Dig

  ***

  “I have lots of news,” Thomas said.

  “I’m telling you to shut your mouth,” Greg shouted.

  Rusty just stood and watched the two of them, one then the other, back and forth like a ping pong match.

  “Do you know what’s going on out there?” Thomas said.

  “I know it’s a mess,” Greg said. “One huge fucking mess.”

  “This is only the beginning,” Thomas said. “She is coming. She is on her way and when she gets here, it will be glorious. An entrance like you’ve never seen and an exit you and I won’t live to talk about.”

  “Shut up!” Greg shouted. He unsnapped his sidearm and pulled it from its holster. “I told you about that shit. Shut up.”

  “What are you talking about? Who is she?” Rusty said.

  “No one,” Greg said, now waving the weapon around. Rusty held up his hands and backed away from the bars.

  Thomas did the opposite. He grabbed the bars and climbed them, hanging on like a monkey in the zoo. “She is coming. She is pleased.”

  “Shut up. Shut up. Shut up!” Greg said. His teeth grated against each other, his face contorted into a grimace. He held the gun at arm’s length, pointed in Thomas’s direction. Despair looked in through the window at the end of the hall.

  “Let it go. Let it go. Let it go,” Despair said.

  Thomas clung to the front of his cell and laughed. His hair was greasy with sweat and his fingers were purple with white knuckles as he gripped the metal. “She is pleased. She is pleased. She is…”

  BANG!

  Thomas’s body jolted backwards, snapping his elbows as his arms reached their full extension. The bullet shattered his teeth and blew a hole the size of a baseball through the back of his head. Rusty shouted, “No!” after the bits of meat and bone had hit the wall. He didn’t hear his own voice over the ringing in his ears. Looking away, he held his hands up, certain the next noise he heard would end his life.

  “Greg!” Sandy shouted. “Greg, what in God’s name?” She poked her head through the doorway and Greg squeezed the trigger again.

  BANG!

  A wound bloomed on her chest and sent her sprawling and sliding back the way she had come. Rusty heard her final gasps as Sandy died in the hallway. Greg holstered the still smoking weapon and walked out of the jail.

  Rusty shuddered and sat on the cot. He turned so he didn’t have to look at the slumped body of Thomas whose fingers still clung to the bars. “What is going on?”

  Robyn is out there. Oh God. Robyn.

  “Robyn!”