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A Handful of Dust

Harry Shannon

Pike had short brown hair speckled with grey. He wore blue Armani with a salmon tie. After he rode down in the elevator alone, well after midnight, rolling a lightweight suitcase behind, Pike crossed the loud, garishly furnished lobby and casino, bought a copy of the New York Times and carried it to a back table. He sat behind a potted plant and ate mozzarella with fresh tomatoes and a side of Canadian bacon. After two espressos and a cold bottle of mineral water from France, Pike called the valet to order up a brand new rented mustang ragtop that had been charged to a fraudulent credit card. He tipped the sleepy carhop appropriately, but without once meeting his eyes.

 Pike drove away. He paused at the mouth of the driveway, in the neon glare of the massive, pyramid-shaped casino, and put some of his favorite music on the CD player; Hans Biber’s melancholy “Die Rosarie Sonaten.” He waited for some drunken tourists to pass, flipped on his headlights. He cruised down the strip to the freeway entrance and headed northeast.

Later, when the highway forked, Pike took the back road, a little-known ribbon of cracked asphalt that paralleled the main highway up to Elko and then Dry Wells. The desert night was chill and the indigo sky freckled with winking stars.

 Pike knew his way around Nevada, but wasn’t terribly fond of the state. To him, the high desert was merely a cratered landscape littered with pale fists of bleached tumbleweed, as devoid of charm and empty as the surface of the moon. He liked it better at night. Pike checked his platinum Rolex, activated the radar scanner and drove as fast as he dared. After four listens, he changed to Biber’s heartbreaking “Requim,” but eventually even that familiar work began to grate on him. Pike tried to find a radio station, but he was already too far from civilization. He’d opted to avoid satellite systems for security reasons. He drove on in silence, mind empty and handsome face bland.

 Before dawn, when the rising sun would smear red and orange chalk along the rocky peaks, Pike came to the city limits. To the left, in his headlights, stood a weather-beaten metal sign, chains squeaking in a light breeze, announced “Historic” Dry Wells. Pike sniffed with disdain. In the dark, the battered wooden storefronts looked like some abandoned movie set. The cracked windows were streaked with dust, many were broken. This part of town seemed deserted.

Pike went to the right, past a closed gas station and liquor store, until he saw the small neon sign that read TAPS. He parked out of sight, around the side, next to a dented white pickup truck, and got out for a stretch. A man in a black cowboy shirt sat in the cab, lighting what smelled like a decent cigar. He never looked up. Pike strolled to the front of the ramshackle building, past a bug zapper that was doing brisk business. He looked around carefully before entering through a squeaking pair of old wooden batwing doors.

 Tap’s was furnished with card tables and folding chairs. A small, geriatric television set was mounted on the far wall. Despite the hour, it was tuned to a sports network and the sound was muted. Pike looked around, searching for surprise customers or hiding places. He found none, and as promised there seemed only one way in or out.

“Evening, Tap,” Pike ventured. He waved one hand in the air.

The bartender, a white-haired old-timer with long white hair in a pony tail who’d been paid to stay open all night, wore a ripped, tie-die wife-beater tee shirt and blue overalls. He was festooned with fading tattoos and sat clipping his toe nails with grim resolve. His feet were filthy. He squinted at his handiwork before replying.

“Want a beer?”

“Do you have anything German?”

Tap squinted, shook his head. “Just the Coors. Want one, or not?”

Pike nodded, enunciated carefully. “That would be nice.” He walked closer, annoyed that his new Gucci shoes were already coated with sawdust. The bar itself was made of long plywood sheeting nailed to a couple of sawhorses. Pike told the cold bottle of beer and backed away. He chose a table that would allow him to keep an eye on both the owner and the front door, took an unopened pack of cigarettes from his jacket and set it on the table. The desert night looked like a velvet drape. Insects droned.

Pike was on his second beer when yellow headlights splashed the dirty windows. Someone else was arriving. The engine sounded small, maybe Japanese. Pike glanced outside. The driver waited quite a while before stepping out into the graveled driveway, under the street lamp. He approached the door heavily, like a man on the way to the gallows. Pike reached around, under his shirt, to adjust the small 9 mm Firestar seated in the holster at the small of his back.

