Primal

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Hank’s old room smells of familiarity. There is a distinctive scent in his mother’s house: a blend of cinnamon, which she uses every morning in her coffee, and Charlie perfume, which she sprays liberally on her clothes. It is an odd mixture but that is what makes it so uniquely his home. The scent reminds him of innocent times when all he cared about was music videos, winning at tetherball, and grapes. He smiles nostalgically and tries to fix the time when he started wanting so much more. What he wanted and needed when he was young felt so immediate, so much more visceral than the things he wants now. He remembers, in middle school, wanting to kiss Heather Roseman that day she came to school in her little sky blue shorts. And he did kiss her when she leaned over the water fountain. He got a detention for that, which seemed grossly unfair since everyone wanted to kiss her, and he was just the only kid who had the courage to do it. He thought he deserved a medal. He also remembers vividly when all he wanted in the world was to punch Mr. Caughey right between his beady eyes.

“Henry Kraft, your homework was not in the pile yesterday.”

“Yes, it was, Mr. Caughey,” Hank responded surprised.

“No. It wasn’t. I went over all the papers last night and yours was missing.”

“I put it there with the rest!”

“Are you calling me a liar, Henry?”

“Um…no? But I did the homework and I put it right there.” Hank’s cheeks were blooming red and fiery as the attention of the entire class was on him.

“You get a zero.”

“No! That’s not fair.”

“You should get graded on homework you didn’t turn in? Is that fair to the students who worked hard?”

Every cell in little Hank’s body was outraged. He had put the homework there, just like he always did. Mr. Caughey was so mean, he teased kids and called it humor, he was petty and self-important; and then he became solicitous and sickly sweet in front of the parents. Hank’s feeling of powerlessness was eating away at his insides. He could feel it chewing up his stomach. He had put his homework on the table with the others. Why wasn’t he believed? The zero would ruin all the good grades he had struggled for all year long. He slammed his fist on the desk.

“I did it and I put it there.”

“See me after class.”

After school, Hank waited outside Mr. Caughey’s classroom and turned wide-eyed when he saw his dad striding down the school hallway.

“Dad! What are you doing here?”

“I thought I should ask you that. Mr. Caughey called my office.”

“I did my homework, Dad.”

Once inside the classroom, Mr. Caughey turned into an alien being from planet Suck Up. There was a sympathetic lilt to the tone of his voice that Hank had not heard in six months of daily class. Hank’s eyes narrowed as his teacher spoke to Hank’s dad as though they were colleagues and they both understood how trying middle school boys could be. Hank sat there as the teacher explained to his dad about Hank’s outburst in the classroom, his disrespect, and his lying about his homework. Hank’s fists were clenched beneath the desk and his desires were simple, direct, and all consuming. He waited for his dad to defend him. Mr. Kraft said, “I see” a few times and then apologized for Hank’s behavior and Hank thought his head would blow off. That was a moment of pure want, one item want, one thing wanted - to punch out Mr. Caughey. No rage in life is more passionate than the rage of the disrespected and defenseless. He couldn’t believe his dad was even listening. Why didn’t his dad believe him? Why was he unbelievable just because he was a kid? Why are all of the parents around always demanding respect but never showing any? Where was justice? He wanted to hit Mr. Caughey full-fisted right in the jaw. He wanted to do it so badly he jumped up out of his seat and ran from the classroom. Mr. Caughey shrugged his shoulders in complicity with Mr. Kraft who apologized again and went after his son.

Hank rolls over big in his childhood bed trying to get comfortable but not wake Jimmy. Some teachers are like his wife, a gift to every child in her classroom, and some are petty bullies who humiliate with impunity and are fetid with arrogance. Since it can be hard for the parent to determine which teacher is which, that day Hank made a decision that he carries with him every single time he steps onto school property. Hank promised that he would always believe his own child, at the cost of being wrong, at the cost of alienating the teacher, at the cost of taking down the entire School Board, he would always side with his child, and he has always done so.

What he wanted back then: to kiss Heather, to punch out Mr. Caughey, to be believed, all contributed drops to the groundwater of his character. Tonight, reminded of his basic self, he feels stripped of the trivial desires that grew up untamed like ivy on the inside of him. What made him want so many things? Was it the television? His friends? Did it invade like a virus from the outside, or were all these wants something that grew naturally within. He rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling. The moon is bright and throws its pasty gaze in through the window. Lying here, he realizes how much he truly does not want and he lists them: he does not want a bigger house, or a new car, or a 55” flat screen TV. He wants his wife, his son, and everyone healthy. Everything else is profoundly inconsequential. Everything else is negotiable.

