1

The sun rose on a scene of barely controlled, frenetic activity. The National Guard had arrived to take over relief from Fisher and his officers. Garcia had gone back to base for mandatory down time, returned with Fisher’s Camaro, then caught a ride back to base for more rest. Fisher was now the only surviving TARP member on scene.

The wounded had been evacuated and the dead moved after extensive photography and examination by DPS and the FBI. This investigation would take months, if not the rest of the year.

“Hey.” The call was followed by a tap on the shoulder from an unseen hand. Fisher turned to find Lieutenant Royce Klifferson, the senior Grayson County deputy on scene, addressing him. “Fisher, you’ve been here for fourteen hours. Go home, see your girls and get some rest, we can get by without you.” The fatigue was apparent on Klifferson’s face. Fisher could only imagine how bad he must look himself.

As he trudged back to his car, he spotted the deputy who had begged for information on his trainee the night before. He was sucking down a bottle of water, sitting on the dirty pavement, looking lost and vacant and shocked.

“Hey,” said Fisher. “Let me take you home.”

The deputy hesitated. Whatever his chain of command was, Fisher didn’t care. He would take responsibility. This man was ineffective here. Fisher had seen it before. The thousand-yard stare, the dehydration that would take three days or an IV to stave off; this deputy needed to go home.

“OK,” he finally told the sergeant.

“My car’s over there,” said Fisher, pointing. The deputy hoisted his shirt and vest, and Fisher caught his name, EVANS.

They entered the Camaro wordlessly and Fisher deftly navigated the mass of people and vehicles surrounding the scene. He sighed heavily as the soreness and fatigue set in. This was his first break since Alvarez had radioed him. They rode in silence, each man staring ahead blankly. Fisher gazed out at the dry fields and greening trees and sighed again. This was something worse than anything he had experienced in the Middle East. This had been a wholesale slaughter like nothing seen in well over one hundred years, excepting the last massacre here. How it would affect him long term was a terrifying factor. He fully expected that basket case Evans to eat his gun as soon as he got home, but he was frankly too tired to care anymore. When they rolled up to Evans’ house Fisher stopped and turned to face him. “You know,” he said, “I lost some guys in Afghanistan, and I didn’t understand it then and I don’t understand this now. Hell, I feel sick as all get out right now just thinking of it.”

“I was in the last one,” said Evans quietly.

“Fuck,” said Fisher. “I probably would have quit.” He realized as he said it that he was opening up the possibility that he would quit soon enough. “So, you already know; you won’t get over it, you just learn to live with it.”

“Yeah.” The reply came out with Evans’ breath, a harsh exhalation that was barely audible.

“You’ve had five years; it took me at least that long. Are you married?”

“Yeah.”

“Good,” said Fisher. “Do yourself a favor: don’t keep it all to yourself. I tried; it didn’t work very well.”

“Sure,” said Evans, without conviction.

“You drink?”

“I quit, more or less,” said Evans.

“Good. Don’t start back. Smoke?”

“No.”

“No drugs?”

“I’ll make it, OK?”

“Alright,” said Fisher. “Sorry.”

“I will.” Evans said. “I’ll figure it out. All over again.”

“Be easy, Evans.”

“Thanks.” Evans opened the door and stepped out, pulling his gear along with him. He stumbled into his house, dropped his gear at the door, and went for a cupboard in his kitchen. The inside was dust laden and old, disused. He nevertheless found his desired product in the back. He pulled out the old bottle of Tennessee whiskey, sucked down a draught, then went into his living room to lie down on his couch, where he almost immediately fell asleep. After a while his wife walked up and laid down next to him.

Fisher arrived home thirty minutes later. He walked inside, hugged his wife and crying daughters, and headed off to his bedroom to shower and go to bed. After several hours he got up, ate a simple dinner, and went back to bed, this time with his wife.

Golden rays of morning were slit as they penetrated the venetian blinds on the hospital window. The light flooded the room and dappled Alvarez’ hospital bed, waking him. He opened his eyes and looked over at the figure silhouetted by the window. “You know,” he said. “Last time I was here, no one came to visit me.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Michetti.

“I guess this more than makes up for it,” replied Alvarez, grunting as he sat up. His entire body felt like, well like he had been run over. Everything was sore, nothing would move the way he told it to. He wasn’t crippled though, and the menace of Arredondo County was finally rubbed clean, so he supposed it was worth it in the end.

