Dead Watch

position; another shot plucked at the ground behind him. Damnit, he’d missed. He fired three quick bursts and this time let himself roll back down the hill, scrambling, falling, turning, trying to control it as he let himself go, his gun pointed up the hill. He saw a flash of movement and fired another squirt, and then was scrambling right back to where he started.
    He was fucked, he thought. They had him.
    One last chance . . . He fired the last few rounds in a single burst into the trees where he’d seen the stalker, slammed his last magazine into the weapon, and burst out of the trees. He was weak, his eyes were going dark, but he only had to make it thirty yards to the shelter of the porch.
    If he kicked in the door he’d be face-on with the guy inside, maybe, maybe the guy would be surprised enough, after the fight up the hill, that he wouldn’t be ready. If he could get inside the cabin, if he could just get a break from the hunter, if he could barricade himself, if he could do something about his leg, if there was a hardwired phone inside that hadn’t been disabled.
    If . . .
    He ran.

    The burst of full-auto didn’t hit Jake, but it knocked him down. The slugs were shredding the landscape six feet away from him, uphill, then swung toward him, tearing up the tree branches overhead, and he was on his face, jacking a round into the rifle.
    Another burst behind him, not loud, more of a chattering sound: the weapon was silenced, it had looked like one of the Israeli commando jobs, meant for killing terrorists in a quiet way . . .
    Two more bursts, and then he registered the guy moving, snapped a shot at the movement, got another burst in reply, jacked another round, lay flat listening, realized that the movement was fast now, and farther away. He lifted his head just in time for another burst, thought, He’s heading for the cabin, pulled out the walkie-talkie and shouted, “He’s coming right at you, I think. He’s coming right at you . . .”
    Jake was on his feet now, listened for one second, heard the continuing thrashing below, and started running. Blood on the ground: the other man had been hit. He must be desperate, he was going for the cabin. Jake had to get clear of enough brush to take the shot, he’d have just one, if the man could still run, but getting clear would be a struggle . . .
    With the woods all around him, it would be possible to see the other man, but impossible to get a decent shot. He’d see him as flashes between trees, but as he swung the rifle barrel to track the target, he’d be as likely to hit a tree as anything else. He needed a shooting lane.
    But when Goodman broke out of the trees, running for the cabin, Jake was too far up the hill. He saw him, saw the movement, had no shot . . .

    Goodman was fifteen feet from the cabin when he saw the movement, then registered the face.
    Madison Bowe, wearing a flannel shirt. And in her hand . . .

    Madison dropped the walkie-talkie, picked up the twenty-gauge, and stepped out on the porch. She heard, rather than saw, Goodman break from the trees. She leveled the shotgun and let him come.
    Saw him then.
    And from fifteen feet, fired a single shot into his face, and he went down like a rag doll.
    Was stunned by the act. Stood, motionless for a moment, then said, “Oh, God,” to nobody.

    Jake got there a minute later, flailing along on his bad leg. He stopped next to Goodman, his rifle pointed at Goodman’s heart, probed him with a foot, but there was no point in probing: most of Goodman’s head was gone.
    Jake came up on the porch, his face almost as hard as hers.
    “What’d I tell you?” he asked.
    “What?”
    “I told you to pull the trigger and to keep pulling it until the gun was empty. I don’t need any of that single-shot bullshit.” He glanced back at Goodman’s body, then stepped close to her, touched her forehead with his. “You did good.” He started to laugh, high on the rush: “You did so fuckin’ good.”
    They saw it differently, but to the cops, it probably would have been murder—hard to explain that first shot in the man’s back. Jake checked the body where it was still lying on the porch. He’d died instantly, hit in the spine and the heart. The slug had passed through his body, digging into a four-by-four upright next to a window. The bullet hole was smaller than his smallest fingernail, and looked like a routine defect in the wood.
    “What do I do?” Madison