For five hours, Hank lies in bed and lets his mind wander like this. He tries to find relief in happy memories but nothing has been able to distract him. The discomfort in his mind has become physical. The mattress is lumpy, the sheets are scratchy, and the room feels excessively hot. The digital minute hand flips and the clock now reads 3:16 a.m. He turns over and looks at his son deep in sleep beside him. Do all parents think their children are beautiful, or is Jimmy really as beautiful as he seems? Hank feels envious of the peaceful sleep of children, the sleep that comes when nothing is your responsibility. He reviews the steps that led him back to his childhood home and he is suddenly certain that running out like that was wrong. It was just wrong. I know some of this is my inability to deal with the situation. She needs me. It’s Alison. It is my Allie. What if leaving sent her over the edge? What if she’s crying, or hysterical? What if she hurts herself? They have each been forever changed, and they need to adjust to this new world. He and Jimmy have been face-to-face with evil. It was an experience they shared on the floor that night, but it must have been easier to be together, to at least have had each other. Neither of them really knows what it was like to be Alison, to stand alone, to understand that it is kill or watch your family die, to stand in abject terror in the icy rain feeling the responsibility for all those lives, and to know you are their only hope of survival. How many other people would have been paralyzed? How many would have just hid behind a rock in the dark woods and wept? Is there some relief in being the helpless ones? What does it do to a peaceful spirit like hers to plunge a knife into the flesh and organs of another human being? Of course, she is stuck in that horror. How could she not be? He has not tried hard enough to save her. He has only wanted it all to go away, but there’s no blood on his hands. By her side is where he belongs. Those were the vows they took and she is his partner for life. No matter how hard. Bile in his stomach backs up and burns his throat as disgust overwhelms him, how could he have left her that way? Cautiously, he slips out of bed, careful not to wake Jimmy. He pulls on his worn jeans and Zeppelin sweatshirt. He grabs his socks and sneakers and silently leaves the room. He tiptoes across the hall to his mother’s room and enters.

“Mom?” He speaks in a loud whisper.

She rolls toward him, “Henry?”

“Jimmy’s asleep. I’m going home. I shouldn’t have left her.”

“Good. You two go work it out. I’ll take care of Jimmy.”

Hank sits down on the floor near the front door to put on his shoes and socks. His fatigue dissipates. Energy surges through him. He is certain where he needs to be. Jesus, I should not have left her. He pulls on his sneakers without untying them, grabs his car keys, and bolts out the front door. It only takes a few minutes of driving through the deserted suburban streets to hit the highway ramp. He considers calling Alison, but decides that she may have taken sleeping pills and have fallen asleep. He will be quiet so as not to wake her when he gets home just in case. And if she is asleep, he thinks, I will crawl in next to her and hold her safe until morning, and then I will get her the help she needs, and I will never desert her again.

In her bedroom, Alison is soaked clean and velvety and warm in the arms of her feather comforter. The scalding shower reached into her soft tissues and unwound her knotted tendons and muscles leaving her deliciously limp. She had taken the time needed to do everything: cream rinse in her hair, shave her legs. The skin on her calves is smooth and slick and so her legs are slippery inside the threads of the fresh flannel pajamas. She turned off the bedside lamp not long after she began reading and promised herself tomorrow she would read more. She rolled over onto her side, pulled her legs up toward her chest, burrowed in like a furry rabbit and then without the help of pills and deep in a down-filled palm of comfort she drifted to sleep. Inside her mind, she is aware that she is sleeping and it feels glorious. She is finally on the path. In her dream, she is half-floating, half-skating over a glass-smooth frozen pond. She is wearing chiffon and it billows out behind her in gentle waves. She glides free of gravity and spinning with her arms up over her head in praise of the movement and the beauty of the pond all around her. She hops onto one foot and raises her back leg in an arabesque. Balanced, she leans her face forward into the cool breeze created by her own movement. And then she takes off on a spin so slow and so graceful that she feels it…clink...her eyelids spring open. What was that? The clink of the metal tongue of the front door knob as it opens. Someone has opened the front door. Or not. Or maybe not. Or maybe it was only part of my dream. The clink of the metal blade of the ice skates. Of course. It is only part of my dream. I will not be tormented by my imagination any longer. Only crazy people let crazy thoughts ruin their homes, steal their families. I am more resilient than that. I am smarter than that. I have too much to lose to allow this disintegration into madness. It has been remarkably easy to give in to the lunacy. How many times have I passed disheveled people on a public street, seen them talking to themselves, and never realized how thin the line is between them and me? I am ready now to take back control of my life. Damn it I am safe in my bed in the home I love. I will rise above this. No one is in my house. She smiles to herself and sinks her face into the soft forgiving cotton of her pillow. No one is in my house. She can feel there has been some kind of turning point and she is grateful. Her thoughts drift to Hank as she tumbles back toward sleep. How hard this must have been for my dear husband. How over the edge I must have been for that man who has loved me all of my adult life to walk out like that. I can’t imagine it now that my feet are back on solid ground. And look, miraculously, instinctively, my sweet husband did exactly what I needed. It was the proverbial slap across the face and it worked. I feel the dread that has been lying like dead weight on my chest has lifted. I can take a full breath of air without that constricted sensation. I needed another shock. I needed a serious shock like when they shock someone’s heart and it comes back to life. That is what happened to me when Hank and Jimmy walked out that door. Tomorrow will be a special day. And her thoughts are interrupted by the smallest sound, the tiniest nearly imperceptible creak from the loose floorboard, the floorboard in the foyer immediately to the left of the thin-legged side table. She knows exactly which board. She has wanted to have that fixed, wanted to get it nailed back down. She knows the sound of a foot on that board. She has heard that sound a thousand times. She knows it well, too well to pretend she did not hear it. With slow intensity, she rises up to sitting in her bed. Her ears are trained because she knows precisely where the next floorboard will sound. She waits for it. Nothing. Perhaps it is the house settling, one of the various innocent noises made by homes every day, like when the windows make a snapping sound as the bright sunlight hits them. Houses make noises: wood and glass expand and contract. This is fundamentally true. She knows this is fundamentally...creak - there it is. Her eyes narrow in on the bedroom doorway. Yes, she is sure. She is completely awake. She waited for a particular sound and that was it. Someone is slithering up the stairs taking care to be very quiet. Her heartbeat pulses in her throat. The dread hits her chest like a baseball bat knocking the wind out of her. He waited. Of course, he watched and he waited until she was alone. She slides her legs silently out from underneath the bed covers and she slips her body down onto the carpet. He is here. Where can she hide? Should she hide? He will find her. He will smell her like a beast. She reaches under the bed for the rifle. Where is it? She throws both her arms under the bed and sweeps them around frantically. Where? Panic clutches her and she begins to tremble! She remembers. The rifle is leaning up against the wall near the door to the hallway where Hank stashed it as Jimmy came up the stairs. She looks. Yes, she can just make out the shape of its outline in the dark. On her hands and knees, she scurries over to it while he takes the stairs one-by-one to the second floor cautious not to wake her. Fear strips away her pretense of sanity. She is an animal again. Her skin becomes damp as her heart races. Her breathing puffs staccato. Her eyes dart back and forth calculating her options. The comforter on the bed looks bunched up. That’s good because it looks like someone is sleeping there. That will give her an added second or two. In a quick blast of motion, she crawls over to the opened door to the Jack-n-Jill bathroom, which links her bedroom with Jimmy’s. She positions herself crouching to the side of the door. She lifts the rifle aiming exactly chest-high at the open doorway to her bedroom. She rests her elbows on her thighs and takes a secure and steady position. Ready. She’s going to blow him away. Time slows and the waiting feels endless even though she knows it takes only seconds to climb the stairs to the second floor. There! The dark silhouette of a man appears in the doorway. The figure takes a step toward the bed. The body is exposed. It is a clear shot. She’s got him. She begins to pull back on the trigger. Stop. She freezes. Disoriented. Wait. Is this real? Is it her husband? Inside, she screams at herself, don’t shoot! It’s Hank! Oh my god, and a split second before firing, in horror she puts the rifle down on the carpet.

