PENDLETON (First draft) - Chapter 3: Targets

[Faye - Friday]

-

ZACH WAS A DESPICABLE human being. And no one despised him more than Faye.

She saw the blight on humanity walking out to his car as she pulled into his driveway. Blocking his sedan from leaving, she thought with a superior smile. It was a bright Georgia morning and the sunrise glinted off the back of his car.

Zach Hitchcock’s house was fairly small and plain, a one-story house smack-dab in the middle of a line of two-story mini-mansions. He lived in a tiny development community that didn’t even keep an officer on duty. Pathetic, like the rest of Zach’s existence.

The young man himself glowered at her through her windshield. In another life, she thought, he could’ve been attractive. He gave a sour glance at her pickup, which had trapped his car in the driveway, then stared through the tinted glass, trying to find her eyes.

Faye didn’t wait to let him stare. She shut the truck off, left the key in the ignition, shoved the door open. Zach watched as she stood up and shut the door, locking her in a brief glaring-match.

“Where’s Rome?” she said abruptly, not wishing to let the moron speak first.

Zach froze defiantly for a second, then slammed his keys onto the roof of his sedan and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Inside.”

“He still asleep?”

“Yes,” Zach replied. Seeing her eyebrows suddenly shoot up, he shuffled uncomfortably. “No,” he amended. “Dunno, really. Didn’t see him.”

She cocked one eyebrow in place, letting the other one fall. “And where are you off to?”

He looked away, shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

Faye took one step forward.

Zach noticed, glanced back at her, replied quickly, “I’m going to work. If you gotta know.”

Faye pursed her lips, let her eyes widen. She was quiet for a second. “Wow.”

He looked at her sidelong. “What?”

She shook her head slightly, pretending to brush off his confusion. “I’m just… surprised. I didn’t know you had a job.”

He fixed a hateful glare on her for a few seconds, seemed at a loss for the words he was looking for. He sighed, took a hand out of his pocket and rested it on his car, leaning forward. “You know, you don’t have to be a total jerk to me. Just because -”

She advanced, talking over him. “- Zach, you have one job, and that’s to take care of your freaking nephew -”

“- I’m doing a good job, I really am trying. But the moment you see me, you start getting on me -”

“- one job! And the first thing you do? You head off without even speaking to him.”

“- And you show up at my house unannounced -”

The front door opened.

“Faye!” someone shouted.

Faye stopped yelling at Zach, turned to the voice. She saw Rome hurrying out the door in her direction. She caught a glance of unkempt, sandy blonde hair shining in the morning sunlight. She spread her arms and caught the seventeen-year-old in a hug. The kid was almost as tall as her now, and she could rest her chin on his shoulder for a second.

Rome let go, looked up at her. “Please tell me you weren’t picking on Zach again.”

She gave him a warm smile, hands on his arms. “Of course not.”

Rome grinned. Faye and Zach exchanged dirty looks, then Faye smiled back down at Rome. “What’re you doing today?”

“He’s doing homework,” Zach interjected from behind Rome.

Rome turned to look at his uncle. “It’s summer. I don’t have any homework.”

Faye didn’t try to suppress a smug grin. She gave Zach a ‘see what I mean’ kind of look.

“I’m meeting up with Noah and some others,” Rome went on. “He’s invited me to a high school dance tonight.”

“Sounds fun,” Faye said. “You driving yourself yet?” Or is Zach going to take you? she added in her mind.

Rome shook his head. “Don’t have my license until the fall. Noah’s gonna drive me.”

Faye pressed her lips together, nodded. “Good plan.”

She studied his face for a second. She hadn’t seen the kid for exactly a year, when he’d come to visit last summer. He was noticeably older, his face wider and more well-formed. More than ever, she could sense the melancholy behind his expression, the sadness in his eyes. Pain, right beneath the surface. “Are you okay, Romeo?”

He paused, and they considered each other for a second. He nodded. “Yeah.”

She gave a half smile. “Yeah?” She hesitated. “How’s it going with…?”

He sighed, glanced away for a second. “Not great. Dad’s angry, but he thinks he’s doing the right thing. I don’t know how Mom’s doing, to be honest.”

“And you?”

“Ready for it to be over.” He shrugged. “But I’m good.”

