Reel to Real (17 page)

Before Esther could say anything, Pauline opened her window a couple of inches. “Stop it,” she said loudly. “You’re going to break my window.”

“Open your door,” he yelled back.

Pauline told him she would not do it. Shane turned and faced Esther. He commanded her to force the woman to open the door. Esther slumped, trying to disappear. She was stuck between a rock and a hard place. The grandparents looked at each other, realizing at the same time that the monster at the window and Esther were in it together.

“Hey you, air-brain,” Shane yelled at Esther. “I need your help here. Get your fucking gun out and make this old lady open the damn door before I shoot a hole through it.” Shane pointed the TEC-9 at the grandmother.

Esther did not want to get heavy-handed with the grandparents, but she didn’t want to make Shane any madder either. She decided that since he had the actual weapon and she didn’t, she would do what he said.

“Just cooperate, Pauline. Do what he says. Open your door,” she said, half-heartedly pointing her gun at the grandparents.

George, the grandfather, knew something about handguns. He took a hard look at Esther’s weapon.

“That’s not a real gun,” he said and reached out to grab it from her.

“Yes, it is,” Esther said, pulling away. “Open your door, Pauline. It’s not helping you to fight him.”

Pauline’s look of betrayal said it all, but she unlocked the door.

Shane, still breathing hard, leaned into the back seat. His voice deep and brusque. “I want everyone to stay calm. We’re gonna go for a ride now. Esther, keep your gun on ’em and make ’em follow me.”

Esther’s lips barely moved, “Okay,” she said.

Shane got out and walked toward his car but at the last minute, he stopped and came back. “Never mind,” he said. “Esther, you get out. I’m gonna ride with ’em. Follow me in my car.”

Esther didn’t answer. She remained in the backseat, mouth open, the McDougall's staring at her.

“Get in my fucking car, dumbass,” he said in a near shout, then yanked her out. “I don’t have time for you to stare at me like some fucking retard.”

“Where are we driving to?” Esther asked.

“You’ll see,” he said. “Follow me.”

Fire crackers popped in Esther’s head. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

Not knowing what else to do, Esther started the Fiero. Shane was in the backseat of the grandparent’s Buick, with Pauline driving.

The Buick merged onto Interstate 40 and headed east towards the mountains. Esther followed.

I need a plan,
she told herself.
I need to stop him.
She squeezed the steering wheel, trying to think, desperately trying to think of something. She considered getting off the freeway and finding a police station, telling the cops. Then she remembered that would involve implicating herself in crimes already committed.

It doesn’t matter,
she told herself
. I need help.
Besides, it was most likely the only chance she had to save the McDougall's — and probably herself — from Shane.

She got as far as turning onto the Eubank Boulevard exit before she swerved back onto the freeway and resumed following the Buick.

If I don’t stay behind them,
she realized,
how will I know where they are?

Her new plan was to follow him, and when he got to wherever he was going, talk him out of killing the grandparents. Somehow. In less dire times, he had been amenable to listening to her ideas. Maybe he would listen now. Maybe by the time they stopped driving he would have become more rational.

For now, they continued to drive. They had driven through the whole of Albuquerque and were deep into the East Sandia Mountains. Though Esther didn't know it at the time, the East Mountains was an area where some of New Mexico’s most notorious crimes had been committed.

Where is he going?
she wondered.

Maybe he was headed to the same location they had test-fired the guns? No, she decided, based on their travel time and the fact that this area was more heavily forested, he was headed somewhere else. Esther followed the Buick when it turned off onto a smaller, darker highway. She stayed close, no further than two car lengths back, so as not to lose them.

After driving about ten minutes more, the McDougall’s car veered onto a rutted dirt road and bounced to a stop. Esther parked behind them and switched off her lights.

***

The area where they parked could be described as uninviting at best. It was dark, lit only by a cloudy half moon, littered with trash, and hidden. At 7,000 feet, the air was thin and cold, most likely below freezing, and Shane was the only person wearing anything close to a heavy jacket. Everyone else was dressed for warmer weather.

