The Shining Girls

Dan ^{3 DECEMBER 1929}

They hold onto each other like lovers, tumbling down the steps of the front porch and into the cold and dark of early morning. The snow is a shock. Dan hits the ground hard enough to knock the breath out of him. He gets his knee up to shove the psycho off and scrambles like a dog on all fours into the street, trying to get distance.

Everything’s fucked up. Somewhere else again. Where there was an empty lot before, a brick warehouse has sprung up. He thinks about banging on the door for help, but it’s padlocked with a heavy chain. The windows of the houses are boarded over. But the paint is newer. None of it makes any sense; rolling around in the snow, bleeding on things, when it was June half an hour ago.

Dan’s shirt is wet. The cold cuts through it. Blood runs down his arm and drips between his fingers, blooming in the snow in pink crystalline fractals. He can’t even tell what it’s from any more, his ribs or the cut in his hand. It’s all gone numb and burny anyway. The killer pulls himself to his feet using the railing, still holding the knife. Dan is already sick of that fucking knife.

‘Give it up, friend,’ the man says, limping across the snow towards him. The guy has his knife and Dan has shit. He’s crouching, his fingers digging in the snow.

‘You want to make it harder?’ The guy’s diction is slightly off. Old-fashioned, almost.

‘You’re not going to get a chance to hurt her again,’ Dan says. Closer, he can see that the bastard smashed open his lip in the fall. His teeth are red with blood as he smiles.

‘It’s a circle that has to be closed.’

‘I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, man,’ Dan says, hauling himself up. ‘But you’re making me angry.’ He shifts his weight onto his right foot, ignoring the pain in his side, winding up. The compacted lump of snow is gripped between his thumb and two fingers splayed wide like a four-seam fastball. He raises his knee and breaks his arms round in a pinwheel, pivoting his hips, and coming down on his front leg, letting the snowball glide, not snap, off his wrist at the sweet spot of the arc. ‘Vete pa’l carajo, hijo’e puta!’

It sings across the street, this improvised ball, the perfect pitch to rival Mad Dog Maddux himself, and smashes into the psychopath’s face.

The killer staggers back in shock, shaking his head and brushing away the snow. It’s enough time. Dan runs across the street, closing the gap between them. He’s on him. He winds up again, smashing his fist into the man’s nose. He’s aiming low, hoping to drive the septum straight into the bastard’s brain. But if it were that easy, it would happen all the time. The guy twists his jaw as the punch connects and Dan feels the cheekbone crunch under his knuckles. Puñeta, that hurts.

He shoves himself backwards, ducking the knife weaving through the air, falling onto his back like a crab. He rolls himself over, lashing out with his shoe, connecting with something solid. Not the guy’s kneecap or his balls, which would have been useful. His thigh, maybe.

The lunatic is still grinning through the blood running down his face from his nose. The blade in his hand is slick. The thought makes Dan feel sick and very, very tired. Or that could be the blood loss. It’s hard to tell how bad it is. Pretty ugly, he reckons, by the red in the snow. Dan gets to his feet, reluctantly. He can’t understand why Kirby doesn’t come out of the house and just shoot the bastard.

He watches the hand with the knife. Maybe he can kick it away. Like some kung-fu master. Who is he kidding? He makes a decision. He lunges forward, grabbing hold of the guy’s injured arm, squeezing and wrenching it, trying to pull him round, unbalance him as he drives his other fist into the bastard’s chest.

The killer gives a surprised whuff as the air goes out of him, falling back a step, dragging Dan with him, but he is stronger and more experienced. He still manages to jab upwards with the knife, ripping into Dan’s stomach, pulling towards his ribcage with a shearing meaty-paper sound.

Dan collapses onto his knees, clutching his stomach. And then falls down onto his side. The ground is freezing against his face. There is a shocking amount of blood spilling into the snow.

‘She’ll die worse,’ the man says, smiling horribly. He nudges Dan in the ribs with the toe of his shoe. Dan groans and rolls away, onto his back, exposing his stomach. He tries to cover himself with his hands, a useless gesture. There’s something digging into his back, in the pocket of his coat. The goddamn pony.

Headlights sweep across the street as a boxy old-fashioned car turns the corner. Motes of falling snow swirl in the beams of the headlights. It slows as it catches them in the spot, Dan lying there bleeding to death and the man with the knife hobbling back towards the house as fast as he can, with dawn on the horizon.

‘Help me!’ Dan yells at the car. He can’t see the driver’s face past the sulfur glare of the round headlights, like spectacles. All he can make out is a man’s silhouette with a hat. ‘Stop him!’

The car idles in front of him, the heat of the exhaust forming sputtering cumulus clouds of carbon dioxide in the cold. Suddenly the engine roars, the tires spin, kicking up bits of ice and gravel, and it swerves around him. Barely.

‘Fuck you!’ Dan tries to scream after it. ‘You fucking fuck!’ But it comes out more of a jagged gasp. He cranes his head back to try and see the killer. He’s on the porch stairs already, reaching for the door. It’s hard to make him out, and not just through the flurries of snow.

Dan’s vision is going furry-dark around the edges, like a cataract. Like falling down a well and the iris of light getting further and further away.