The batwing doors opened with a horror-film creak. From the voice on the phone, Pike half expected ‘Mr. Smith’ to be a jumpy little weasel. He was somewhat surprised to see a stocky, pleasant looking, balding businessman perhaps fifty years old. Smith stepped into the room and did a pathetic job of acting casual. He smiled, asked for a can of soda. Tap was still occupied with his toenails. He looked up and offered a beer instead.

Moments later, Smith brought the unopened bottle to the table. Pike moved the pack of cigarettes to one side.

“Mind if I sit down?” Smith’s voice was higher than one would expect, and broke on the last syllable. “I’ve been driving all night.” That was definitely the voice Pike had heard on the phone. Smith swallowed nervously and positioned himself with his back to the room, another clear sign of an amateur. His eyes were pink spider webs. “Have you read anything by James Michener?”

“Only ‘The Source.’”

“You should really read ‘Hawaii,’ then.”

“I don’t get much time to read these days.”

Pike pinned Smith to the chair, lowered his voice. “Now that we have that nonsense out of the way, why don’t you tell me why you dragged me up here to this God forsaken part of the country in the middle of the night?”

“Ah.” Smith swallowed again, Adam’s apple bobbing. “You chose the time and place, sir.”

“I know that,” Pike sighed. “I just don’t want to go through all this for nothing. Now, tell me who it is and why.”

“Why?” Smith seemed surprised. “I didn’t think you’d care.”

“I don’t, except if I don’t know everything there may be some surprises that pop up along the way and put me in danger. You look like a businessman, I’m sure you can understand that.”

“Certainly,” Smith said. “Of course.” He glanced back at the indifferent, now dozing bartender. “Are you sure it’s safe to talk in here?”

“Don’t worry, Old Tap is nearly deaf. He’s also bought and paid for.”

“Are you satisfied you can trust me, sir?”

“Of course, Mr. Smith.” Pike leaned forward. “After all, Reggie himself vouched for you.” His elbows shifted the table and en empty beer bottle clanked against the ash tray. “So, just briefly fill me in. The wife?”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s usually the wife.”

“No,” Smith said. He leaned closer. His eyes seemed glassy. He was perspiring heavily and his breath smelled like cinnamon breath mints. “It’s a business associate, actually. I’m trying to close the deal of a lifetime, and he’s in the way.”

“Do you have any special requirements?”

Smith cocked his head, bemused. “I don’t understand.”

“For example, does it matter to you if he suffers first?”

“No,” Smith blanched and shook his head rapidly. “No, it doesn’t matter at all.”

“Okay, good,” Pike said. “That keeps things simple.”

A long silence followed. The bug zapper on the porch snapped and crackled like distant thunder. Mr. Smith wiped his brow. “It’s really hot in here.” Pike sipped his beer without answering and Smith got the hint. “Okay, one question. How will you…do it?”

Pike shrugged. “That all depends. An accident is best. Maybe we cut his brake line before a trip, or arrange for a burglar to break in and shoot him. Sometimes I set up a fatal heart attack.”

“You can do that?”

“For the right about of money, Mr. Smith, I can do anything.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Indulge me for a second,” Mr. Smith said, ignoring Pike’s response. He had abruptly stopped sweating, and his eyes were no longer shining. “How does somebody get into your line of work?”

“You don’t need to know that.”

“Perhaps, but I’d like an answer anyway.”

Pike decided to give him two more minutes. “If you know Reggie, then you know the Russians have moved into LA. I started running errands for them maybe ten years ago. I made myself useful and let them know I was a team player. A chance came along and I took it.”

“You eliminated someone they found troublesome.”

“Obviously.”

“Were you scared that first time?”

A burst of laughter, short and low as a lion’s cough. “I don’t scare very easy, Mr. Smith. If I did, I’d find myself another line of work.”

“I’ll accept that…but does it ever bother you?”

For some reason the question, routine and somewhat expected, made Pike feel unusually uncomfortable. “Not really, Mr. Smith. It’s just a job to me. I’m a professional.”

“You enjoy it, then.”

“I suppose you could say that.”

“Okay, then…” Smith lowered his voice even further. “I’ll return to the subject of fear. Do you ever take pleasure in making other people feel afraid, Mr. Pike?”

“I need to see the color of your money,” Pike said, briskly.

“I’m sorry, I have offended you.”

“Not really, but this has already taken too long.”

“You do. I knew you would.”

“Do what?