“Oh, god!” She shoves the rifle out of reach with her feet. “Oh god! Hank? You came back.”

He turns toward her. He sees her crouching in the bathroom doorway. “Of course I came back,” Ben says with a smile. “You knew I would. We have unfinished business.”

What’s real? Wait. Is she still in a dream? He’s dead. Ben’s dead. It’s Hank. I need to see that it is Hank! Ben raises his handgun aiming at her head and she reacts reflexively. Using power from both her legs, she launches herself backward into the bathroom as he fires! The sound of the gunshot thunders out piercing the serenity of the neighborhood and then she knows. I am not dreaming! I am not imagining! I am not crazy! I have been right all along. She scuttles across the bathroom tile, which feels hard on her knees. The bathroom still smells of the lavender soap and citrus shampoo she lathered on in sweet luxury earlier. I’m glad I’m clean, she thinks in a passing second. I’d hate to be found dead and dirty, too, a last humiliation. I’ve been dirty, I’ve been soaked in mud and covered in blood and I really do want to die clean. Does this explain why we clean a body before we bury it? She feels oddly peaceful about that even as she realizes it is such a strange thing to be pleased about. And no matter how this ends, at least it will end and that is something to be thankful for she tells herself. She scrambles into Jimmy’s room.

Ben walks after her following with the ease since he is the greater more powerful predator. He will do this deliberately. He has a right to enjoy this. She killed Theo. He steps into the bathroom and glances into the shower stall - empty. She killed Kent. He steps toward the other bathroom door, which leads to Jimmy’s room. She killed Gravel. Bitch! He wants her suffocating in fear. He is excited by her terror and thrilled to see her crawl. He has been patient for this moment. Now, he owns her and all the waiting is worth it.

Alison rolled to the left as she scurried into Jimmy’s room and so now she is trapped. She must get across to the doorway that leads to the hall and the stairs. Moonlight streams in white through Jimmy’s bedroom window. She wedges up against the side of his dresser trying to calculate her chances of making it to the door. She is only partially hidden. She has seconds - only seconds to decide but time stretches as her brain works at peak efficiency. To get out and into the hallway she must cross the bathroom door opening. Stupid, stupid, she scolds. I should have gone the other way! Crossing the door now will expose her to him as he walks through the bathroom. It would put her directly in his line of fire. What? What to do? Too late. Ben emerges from the bathroom into Jimmy’s room. He turns toward her. He has her. There is nowhere to go. She reaches for the remote on Jimmy’s dresser and presses it. Bells! Whistles! Lights! Ben twists around startled as Jimmy’s robot bursts to life nearby and walks toward him. “What the f*ck!” He fires at it! He’s never seen anything like it. Alison uses the one instant of his distraction to cross behind and at a dead run she escapes the bedroom. With big strides nearly flying she heads for the stairs. The Mossberg, she thinks. I need the Mossberg in the basement.

Ben smiles at his reaction and surprise. She tricked him, very funny. She is so inherently competent. He takes off after her with huge powerful strides and complete confidence.

He will not expect another weapon. If I can just get to the basement. Her legs know these stairs. Her body has learned the curve of them and the width of them. It is ingrained into her muscle memory from going up and down them thousands of times. The darkness is no impediment. She easily springs down three stairs at a time landing with exacting surety and sure-footed. At the halfway point, where the staircase opens up to the first floor, she throws her legs over the banister and vaults to the foyer floor below easily clearing the little foyer table she knows is there. She feels a twinge in her right knee when she lands. She ignores it.

