The Cabin at the End of the World(54)
Wen reviews those most important rules and stares at Daddy Andrew and his gun. She wonders where he hid the silver safe. She didn’t realize the car had secret places in which to hide things.
Andrew says, “Yeah, all right. We’re going to tie these two up first. Only fair, right?”
Adriane asks, “Did you kill Sabrina?” She stands still and with her arms out like a scarecrow, one mad it can’t scare everyone away. It’s Adriane who scares Wen the most now. Adriane would’ve clubbed her with the shovel-bladed weapon if Eric hadn’t picked up Andrew’s chair and knocked the thing out of her hands. Wen wants to tell Daddy Andrew to not listen to her, that she might find a way to hurt him with her words.
“She wasn’t gonna hurt you. We heard the shots—”
Andrew says, “No. I didn’t shoot her.” He pauses and gimps forward half a step. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t shoot you.”
Wen wants to dissolve back into the bedroom so she doesn’t have to see anything. She doesn’t want to see what Adriane will do when she drops her hands or when her dads tie her to one of the chairs. She doesn’t want to see Daddy Andrew shoot the gun.
Wen tries to see outside the front door and to the lawn, but Andrew and the severe angle obscures her view. She again remembers the poor grasshoppers trapped in the jar and how horrible it must’ve been for them. Did they run out of air and die crawling and knocking into the lid? Did they wind down like little toys on juiceless batteries? Did they, like Daddy Eric said they would, get cooked by the sun, boiling to death inside their own exoskeletons? Maybe they’re still alive but barely and they are suffering. It’s all her fault and she quickly ticks off the grasshoppers’ names in her head, and another crying fit begins to swell.
Andrew looks behind him, as though he hears Wen thinking about the jar left in the grass. As he turns, Wen sees the entire common room splayed before her and the adults animate, one movement begetting the next. She doesn’t understand or even have time to react to all of it, but her brain catalogs everything to be parsed and dwelled upon later:
Andrew swivels at the waist, peering over his left shoulder. Adriane drops to one knee, snatches up a knife with her taloned right hand, and launches at Andrew. Leonard sprints away from the couch, triggered by Adriane’s springing forward. Andrew spins back around to face the room and Adriane is only one or two steps from being on top of him. Her knife arm is raised triumphantly over her head. Leonard thunders across the room shouting Adriane’s name. Andrew fires the gun. There’s a pop, or a crack, sounding to Wen like two cars smashing together; its punchy loudness is as jarring as its brevity and the silence that fills the vacuum after. Wen covers her ears. Adriane is stood up, jerked upright, and lifted and pushed onto her heels like the gun spewed out a magic invisible wall. Her shirt is black and there is no visible, telltale red staining the cloth, but the bullet must’ve hit her somewhere in her now drooping left arm or shoulder. Eric lifts what was once Adriane’s weapon and tries to run toward the others, but his foot is still snared in the rope attached to his chair and he trips. He falls hard and lands on top of the weapon. The wooden handle snaps near the base of the jury-rigged flower of blades with a weak, imposter gunshot crack. Leonard is almost to Adriane, and he stretches out a hand toward her. Adriane reraises the knife, but shakily, and her face is cleared of expression and emotion, rubbed out, erased. Andrew fires again. Underpinning the minidetonation of the gunshot, there’s a soft, wet, sucking sound. Adriane’s throat explodes into a geyser of blood. Leonard is close enough that blood sprays onto his face and the front of his shirt. Her arm drops and so does the knife. Then she falls, too, collapsing to the floor, landing on her back. Blood spurts and pumps from her neck in endless supply. Her gurgles become hisses fading in volume until there’s no sound at all. Eric flips onto his back and tries to kick the tangle of rope from his leg. Andrew’s mouth hangs open, his upper lip quakes, and his eyes are wide O’s. The gun lowers, pointed at the floor or at the dying Adriane. Andrew doesn’t initially react to Leonard’s changing course, charging past Adriane and at him. Andrew raises his gun but he’s too late. Leonard is right on top of him and with both of his hands grabs Andrew’s hand and gun. Andrew’s arms go above his head, pulled up by Leonard. The crown of Andrew’s head is only at Leonard’s chin because of the height difference. Andrew grunts and yells and rams his head into Leonard’s neck and chest, and he lifts his knees, bouncing them into Leonard’s midsection. Leonard doesn’t flinch and doesn’t let go.
Wen floats out of the doorway and into the common room, gravity sucking her into the orbits of the crashing bodies. She stares down at Adriane. Her eyes are half closed, and the skin of her face is a fancy doll’s white, glowing above the gaping red hole of her throat. Her already dark hair is blackened by the expanding pool of blood.
To Wen’s right, Eric frantically kicks his tied-up leg, and the attached chair skitters around like a dog happy to see its owner finally returned home. Wen dodges the chair and crouches next to Eric. She taps his leg just above the knee. He sees her and stops kicking. She says, “I can help.” She tries sliding her fingers under the coils, but because of Eric’s flailing about the rope is wound tight and haphazardly, and she can’t find the original knot.
Eric sits up and his hands join Wen’s. One of his hands is wet with Adriane’s blood and he smears red onto the rope. He doesn’t quite push Wen away, but he takes over tugging hard on the lines and pulling out knots and loops hidden within other loops. The rope begins to melt away, the tangled mass unwinding as though his leg is a spool. Wen leans back and sits perched on top of her feet. She folds her hands in her lap. Her fingers are pink with Adriane’s blood.