Copyright 2026 by DJ Rawlings

John

Eighteen Years Earlier

John’s gun is heavy.

My hands are shaking so badly the barrel taps against the side of his head.

Once.

Twice.

I jerk it away.

He does not move.

The bedroom is quiet except for the high ringing in my ears. It is louder than the television in the living room, louder than Meg’s crying, louder than my own breathing.

Smoke floats between me and the lamp. It smells sharp and bitter. Underneath it is John’s beer, his sweat, and something warm and coppery I cannot bring myself to name.

I keep staring at him.

His eyes are open, but they are not looking at anything.

“Erin?” Meg’s voice sounds far away.

I lower my eyes to the revolver. My fingers are wrapped around the black grip. My thumb is pressed against the metal frame. There are sweaty smears everywhere I touched it.

John’s gun. My fingerprints.

My stomach twists. The revolver slips out of my hand. I flinch and clap both hands over my ears, waiting for another explosion.

The gun lands on John’s red flannel shirt near the top of the bed. It makes a dull thump and stays there. Nothing else happens.

I stare at it for half a second, then force myself to move. “Don’t touch anything,” I tell Meg.

She is pressed into the corner beside the dresser. Her knees are pulled against her chest, and she is gripping one wrist with the other hand. Red finger marks are already forming on her skin where John grabbed her.

Her shirt is torn at the collar. She is eleven years old. He was dragging her to the bed.

My eyes return to John. I feel no sorrow. That frightens me almost as much as the body.

I grab the flannel shirt and wrap it around the gun. The cloth smells like him—old beer, cigarettes, and the cologne Mom bought him for Christmas because he complained that nobody ever gave him anything nice.

I rub the grip. Then the trigger. Then the barrel.

I do it again because I cannot remember whether I already wiped the bottom.

On television, fingerprints are always bright white lines that detectives find with special powder. I imagine mine glowing all over the gun. I scrub harder.

“What are you doing?” Meg whispers.

“Making it look like he did it.”

Her crying stops for one breath. Then it starts again. “You shot him.”

“I know.”

“You killed him.”

“I know.” The words should make something happen. They do not.

I scan the bedroom. Empty beer cans cover the nightstand. One of John’s boots is lying on its side near the closet. The lamp is crooked because Meg knocked into the table when she tried to get away from him.

There is blood on the pillow and the wall. Too much. I swallow hard.

My stomach rises into my throat, but I force it back down. If I throw up, the police might find it. Whether that is true or not, I cannot take the chance.

John is leaning against the headboard at a strange angle. His chin has fallen against his chest. One arm hangs off the side of the mattress.

A man who shoots himself would have the gun near his hand. That is how it happens in movies. I hope movies get some things right.

“Meg, come here.”

She shakes her head.

“Come here.”

“I’m not touching him.”

“You don’t have to touch him.”

“I’m not.” Her voice rises, and I glance at the bedroom door.

“Be quiet.”

“I want Mom.”

“Mom isn’t here.” The words come out harsher than I mean them to.

Mom is at the diner, working the late shift. John knew that. He waited until after her car disappeared before he started drinking harder. He waited until there was no one in the house except us.

That was his mistake.

I grab John by the shoulders and pull. His body barely moves.

Dead people should be easier to lift. They are not helping anymore. Every part of him hangs in the wrong direction.

I plant one knee on the mattress and pull again. His back slides against the headboard, leaving a dark streak on the fake wood.

My breath catches. I did not think about that. I rub at the streak with the flannel shirt, but it only smears. “Help me,” I say.

Meg covers her face.

“Please.”

That makes her meet my eyes. I never say please to her.

Her face is wet and pale. She stares at John, then at me. “What do I do?”

I see my aluminum baseball bat on the floor. John knocked it from my hands before I reached the gun.

I grab the bat and hold it out to her. “Put this under his shoulder. You can push him up without touching him.”

Meg does not take it.

“Please,” I say again.

Her fingers close around the handle. She steps to the bed as though the floor might break underneath her. She keeps her face turned away while she slides the end of the bat under John’s shoulder.

“Push.”

She pushes.