Ben giggles at himself for being startled by the toy robot as he takes the stairs. He is really having such a good time now. He pursues her with agility and speed. He vaults over the banister too, but lands on top of the foyer table smashing it to pieces and getting thrown off his feet. Knowing every inch of this house intimately is her advantage. This is her home, her ground. She scrambles into the kitchen. He is only seconds behind her. She knows there is not enough time to get safely across the kitchen to the basement door. It would allow for at least one clear shot. One clear shot is all it would take to bring her down. Immediately as she enters the kitchen and darts by her microwave she presses the preset timer button. She could do this in her sleep. It starts automatically at 15 seconds. She dives down behind the far side of the center island’s butcher’s block and freezes. It is the only solid thing between them as Ben enters the dark kitchen. The timer: thirteen…twelve… There is only five feet between them and she tries with brutal desperation to control the sound of her panting but she must take in air - her body demands oxygen. She needs a few seconds more.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are.” Confidently, Ben flips on the kitchen lights, which really panics her - she likes the dark - she needs the dark - it is her friend and she knows that. It’s so bright. God, so bright! The timer: nine… eight… He easily figures out where she must be. He starts slowly to circle the butcher’s block.

“I’m looking forward to seeing your son again when we’re done here. Such a cute boy reminded me of Kent when he was little.”

Alison slides open the drawer and pulls out the very long two-pronged barbecue fork. The timer: three…two… He’s at the corner of the island.

He smiles, “Peek-a-boo.” He looks over. She’s right below him.

The microwave buzzer goes off. He spins involuntarily toward the unexpected sound from directly behind him. Alison rises up and jams the barbecue fork into the flesh of his side. He lurches forward and releases a wail of angry pain. It is the scream of an enraged and injured beast! She uses the moment to bolt for the basement doorway thankfully open. Alison dashes down the stairs while Ben has to pull the fork from the soft tissues of his body and from where one of the tongs has punctured his right kidney. Game over. He is injured! He is in a fury of hate. No matter what happens, even if he has to go with her, he’s not leaving until she is dying painfully at his feet. He stuffs a kitchen towel under his shirt to quell the bleeding. He turns and moves to the basement, and then, he stops abruptly. He has underestimated her all along. He will not do that again. She’s a survivor, a fighter. He knows there is a chance someone has heard the gunshots. He will need to move it along. His eyes slowly take in the scene and he considers his options. The basement must be a trap. Why else would she run there instead of out the back door of the house? It’s not logical. And she has proven to be logical. Ben walks over to the kitchen sink and opens the cabinet door underneath. He reviews the products available to him. He pulls out the can of oven cleaner. He opens the drawer where she got the barbecue fork and removes the long sticks of matches. “What a predicable little homemaker.” He ignores the pain in his side and with only the ghost of a limp, he walks to the basement door where he strikes the match, points the can and sprays into the flame creating a blowtorch. He moves the torch meticulously around the door molding setting the paint and wood trim on fire. He grabs the newspaper from the kitchen table and tosses it on the floor; the pages catch quickly and begin to burn throwing off plumes of black smoke.

Downstairs, Alison scrambles over all the obstacles and wrenches open the dresser drawer. She throws Jimmy’s Batman pajama to the floor and unearths the Mossberg rifle. Gratefully, she grabs it and lifts it out. She spins quickly around expecting him to be right there! Where is he? Why hasn’t he followed her? What’s keeping him? Then, she smells it. Smoke! She moves quickly back to the stairs. Her eyes widen as she sees the flames at the top. Oh, no.

Ben revels in the colors of the flames. Exquisite, he thinks. Even while he was watching Uncle Rafe burn to death tied up inside his Canadian cabin, Ben had to note how brilliant and attractive the flames were as they licked their way up the walls. Fire is truly captivating. Something about the energy, the waving shapes, and bright yellow and blue, makes him want to stick his hand in it. He did that once as a kid and he remembers it as being thrilling although he still carries the scars. With the flames eating up the kitchen wall and steadily on its way, he proceeds out the back door. Once outside, he turns the corner of the little home, passes the barbecue, and stops in front of the two wooden trap doors a few feet from the ground that lead down to the basement. The two doors are partially covered with ivy. He noticed them a few days ago when he was casing the house. It had been so easy to find the Kraft home thanks to all the news coverage. It was as if they were pointing him the way. News teams - really such a helpful bunch, he thinks, it would have taken him a long time to track her down without them. He would have, of course, but it would have been inconvenient. He positions himself outside the trap doors. He is slightly favoring his injured side, but playing in pain has always been easy for him. He sees pain as a challenge. He knows he will have to get that side stitched up somehow after he leaves here.

He watches the trap doors to the basement. She will come right to him. She will have to. He shifts from foot to foot as he becomes excited. He has always loved the hunt and especially trapping, luring them in, where they walk themselves right into his arms because they have no choice. He prefers that to stalking because stalking just seems like the weasel’s way of winning. He favors inducing the victim to walk to him. Such a yummy sensation of power as they hand over their lives. It simply confirms the superiority of his mind. When he thinks about what this bitch has done to his family his blood heats and surges inside his veins and he swelters. He takes a nice long breath in - this is going to be luscious.

