~A Gray Area~

    I was sound asleep when the shot rang out. Startled, I sat up in bed and looked around. My head was fuzzy and all I could see was the darkness that enveloped the room. I glanced over at the alarm clock on the nightstand. It was 3:25 in the morning. I shook my head, trying to clear out the cobwebs and come to life. I had to wake up and go investigate. I knew what that sound was, and I knew that I couldn’t just let it go.
    A second later, I heard Sadie’s claws scraping the hardwood floor in the living room as she sprinted and slid her way to the bedroom. She jumped up on the bed and started barking, making a pathetic, whimpering sound. She shook as if she’d been outside in the frigid weather, but she hadn’t. It was the fear in her. She hated that sound.
    The gunfire brought back vivid memories best soon forgotten by both of us.
    My name is Ronnie Crumpler, and Sadie is my German shepherd. We’ve been together for the last six years, and tomorrow, we’ll both reach the same age—if what they say about dog years is true. We left the big city and moved here after my wife was killed in a home invasion that went awry. Abby was three months pregnant with our baby when two men broke into our home, robbed, raped and then shot her to death. Sadie was sitting by her side when my wife’s body was discovered hours later.
    I was working the night shift at the time, so there was nothing I could do… except mourn and hate the men who did this to her.
    The police caught one of them, and they thought they had a rock solid case until they went to court. Jerry Johnson maintained his innocence the whole time, and refused to give up his partner. As bad as the trial was, the worst part was that he got off on a technically.
    Needless to say, my life was over after that. So I sold the house and everything in it, except the small mementos that I could carry with me. I packed up Sadie and headed out, getting as far away from that life and the memories as I could. I knew that if I stayed, I’d hunt that slime ball down and make him pay with his life for taking Abby’s.
    They say it takes a lot of guts to kill someone, but I don’t believe it. I think some people just have a natural instinct for murder. They kill… and enjoy it. But not me. No matter how much I hated them, for my own sanity, I had to let it go. Oh, I wanted to kill that guy in the courtroom, and even thought about ways to do it, but when it came right down to it, I just couldn’t bring myself to take his life. I wasn’t that kind of person.
    So I left the big city behind.
    After four hours on the road, we came across a little town called Dogwood Hills. The beautiful scenery and serenity of it all seemed like the perfect place for us to settle down.
    Sadie and I have been living here in peace and quiet, isolated from the world for almost a year now. The nearest town is ten minutes away, and the neighbors are few and far apart. I get up and go to work every day and then I come home to my dog. We have no social life… but that’s okay. We’re still adjusting and we both like this place. Living in the mountains affords you the luxury of seclusion, however spooky the isolation can be at times.
    Even though our life is different, I still haven’t gotten over the hurt—I just deal with it one day at a time. My anger will never go away.
    A headlight from a car flashed through the bedroom window.
    “Hush up, Sadie,” I said as I crawled out of bed. I patted her on the head. “Let me put on my pants and I’ll go see what the fuss is all about.”
    She followed me around, constantly bumping into me, as I tried to get dressed.
    “Stop it, Sadie. I can hardly see a thing in the dark as it is,” I whispered as if someone other than her could actually hear me. “You’re going to make me fall if you don’t quit! Now go sit somewhere, please.”
    She stopped shadowing me, sat down next to the bed and let out a snort.
    I grabbed my pants off the chair, jumped into them and zipped them up as I hunted around in the dark for my sweatshirt.
    Once I found it, I pulled on the sweatshirt, and then sat back down on the bed. I reached over and grabbed my boots, shoved my feet into them, and then laced them up. I got up and walked out of the bedroom to the living room closet to get my coat, a flashlight and my handgun. I wasn’t about to go out in the middle of the night without protection, after hearing a gunshot.
    I crept to the front door, pulled back the curtain and then peeked out of the small window in it. It had been snowing off and on for several days, and from what I could see in the headlights of the car at the end of my driveway, the snow was still coming down. I cracked open the front door and a gust of bitterly cold air rushed in.
    “Brr,” I mumbled. “Stay back, Sadie. I’m going outside and have a look around.”
    I stood behind the door, afraid to do as I said. I didn’t want to go outside. I didn’t want to get involved. All I wanted to do was go back to bed and forget the whole mess.
    “What’s wrong with me?” I asked. “I’m going to call the sheriff. It’s not my job to investigate. Let them do it.”
    I walked over to the telephone and picked up the receiver, but there was no dial tone.
    “This ain’t good,” I said to Sadie. “The phone’s dead. I guess I’ll…”
    The sound of a car engine being gunned stopped my words in mid-sentence. I ran back to the door and saw the car back out of the driveway and then speed off, fishtailing down the road. Seconds later, a trail of smoke was all that was left.