It was quiet, too. Any noise created here, traffic or otherwise, would be absorbed by the many trees surrounding them in this isolated location.

***

Though Esther planned to stop Shane, once she turned off the engine, she didn’t get out of the car. Fear kept her glued to her seat. She
would
get out in a minute, she told herself; but in the meantime, the best she could do was to monitor events from inside the car.

Shane cracked open the door of the Buick and the dome light came on. He must have left the car keys in the ignition because Esther heard the periodic warning tone.
Ding, ding, ding.
Otherwise, it was disconsolately silent inside the Buick.

She watched Shane's silhouette lean over and say something to Pauline's silhouette.

She felt sick. She knew the grandparents were doomed if she didn’t do something — soon. She rolled down the windows to get a crosswind going, hoping the cold air might snap her out of her inertia.

She saw more movement in the Buick. Shane slithered out of the driver side door and glanced around. Apparently satisfied, he stuck the TEC-9 in his pants and lit a cigarette. Esther thought she saw his hand shake.

“Get out,” Shane said to Pauline.

When she hesitated, he reached over and yanked her out by the upper arm.

“You too, old man,” he said in a low voice. “This side. Come out this side. Don’t try anything. I’m watching you all the way.”

George slid across the bench seat and stood next to his wife. They wore only thin jackets.

Rolling his cigarette between his thumb and middle finger, Shane turned his head toward the grandparents. “Stay where you’re at ’til I get back,” he ordered.

Shane slogged through the mud over to the open passenger-side window of the Fiero, and without saying a word, leaned in and grabbed something. Esther’s eyebrows shot up when he picked up a black duffle bag from under the floorboard and pulled it out the window. She gasped when she saw him unzip the bag and take out a shotgun.

“You don’t have to kill them,” she blurted out, almost hysterically. “They’re just old people. Just tie ’em up. By the time anyone finds ’em, we’ll be long gone.”

He paused for a moment, tipping his head. “No, they have to die,” he said flatly.

Shane carried the shotgun around to the other side of the car, to where Esther was, and held it out. “You shoot ’em,” he said. “I shot the other ones. You shoot these ones.”

Esther’s mouth dropped open and she shook her head furiously from side to side. “Shoot ’em?  I’m not gonna shoot ’em. You don’t need to shoot ’em either. No one does.”

His upper lip lifted in anger. “I shoulda known better than to bring you with me. You’re too stupid for words.” He dropped his cigarette and crushed it with his toe. “They seen us, don’t you get it? They fucking seen us. They
have
to die.” His right hand curled and uncurled around the shotgun’s handle.

“Why?” she pleaded. “They haven’t done anything to us. Just tie them up and we’ll get out of here.” She reached out the window and tried to pry the shotgun from his hand.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he said and slapped her arm away. Esther went silent, still frozen in her seat.

Fed up, Shane tramped back to the Buick and motioned with the shotgun for the grandparents to move away from the car. They didn’t argue. They turned and hobbled up a rocky, muddy hill toward a clump of trees. George put his arm around Pauline, helping her. Esther saw George lean down to say something to Pauline as Shane marched them up the slope.

When Pauline, 74, and George, 79, got past the trees to a barbed-wire fence, they stopped. Shane, about six paces behind, pointed the shotgun at them. George turned around.

“Is this where you’re going to shoot us?” George asked, his voice steady, dignified. As the words left his mouth and just as Esther was reaching for the door handle, there was a colossal flash of light and a huge, reverberating, deafening boom.

George had been shot. A slug the size of a large marble struck him square in the chest. He let out a gasp as the force of impact spun his body around backwards. He was caught in the barbed wire fence as he fell.

Shotgun slugs are normally used in law enforcement or hunting. They are for punching through difficult-to-penetrate surfaces. Slugs are a one-ounce projectile with the subtlety of a sledgehammer that can pierce building walls, car doors and body armor from a distance of up to fifty yards. They deliver over 2500 foot-pounds of devastation. Thus, a slug shot from a distance of six feet into a human being results in the unspeakable.