Smoke billows into the basement and Alison feels it sinking down into her lungs. She looks over at the steps up to the trap doors that lead to the backyard. It is bolted on the inside. She knows he’s out there waiting - certain death. Do what he doesn’t expect. How do I get through those flames? The smoke alarms sound in the house! Move! She yells at herself. She runs to the washing machine. The smoke thickens. She opens the top of the machine. A set of Jimmy’s sheets are sopping wet inside, left halfway through their cycle this morning by Polly. Yes, Polly stopped in the middle of doing the laundry. She reaches in and yanks out the wet sheet. She runs to the bottom of the basement stairs. The top steps of the staircase are beginning to burn. She has no time to think this through. She throws the wet sheet over her head and knows speed is her friend. It will be like when you run your finger through a candle flame, she tells herself, if you go fast enough it doesn’t hurt. With every ounce of energy, ramped up, she barrels up the stairs in her bare feet while covered in the wet sheets and carrying the Mossberg. At the third step from the top, she flings herself through the flaming doorway and onto the kitchen floor. She pulls off the smoldering sheet and looks around. The kitchen is engulfed in flames. It’s hot! Her skin is beginning to burn. Too hot all around her! Out - out now! Out the backdoor or burn alive. She blasts out the back door into the yard choking on the smoke. She takes a number of quick breaths. She knows there are some burns on the bottom of her feet and they are just beginning to sting. She coughs and looks around.

Above the noise from the cracking and popping of the fire as it consumes the kitchen side of the house, Ben hears her coughing. What, he thinks? She went up those stairs? How? Goddamn it! He runs back toward the kitchen door.

Exposed in the open yard she whips her head all around. The overhanging branches of the large trees surround her. They reach out their many limbs toward her. Her throat tightens and she struggles for clean breaths of the cold night air. She turns for the garage, opens the door, and stumbles inside. She just needs to hold on now. Help is coming. Help must be coming. The smoke alarms are blaring. The fire rages. She looks for a safe nest, a place to wait, but as soon as she stands still in the two-car garage, she realizes this was a grave mistake. Bad choice. There is only one way in or out of this garage. A very bad choice. And he is coming. The two-car wide rectangular space is just as crammed with a wide range of miscellany as the basement of her house. One small window, high up on the far wall, allows in the flickering red and gold light from the flames consuming her home and making the garage look ghoulish with large undulating shadows. She could never reach that window with all of the boxes and lawn equipment stacked in front of it. It will not serve as an escape route. The hairs stand on her neck and icy fingers run down her spine as she senses him walking toward the garage now. She knows he is coming. The garage feels like Hobbs’ shed; it even smells like the shed with the scent of gasoline, paint, and rusting metal from the gardening tools. She imagines Kent and sees him nailed to the side of the garage wall. No, she reprimands, no, think straight. Then, Gravel is there in the doorway. No, not here. You are not real. Stop, she pleads with herself. Focus. It is Ben. Ben is real. Ben is here! This is happening, right now, isn’t it? Or have I gone mad? Have I set the house on fire? Have I gone mad and set my home on fire? No. She jumps over the lawn mower and ducks under the three bicycles suspended from the ceiling by ropes. The skin on her bare burned feet stings as she shuffles around the snowboarding boots. She begins to breathe through her mouth to keep up with her pounding heart and to expel some of the inhaled smoke that tastes dirty on her tongue. She burrows in toward the back wall of the room behind the old broken-down Ford, which hasn’t moved in two years. She shrinks down into the corner with the Mossberg sleek and heavy in her hands. And this is when it all becomes clear. This is the exact instant when she finally realizes that it is not about her life. It is an epiphany: this has never been about her life. It was a fluke that she survived. It was not meant to be. Everyone knows that, and that is the reason why people look at her strangely, and why they do not understand her. It created an imbalance. It was one enormous cosmic mistake. Yes. And that is what has prolonged this nightmare, and that is why she has been in a half-alive condition all of this time; because she was self-concerned, because she was not focusing on what was really her task, her function, her responsibility. It was her destiny to trade herself for Jimmy and Hank. It was supposed to be her life for their lives. She has thwarted fate and so she has been stuck in this altered state of delusion and hallucination, suspended in a half-living, half-dead form all this time because she was unwilling to commit her own self, unwilling to make the needed sacrifice. She looks back over the course of the last month and realizes she was not meant to survive the island. If she would have stood out in the open at that one moment in front of the lodge, and if she would have taken the clear shot at Ben that was offered to her in that moment, then that would have ended this when it was meant to end and how it was supposed to end with both of them dead. That is why this is not over, that is why this has all felt unfinished, and that is why she and Ben are tied to each other in this cyclical death dance. She wanted more than she was meant for; she wanted it all, to save herself and her family. She wanted too much. She should have been grateful to step out from behind that rock and take out Benjamin Burne no matter how many bullets he sank into her chest while doing it. That is what Hank would have done. That was what was required. She has not really been alive since she left the island that night and this is how she knows that what she is thinking is the truth. She has not lived one single day in a whole state. He is coming, yes, he is supposed to come, and it is time. It is past time. Instantly, she feels lighter. She has all the time in the world and calmly she waits for Ben to step into the garage. Now, she understands what is meant by destiny, by fate, what is truly meant when someone says, “It is written.” It has been incomplete because she has been a coward. She has been uncommitted. What was needed was an unconditional commitment to end it. She asks herself, am I ready for that now? Am I strong enough to stand up and take the bullets into my body so I can end this? Do I have the courage to stand there and shoot? Will it hurt? I know I have to die to get him, because that is what he does not expect me to do, and that is the only way to beat him. I know that. I know if I don’t end his life he will never stop tracking me, never stop hunting my son, my beautiful son, and my loving husband. There is no other option. He will be back again and again until it is over. I have to do this tonight - now. I have to stand and take that shot regardless. Am I ready? There is nowhere left to run, no more tricks to surprise him, and no place left to hide. There is only what is meant to be. I see this vividly, and I know that he does not see it, and that is my advantage - the only advantage I have left, and the only one I will need. He will not expect me to reveal myself to him and put my life on the line to get the clear shot. He will assume I will hide, run, fight for self-preservation and that has been my flaw. I can see that now. I am at peace with that. My life has been good even if it has been short. I have been truly loved. And I have loved truly and now I will prove that. I will need precisely the right shot so I am certain to kill him, so he cannot be resuscitated, so no form of him survives. When I stand, he will want that moment to gloat — that will be my moment, the moment for that final surprise. And so, she commits, that as long as she can take him with her, then she will gladly go violently into that good night.