“Take pleasure in it.” Smith reached into his jacket, removed a thick packet wrapped in brown paper and twine. He held Pike’s eyes as he pried one end open, thumbed through the one hundred dollar bills. He set the money down on the table. “Half in advance, just the way Reggie said I should do it.”

Pike took the money without counting and tucked it into his coat pocket. “Now give me the name and address, Smith, and we’re both out of here.”

“Fear is nothing more than adrenaline racing through the body.” Smith looked down and away, as if he’d just discovered something hiding on the sawdust floor. His voice went hollow. “And yet there is something about it that fascinates, don’t you agree? We have Halloween, Day of the Dead, horror films and books and all manner of murder mysteries and thrillers are always on the best seller lists and doing well at the box office. For most of my childhood I avoided fear like the plague. Oh, I went on a roller coaster once, and although it was rather delicious, though I did wet myself.”

This guy’s demented, Pike thought. He leaned back in his chair. “Mr. Smith, this is all too fascinating, but time is money.”

Smith seemed not to hear him. “My abusive stepfather introduced me to hunting when I was a teenager. He was a nasty, cruel person. Told my mother it would make a man of me. How cliché! Anyway, that frightened me too, at first, but eventually I got quite used to it.”

“Killing,” Pike said, “something of an acquired taste. Not everyone enjoys it.”

Smith nodded and his mouth went thin. “I never did, to be honest. Oh, I came to quite like the hunt itself, but never the death.”

“Mr. Smith, I need that name.”

Smith looked up, and his eyes were suddenly wide with excitement. “What if I changed my mind, Mr. Pike? What if I said I really wanted that man to suffer? What could you do to him?”

Pike shrugged. “We could maybe cut him up first, smash his toes. Let him hurt a while and then torch his house while he’s still breathing. If the fire burns hot enough, no one would ever need to know how he died.”

“How would you prove it to me, what you did?”

“I can make a video if you’d like.” Pike yawned. “Or just tape the sound, if you don’t think you could sit through watching.”

“Isn’t that risky?”

“Once you’ve checked it out, I’ll destroy it so there’s no evidence.”

“Of course, of course. Is there anything else you could suggest?” Smith rubbed his palms together like a pervert at a peep show.

“To make it bad, really bad?”

“Yes…if I wanted to make it all very nasty.”

Pitt yawned. “We could burn his skin with drain cleaner. See, what you do is, you explain it all up front and then take him out bit by bit, even make him swallow some at the end.”

“Oh, God. That is truly horrific.”

“Yes.”

“And the target is always aware of what is going to come next. I’d guess that must engender the deepest fear of all.”

“It gets their attention.”

“Then that’s what I want.”

“Fine, Mr. Smith,” Pike said, briskly. He checked his watch. “There’s just one little problem. I have the deposit, but I still need the man’s name.”

Smith chuckled. He looked over his shoulder to make sure Tap was not paying attention. “Mr. Pike, I have a confession to make. I have brought you here under what might be considered false pretenses.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, I am still going to hire you, in a manner of speaking, but not in quite the way you’d imagined.”

Pike let his hand creep back toward the 9mm Firestar in his belt. “What exactly do you mean?”

 “Well, the real reason I brought you hear is because of my long obsession with fear.” Smith drank deeply from his beer, belched politely behind one hand. “As I said, it started when I was a child, and has continued to this very day. So when a friend of mine died under somewhat mysterious circumstances, and a professional hit was suspected, I decided to find out who’d done the job.”

Pike tensed, gripped his weapon. “You’re here because I did a friend of yours?”

“Not exactly, Mr. Pike. Please relax. William wasn’t a friend, actually, although I was quite close to his wife, Jane. Very close, if you know what I mean. She was quite relieved to have him out of the way. In any event, it took me several weeks to retrace all the steps, but eventually they led me to our mutual acquaintance, Reggie.” Smith saw Pike’s eyes narrow. He held up his right hand, palm empty and asking for peace. “Please don’t be alarmed. Look, I must say that you do for a living absolutely fascinates me.”

Pike showed him the gun. “You’re on real thin ice, here.”

“I know, I know.” Smith said weakly. “I just want to discuss something with you. You can keep the money.”

“You paid me thirty large just to talk? You must be a very rich man.”

“Oh, I am,” Smith said, “but I didn’t go to all that trouble just to talk. First, you must understand one fact. I have recently learned that I am terminally ill. It is a rare form of cancer, quite lethal. Oh, the pain is quite manageable with drugs, and I assure you that I have at least six months, so I’m certainly not asking for your pity.”

