Officer Jones stood in the doorway to the Dark Lantern, smoking gun still pointed at the spot in the air where the madwoman once stood. As the other officers stormed inside the bar, she lowered her weapon and stepped in slowly, circling the brutish redhead's gunned-down body. A cleaver lay near her left hand, a masked head near her right.

She paused. A knife? The dispatch call was for a shooting.

Her eyes scanned the scene, watching her fellow officers step over bodies – all filled with bullet holes – as they searched the premises. She saw the headless man slumped over the counter, and her gaze dropped down to the AR-15 laying by his feet.

They got the wrong person.

"The area's all clear," said an officer as he approached her, drawing her out of her thoughts. "And the paramedics will be here soon."

"Good," she said, placing her gun back in its holster. "Good."

Without the sound of the policemen' boots thumping against the wooden floor, the bar was quiet. Officer Jones could hear the steady drip from the contents of a shattered liquor bottle. She heard air wetly sucking through a hole in the redhead's lungs. She heard a male voice gently sobbing from across the bar. A familiar voice. She looked under the counter and her eyes widened.

"Wirt!" She ran over to him, tossing aside a barstool and kneeling down, scooping up his quivering body in her arms.

He reeked of liquor, and he stared at her with small, shaking pupils, his reddened eyes wet with tears. "S-Sara…"

"Shh, it's okay, you're okay," she said, holding him close. She sat back and looked over him. "You are okay, right?"

He buried his face in her shoulder, nodding. His fingers clung to the black fabric of her uniform. The sound of an approaching ambulance's siren entered his ears and he looked up.

He saw Beatrice's body on the floor. The paramedics came in with a stretcher, and then she was gone.

He pushed away from Sara before leaning over and vomiting. She reached out and placed a hand on his back. Wirt sat there on his hands and knees, staring into the puddle of his stomach contents on the floor. Wiping off his mouth with her sleeve, Sara pulled him back into her arms.

"It's okay, baby, it's gonna be okay," she said. "Can you tell me what happened?"

"I… I was sitting here, and I heard a gunshot. I got down on the floor and hid. I didn't see who it was or anything else. M-my eyes were closed." He looked away, running his fingers through the tousled hair on the back of his head. "But… th- that woman…" He pointed a shaking hand towards the door. "Beatrice. You remember her, right? She came over for dinner a couple times. I-is she gonna be okay?"

Sara stared at him for a moment. "…Let's get you home, alright? I have to go back to the station and give a report, but I can give you a ride in the squad car and drop you off back home afterword."

"…Okay," Wirt said, and Sara helped him up from the floor. His knees were weak, and they walked out of the bar together with his arm around her shoulder.

After a stop at the police station, the car pulled into the parking lot of the tenement building. Sara all but carried Wirt up the two flights of stairs to their apartment. When they got there, they found the door ajar.

"Really? Does this have to be happening right now?" Sara huffed, pulling her gun and holding it low. She nudged open the door and stepped inside, flicking on the light switch. Wirt lingered behind, feeling sick again.

A minute later, Sara hollered to him. "Come on. There's no one here."

Wirt entered the apartment, his head spinning, his steps slow and heavy. Looking around, he found nothing out of place – not that there was much worth stealing to begin with. All the drawers and cabinets were shut, the TV still sat in its spot in front of the couch. He walked down the hall to the bedroom where he found Sara looking through the closet. "I- I'm sorry," he said, "I mus- must have forgotten to lock the door before I left…"

"It's okay, Wirt. You just need to be more careful. It doesn't look like they took anything," she said, "but I don't have time to be too thorough right now. I gotta head up to the hospital to check on the suspect. Can you look around and make sure-"

"Take me with you," Wirt said.

"Wirt…" She sat down on the bed, and Wirt sat down next to her. "I know you're worried about your friend, but she's the suspect."

"What? No, no, no… That- that can't be right…"

"It's just a technicality, Wirt. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time with blood on her hands. As soon as I can get some more eyewitness testimonies and talk with her, I'm sure this will all get cleared up." She kissed him on the forehead. "But in the meantime, you just need to get some rest. I promise I'll be back soon."

