In The Falling Light (41 page)

“How does it feel, Finch?” she said softly,
feeding shells into the shotgun with little clicks. Her fingers
moved slowly. She was so very tired.

Dean gave a tremendous heave, his muscles
straining and face darkening to the point he feared he would pop a
blood vessel. With a grinding squeak the wedge slid free and the
door rolled open.

“Carla!” He ran towards her across the
common room.

She approached the King’s cell.

“Carla, stop right there!” Dean slid to a
stop and put his own shotgun to his shoulder, aiming it at his
friend.

She paused and looked at him, her eyes
sunken in a drawn face. “He took away my baby, Dean.”

“I know he did, honey.” The muzzle of his
shotgun wavered. “But not this. You have to stop.” What was he
doing! He loved her, and she was doing what every CO had fantasized
about in every prison in the world. A final accounting for the dead
and destroyed. Was he going to shoot this woman, who by every
definition of the word was putting
justice
back into the
justice system?

Still he didn’t lower the shotgun.

She looked at him a moment longer, gave him
a sad smile, and turned towards the King’s door.

“Carla, no!”

She put the Mossberg’s muzzle to the food
slot.

From twenty feet away Dean fired. The
double-aught buckshot hit her in the back and shoulder, throwing
her forward into the cell door. Her Mossberg fell with a rattle and
she slid to the floor, face down. Dean ran to her, dropping his own
weapon and falling to his knees beside her, turning her over. Even
in the shadows from the emergency light he could see her face was
gray, her eyes distant and blinking slowly.

“Oh, honey, I’m sorry,” he said, cradling
her head as the tears came. What had he done? She choked and tried
to say something, but it only came out as a wheeze. Then she was
gone.

“God
damn!
Thanks, man, you got here
just in time!” Kelvin Finch pressed his face to the food slot,
turning his head so he could see the fallen sergeant. He laughed, a
shaky, nervous sound. “That was one crazy bitch.”

Dean said nothing.

Finch, the terror over, started talking from
the adrenalin. “Man, she got ‘em all, didn’t she? Every chickenhawk
in here, dead as dead can be! Gonna be hell to pay. Crazy bitch.
How’d she get in here, anyway? Man, I think I’m gonna throw
up.”

Dean looked down at the woman he had just
killed, eyes wet, feeling sick inside, and empty as well. He
suddenly understood some of what she must have felt over those long
years, that dead void inside. He brushed the hair away from her
face. Sleep now.

“They should give you a medal, Sergeant. You
saved my ass, you really did! I don’t mind telling you, I thought
she was gonna get me.”

Dean stood up with Carla’s Mossberg in his
hand, and he turned, shoving the barrel into the food slot and
against Kelvin Finch’s face. “She did.”

The King had a tenth of a second to gasp
before the blast took his head off. Dean set the weapon back on the
floor beside Carla, knelt down and took her in his arms, rocking
her slowly as he wept.

A touch of cool air crossed his neck, but he
barely noticed. Behind him, a shade in the shape of a little girl
was joined by that of a woman. They joined hands, and faded.

by

photo by Linda Campbell

Mr. Campbell is the author of
Red Circus:
A Dark Collection
, his first full-length volume of short horror
and suspense, and
The Mangroves,
a novella of terror based
upon actual events. His short fiction has appeared in anthologies,
print and online literary and small circulation magazines, and his
non-fiction essay series on Life and Relationships,
A Dad’s
Perspective,
debuted online in 2012. He is the co-author of the
screenplay
Silver Arrow,
and the
Shadow Empyre
RPG
series. Mr. Campbell lives in Connecticut with his family. Visit
the author at
www.johnlcampbell.com