John’s body rises, allowing me to pull his right arm into his lap. I wipe the revolver one last time, then press it into his hand. His fingers do not close around it. I bend them one at a time. The skin is still warm.

My stomach rolls again.

I wrap his hand around the grip and squeeze his fingers against it. Maybe that will put his fingerprints back. Maybe it will not. I have no idea. My hands are too small to make his do what I want.

The gun slips free and drops onto the mattress. I try again. This time I curl two fingers around the grip, lift his arm to the wound, and let it fall. The revolver bounces once on the sheets before landing near his thigh.

It is not perfect. It might pass. That has to be enough.

“Move the bat.”

Meg yanks it free.

John slumps sideways. His head turns to the wall. His right hand lands near the gun. For one terrible second, I expect him to sit up. He does not.

“Go put the bat back in our room,” I say. “Exactly where it belongs.”

Meg studies the end of it. There is blood on the silver metal. She makes a choking sound.

I take the bat before she drops it and wipe it with John’s shirt. I rub until all I can see is the reflection from the lamp.

“Now put it back.”

She runs.

I stay in the bedroom. I want to follow her, but I force myself to study the room. The police will come. They will search the room. They will ask questions.

I check the nightstand, the lamp, and the edge of the bed. I touched the doorknob when I came in. Of course I did. I live here. My fingerprints are probably all over the house.

That does not mean anything. I repeat the thought until I believe it.

My gaze lands on the streak his shoulder left on the headboard. I scrub it again. The stain fades but does not disappear. I stop.

Maybe a man who shoots himself falls against the headboard. Maybe the police will not care. Maybe they will see the gun and the empty cans and decide they already understand everything.

Adults do that all the time. They see what they expect to see.

I wrap the flannel shirt around my hand and pull the bedroom door closed. The hallway feels colder.

Meg is standing outside our room, waiting for me. She has returned the bat to the corner beside my glove and softball bag.

“Is he really dead?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“Are the police going to take you?”

“No.” I say it too quickly.

Meg hears it. Her mouth begins to shake.

I grab her shoulders. “Listen to me. He got drunk and shot himself.”

“But—”

“He got drunk and shot himself.”

“You shot him.”

I squeeze harder. “Not anymore.”

Her eyes widen.

The words sound strange, even to me. I loosen my hands.

“I mean nobody can know. Do you understand? If you tell them, they’ll take me away. You’ll be here alone with Mom and whatever man she brings home next.”

Mom promised John was different. She said that about Ray too. And Darren. Every man is different until the doors close.

Meg glances at John’s bedroom. “I don’t want them to take you.”

“They won’t.”

“How do you know?”

“Because we’re going to make sure they don’t.” I carry the flannel shirt through the kitchen and out the back door.

The night air hits my face. It should be cold, but I am burning everywhere. My arms feel light. My legs feel ready to run.

Moonlight reveals the weeds along the fence and the dead oak at the edge of the property. The tree has been hollow for years. When we were little, Meg and I used to hide notes and stolen candy in it.

Tonight it gets something else. I shove the shirt deep into the opening. The red fabric catches against a splinter. I push harder until it disappears. Then I collect three crushed beer cans from the weeds and drop them on top.

John threw cans everywhere. Nobody will notice these.

I will come back later and burn the shirt.

The tall grass rustles at my back. I spin around. Something dark shifts near the fence.

“Who’s there?”

No one answers.

I stand perfectly still, listening. The weeds bend once, then settle.

It could be a cat. It could be one of the neighborhood dogs. It could be somebody crouched too low for me to see.

Farther away, near the sidewalk, I hear the scrape of a shoe against pavement. I face the noise, but the street is empty.

Porch lights glow across the road. A curtain moves in one of the houses, then falls back into place.

I tell myself nobody saw me. I tell myself again.

The clock over the stove says 11:14.

Mom’s shift ends at two. She will find John when she gets home. She will scream. She will cry. She may even say she loved him.

For half a second, I feel sorry for her. Then I remember Meg’s torn shirt.

I switch off the living-room lamp. I leave the little light above the sink on because Mom always leaves it on when she works late.

Normal houses have lights left on. Normal girls sleep while their mother works. Normal men do not get shot in bedrooms.

I return to our room.

Meg is under her quilt, but the whole bed is shaking.

