Page 53 of Dearly Departed

Raymond Harris sees me over Catherine’s head.

His eyes go wide, and then they get dark. He drops her arm, lets out an unhinged scream, and attacks.

I’ve never seen red before. Frankly, I thought it was only a metaphor.

It isn’t. The rocks and the ocean and the skyline disappear. Everything funnels down to Raymond Harris.

Everything funnels down to a haze of red.

And it’s through that red haze that I see every step of Raymond Harris’s approach. He has the gun. Of course he does. It didn’t blow up with the plane after all, and he shot at something not long ago. He aims, fires, but the shot goes wide. He keeps running. Everything about him is clear and sharp and vivid. Dried blood at his hairline. Bloodshot eyes. The remains of his pilot’s uniform.

He’s steps away from me when the gun falls out of his hand.

Harris doesn’t stop. He doesn’t seem to notice it’s gone, or care. He comes for me with his fingers bent like claws, straight for my neck.

I put one arm up as we collide. Harris’s grip goes around my neck, but he can’t make the full circle with my left arm blocking him. He growls, throwing himself closer, and I let him.

I let him because I deserve it. Because he’s wanted me dead since I knocked on his door. That reasoning flutters away, into the bloodthirsty haze, and is neatly replaced with another one.

I let Raymond Harris keep trying to strangle me because I need his focus elsewhere while I put my arm around his waist in some fucked-up imitation of a hug and shove the knife in hard.

His mouth drops open in an expression of surprise that would be funny in almost any other context.

“Huh?” His breath whistles. He tries again, mouth opening and closing. His arms fall to my shoulders. This is officially the most twisted parody of a hug ever to grace the earth. “Ow.”

And I am officially the most twisted parody of a man ever to grace the earth, because as more of Raymond Harris’s weight balances on mine, I use my free hand to steady him.

I pat his shoulder.

He makes a high, confused sound.

“Shh.” I give his shoulder a gentler pat and look steadily into his eyes. “I’m sorry, Raymond. It’s almost over.”

His knees buckle. The appropriate thing to do to a man who wanted to murder my wife—and me—is to drop him on the sand and perhaps kick him once he’s there, but having thrust a steak knife into his back and through God knows what internal organs⁠—

That’s enough.

Jesus.

Enough cruelty. Enough bloodshed. Enough suffering.

I lower him down carefully. Raymond lets out a sob when the knife makes contact, so dig a space out underneath him big enough to fit the handle.

And then I’m on the ground with him, his head cradled in my arm.

I can’t just drop him. What kind of person would that make me?

What kind of person does any of this make me?

My vision grays again, the last of the red disappearing. The rage I felt seeps into the sand and onto my clothes. It’s beginning to show through Raymond’s previously white shirt.

Raymond looks at me, his forehead creased. He lifts one hand, weak and trembling, and rests it on my arm as if I might be able to carry him to safety if he only holds on.

“You can close your eyes. That’s all right.”

He nods. Mouths okay.

And then he closes his eyes.