He smiled. “It’s really good to see you.”

Zach made an impatient noise, switched his weight to his other foot. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Zach asked.

Faye pulled out her phone, checked the time dramatically. She shrugged. “Not really.”

Zach slapped the car roof. “Well, I do. I’ve gotta go to work. So if you don’t mind getting your truck off my driveway -”

“- Far be it from me to prohibit your endeavors at contributing to society,” Faye said, opening the door of her pickup. She looked at Rome. “It’s so good to see you again, Romeo.”

The kid smiled at her, gave her another small hug.

“It’ll be over soon,” she muttered quietly to Rome. “I promise.”

Rome grinned. “Thanks.”

She sighed, stepped away, wishing she could do more for this kid.

Firing one final glare at Zach, Faye jumped back into the truck and turned the key. She shut the door, waved at Rome, and began to pull out of the driveway.

She saw Zach shake his head.

<2>

“We lost another cow last night,” Mr. Ellis said.

Faye looked up from the chicken-wire fence, slipped off her gloves. She pushed back a loose strand of red hair, turned his attention to the man. “Did he die like the others?”

Mr. Ellis nodded from the other side of the fence. “Throat bitten out. No other injuries.”

She felt a chill run down her spine, remembering the sight of the carcasses, the bloody, almost surgical wounds. A predator who knew how to kill. “You heard anything from anyone else?”

“I spoke to our neighbors on the other end of the road,” Mr. Ellis replied, scratching that disastrous attempt at a beard. “They’ve had a couple of their animals killed by some kinda predator. People are starting to get a bit antsy.”

Faye considered this information. “I haven’t had anything happen on my property.”

Mr. Ellis thought for a second. “Honestly, makes sense to me. Biggest animals you’ve got are these here chickens. And like you said, this thing’s killing for sport.”

Faye shook her head. “Why would it make a difference how big the prey is? He’s not eating ‘em.”

Mr. Ellis made eye contact, and she could sense his underlying nervousness. “You wanna know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think this thing’s tryin’a challenge himself.”

Faye stared for a second, a little taken aback by this idea. “Seeing how big he can go without anyone noticing.”

Mr. Ellis nodded. “And he’s proven he can take a cow without a single sound. What’s next for him?”

He let that question hang in the air for a second, then said, “But I haven’t told you the spookiest part of this.”

Faye hesitated. “What do you mean?”

Mr. Ellis licked his lips nervously.

“Laurie saw it.”

Faye’s eyes widened. “What?”

He took a second to think. “Or, she saw something strange, at least. It was late in the evening, just barely light enough to see. She spotted some kind of animal moving across the pasture. Fast. And it sure wasn’t a cow. Here,” he said, pulling out his phone. “Laurie tried to take a photo of it. But it was dark and far away, and we can’t really make it out.”

He pulled up a picture on his phone, passed the device to Faye. “Take a look at this.”

Faye squinted down at the screen, shielding it from the sun with one cupped hand. She saw the tiny shape in the corner of the photo. Zoomed in with two fingers.

Unbelievable. It was dark and pixelated, but she picked out the definite outline of an animal. The body was lanky and dis-proportioned, and it was impossible to tell how big it was.

Something eerie about it, something noticeably… wrong.

She stared for a few seconds, trying to make out any more details. Then she passed the phone back to Mr. Ellis. “I can’t see much of anything either.”

Mr. Ellis stuffed the phone into his pocket again. “So we know for sure it isn’t a bear.”

“We don’t know anything for sure,” she replied.

“It looks like a dog, for one thing.”

“It does look like a dog. Which means that Laurie probably spotted a dog, not your mystery predator.”

Mr. Ellis shook his head. “We both know that isn’t true. It may look like a dog, but the thing in that photo wasn’t a dog at all. All its features were messed up.”

Faye nodded, picked up her gloves again. “Fine. Sometime in the next couple of days, I’m gonna take a hike out to the forest, see if I can find anything.”

Mr. Ellis gave her a cautionary look. “You sure about that? If it can kill a cow easy as nothing, what -”

“If I see anything, I’ll be sure to shoot it for you.”

<3>

Faye picked up the Beretta 9mm and slammed in the magazine.