“What the hell are you asking for, then?”

“Well, I actually came to turn the tables, as it were. Now that I know who you are, and what you look like, my intention is to stalk you, Mr. Pike.”

Pike laughed. “What?”

“As already mentioned, I have hunted in my time, but never the most dangerous game of all, never man. I would like to experience that before I’m gone.”

“Okay, let me get this straight. You plan to hunt and kill me?”

“Just so.”

Pike sneered, shivered. “Oh, I’m so scared.”

“I know it sounds foolish at this point,” Smith said. “But I do so want you to feel those waves of intense dread and forbidding you have so frequently inflicted upon others, at least once in your life. It seems only fair.”

Pike set his gun sideways on the table, in plain view. He kept his finger on the trigger. “Like I said a few minutes ago, old Tap is pretty much deaf, and he’s nodding off over there. He’s also bought and paid for, so whatever happens next, he won’t be talking to the cops about it.”  

Smith smiled. “You forget that I have finally come to quite enjoy the sensation of fear, Mr. Pike.”

“I hope for your sake that this is Reggie’s idea of a practical joke.”

“I’m sorry.” Smith pursed his lips. “Regretfully, our friend Reggie is dead. I shot him through the right eye with a 22 automatic. I have read in mystery novels that the shells rattle around better in the skull that way.”

“You’re nuts.”

“Perhaps I am.” Smith winked, lewdly. “Hey, don’t worry. I came here unarmed, just as I promised.”

Pike stared and then took out his cell phone with his free hand. He hit autodial, waited. His stomach felt sour. After three rings Reggie answered. “Yeah?”

Pike felt relieved. “Reggie, it’s me, Pike.”

“I can’t talk right now,” Reggie said, briskly. “Call me later.” The line disconnected. Pike folded his cell phone and tucked clipped it back on his belt. He considered the man before him. Meanwhile, Smith rubbed his temples like a man coming down with a headache. When he looked up, his expression was again timid and uncertain, like a man recovering from a hallucination. Pitt grimaced with frustration. Smith was clearly a full-on psychotic.

“Let’s take a walk.”

“Please, no.” Smith whimpered, shook his head. He looked pale. He kept his hands in plain sight. “I don’t want to go outside.”

“You’re really something,” Pike said, admiringly. “You’re probably a fruit loop, but I have to admit you’ve got guts.”

“Do you know Elliot?”

“Elliot who?”

“T.S. Thomas Stearns Eliot, Mr. Pike. Have you read him?”

“Some,” Pike said. He was now honestly baffled.

Mr. Smith closed his eyes and recited from memory. His tenor voice was clear and resonant and brought the poem alive. “You know only a heap of broken images, where the sun beats and the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief. And the dry stone no sound of water. Only there is shadow under this red rock. Come in under the shadow of this red rock and I will show you something different from either…Your shadow at morning striding behind you, or your shadow at evening rising to meet you.” Smith opened his eyes. “I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”

Pike leaned down closer to the pack of smokes he’d placed on the table. “Willie, we’re on the way out.” He tucked the pack into his coat.

Smith blinked. He looked around the room as if bewildered. “Who were you talking to?”

Pike glanced at Tap, who had clearly fallen asleep. He aimed the gun at Smith’s head, but did not pull the trigger. He abruptly reached across the table, seized Smith by the thumb and painfully turned his wrist. The smaller man yelped and got to his feet, following Pike’s lead.

“Ouch, that hurts!”

“Keep it down, or I’ll do you right here and now.”

“Ow!”

Pike wrist-walked Smith to the door, the Firestar pointed down at the floor. He poked his head outside. There was no traffic on the highway, although he could see a pair of headlights in the distance, coming closer. He yanked Smith close and whispered in his ear. “You’ve stepped in it now, buddy.”

“Please,” Smith gasped. “It was a joke. I already said you can keep the money, just don’t hurt me, okay?” The reddened eyes had gone glassy again. He’s definitely on some kind of heavy medication, too.

“What we’re you thinking, pal?”

“I only wanted to see what a real hit man was like before I died, that’s all. I really am sick. It was just a bad joke, Pike. I made up all the rest of it on the spot, just to see what you’d do.”