“Get dressed,” I say.

Her face appears above the blanket. “Why?”

“We have to finish.”

“I don’t want to go anywhere.”

“The camera.”

She stares at me.

Earlier tonight, after John started drinking, Meg and I went to the school playground. We walked past Bobby’s convenience store on the way. The camera above the door would have seen us heading away from the house.

Then we cut back through the field. That was when we found John waiting.

The camera caught us leaving. It needs to catch us coming back.

“Bobby said those cameras save everything for two weeks,” I remind her. “If the police ask where we were, they can check. They’ll see us walk to the school before John died and come home after.”

“But we’re here now.”

“They don’t know that.”

She stares at me as if she has never seen me before. Her stare hurts. I turn away before she notices.

“Put on your hoodie.”

She dresses while I slide open the window. The frame squeaks, and both of us freeze. No footsteps come down the hallway. No one is coming.

John is dead.

I climb outside first and help Meg down. Then we cross the yard, keeping low until we reach the field.

We use the same path we took home earlier, only backward. No streetlights. No houses. Just weeds brushing our legs and the moon shining on the elementary school roof.

At the playground, Meg drops onto one of the swings. I sit beside her. The chains creak. We wait. Neither of us speaks for a long time.

I keep listening for sirens, but the neighborhood remains quiet. The gunshot shook the bedroom, but John watched television louder than that almost every night. Maybe the neighbors heard it and decided it was none of their business.

They were good at that.

Meg rubs her wrist.

“Does it hurt?”

She nods.

“Let me see.”

She holds it out. The red marks are darker now. I trace them with one finger.

“He would’ve hurt me,” she whispers.

“I know.”

“Bad?”

I stare at the empty school building. “Yes.”

She begins crying again, but she does it silently this time.

I move to her swing and wrap my arms around her. “You’re safe.”

“What if he goes to hell?”

“He will.”

“What if you do?”

My chest tightens. “I won’t.”

“You killed him.”

“He was hurting you.”

“Does that make it okay?”

I hesitate. There are rules in the Bible about killing. There are also stories where terrible men are punished and everyone acts as though God wanted it done.

Maybe the difference is who deserves it. Maybe the difference is why.

“I don’t know,” I admit. “But I’d do it again.”

Meg leans against me.

We wait until the clock on the school sign changes to midnight. Then we walk home by the street.

When we reach Bobby’s convenience store, I make sure we pass directly under the lights. I tip my face to the black bubble of the camera above the entrance.

Meg keeps her head down.

“Look up,” I whisper.

She does.

A car passes us. I fight the urge to run.

Usually, the dark does not scare me. Tonight every sound feels like a person following us. Twice I turn around. Once I am sure I see someone standing near a mailbox half a block away.

When I check again, the shape is gone.

I think about handcuffs.

Would regular ones fit around my wrists? Would the police put them on tight? Would they take me somewhere with grown women, or is there a jail for kids who kill people?

Meg takes my hand. I hold on all the way home.

We climb through the bedroom window and change clothes. I stuff what I wore under the dirty laundry already filling the hamper.

Then I crawl into bed beside Meg. She curls against me. I find Cuddles, my old stuffed dog, under the frame and pull it into my arms.

“You’re safe now,” I whisper. “I promise. I won’t let anybody hurt you again.”

“I know.” Her voice is small.

“I love you, Erin.”

“I love you too.”

Sleep does not come.

My ears still ring. Every time I close my eyes, I see the gun jump in my hands. I smell smoke. I hear John shouting as he dragged Meg across the room.

“Meg?”

She is quiet for so long I think she has fallen asleep.

“Yeah?”

“We stick to the story. No matter what anybody says.”

“Okay.”

“We never tell Mom what John was doing. We never tell the police. We never tell our friends.”

“Okay.”

“What happened?”

She presses her face against my chest. “John got drunk and shot himself.”

“That’s right.” I rub her back until her breathing slows.

Hours later, Mom’s scream tears through the house.

Meg jerks awake. I catch her before she can sit up.

“Stay here.”

Mom is crying in the hallway. A door slams into the wall. Then I hear her talking to someone on the phone.