    “Hmm,” I grunted. “I guess it’s safe to go out now. Come on, girl. You can go with me. I think the danger’s over. Maybe it wasn’t a gunshot. Maybe the car just backfired.”
    But deep in my gut, I didn’t really believe it was the car making that noise. I had lived in a big city and I knew what gunfire sounded like… and that was definitely a gunshot I heard.
    I turned on the front light, and the two of us crept slowly out onto the porch, staying close to each other as we inched our way down the steps out into the front yard. I don’t know who was scared the most… me or Sadie, but together we mustered up the courage to confront whatever was out there.
    My chest hurt from breathing in the freezing air as we trudged through the snow. I looked down at Sadie and laughed at the sight of her. Her black coat was now white from the falling flakes. She stopped and tried to shake it off, but as soon as she did, the snow covered her again.
    “Give it up, girl. It’s snowing too hard. As long as you’re outside, you’re going to get covered with it.”
I heard a person groan. I stopped and tried to listen for the sound again, but the wind was whisking so loudly by my ear that I couldn’t pick up on it. I raised my flashlight and swept it back and forth across the yard.
    The minute I noticed the body, Sadie took off running toward it. I ran after her and stopped short as soon as I saw what was lying there. A man was sprawled face down in the snow, pleading for help.
    “I’ve been shot,” he gasped. “Help me.”
    When he raised his head, I shined the light in his face and almost did a double take. I stepped back. Even though he was covered with snow and smeared with blood, I still recognized that face. It was the face that had been burned into my memory, haunting my dreams every night, and was with me every waking moment. I stared at it in court every day for almost a month. I had seen pictures of it in the newspapers until it turned my stomach.
    “No, I don’t believe it!” I shouted. I folded my hands across my chest and just stood there in bewilderment. “This can’t be for real.” I looked up to the sky and ranted, “Lord, don’t do this to me!”
    Sadie snarled as she circled the body.
    “What…” the man mumbled, apparently confused. “What’s the matter with you? Help me you idiot! I’ll die out here if you
don’t help me. Call an ambulance… and get that stupid dog away from me before I…”
    I ignored his remark about my dog.
    “You don’t remember me, do you?” I yelled at him. I was no longer scared. I was angry, and repulsed at the sight of him.
    There was no way that I was going to help this man. I’d let him lay there and die before I’d lift a finger to save him.
    “I don’t know you, mister, but you gotta help me,” Jerry Johnson replied. He coughed and then tried to curl up. He held his chest as the blood oozed through his fingers. He screamed out in pain. “I need a doctor.”
    “I bet you do—you sorry sack of…”
    “Hey man, what’s your problem?” he asked, gasping for breath.
    “What are you doing way out here?” I asked as I walked around him and stared down at his unsightly body. “What happened to your buddy?”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about, man,” he said, coughing. “I hooked up with a woman in a bar about twenty miles up the road. All I wanted was a little… you know… sex. Then she went psycho on me.”
    “Looks like you got more that you bargained for, pal,” I said, laughing out loud.
    “She pulled out a gun and robbed me. She hit me up side the head and then shoved me out of the car… hateful woman. Then she shot me.” He coughed again, spitting up blood as he did.
    “I guess she didn’t like the sex.”
    “Hey, man, what kind of person are you? You gonna just leave me here to die? Ain’t you gonna help me? What did I ever do to you?”
    He coughed again, only this time, it sounded like he was going to hack up a lung. His time was growing short.
    “Funny you should ask that question,” I snapped back at him as I paced back and forth.
    I was having a moral dilemma. I didn’t know what had brought us together again, but now I had a chance to watch a killer die—the man who murdered my wife and unborn child. I could have justice after all. What should I do? I could just stand here and wait for the bullet to do its job and watch the life drain out of this man—a fitting death for a killer—or should I do my best to save him?
    I looked over at Sadie and watched as she took a step backward. She crouched down, let out a strange guttural howl and then all of a sudden, leaped forward and attacked the snow-covered body. She sunk her teeth into the man’s neck, chomping down with all her might.
    The man screamed one final time.
    Sadie released her grip and backed away. She lowered her head and then looked back up at me as if to say, “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t let him get away… not again.”
    “I understand, girl,” I said to her as I slapped my leg. “Come on, Sadie. Let’s go to the shed. We have work to do.”
    The two of us turned and walked away from the body.
    Jerry Johnson was never seen again… and nobody came looking for him.



                                                                                        The End.
 

  The moral of the story: What goes around comes around… eventually.
 

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