The Last Days of October by Jackson Spencer Bell

deserve
it?”
    “He did.”
    “Okay, then.”
    They stood for
several long moments, the boy with his hands in the air, Heather with the
pistol pointed straight at him.   He
didn’t try to move.
    “Can I put my
hands down?” he asked finally.
    “Why’d you sneak
up on me?”
    “Why did I drive
up behind you in a pickup truck, get out and stand here while you ignored
me?   I don’t know.   I guess I thought you were frigging
deaf.   You were acting like it.   Until you started talking to yourself.”
    He looked up at
the bodies.   Then he looked back down at
her.
    “I’m putting my
hands down,” he said.   “You can shoot me
or whatever.   But my arms are getting
tired.”
    He allowed his
hands to fall.   He wore jeans and a baggy
hooded sweatshirt, but if he had any weapons concealed he didn’t reach for
them.   Heather kept the gun on him.
    “Why don’t you
just go on?” he asked.   “Go back to your
car, wherever that is, take off, let me do my thing.   How does that sound?”
    It sounded
logical, and had she an ounce of sense she’d have done just that.   But for some reason, she didn’t want to leave
the boy.  
    “My husband will
be coming along any minute.   He’s in the
Navy.   He’s a SEAL.   Special forces.”
    “I know what the
SEALs are,” he said.
    “I was in the
Navy, too.   Shore Patrol.   I’m trained in armed and unarmed combat.”
    “Good for
you.   For real, can you go on and take
that gun with you?”
    She sighed and
lowered it.   Then she stuck it in her
waistband.   He looked down at it but
didn’t move from where he stood.
    “I’m Heather
Palmer,” she said.
    “I’m Justin
Lesner.   Are you from here, or are
you—and your husband—passing through?”
    “I guess I’m from
here,” she said.   “Now, anyway.   But I wasn’t here until yesterday afternoon.”
    He perked up.   “Where were you?”
    “Camping.”
    “Like, in a
tent?   Out in the woods?”
    “Yes.   In a tent.   Out in the woods.”
    He whistled and
shook his head.   “Wow,” he said.
    “I know.”
    “I mean, wow.   You have no idea how lucky you are.   Seriously, you can’t be outside at night.   At all.   I can’t believe you’re standing here talking to me.   You should be under a house somewhere.”
    She thought about
all the nights she and Amber had sat outside the tent, hugging their knees and
watching the fire.   Out in the open.
    “Where’s your
family?” she asked.
    Justin
deflated.   He sighed and shook his
head.   “Ain’t got one.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “No, it’s
not…doesn’t have anything to do with all this mess.   I was on my own even before this.   My dad died of cancer last year.   My mom is…was…”
    Justin trailed off
and looked up the street.   Heather got
the sense that he was looking at something far, far away.
    “…wherever,” he
finished.   “She had issues.   Had a couple kids other than me, but the
state took them away.   My dad raised me.”   He shrugged and looked back at her.   He had pleasant green eyes.   “Far as I’m concerned, she’s been dead even
longer than him.   So I got nobody.   Which is kind of nice, right, because it
means I didn’t lose anybody.   Know what
I’m saying?”
    “I do,” she
said.   She studied his face, cocking her
head to one side, returning his expectant stare.   When he said nothing else, she asked,
“Justin, can you tell me what happened here?”
    “Sure,” he
said.   “But can you help me with
something first?”
    “What?”
    “Help me cut these
bodies down and get a tarp over them.   They bug me.”

 
    11.

 
    Back when Justin cared
about such things, Kayleigh had found a way to screw him with her pants up,
clothes on and him no where near her couch or bedroom.   She engineered this after he left her
trailer— ran   from her trailer—when the conversation went
south.   On his end, the situation
degenerated rapidly when she