She walked over to hug him, and he grunted again. The sound was not simply pain, however. He smelled her perfume and felt the warmth and femininity he thought he had lost the experience of. He felt the warmth of her embrace wash over him and envelop him. The cost of this solace had been high, but it was all worth it now. He never wanted to lose this woman, and now he was alive for her, to cleave unto her forever. He had not known this peace in years, but it was finally his, and he almost cried at the realization. The suffering was over, it was all over. He could live now.

She felt the intensity of the emotions and embraced him. She didn’t speak, she simply pulled him close, and felt him breathing hard, his chest rocking against her. It was difficult to endure in silence but comforting in an altruistic fashion. He needed it, and she needed him. That balance, that act of two people being there for one another, that was what he had always needed, she now realized, and that was what he had lacked, he must now recognize. So, she took his pain into herself, while realizing that it would subside, but never fade away. They both knew better by now. But he could live with it. He could live with it as long as he had her. The pain from last night would come, and it would batter him like a siege engine, but he would grasp her, and hear her, and know that it had lost the marrow grip it had once held on him. The most painful era of Raymundo Alvarez’ life would end, because of a woman, because he was a man who would always operate at his best with a woman behind him.

Slatamont had been sufficiently stabilized when she arrived at the hospital that she was placed far down the list of patients. After several hours of waiting a nurse, who had not had any contact with Jebbins, asked her why she was there.

“My neck,” said Slatamont. “I got bitten. It’s cut.”

The nurse moved the bandages to check, and Slatamont winced, preparing for the pain. There was nothing though. The bloody rags of hemostats came off with ease, and the nurse said, “there’s nothing wrong.”

“What?”

“You’re fine,” the annoyed woman said. “You’re scratched, but that’s it. What idiot put Quikclot on your neck?”

Slatamont, now thoroughly confused, mentioned her clavicle, and was marked down for X-rays as soon as a room became available. While she waited, she went to the bathroom, and looked at her neck and shoulder in the mirror. Just as the nurse said, there were merely a few bloody scratches. They were the sort of thing a band-aid would take care off. She couldn’t believe that they could be so painful as they had been back at ground zero. Perhaps it was just the fear, she reasoned. That pirate cop probably just had no idea what he was doing.

When she walked into the X-ray room, the sling was removed, and she found that she could move her arm however she wanted, without pain. The doctor who examined the completed pictures of the bones said that while her clavicle was injured, it was minor, and would heal by itself in a few days.

She was released shortly after and walked into the daylight outside the hospital in a disposable shirt they had given her, with discharge papers in her hand. She called a friend to pick her up, and within a few hours she was back in Austin. She was quiet during the drive, a flood of emotions hitting her, but she was surprised that the whole thing was affecting her less than she would have expected. It would come later, she supposed. Still, it was somewhat troubling that all of those people, even her friends, suddenly seemed meaningless, and somehow not even kin to her.

She went back to her apartment, slept for most of the day and throughout the night, and rose early with the bright dawn the next day. She ignored the news of the attack, which was by now the main story on every major network, along with the local stations. She looked through her refrigerator and closed it quickly in disgust, feeling herself wishing for meat. That was very strange, as she was a vegan. She brushed that thought away and went for a jog instead. She beamed at the frowning faces who passed her, the men and women disheartened by the new massacre. She still felt nothing untoward or new regarding it, and it brought upon her in turn a novel sense of freedom and liberation from the whole affair. She ran harder, almost as hard as she had from the wolf, pushing herself like she never had. She thought of her upcoming finals paper as she ran, which she would complete within three days. Perhaps even less. She knew she could do it. She was manic with energy she had never known herself to possess. It enveloped her like a blanket and assured her of invincibility. She pushed on, harder still. She could finish the paper in two days, she knew it. She could finish it tonight. Her sole survivor ship among her group did not trouble her, though it crossed her mind it faded just as quickly. She was stronger, and happier, than she had ever been, and the power of the feeling made her drunk. She sprinted the last half mile, passing dedicated marathon trainers to the edge of the park, the smile never stopping. She was new somehow, better. She was better than she had ever been in her life, and she wanted this feeling forever.