“Yes,” she sobs. “He’s dead. There’s so much blood. Please hurry.”

Our bedroom door flies open. Light spills across the bed. Mom stands there in her diner uniform, clutching her phone against her chest. Her face is gray. “Erin?”

I sit up and rub my eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“Is Meg with you?”

I glance down as if I need to check. “She’s asleep.”

“Stay in here.” Mom’s voice cracks. “Both of you stay in here. The police are coming.”

“Why?”

She closes the door without answering.

The sirens arrive fifteen minutes later.

Red and blue light flashes through the blinds, moving across the posters on our walls. Men’s voices fill the house. Boots cross the living room. A radio crackles close by, carrying numbers and words I cannot understand.

Meg grips my hand under the blanket. I stare at the ceiling and wait for someone to open the door. Nobody does. It feels like being trapped in a play when I already know every line.

Sometime after four, the house becomes quiet.

Mom comes into our room and climbs into the bed with us. She smells like coffee, grease, and crying. She curls around Meg from the other side.

Three people and one stuffed dog do not fit in a twin bed, but none of us complains. Mom’s face is close to mine. I could tell her.

I almost whisper everything. I want her to know what John did. I want her to tell me I saved Meg. I want her to say she is sorry she brought him into our house.

Then Mom reaches across Meg and takes my hand. Her fingers are cold.

I almost speak. Instead, I close my eyes.

By morning, she is gone from the bed.

At eight, someone knocks hard on the front door.

Men’s voices return.

Mom comes into our room a minute later. Her eyes are swollen.

“Erin? The police want to talk to you.”

I make my voice shake. “Why?”

Her eyes move to Meg, then back to me. “Just come into the living room.”

Two officers are sitting on our ugly flowered couch. One man and one woman. They have notebooks but no handcuffs out where I can see them.

I wear my biggest pajama shirt. I pull my knees against my chest when I sit so I appear smaller.

The woman leans forward. “Hi, Erin. I’m Officer Daniels. This is Officer Ruiz.”

I glance at the man.

He gives me a gentle smile. Adults smile differently when they think a child might break.

“We need to ask you a few questions about your father,” Officer Daniels says.

“I don’t have a father.”

“John,” Mom says quietly.

“He isn’t my dad.”

Officer Daniels nods. “All right. We need to ask you about John. Did you hear anything unusual last night?”

I let my forehead wrinkle. “He was drinking.”

“What happens when John drinks?”

“We stay away from him.”

Mom closes her eyes. 

“Did you hear a gunshot?” Daniels asks.

I freeze. Not too long. Only a beat. “A gunshot?”

“A very loud bang.”

“What time?”

“We believe it happened before midnight.”

My gaze drops to the carpet. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Meg and I weren’t home.”

Officer Ruiz stops writing. “Where were you?”

“At the elementary school.”

“At night?”

“We go there all the time. We climbed out the window because John was drinking and yelling. We walked past Bobby’s store and went to the playground.”

“What time did you leave?”

“Around nine, maybe.”

“And when did you return?”

“After midnight.”

Officer Daniels watches me carefully. “You climbed back through the window?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you use the door?”

“Because John gets mad when we leave.” The anger in my voice is real.

“Did you see him when you returned?” she asks.

“No.”

“Did you hear anything?”

“No.”

“Did you see anyone near the house?”

The weeds move again in my memory. A shadow near the fence. A scrape on the sidewalk. I shake my head. “No.”

Officer Daniels glances at her partner.

Mom is crying quietly now.

I stand. “Can I get ready for school?”

Mom studies me as though I suggested going to the moon. “You’re not going to school today.”

“I have a math test.”

“Erin—”

“I studied.”

The officers stare at me. Let them. Normal girls worry about tests. Murderers probably stay home.

Officer Daniels closes her notebook. “We may need to speak with you again.”

“Okay.”

I return to the bedroom.

Meg is sitting upright with Cuddles pressed against her chest. She searches my face, waiting to find out whether our lives are over.

I close the door.

“Did they believe you?” she whispers.

I listen to the officers talking softly with Mom in the living room.

“I think so.”

“What do we do now?”

I pull my school clothes from the dresser.

“Get up,” I tell her. “We’re going to school.”