The Killing Hour

Jo looks over at me and I can see a whole bunch of things in her eyes. Confusion, yeah, there’s plenty of that, and regret too. Regret for not believing me. Regret for hitting Landry so hard because around now he could have been helping us. I feel like she’s just forgiven me but it will last only until she dies alongside me. I hope she can forgive me for that too. She aims the torch at Landry’s eyes. They’re red. He doesn’t look well at all.

Cyris laughs again, then raises his gun, tracks the barrel up and down Landry’s body and hovers it over his leg. He narrows the distance, resting the barrel on Landry’s right ankle.

‘Pick a limb, pick one, a limb, a limb.’

Landry tries to pull his leg away but Cyris stands on his foot, then repositions the gun so it touches the policeman’s head. Landry stops moving. The rain is pouring heavily down in our little neck of the woods and small droplets of mud splash onto Landry’s face. They look like chocolate tears. Cyris moves the gun a few centimetres away from Landry’s head and fires it into the ground.

An eruption of sound, it’s like thunder without the lightning, and the mouth of the cave seems to swallow it. A few seconds later all we can hear is Landry as he screams. He starts rolling around, the handcuffs making it difficult for him to push his hands against his ears. He can manage to cover only one ear. The other he pushes into the ground.



Cyris pumps the shotgun and pushes the barrel into Landry’s leg right behind the kneecap. There’s a second explosion of sound, followed by an explosion of screaming. Both echo around us, the screams quickly outlasting the gunshot. Landry tries to sit up, tries bringing his knee into his belly so he can curl his arms around his leg, but the leg won’t bend because the knee joint is a pile of raw nerves and slivers of bone. I feel sick and when I glance at Jo it’s obvious she feels the same way.

Landry’s concussion has become the least of his worries.

His fate is the least of ours.

Cyris says something but I can’t hear. The rain steals away his words and my ears are ringing from the gunshot. Landry is still screaming, still pushing his hands against his wounded leg. I feel bad for him. Bad that he’s seen so much in his life and has now become victim to it. He’s become victim to his own anger but it’s his anger that brought us all out here. His screams grate at my eardrums. If anybody wants to be heard over this noise they’re going to need to yell at the top of their lungs.

Cyris seems to realise this and he walks over.

‘Who’s next? Which one of you isn’t really real? Huh? I want to know.’

God, he’s crazier than I thought. ‘Leave her out of it,’ I shout.

‘Why? She’s the meat and potatoes,’ Cyris says.

He moves towards Landry, walking backwards so he can keep his eyes on us.

I look at Jo and she looks back. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. It doesn’t seem enough to offer her but it’s all I have.

‘I figured you would be. I’m sorry too but it doesn’t help, does it?’



Cyris returns his attention to the detective. I take the torch from Jo and point it into the cave. We could attempt an escape through there but soon the batteries would be flat and we would become lost, navigating our way through the darkness either deeper into the earth or simply in circles around it. Behind us is only a bank of rocks and then the river stretching away. Ahead of us one lunatic looking down at another lunatic. Further to the right is the same path we followed but there’s no way we could run through there keeping ahead of the shotgun.

Landry’s movements have slowed down. He’s lying on his side, attempting to hold his wounded knee with blood-covered hands. He holds his palms against it, trying to push everything back together, trying to help it heal. He looks over at us and in his agony I can see him pleading for help. I can’t help him. He has dug his own grave and I hate him for putting us in there with him. His face and clothes are saturated in blood. There’s so much the rain can’t even start to move it. His mouth is open but he’s no longer screaming and I wonder if his previous screams have torn his vocal cords apart.

Cyris points the shotgun at him and at the same time starts grinding his heel into the wounded knee. Landry’s eyes roll back in his head but he keeps thrashing around, unable to pass out. I’m too afraid to move, too scared to take my eyes from this grisly display, too much of a coward to try and help. Jo clutches my hand tightly.