“No,” Pauline shrieked, instinctively crouching over George to comfort him. Down on one knee, she told her husband that she loved him as the monstrosity standing over her fired again. He shot Pauline in the back. She crumbled to the ground, falling onto George's body.

Smoke filled the air.

Shane stepped forward to get a closer look at the downed McDougall's. Then he pulled the trigger two more times; two more explosions of deafening fire and lead, hitting each of the grandparents in the back again, this time, from point blank range.

He paused to stare at the scene, pointing the gun upward. He did not want to stop. Examining the magazine loading port, he saw he had another round left, so he aimed one more time at Pauline’s back and fired.

Down the hill, still seated in the Fiero, Esther was dumbstruck. There was no escaping the bright flashes or the tremendous booms of the shotgun. She felt stunned, overwhelmed, and sick.

She heard running and looked up. Shane was back, standing on the other side of the car, throwing the shotgun inside.

Esther didn’t speak. She just looked at him, shivering.

“They’re still making noises,” he said and pulled the TEC-9 from his pants, heading back up the hill.

“Leave them alone,” Esther called after him. “They’re dead. They’re dead.”

“No. No, they’re not,” he yelled back. “They’re making noise. They’re still making noise.” He was running again, running back to where the grandparents lay.

***

He stood over the bodies, out of breath and panting. This was a fantasy come true. He had real guns, real bullets, and was shooting real people. He was pulling the trigger; he wasn’t just watching a movie. He was the writer, the director, the star. He did not want it to end. This scene had everything. It had the guns and it had the blood, but most of all, it had the power.

He pointed the pistol straight down at the dying grandparents and fired in rapid succession, shooting each of them six more times. He only stopped when the TEC-9’s extended magazine was empty.

He clicked again, but it was over and he knew it. The heavy silence of the rural East Mountains closed in on him. He didn’t feel good. His stomach boiled. He jammed his hands deep into his jacket pockets, staggered maybe forty yards, and threw up.

Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he gathered himself, then made his way back to the Fiero.

Esther was rolled up in a ball, her jacket pulled over her head. She had shut down. Her eyes were squeezed shut and her hands clamped hard over her ears.

Shane, sweat-smelling and glassy-eyed, pried her hands away from her head. He told her to get out. She did not get out, she couldn’t move. She fixed her eyes on the gun in his hands, inches from her head.

“Get out of the car,” he said again, gritting his teeth.

Dazed and scared, she sucked air into her lungs.

“Now.”

She got out.

“Go close that damn door.” Shane pointed to the Buick, dome light still on, warning tone still sounding.

She nodded and stumbled toward the McDougalls’ car.

Click, click, click,
she heard from behind.

Huh? She did not turn around.

Click, click, click.

A cold new fear poured over Esther as she realized that Shane wanted her dead, too. Or maybe he was just toying with her. Either way she found it hard to breathe. She wasn't sure how to play it or what to do. She could think of nothing else but to do exactly as he asked and close the McDougall’s car door. She had to act like the clicking didn’t happen. Like she was still his partner in crime.

***

Shane started the engine as Esther numbly folded herself into the car. She was so out of it, she didn’t notice until later that she was sitting on the bag full of money.

To return to Albuquerque, Shane had to first get the Fiero back onto North 14. That meant he had to either back straight out or turn around. He tried backing out, but that didn’t work. Because of the mud and the trees, he needed to back out slowly, cautiously, but his brain was too amped for slow. Try as he might, he could not drive a straight line backward, and barely missed hitting several trees. Frustrated, he attempted a quick K-turn instead.

“Slow down,” Esther screamed. “Be careful. This place is full of holes and shit and you’re gonna get us stuck or crash into something.”

Moments later, the car lurched upward and then down. A harsh scraping sound came from underneath. The Fiero had bottomed out.

Shane clenched his jaw, then leaned back in his seat and gunned the engine. He gunned and gunned, but the car did not move.

“You’re gonna blow this fucking car up,” Esther said, her hands braced on the dashboard as she and Shane violently rocked back and forth.