She glanced at the target thirty yards away, a square sheet of paper dimly lit by fluorescent lights. The shooting range was mostly empty, the last customers emptying out for the night. She figured if she was going to go out to the forest, she could probably use a bit of practice first.

I’m leaving them with you, Faye. That means what happens to your siblings is your responsibility. Got that?

She pulled the chamber back, let it slide forward into place on its own.

I looked in his phone records. I hate to tell you, Faye, but I think he’s been cheating on you.

She wrapped her hands around the grip of the pistol, letting the cold metal sit firmly in her grasp. She made tiny adjustments to her grip, shuffling with it for a second.

Rome’s parents are getting a divorce. His mom told me Rome’s having a really hard time with it, Faye. Poor kid.

She shut her right eye, squinting down the pistol’s compact barrel with her left. She focused on straightening the three white dots on the gun, then shifted her focus to the target, lining it up with the bullseye.

It’s up to you to take care of them, Faye. Your responsibility. Everyone else is gonna try to hurt them.

She squeezed the trigger. The gun burst into action, a tiny flash of light, a flying shell. The sound was muffled by her earplugs. She held the gun steady, tried to see where the bullet had hit.

Then she fired again, and again, and again. Emptying the magazine. A little recoil control each time, centering the pistol between each shot.

The hammer clicked. She lowered the pistol, heard the shots echoing in the shooting range, the only sound in the empty room. She hit the ejection plate, let the spent magazine drop to the table.

She placed the gun on the table, squinted at the target. A tight cluster of shots a couple inches down and right of the bullseye. Not terrible, but not really what she’d hoped for either. Which left her… mildly frustrated.

She huffed, jerked the earplugs out of her ear.

“Pretty good,” a voice behind her said.

She jumped, looked around. It was Rick Lomond, a wide broom in his hand and a wide grin on his face. She’d forgotten that he worked here. She smiled. “You scared me.”

“Probably a good thing you’d already emptied your mag, then,” he said, brushing away a scattered pile of empty bullet shells.

She laughed a little. “True. Pendleton Arms might’ve lost their star employee.”

The ex-marine nodded, glanced up at her target. He studied for a second. “Your shots are a little low.”

“Yeah,” she replied. “Seems like I always have that issue.”

He rested the broom against the table, took a step closer to the target. “Think I know your problem,” he announced.

“What?”

“Your shot pattern,” he said, holding out a muscled arm at an angle to demonstrate, “is sort of a diagonal line. Your first shot is closest to the center, and they get farther away every time. That means you’re trying too hard to control the recoil.”

She glanced at him thoughtfully. “How’d you know it’s not the other way around? That my shots didn’t get closer every time?”

He gave her a sidelong look. “Because I know you,” he answered. “You’re more likely to be too tense than too relaxed.”

Faye was a little surprised at the frankness of that statement. “Okay…”

He picked up the empty pistol, aimed it at the target. She watched as he held it, could see his combat training settling in, a perfect stance and comfortable handling. She wondered how many times before he’d used a firearm. Probably millions. But Rick didn’t like to talk about his days in the military.

“You’re just trying a bit too hard is all,” he said. “Once you fire, don’t try to drag it down and right. Just let it fall right back to where it started.”

She nodded. What he was saying made sense.

“Soon enough,” he said, “burglars will learn to fear you.” He passed the pistol to her with a grin.

She laughed quietly. “Thanks.”

“Anytime,” he said.

They stared for a few long seconds, and Faye felt her smile fading. She felt mildly annoyed, broke the stare abruptly.

“Goodnight,” she said uncomfortably.

He nodded, went back to his sweeping.

She felt the anger rising, frustrated at herself for cutting him off like that.

Are you okay, Faye?

She grabbed another magazine, slammed it into the Beretta, and fired quickly into the target.

She heard her own voice this time. I can take care of myself.

In three seconds, she’d emptied that magazine as well, pouring lead into the paper.

She lowered the gun, her ears ringing. She realized that she’d forgotten to put her earplugs back in. She shook her head, trying to clear her brain from the loud gunshots.

She looked at the target. Almost dead center. Rick was right.

She packed up the Beretta into her gun case, walked out of the shooting range, brushing past Rick without saying a word to him.

That’s what I’m worried about.