The Light Pirate(73)
Phyllis opened her eyes and heard a scuffling sound coming from downstairs. The reason she was awake. Then a thump. It took her a few seconds to understand, and by then her instincts had already pried her aging body away from the sink of her mattress and propelled her to the handgun she kept in her bedside table. She opened the drawer, silent, and retrieved the weapon. Moving swiftly, quietly, she went to Wanda’s room, pressed the gun into her hands, whispered, “Safety is on,” and then went to fetch the rifle from the hallway closet.
She could hear the sound of the invaders moving past the front rooms of the house, which she and Wanda had made to look as dilapidated and worthless as they could, a facade to hide the pricelessness of what lay beyond: the food, the resources, the tools. There was a dull thud, the scraping of the furniture that barred the door leading to the rest of the house, then a murmur of delight. This had always been the weakest part of her preparations. She’d understood so much of what was to come before it arrived, but human beings—human beings she understood the least.
She stood at the top of the stairs and listened to a low, excited murmur of voices: two men, she thought, maybe more. They knew exactly what they’d found. Phyllis and Wanda’s luck of staying hidden this long had run out. Was it chance that the intruders had chosen this house, a simple hunch that propelled them past the disguise of those front rooms? Or—she tried to think back, to pinpoint a mistake she or Wanda had made, some beacon of their thriving lifestyle. It didn’t matter. They were here now. She heard the sound of them discovering the pantry: a whoop of joy, quickly shushed.
Well, it had been a good run, she thought. Whatever happened, their time in this haven had come to an end. They would never be safe here again. She could feel Wanda arriving on the top step behind her. Phyllis looked back and saw that she was dressed, the gun pointed at the floor, her arms taut, spring-loaded. Good girl, she thought. By now, Wanda was taller than her, stronger than her, quicker than her. Phyllis knew if it were just she alone, there would be little chance she’d last the night. These intruders would ransack her stores and either kill her quickly or kill her slowly. But with Wanda by her side, grown and fierce, there was still some hope they could defend what was theirs. At the very least, they would make it difficult for these scavengers. Or—they could run. Now. They could slip out the back door and melt away into the night. But what if the intruders gave chase? She could tell Wanda to go while she stayed and held them off…Possibilities flashed through her mind, none of them good. Each one with its own fatal flaw. If they ran, they left with nothing. And having nothing in a place like this was just a slower death sentence.
“Ready?” Wanda mouthed. Phyllis reluctantly nodded. It was too late to make a different plan. Every second they spent hesitating was wasted. They descended the stairs in tandem.
“Pantry,” Phyllis whispered. She went first. Inching down the hall, she tightened her grip on the rifle, the butt nestled up against her shoulder, her trigger finger ready. There was the rumble of a man’s voice, low, quiet, and then nothing. She took a deep breath, stepped into the doorway of the pantry, and loaded the rifle in one fluid motion.
She was fast, but not quite fast enough. Phyllis didn’t know what was happening until it had already happened. The rifle was snatched from her hands and then jabbed into her gut. She couldn’t breathe—a hollow ache vibrated in her solar plexus. Broken ribs, she thought, her mind cataloging the pain from a great distance. She felt a sharp crack to the side of her head and fell to her knees, the floor rushing up to meet her. Concussion. Cracked skull? Crumpling, her ears ringing, her sight smearing, she saw her attackers looming over her. The older man had her gun in his hands. The younger had an assault rifle slung over his shoulder that he hadn’t even bothered to raise. He hadn’t needed to. She glimpsed, for a moment, how pathetic she must look to them. How easy to snuff out. The older man raised her own gun. Pointed it at her.
And then the shots: three of them, sharp and even, one after another. The older man’s head snapped back, pieces of it spraying backward, while the younger looked down at a dampness spreading across his chest, confused to find two holes in his torso. Phyllis could see his mind catching up with his body, the slow, horrible realization that his companion was dead, that he would die also, that he was already halfway there, the threads that kept him connected to his body quickly unraveling. The two figures fell in slow motion. Wanda walked into the room, gun still raised. Phyllis watched as she stepped over the corpse of the older man and looked down at the dying boy. She could see now how young he was: barely older than Wanda. Phyllis’s head was still roaring where they’d hit her, but she swore she heard Wanda say something to him. She struggled to match the sounds to words as her brain shut down and consciousness slipped away from her.
Phyllis came to on the floor of the pantry. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed. Her head felt like a shattered egg. Strong arms lifted her, propped her against the wall. Wanda knelt down in front of her and held a cold washcloth against her forehead. Phyllis tried to reach up to touch her temple, but Wanda caught her hand and laid it back down in her lap.
“Don’t touch it,” she said. “I’ve got you.”
“What…” Phyllis tried to reassemble the jumble of moments that had led to this one. She looked past Wanda’s concerned face and saw the bodies on the floor behind her. She saw the blood, sticky and bright, congealing in a wide, shining pool. She remembered enough, in pieces. It took a little time to make sense of it, but that would be the concussion slowing her down. Wanda cleaned the wound and stitched it as if she’d been practicing for years. And in a way she had been. No, in every way. What had Phyllis been preparing her for if not this?