"Okay," Wirt said as Sara stood up. She placed her hands on his shoulders and gave him a light squeeze. Then she turned and left, shutting the bedroom door behind her.

It was September of 1969. Mrs. Lynch lay in the hospital bed with her feet in the stirrups, and Mr. Lynch stood beside her, holding her hand tight. She had broken two of his fingers, but he was too anxious to care. None of this was supposed to be happening for another two months.

After hours of struggling, the tiny little thing slipped out, unmoving. The doctor cut the cord and carried it away as Mrs. Lynch sobbed and reached out with her arms. Her husband shouted as he started to follow the doctor, but the nurses held him back. Looking above all the commotion, Mrs. Lynch caught a brief glimpse of her baby girl struggling to draw breath before the doctor disappeared through the doorway with her in his arms.

Her head fell back into the pillow as tears streamed down her face.

She was so small, and so blue. She was their firstborn.

Beatrice's eyes cracked open, and at once she was assaulted by blinding light. Naked and dazed, she looked around and saw shrouded figures surrounding her, their heads and faces covered except for a slit around their eyes. Dear God, she was still in Afghanistan, they dragged her from the plane crash, they were flaying her alive, she had to get out of here-

She couldn't move. As her vision cleared, she saw one of the figures reach into the cavity in her chest with a pair of forceps. There was a pinch, and the forceps came back out grasping a bullet.

She realized then that she was not breathing on her own. There were tubes in her nose, tubes running down her throat and poking through the side of her chest, tubes in the battered veins in her arms, another tube in her-

Oh. That one was uncomfortable. She didn't enjoy that feeling at all.

She forced her fingers to curl and twitch. The surgeon with the forceps turned his head towards the anesthesiologist. He fumbled for the syringe of Propofol as Beatrice began to push herself up from the operating table. The surgeons moved to restrain her, but with some resistance she managed to jerk her arm upward to yank out her breathing tube with a swift tug.

"If you eggheads don't get your act together real quick," she rasped, "I'm gonna break my foot off in your a-"

Fire ran through her veins as the anesthesiologist injected the drug into her intravenous drip. "Aaaah." She went limp in the surgeons' grip, eyelids growing heavy. "That's more like it," she mumbled, slipping back under.

Officer Sara Jones stood outside the operating room doors with a doctor who was overlooking a clipboard. "She's been in surgery for two hours already," the doctor said. He flipped through the papers, his eyes sinking into his heavy eyebags. "She's in a rough state. She was shot in the intestines, her kidney, and twice in her lungs. It's a miracle none of her ribs were broken. It's comforting to know that our city's police force is full of good shots, don't get me wrong, but it makes our job a little harder."

"But is she going to live?"

"We're not sure yet, but if she does, you'll be the first to know."

Sara took the doctor's pen and scribbled her information on his clipboard. "Keep me posted. I need to be here as soon as she's conscious."

"Of course."

"Thank you, doctor." Sara turned and walked down the long hospital corridor. Something felt very off about all of this. Self-defense was one thing, but she hacked the man's head off with a butcher knife. She was one of Wirt's regular patients, for crying in the night – she clearly wasn't mentally stable. So why was she out drinking with her therapist? Friends or not, Wirt should know better.

Unless…

Sara shook her head and kept on walking. She'd talk things over with Wirt later. There had to be a reasonable explanation behind this.

Wirt stood motionless in the shower, blinking as the cold water pelted his back. How long had he been in there? He could have sworn the water was hot just a few minutes ago. He turned off the faucet and pulled back the curtain, his knees threatening to give out as his feet touched the slick tile floor.

Opening the bathroom door, he padded down the hallway and into the bedroom. He was freezing cold and dripping wet, but he couldn't be brought to care. He shut the door behind him and walked over to the bed. He slipped under the sheets and laid there like a stone. A cold, wet stone.

