He stalks into the abandoned shipyard. The long ramp from the bay to the swamp is stained with years of gunk dredged up on the hulls of the river crawlers. The skeleton of a half made ship sits in the centre of the bay, casting spindly shadows from its creaking timbres.
Over the dank, living stench of the bog he can smell the acrid, dead stench of sulphur. He can see the shape of a dead man lying ingloriously in the thick mud ahead of him. Poor bastard caught out in the open. A short, wide smear of blood thickens in the voracious heat where he has dragged himself a few paces before bleeding out.
Stepping lightly between the hard shadows of the cluster of decaying buildings and forgotten stacks of crates, barrels, and wagons, he sees more reverberations of the grim slaughter that took place here. Chipped plaster, cracked brick, and splintered wood where bullets have torn through the compound. There are broken windows and blood splashed on glass. He sees another dead man sat hunched over against the wall of an outlying building, staring sightless at his guts in his hands.
He finds a survivor. The horse lies by the gate of the compound, her leg broken. He crouches by the edge of a storage shed, keeping his distance from the dying horse. He doesn't fancy crossing over the exposed courtyard.
The horse raises her head like a serpent peering from a basket. At first he thinks she's smelt him, but he realises his upwind of her. Her long head is turned to something. The horse lets out a desperate whinny. Pleading. She's looking at something.
His eyes snap across. The upper story of the main bay. A shadow behind the grimy window.
He dives into the storage shed, just as the wall of where his head was a moment before explodes into splinters.
He lies on the dusty floor, strewn with rusting nails, listening in the following moment. The booming report of the rifle rolls across the compound as the broken glass from the upper story window tinkles to the ground.
He scrambles up to his feet and retreats deeper into the storage shed, past workbenches and piles of cobwebbed tools. Another crack, and a new hole in the roof bleeds light into the mote-choked room.
He braces behind a workbench, as further shots from the upper story sniper tear through the frail walls of the shed. Nothing here is dense enough to protect him from that calibre. The moments between shots are staggered. A bolt action. The shooter cannot see him. He's just guessing at where he might be and hoping he might hit something.
The shots cease for a moment. Must be reloading. He thinks about slipping out back, making a long rotation around the compound in the cover of the buildings, and coming up behind the main bay. But then he hears the slap of footsteps approaching the shed.
A boom that sets his ears abuzz blows a hole the size of his fist in the wall above him. Shotgun. A second man, coming close.
He makes a crouching run and hunkers down behind another workbench, just as a new volley of shots starts to tear through the roof and far wall of the shed from the sniper. A second shotgun blast rips apart the window at the back of the room.
They have him pincered. Dust, scrapped metal, and splinters fly across the shed, forming a deadly maelstrom of shrapnel in the wake of the continued salvos from the rifle and the shotgun on either side. Sooner or later, the blind fire is going to hit him. Unless he hits first.
He lies on his back and raises his revolver. His eyes scan the bullet holes in the roof and wall. He breathes slowly, recalling the position of the upper story window. He takes a half-breath, aims, squeezes the trigger.
The bark of his revolver is followed by the tear of old timber and the brief, choked scream of the man in the upper story of the opposite building.
The dead man's name is called by the shotgun user. Silence replies.
Shotgun changes tact. He slowly approaches the shed, perhaps worried that he'll be zoned in on like his partner if he keeps shooting. Perhaps he thinks his footsteps fall silent, because they fall slowly.
Now stood up, with his revolver raised to the ceiling, he listens as shotgun pads the circumference of the shed, drawing ever closer. Like a spider slipping down a sink.
The crunch of glass under boot. He levels off the revolver off at the sound and fires.
No scream this time. Just the sound of a shotgun splashing as it hits the mud and the thud of a dead fool following close behind.
He blows the smoke from the barrel of the revolver and whips it back into his holster. Two shots. Two dead men. Didn't even have to leave the shed to do it.
Paddy Dobson
11th July 2022