This thought process all happens in a flash for her and it is liberating. She is convinced to a moral certainty that she can do this. This was what she was supposed to do all along. Now, finally, squatting down, burned and hurting on the floor of her garage she understands it all. Her time has come, but she knows, with savage certainty so…has.. his.

Outside the garage, Ben grins realizing she has made a fatal error by dodging into the garage. It is a closed space. There is no way out of there. She is cowering like a scared rodent in there waiting for him to finish her. He struts up to the garage door triumphantly. Before he steps inside, he glances around the yard for his escape. He knows the chaos that he hears forming in the front of the house will be useful. The fire trucks, the neighbors, the distraction, will all supply a cover for him to sneak away unnoticed. She has been an annoying little gnat. Time to squash her.

The siren ends as the massive red fire engine grinds to a stop at the curb in front of the burning Kraft house. Five firefighters jump out. Two police units arrive simultaneously. The flames light up the night sky as they chew up this pretty little home. In their coordinated and well-rehearsed routine, the firefighters unroll the main hose and attach it to the fire hydrant. Two firefighters pull their hot suits out of the truck and begin to step into them preparing to enter the burning home. No one is aware that twenty yards away, in the unattached garage, Alison has made up her mind, Ben stands ready to enter, and the end is in sight.

The neighborhood is wide-awake and every light is on. People spill frantically out of their warm homes and into their frigid yards in their robes and overcoats with boots slipped quickly over their bare feet and with children in their arms. The police herd them across to the other side of the street where they gather side-by-side. The neighbors exchange sad deliberate looks with one another. Families nod to friends, but no one has the heart to speak. They are heavy with grief. They understand they are the audience for this: the last act of a family tragedy and they are silently respectful as it plays out on a stage of fire and sirens. It feels as though it has been inevitable, this final destruction. Everyone knows what has been going on inside the Kraft house. They have been gossiping and worrying ever since Alison returned, and while they feel distraught, not a single person is surprised to see this house go up in flames. Even though in the last few days there have been some concerns voiced for their own individual safety as Alison got noticeably “crazier,” still every single neighbor gathered here now on this block feels personally injured watching this scene. A shared sorrow binds them together because this family was so much like their own. It could so easily have been any of them. Alison was a genuine person who cooked noodle soup when a neighbor was sick, who collected toys for foster children, who wrote letters to the military overseas, who put out the big candy bars on Halloween, who carried out hot chocolate in the frigid early morning winter for the snow plough drivers. They have all watched with profound anguish the agonizing ruin of this ordinary family. They have spoken of little else between them this last month. And now shivering in their pajamas in solemn unity every single one of them is thinking about Alison in the past tense and hoping that Hank and Jimmy are not in that house.

Driving only blocks away, Hank sees the night sky lit up by flames. He smells the smoke and although there is no way to know which home it is, he is nevertheless certain it is his. He jams the gas pedal to the floor. He is possessed with anxiety and a sudden blinding remorse. His head throbs and his heart pounds like never before. “No.” He breaks out in a sweat. He pushes the car to eighty miles an hour on the residential street, taking the curve on two wheels sliding into a parked car. The blow smashes in the passenger side of the car but he does not care and he does not slow down. “Oh, this is not happening.” He cranks the wheel right and careens onto his street. Up ahead smoke climbs in dense gray clouds illuminated by the dazzling yellow arms of fire that gesture out of the windows of his home. “Oh god; oh god!” People are everywhere. He slows and searches the faces as he pulls down the street. Alison? Where is she? He looks anxiously from face to face. Where? A police officer leaps out in front of his car forcefully waving his arms. He points a flashlight directly into the driver’s area trying to stop Hank from proceeding down the road. Hank yanks the steering wheel left, swings around the police officer, jumps the curb, and crosses the sidewalk. He tears up the grass yards of three of his neighbors before skidding to a stop in the middle of his own front lawn. One of the firefighters comes running toward him. “Hey!” Hank throws open the car door, jettisons himself out and charges toward the front door ignoring the shouts at him to stop. One of the firefighters grabs him from behind before he reaches the stoop.

“Sir!”

“My wife. My wife!”

It takes a great deal of physical strength to hold Hank back. The firefighter tries to connect with Hank. “We’re going in. Please stand back. We’re equipped. Look!” He points to two firefighters ready to enter the house. They are fully covered in protective wear and attached to oxygen tanks. “How many in the house? Sir! How many?”