His burning eyes stared dead ahead at the off-white wall. He wasn't going to fall asleep and he knew it. Sitting up in bed, he turned on the lamp and looked through the nightstand for some reading material. He froze.

There was an empty spot in the drawer. Sara kept a revolver and a box of bullets there.

Wirt heard the bedroom door open, and he jumped and held his hands in the air.

"Wirt, relax, it's just me."

When he opened his eyes, he saw Sara hovering in the doorway. She slowly stepped into the bedroom and pulled the door shut. "Sara, I need to tell you something," said Wirt.

"That's good, because I was going to ask you something." She removed her bulletproof vest and utility belt.

"Your gun's missing."

She had just started unbuttoning her shirt when she looked up. "What?"

"The gun and the bullets you keep in the nightstand, they're gone. The burglar must have taken them."

Sara sighed. "I'll file a report in the morning. It's not like we're completely unarmed anyway." She finished undressing herself and climbed into bed with Wirt. "I'll keep you safe."

Wirt smiled wearily at her. "Did you say you were going to ask me something?"

"Nevermind, it's not important." She reached over him and turned out the light. "Goodnight, babe. I'm glad you're home safe."

"Me too."

They laid there silently in the dark for hours.

The tiny house was dark and warm, with the only light coming from the burning candlesticks scattered about. A noisy old folk record spun on a wobbly old turntable in the corner of the room. The whole place smelled of yarn, must, potpourri, and marijuana.

Lorna lay back in a rickety antique loveseat, sparking an intricate glass bowl. She took a long, slow hit and exhaled the plume of smoke a minute later, coughing lightly.

An older woman lounged across from her on a couch. She gave her a sly grin, her eyes squinted. "How do you like that, dear?"

"It's very nice." Lorna sparked the bowl again, crossing her stockinged feet.

"Of course it is. How could I give my dear niece anything less after a hard day's night?"

A coughing fit set upon Lorna. "Th-thank you, Auntie Adelaide," she stuttered amidst her wheezes.

"Think nothing of it. Now, take it easy, dear, I'm expecting a phone call — one of utmost importance, as I'm sure you know." Adelaide rapped her long, yellowed nails on the end table. She glanced up at the pendulum clock hanging above the empty, soot-stained fireplace. It was 11:59.

The minute and hour hands ticked forward in unison, and the clock chimed a little tune. The ringing of the phone joined in the sound. Adelaide picked up the receiver and held it close to her wrinkled lips. "And who could it be, calling an old woman at such an hour?"

From her spot, Lorna could hear a faint man's voice coming through the speaker. She leaned in and tried to listen to what he was saying, but Adelaide turned away from her. "Ah, we have a prank caller on the line. A little delinquent, a troublemaker! Though, I suppose I've done my fair share of prank calling, in my day," said Adelaide. She held out two fingers to Lorna, and her niece quickly fetched the carton of cigarettes from the end table, lit one, and gave it to her.

Adelaide took a drag as the person on the other end spoke. "Haha, why, yes, just tonight I prank called a local business. They weren't too pleased, but it was all in good fun. I told them their establishment was in violation of the health code and it needed a swift cleaning. It must have caused quite a stir when the cleaning crew came by during business hours." As she spoke, smoke poured out of her mouth. "In fact, my niece was there as it all unfolded. She says the looks on their faces were priceless. Who says an old woman can't cause a little ruckus every now and again?"

She tapped the ashes into the full ashtray on the scratched coffee table. "Oh, yes, of course. The janitor was fired immediately afterword. I don't think he took it too well. He didn't even utter a bleeding word!" Silence. "Yes, I thought you might find that amusing. I'm sure the local small business sector will be talking about this little incident for some time."

Adelaide closed her eyes and dipped her head with a smile. "Until next time, my dear delinquent." She placed the handset back on the hook and puffed her cigarette.

Lorna was curled up in the loveseat, with her head on the armrest, turned toward Adelaide. "Did we do good, Auntie?"

"We did horribly, my little sheep." She extinguished the cigarette butt in the ashtray. "Horribly good."