“You’re a lying sack of…” Pike dragged him through the batwing doors and down the dusty wooden steps. The desert night was cool and crisp and huge stars speckled a deep, blue sky.

“No! I really wasn’t lying about being sick, just about the rest of it. I’ve been under Psychiatric care, and they say I’m getting better.”

Pike released his wrist, kicked the seat of his pants. Smith was visibly trembling, now. He began to sob. He stumbled around the side of Tap’s and closer to the pickup truck parked in the darkness. When he saw the broad-shouldered cowboy standing next to it holding a tire iron, he cried out again. “God, please don’t kill me!”

Pike kicked him again. “Did you think I’d be here alone? Willie’s worked with me for years. He’s got enough equipment in that truck to block any signal but our own, and enough firepower to take on the National Guard.”

“So this is the big man?” Willie uncrossed his massive arms. “He’s moving around a lot. You want I should kneecap him first?”

Pike briefly considered the idea, but shook his head. “Wait a second, Willie.” He walked back down the gravel driveway and peered into the night. The headlights up the road were almost upon them. Pike called out: “Lose the tire iron, we got company.”

Something clattered into a pile of trash at the back of the building. Willie puffed on his cigar again, the orange tip showering sparks. For a long moment, Smith’s pale and terrified face was visible, like a reflection of the full worm moon.

Pike saw the rack on the top of the Highway Patrol car and his stomach tightened. “Stand him up, Willie,” he said softly,” and pour some booze on him in case we need to knock him out.”

Pike slipped the 9mm in the back of his belt and walked back toward the porch. The patrol car pulled into the driveway, spraying gravel; faint but incessant radio chatter flooded the air. After a long moment, a bucolic looking young officer with short red hair and a gut slipped out of the driver’s door. He stood so that the vehicle remained between them and nodded.

“How y’all doing tonight?”

“Just fine, officer,” Pike said, pleasantly. “I was about to drive away when I remembered I hadn’t paid my tab.”

“Tap okay in there?”

“You know Tap.” Pike paused in the doorway and grinned. “He was sleeping two minutes ago.”

“Hang on there a second,” the young cop said. “Stay where you are.” He left the engine running and walked around the front of the car, hand on the butt of his Glock. His shadow spread a pool of ink on the cracked plaster wall. Pike froze, but subtly let his own fingers crabwalk back toward his own gun. The cop trudged up the steps. He shined his flashlight in Pike’s face. Blinded, Pike flinched and looked away.

“What’s your name, friend?”

“Gavin Hollenbeck,” Pike replied, using the name on his fake driver’s license and bogus credit card.

“What you doing out here, Mr. Hollenbeck?”

“Just passing through on my way down to Vegas to have some fun.”

“You call us about a broke down car?”

“No, I sure didn’t.”

“Maybe old Tap did it, then?”

“If he did, he didn’t say anything to me about it, officer.”

The cop peered over the top of the batwing doors. Pike considered dropping him on the spot, one quick shot to the back of the head, but before he could go for the Firestar the kid had changed position again. He turned off the flashlight. “Tap’s sleeping, all right. How much you owe him?”

Pike opened his wallet and produced a ten dollar bill. “Couple of beers and a tip, that’s all.”

Someone coughed by the side of the building. The cop stiffened and flicked the flashlight back on. “Who’s that, Mr. Hollenbeck?”

Pike took a deep breath. “I don’t know, just a couple of guys standing around having a beer, I’d expect. One of them has a big old cigar, and Tap doesn’t like smoke, right?”

The cop took two steps, froze. “I thought you said you were just passing through, Mr. Hollenbeck. You know old Tap?”

“I am just passing through,” Pike covered, and gently produced the fake pack of smokes. “He just said to go outside, that I couldn’t light up.”

“You there,” the cop called. He was tense again. His hand was back on his Glock. “Come on out in the light, where I can see you.”

Pike let himself drift back to the batwing doors. He wanted to be able to duck inside, in case he needed cover. Smith came out first, looking washed-out and disheveled. His hands were shaking and he now stank of whiskey. Willie appeared behind him, half in the gloom. Pike used his eyes to keep Willie calm until he could decide what to do. The cop looked Smith up and down and chuckled.

“What’s your story?”

The chastened Mr. Smith eyed the scene and shrugged. He clearly didn’t want to get caught in a shoot-out. “I only had a couple of drinks, officer,” he said. He belched and his face sagged. “I wasn’t feeling too good anyway, and after that I really got really sick.”