“Just her. Just my Allie.”

The firefighter speaks into his radio, “One woman inside.”

“I have to go, too!” He tries to wrench free.

“Please, Sir, you will only get in the way.”

“I left.” Hank wails wretchedly. ”Don’t you understand? I left her!”

Hank’s anguish is palpable and the firefighter feels for him. He drops his voice and looks intently at Hank’s pained face. “Please, sir, I understand. Let us do our job. If she’s in there we will find her.”

“But I can help! I know where she is!” Hank can’t take his eyes off the flames reaching his bedroom window. “I know the house.” And for a second he thinks he sees her there in the window, looking out as she has night after night, but then the apparition is gone. Was that her? Was that the ghost of her? Is she gone? He howls.

The firefighter shakes him and Hank looks. The firefighter connects. “You can only help by staying out of the way so we can focus completely on your wife and not have to think about you.” Even in this distraught state, the logic of this reaches him.

The two outfitted firefighters go in through the front door.

“Upstairs!” Hank screams after them. “Go upstairs!”

The fire hoses burst on full force and begin to flush the house creating huge white plumes of dense smoke.

“Oh, god,” Hank says, “My fault. This is my fault.”

“Sir, did you set this fire?”

“No.”

“Then, it is not your fault.”

“She needed me and I left.” He collapses to his knees in agony, sinking into the wet cold ground. “I should never have left. I will never forgive myself.”

The neighbors see Hank sink to his knees and several of them turn their faces away in wounded sympathy. Tears come to their eyes. The children ask no questions, they only stare, even the littlest of them can sense the gravity of it all and instinctively they are silent.

When the initial report of a gunshot came over the police scanner Officer Thomas recognized the address. He jumped into his car and drove over with his siren blaring. He pulls up along the curb, sees Hank, and charges onto the lawn.

“Mr. Kraft?” Thomas says.

Hank jumps up. “Thomas!”

The firefighter is grateful to have Officer Thomas’ help. “Good. He’s yours.” And the firefighter runs back to the truck and to the business of the fire.

“She’s inside!” Hank tells Thomas.

Thomas says, “A neighbor reported a gunshot. We were on our way already when fire got the call.”

“Oh, no. I left her there. I left her there distraught with a gun.” What must have happened dawns on them both.

“Mr. Kraft, I am so sorry. But the fire guys will find her. She may be all right.”

“She shot herself.” Hank can barely form the words; the thought alone has knocked the wind out of him.

“We don’t know that for sure.”

“She could be dying on the floor right now!”

“They’re already in. They’re good guys.”

Hanks pleads, “Help me get in there. Thomas, help me get in.”

“You could never find her without a hot suit in that smoke. You’d be dead before you hit the stairs. Think about your son.”

Hank looks at his home. The whole upstairs is engulfed. “What’s taking them so long so find her?”

“They’re being careful.”

The neighbors are being pushed even farther back away from the heartbreaking scene. One man won’t move. He stands and argues and pushes back. He yells and points. It is Hank’s next-door neighbor, Jessie Collins. He screams over the noise to get Hank’s attention.

“Hey, Hank!” Jessie persists. He tries to break through the barricade but is stopped by the police so he yells again, “Hank!”

Hank hears him and turns, “Jessie?”

“I called!” He yells, “I’m the one who called. I called the cops!”

Thomas and Hank walk toward him. “Yes?” Thomas indicates for the policeman to let Jessie through.

“I heard them say they think Alison may have set the house on fire and then shot herself but I don’t think so. It couldn’t have happened that way. Not possible.”

“Why not?” Thomas asks.

“There were a bunch of gunshots.”

Thomas demands, “A bunch? More than one? You’re sure?”

“Yeah, like four maybe five, with space in between so unless she’s shooting herself over and over - you see, it doesn’t make sense.”

Hank whirls on Thomas with a fury, “You said he was dead!” Hank lashes out at Thomas explosively angry with the police and with himself, “You said he was dead!”

“You saw the pictures.” Thomas responds as he works this new information through his head.

“DNA?”

“Not finished yet.”

“All this time I didn’t believe her.”

“Jesus.” Thomas yells into his radio. “Get everyone out of there! We may have a sniper inside.”

“No! Help her!” Hank spins again toward the burning front door and runs. Thomas rushes after him, jumps out, grabs him around the legs and brings him down hard on the doorstep. Hank rolls over and swings closed fisted at Thomas landing a hard punch on his right cheek. Thomas takes the hit hard and then tries to hold Hank without hitting back. Another Officer sees the scuffle and runs toward them when two gunshots ring out from the garage and they freeze!