Lorna rolled onto her back and placed the glass pipe to her lips once more. She stared intently at the sparks and flame of the lighter, and the glowing embers of the buds as she inhaled. She released her breath and watched as the reddish glow died away.

Her eyelids fluttered shut as she replayed the scene from mere hours before in her mind, and the redhead of intrigue graced her thoughts. She was beyond any man or woman she had ever seen – could such a specimen be called human? She was animalism incarnate, her every cell adorned in war paint. She was fight-or-flight tying a blindfold around the knowledge of good and evil. She was Kali draped in a garland of skulls, her very existence a threat to disembowel the universe, hang herself with the entrails, and cut the wings from the angels of Heaven. And yet she was very human; she bowed her knee to the ego and id just like everyone else. How silly she was to carry herself with such bold self-assuredness, when all it took to bring her down was a few small bits of metal!

She imagined her there, lying in the pool of blood, still and silent, sleeping in heavenly peace, bathed in the plasma of Lord knows how many. A Bathory of most unfortunate circumstance. What a pity, that she lay now in pristine white hospital sheets. Setting the pipe aside, she stretched out her legs before shifting to a standing position, lacing her fingers. "Auntie, I have somewhere I need to go."

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

Lorna could make no promises. She was feeling very wicked tonight.

It was March of 1983. The day was cold, rainy and miserable. Beatrice sat inside that afternoon staring out the window, the family Greyhound beside her with his tongue lazily hanging out of his mouth. Her younger siblings ran through the cramped house, giggling and shouting and making the sounds that young mouths do.

Beatrice had found the old dog, not an old dog back then, on a day not too unlike this. He was a tiny, quivering thing, soaked to his slender bones, curled up under the porch to escape the rain. She scooped him up in her arms and carried him inside, and her folks couldn't resist young Beatrice's little pleading green eyes. She named him Dirt, after where she found him lying.

Her hand rested on the dog's graying head. His ears perked as the headlights from her father's pickup truck shone through the window. As he turned into the driveway, Beatrice stood and walked to the front door, the dog's nails clicking along on the floor behind her. Her father came up the walkway, his work boots caked in mud and his shirt smeared in grease, and Beatrice opened the door for him. The Greyhound wriggled past her and darted outside. "Dirt!" Beatrice shouted. She shoved her father aside and ran after the dog.

Dirt was an old dog, but he was still a very, very stupid dog.

Beatrice was almost close enough to reach the scruff of his neck when a firm hand yanked her back by the collar of her t-shirt. Her father wrapped his arms around her and she struggled, kicking and screaming as the car sped by and laid poor old Dirt to waste.

The car kept on going. Beatrice stared it down as her father let go and took her by the hand. They walked into the street where the old dog's mangled body lay, quivering and soaked to his battered bones. Beatrice knelt down and held him in her arms. He looked up at her, tongue waggling out of his mouth, blood dripping from the edge of his lips. She could feel his chest constrict as he panted, his snapped ribs prodding through his thin skin.

"Dirt, dude. Come on. D-dont… You can't…" She swallowed down the lump in her throat and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

Her father knelt beside her, placing a hand on her shuddering shoulder. "It's alright, BB. He was an old dog, anyway. Didn't have too much longer left on this Earth."

Her mother stood in the doorway to the house, and Beatrice's younger siblings gathered behind her, peering around her legs.

The Lynch family buried Dirt in the backyard that evening, under an old dead tree. Her mother asked Beatrice if she wanted to say a few words. With her hands dug in her pockets, Beatrice turned and walked back inside the house, heading straight to her room and slamming the door.

Beatrice lay still in the dark, cold room. The ventilator whirred and whooshed, a constant rising and falling sound, all throughout the night. Beatrice's chest, stuffed with wads of gauze and stuck with vital monitors all over, rose and fell to the shallow rhythm.

Her bleary eyes opened slowly, and through the darkness and the haze she picked up on a smallish figure standing at her bedside. She blinked a couple times and the figure was still there. With great effort, she tried to turn her head.

