”

Something boiled over the ice in Paul’s arteries. It tingled in his veins. His knuckles seared white around the Slugger’s handle. An urge tunneled through his musculature, an impulse to swing the bat into the face of whoever waited outside, to bring it down on someone’s skull and feel bone rupture beneath the wood. For the first time in years he wished he had a gun.

But he didn’t, and they did. Four of them, allegedly.

“Last warning, Deirdre,” Randall said. “You either put the gun down or put Zeke outta his misery. Either way, the rest of us are gonna storm in there and finish the job.”

Paul heard Deirdre set her pistol on the floor. Hardwood creaked as she shifted her weight, put her foot against it, and slid it back toward him. Its small, snub-nosed body stopped at the kitchen threshold, just outside his reach.

“You're going to pay for this!” Deirdre shouted.

“Honey, we're all gonna pay for it. Isaiah, why don't you head on in there?”

Paul's eyes flicked from the bat to the gun. If he lunged for it, he could grab it. He could get his hand around the wood grain grip and turn its steel mouth toward the New England redneck rejects and see if it would eat them. But there were four of them, only three bullets left, and he hadn't fired a gun in half a decade.

“There we go,” Randall's voice was closer, now. Inside. Paul could hear other people too, the sound of weight crossing old Victorian floors. Someone heavy enough to sag the floorboards stepped into the den.

“Randall, ah, what are we gonna do about that car out there?” this one was definitely a down-east accent, a stereotype of the heah unreachable from theah.

“So who’s the houseguest, Deirdre? That kid’a yours? One of your other lowlife friends?”

“Go to hell.”

“You hear me in there?” Randall raised his voice to the whole house, filling the halls. “We got plenty’a firepower down here, whoever you are, and we ain’t afraid to use it. If you haven’t done the smart thing and run away by now, I advise you put down whatever heat you’re carrying and act wise.”

Paul’s heart punished his chest.

Floorboards creaked as someone moved toward the kitchen. Paul struggled for quiet, his breath coming sharp through his nose. A footstep creaked his way. Another. How many steps between the kitchen and the door? What were the chances he could get the gun before someone brought bullets thundering down on him?

“You want the shit or what?” Deirdre asked.

“Sure, sure. Why don't you just unlock that basement door and my boys will handle the rest of the house?”

Metal squealed as Deirdre yanked on the deadbolts built into the basement door's frame. Keys jangled. Steps creaked closer to the kitchen. Paul stopped blinking, dry eyes glued to the threshold. One man in the den, another wounded outside, and three in the hallway—that was his count. But the hallway was too narrow to fit more than two abreast, right?

The barrel of a shotgun caught candlelight, sticking through the threshold.

Paul brought the Slugger down.

….