Inside of the garage, it is just the two of them. Inside their world, it is just the two of them. Ben has his prey cornered and he is feeling relaxed. He sees nothing else, hears nothing else, because he is hunting. He will avenge the deaths of his brothers and then he will disappear into the night as he always does. He slides along the wall near the doorway utilizing a little cover from an old door and window screens that are leaning there. Alison is crouched on the far side of the broken-down car near the front passenger tire. She peeks underneath the car and sees Ben’s feet at the other end of the garage. She decides to shoot his ankle. She has a clear shot. It will slow him down. It may give her some time to get into the perfect position. She knows she has no experience with this rifle, with any rifle, and so she must do what she can to be sure she sets herself up for a clear shot. She must have a perfect shot. It will be her last. She cannot leave him wounded. That would not be good enough. She lies down on her stomach onto the cement garage floor and aims the rifle under the car at his feet. Yes, two good bullets into his ankle will serve her purpose. She needs the ground to steady her aim. Her body perks up with a burst of energy and her finger evenly squeezes the trigger. This is it. Ben peers around the door and analyzes where she might be. She shoots twice in rapid succession! Bang! Bang! She misses. The bullets lodge a few inches from his ankle into the door he is using for cover. Now, he knows exactly where she is. Ben springs up onto the trunk of the car like an agile cat and then strides up to the roof and down onto the hood.. He jumps to the garage floor landing only ten feet from her. She barely has time to stand. And then…there they are. Finally. Feet from each other, facing each other, again. Ben with his gun aimed at her forehead. She with the rifle aimed at his chest. Both fingers feeling the triggers. Their eyes fall hard onto each other’s face and looking at each other again, they are both certain of only one thing: they will both fire.

“So, here we are again, Alison.”

And she is ready. She longs for the end. Her resolve solidifies.

“I’ll make a deal with you.” Ben says. She is ready to fire. She knows she will fire. This is not a man who makes deals. “If you drop your rifle I’ll go ahead and take you, of course, which is fair, but I’ll leave your son alive. So, what do you say, my dear?”

“You had better hope there is no god.”

His chest pumps with a little laugh, “God taught me everything I know.”

“Put down the gun, Burne.” Thomas interrupts with his tone strong and steady surprising them both. He has entered the garage and stands just off to the left inside the garage doorway. Alison and Ben were completely wrapped up in each other and they are momentarily confused to find someone else inside their world. Thomas’ gun is aimed point blank at Ben’s head. It is an easy shot and Thomas will not miss. Ben does not lower his gun. He calculates what his best move is. “Put it down, Burne,” Thomas continues forcefully, “or I shoot you in the head. If you pull the trigger, I shoot you in the head. So you only have one option unless you’re looking to get shot in the head.”

A slow knowing grin crawls across Ben’s face. He tilts his gun up and bending down he places his handgun on the cement garage floor. He raises his hands in surrender and says, “Gee, Alison, interrupted again. It’s time for me to go along with this nice officer and be rehabilitated.”

With Ben’s gun down but without taking the aim from Ben’s head, Thomas speaks to Alison kindly and carefully. He can see the tense determination in her eyes. “Mrs. Kraft, you can lower your weapon.” She does not move. “Alison, it’s okay. You can put down your weapon.”

Ben and Alison have not looked away from each other. Ben cocks his head and whispers to her with frank honesty, “It’s…not…over.”

She whispers back, “I know.” And then she pulls the trigger over and over blowing Ben Burne over the lawn mower and into the wall! Thomas’ mouth drops open. He shifts his weapon to point at Alison. She watches the life drain from Ben’s opened eyes. Then, she moves very cautiously laying her rifle on the floor and stepping back from it. She says to Ben, “Now it’s over.” A dead breath sighs out of Benjamin Burne’s mouth.

Two Officers in bulletproof vests and with automatic weapons drawn burst into the garage. They assess the scene. Thomas lowers his gun as he stares at Alison. It was an execution. He knows this. She knows this. He witnessed it. The other officers holster their weapons. Alison’s eyes finally leave Ben’s dead body and she looks over at Thomas. Resignation is clear in her eyes.

An officer asks, “Thomas, what went down here?”

She knows what she has done. She knows Ben was unarmed when she killed him. She knows what Officer Thomas must do and she is prepared for it. She accepts it.

Without looking away from Alison, Thomas says, “Mrs. Kraft shot in self-defense. I saw it.”

She nods. Thomas nods.

The officer speaks into his radio, “We need the M.E. and a paramedic back here.”

Hank looks into the garage terrified by what he expects to see. And then, he sees her. She looks at him and really sees him for the first time since the island. A gentle smile graces her as his eyes light up with surprise, with relief, with love and longing. Hank walks over and tenderly takes her in his arms and then they drop to the garage floor together. He begins to rock her softly. They are completely lost in each other.

“Forgive me”

“Yes.”

“Say you forgive me.”

“I do.”

“I didn’t know.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t understand.”

“I know.” And she snuggles into his chest, burying her face in the soft fleece of his sweatshirt. The officers go to move them and Thomas puts up his hand. They back off. Holding on tightly, on the floor of this garage, they sink deeply into each other. Hank notices the burns on her feet and he pulls her even tighter into his body. He wraps his legs around her, enveloping, clutching. Their breathing synchronizes. Their heartbeats synchronize. They rock back and forth on the garage floor and she begins to cry softly.

“Okay,” he whispers, “I’m here. I will never leave you again. Okay. Okay, Allie? Never.”

“Yes.” She whispers back, “It’s over.”

“It is over.”

* * *

Later, holding hands with their fingers intertwined, Alison and Hank will sift through the grey insubstantial ashes of their home, and save what they can while knowing with complete certainty that everything of value has already been saved. The number of neighbors and family members offering them solace, housing, and food, will bring them to tears. The entire community will rush in and cushion them with generosity. Alison will find she welcomes the casseroles, finally recognizing them as a physical expression of affection. She will be accepted back into the school, and she will teach with all the talent and care that she always has. Hank will turn up the music and it will blast out all over his world making him smile. And Alison will tell Jimmy over and over how his little crazy robot turned on exactly at the right moment and saved her life.

* * *