"Relax," said Lorna, reaching out to touch the redhead's hair. She ran her slender fingers through its waves, gently pulling apart the knots. "I'm so sorry a person like you had to get caught up in all that mess."

Beatrice tried to speak, but the tube in her throat kept her vocal cords from vibrating. She tried once more to move, but the anesthesia drugs lingered in her bloodstream, paralyzing her. Lorna ran her hands down to her shoulders, pressing her lightly against the thin mattress. The taller woman looked like a turtle stuck on its back. Pathetic. Helpless. Ripe. "Shh. No more struggling, my turtle. Just relax."

Beatrice's eyes grew heavy, and before she drifted off again, she saw the pale woman with blue eyes leaning over her in the dark.

"Take a deep breath for me and then cough," said the doctor at Beatrice's bedside, the morning sun shining through the windows of the sterile white room as he ran a suction catheter down Beatrice's throat. He quickly pulled out her breathing tube and she hacked and gagged and spit on herself. She glared at the doctor as he placed an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth.

"Give me a few good breaths," he said, taking out a stethoscope and pressing it to her throat. "Alright, now I'm just going to listen to your chest for a moment," he said, tugging down her blanket. His eyebrows rose. "What happened to you? And where's your gown?"

"What do you mean, 'what happened to me'? I got shot, you dumb sh-" Beatrice looked down and realized her chest was covered in bruises and bite marks. "Huh." Frowning, she poked at a couple of the deep reddish-purple blotches, whispering "ow" under her breath. "That's weird. I dunno how those got there."

The doctor sighed, shifting his gaze across the room. "Well, anyways, she's all yours. Just try to keep it brief."

"Do I have to do this now?" Beatrice rasped.

"The sooner you answer my questions, the sooner I leave you alone," said Officer Jones, who stood between Beatrice's bed and the door.

"Fine."

Officer Jones glanced at the doctor, and he nodded and left the room. She cleared her throat. "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you." She slipped her hand into her pocket and pressed the record button on the tape player she had stashed there. She crossed her wrists in front of her. "You got all that?"

"Yup."

"Good. Just got a few quick questions for you."

Beatrice crossed her arms behind her head, still not bothering to pull the blanket back up. "Hit me."

"Why were you at the Dark Lantern last night?"

"I went out for a drink with a friend."

"And who was that friend?"

"His name's Wirt. Sounds made up, but that's what his parents named him."

Sara's lip stiffened for a moment, but she took a deep breath and put her shoulders back. "Can you tell me what happened after that?"

"Ain't much to it. I was takin' a whiz. Some nut in a mask walked in and started shooting everyone up. I grabbed a knife and did what I had to do."

"Why did you cut his head off? Isn't that a bit much?"

"Wasn't anything personal; I brought a knife to a gunfight. I couldn't take any chances. I'm sure you know that better than anybody," Beatrice said, cocking an eyebrow.

"Fair enough," Sara said, but she still wasn't totally buying it. You had to be a special kind of sick to go around hacking people's heads off with butchery tools. But the circumstantial evidence was on her side, and the witness accounts from the survivors backed her up. "Alright, your story checks out," she said. "That was a brave thing you did. You saved a lot of people's lives." She reached out her hand. "We're sorry for the misunderstanding."

Beatrice shook it firmly. "'Sorry' doesn't get me outta this craphole any faster."

"I'll try to get you some compensation from the police department. Veterans' Affairs will cover your medical expenses."

"How do you know I'm a..?" Beatrice crossed her arms and furrowed her brow. "Hey, wait a sec… You're Sara, ain't you? Wirt's girlfriend? Hah, you look different with your uniform on."

"Yeah, I do. One more question for you: do you really not know how you got those bruises?"

"No, I really don't."

"Alright. Thank you for your time," Officer Jones said, tugging the blanket back up around Beatrice's shoulders. Turning away from the bed, she reached into her pocket and stopped the recording.

"Not like I have anywhere better to be," said Beatrice.

