“To town!” I said.
“There is no point.”
“I’d feel better if we just looked,” I said. “I’ll just go and check. It’ll take two seconds.”
I felt his hands moving to grab my arm, but I got up first.
“And I’ll get us something to eat!” I said as cheerfully as I could. “Something besides onions!”
I hurried to the kitchen and fumbled around for the switch. We had turned the lights off because the sight was so horrible. I couldn’t find the switch, so I made my way to the table in the dark and grabbed the gun. I had to move it. Hide it. Somehow get it out of the picture. But I got exactly nowhere, because Gerard was behind me in a moment.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
If there was ever a moment to lie, this was it.
“God,” I said. “I tripped and fell on this. I tripped over his leg! God. This is so messed up!”
I staggered away, the gun still in my hands, but I continued making noises of general upset and confusion. It helped that Marylou was still screaming away.
“You should give me that,” Gerard said quietly.
I stepped over Henri and put my back up against the cellar door, pointing the gun at him.
“I can’t,” I said. “Please, Gerard. Don’t make me hurt you.”
“Charlie? What are you…”
He sounded so confused, his little French accent peaking on my name. Like he was struggling with something inside himself.
“He told you the story,” I said. “When you were in the chair. Didn’t he? You couldn’t help it. You couldn’t get away.”
“Eet gets only one person,” he replied. “Eet has your sister.”
“It doesn’t have my sister. It has you. You know it. Please, Gerard.”
He stepped closer.
“I have been hunting rabbits all my life,” he said. “I can shoot very well. Give eet to me. I will protect both of us.”
In the dark my fingers were feverishly trying to find the safety. I didn’t even want them to. They looked for it on their own. Gerard stepped forward and put his hand over the barrel.
“Charlie,” he said. “Eet is me. Eet is Gerard. Do not shoot me. Don’t listen to eet.”
“It hasn’t got me, Gerard! I never heard the end of the story! Now back off….”
And then my fingers found the safety. And I fired. And Gerard fell.
“Oh wait,” I said to myself. “He did mention a guillotine. How did I forget that?”
Here’s the thing….
God. It’s hard to explain. I get so confused now. I start talking and I just forget what I’m saying halfway through. I think it’s all the meds I’m on. I pop pills all day long. They try all different combinations. Some work better than others. Today is one of the better days. I’m clear enough that they let me use the computer. The computer is usually way off-limits. I think they think I’m going to try to eat the keyboard or something.
They tell me it’s been three months since I got here, since it all happened. It feels like two weeks or something, but I just looked out the window and all the leaves are off the trees. There’s a splattered pumpkin at the end of the long drive, so I guess Halloween is either coming or it’s already come and gone.
So I guess you want to know what happened?
As I remember it, I shot Gerard, and then a second or two later there was this massive cracking noise, like thunder, coming from inside my head. Everything went dark. According to the reports, if Gerard hadn’t put his hand over the stupid barrel he probably would have been fine, but as it was I blew it off. I dropped the gun. He managed to keep himself together long enough to pick it up and club me with it with his remaining hand.