The cop stepped a couple of feet to his right, widening the distance. His eyes focused. “Who’s that with you?”

“Who?” Smith covered perfectly. “Oh, he’s just somebody who was helping me out. Man, the poor guy comes outside here for a peaceful smoke and I suddenly show up and start barfing.”

The silence mounted. The cop was clearly suspicious. One in the temple, hide the body out back. Pike came within inches of firing, but suddenly the patrolman relaxed. “Can you drive?”

Smith nodded a bit too enthusiastically and dug out his keys. “Sure can.”

“Then get on your way,” the cop said. “Beat it.”

Damn. Pike and Willie watched helplessly as Smith jogged to a rented Pinto, slipped in and started the engine. He backed out onto the highway and vanished into the night. The cop strolled back to his patrol car. “You two gentlemen have a nice night.”

Pike clenched his teeth. “You too, officer.”

“And Mr. Hollenbeck?”

It took Pike a second to respond to the name. “Yes, sir?”

“Don’t you forget to give old Tap that ten bucks, okay?”

The cop peeled out and the night went silent, except for the sawing of crickets down near the creek bed. Willie walked a little closer, boots crunching in the gravel. He seemed worried. “What you want me to do, boss? Should I try to catch up to that crazy little prick?”

“Maybe.” Pike’s pulse was still racing. He considered for a long beat, but finally sighed. “No, let him go for now. We can track him down through Reggie when I get back home.”

“Man, that dude had one strange idea of a fun evening.”

“No kidding, Willie. And you can bet I’m going to have a long talk with Reggie about this.”

“You believe the nerve of some people?”

Pike barked a laugh. “Nerve is right. We’ve sure got to give him that.” He cracked his neck and hitched up his trousers. “Wait here, I need to use the john.”

Inside, Tap was face down on the bar, snoring. Pike went into the single restroom, which stank of urine and disinfectant. He did his business, washed his hands. He blew out some breath and looked at himself in the cracked mirror. His eyes were clear. He raised his hand and held it out, palm flat. He was not trembling.

Gratified, Pike smiled at himself, splashed water on his face and went back out into the sawdust-filled room. Tap had apparently gone to bed, the bar was empty. Pike flipped his cell phone open and hit redial.

“Yeah?”

“God damn it, Reggie…”

“..right now, call me later.”

“Hello?”

Puzzled, Pike dialed again. The same thing happened. Pike scowled. Reggie’s answering machine was programmed to say: “Yeah? I can’t talk right now, call me later.” After that, it would disconnect.

Pike sat down slowly in a folding chair. He dialed another number. “Jake? It’s me. Don’t say anything. Have you seen Reggie tonight?” The color left his face. “No, I’m just asking.” He closed the phone, got unsteadily to his feet.

“Willie?”

No answer. Pike kicked the chair out of the way and strode outside. “Willie, where the hell are you?” He took out his Firestar and slid down the wall, weapon raised. Somehow he knew what he would find. Willie was behind the wheel of the truck with a tiny hole in his head and his chest was wet and dark. The tires had been slashed, they keys were missing. Pike jogged over to his rented Mustang, again certain what he’d find. The distributor cap was missing and wires had been pulled. Pike screamed at the stars.

“Bastard!”

A thrumming insect flew past his ear. Something bit him. Pike growled and felt the side of his head. A small, fleshy part of his cheek was bleeding. He rolled across the wooden steps and down into the shadows beneath the porch. Another puff of dirt exploded near his legs, and this time he heard the faint echo of the shot.

“Smith, Goddamn you!”

Pike broke and ran, in a crossing pattern, through the sand and the skeletons of dead sage. He scrambled down into a gulley, his heart thudding in his chest. He knew he’d never make it out of Dry Wells, not wearing these expensive shoes. Another shot, a ricochet off a nearby flat rock that whined into the hard packed dirt. God, he’s got a night scope.

Pike went for the cell phone again, started to dial 911. Suddenly the phone and the tips of three fingers disappeared in a spray of blood freckled with shards of plastic and bone. Pike screamed like a woman dying in childbirth. He ran as fast as he could, on and on through a vivid desert night that seemed to last forever and for the very first time came to know the fear in a handful of dust.

Copyright(c) 2006 by Harry Shannon

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