Officer Jones left the room hard-faced, her shoulders stiff and slanted forward, her fists balled. She turned her head to see the doctor standing beside the doorway, holding a folded hospital gown close to his chest. Her gaze met his and he flinched and adjusted his glasses as he scurried back into Beatrice's room.

As she walked down the pristine linoleum corridor, Sara couldn't shake the feeling that Wirt and Beatrice did a little more than just go out for a friendly drink the night before. The green fluorescent light cast shadows from her brows into her eye sockets.

The setting sun lingered behind the sharp roofline of the old courthouse. Two men appeared from between the tall white columns, stepping into the cool shadows over the steps. The taller of the two men, dressed in black, strode lightly down the squared stones, with his arms crossed behind his back and his head help upright. His companion, a slouching older gentleman in a wrinkled gray suit, walked beside him with slow, heavy, pained footfalls. He picked up his drooping head and looked out at the city below.

"Hmm. That's odd," he said, his voice gravelly, "there aren't any reporters out today."

"Yes. Odd."

The man in the gray suit looked back and forth. The only other living souls around were the two policemen waiting by their car in the street. For such a high-profile case, the courthouse ought to have been swarming with members of the press. Perhaps it was for the better. After all this mess was over, he wanted as much distance between himself and his client as possible.

At last the two reached the bottom of the steps, and the tall man stuck out his arm, elbow bent at a sharp 90 degree angle, and briskly shook hands with his attorney. "Today's proceedings went well, Forrester. Let that continue to be so."

Mr. Forrester felt dread crawling up his insides. It was a command his client had given, and yet he spoke in such a way that it became a statement, a subtle decree; the unconcerned uttering of a secret only the tall man in the black suit was privy to. Their arthritic hands released in unison and dropped to their sides.

The black figure turned away and stepped towards the police car, looking over his shoulder as the officers ushered him into the back seat. "Tell your daughter I said hello," he said.

And before Mr. Forrester knew it, he was gone, and he stood numbly staring at an empty spot in the street.

He needed a drink.

The court proceedings replayed in his mind as he stumbled down the street in his worn-through dress shoes. In any sane and just world, his client would be getting the chair. Or the firing squad. Or a public hanging. But he had been an attorney for too long and seen too much to fantasize about such things anymore. Those idiots in the jury ate up his every word. He was very good at his job. It was his burden.

"Hey, stop right there!"

Shaken from his thoughts, Mr. Forrester looked up from the cracked concrete to find himself face to face with a disgruntled police officer. Looking past him, he saw the Dark Lantern wrapped up in crime scene tape, a herd of reporters bunched up against it as close as they could manage without getting barked at by the numerous officers pacing inside and out. "P-pardon," he mumbled, taken aback by the scene. "What… is all this?"

"You haven't heard? There was a mass shooting here last night. Gonna have to do your drinking somewhere else, pal."

He said nothing, his wide-eyed gaze fixed on nothing, feeling nothing but dread crawling up his insides once more. Curtly nodding to the officer, he turned and walked away as fast as he could, the white knuckles of his right hand gripping his briefcase, his shaking left hand clenching and unclenching as it hung by his side.

Mr. Forrester stumbled in through the front door of his house, leaning all of his weight against it as he shut it and locked it tight. He ignored his daughter's greeting as he walked straight to the kitchen and grabbed the bottle of whiskey from the counter. His trembling fingers uncorked it with a sickly squeaking pop and he took a long pull, dipping his head back. He felt a smallish hand on his shoulder, and when he set the bottle down and looked over, he saw Anna standing there, pain showing through the mask of her young, innocent face. "What's wrong, dad?"

His big arms pulled her in flat against his stomach and chest and held her there. Closing his eyes, he turned his head sideways and rested it against the top of hers. "This world isn't right and I should not have brought you into it. I'm sorry." He released her and placed one of his large hands firmly on her shoulder as he hit the bottle with the other. He wiped his mouth on his gray sleeve. "If you knew what I was doing, who I was defending, you would never forgive me."

Anna usually had the right words to say when her father became like this. Today, she could only wrap her arms around him with her eyes closed as he wasted away.