Guilty - A Short Story

She stood there, watching her house fall to the ground, holding tight to Buster's collar. Two firemen barely made it out before the house completely collapsed; behind them, the bodies of her parents. She had let them die.

Buster whined and barked once, struggling against her hold of the girl. "No. Sit. Stay." Whining, he obeyed his mater's voice.

One of the yellow men walked over to her, "I'm so sorry for your loss." A police officer came to her, wanting to take the dog away and put her in a special home.

She didn't know how she managed to decline audibly, she was so numb. But the man walked away, defeated. Buster was all she had left. She wasn't going to let them take him away.

By holding him back, she had let them die. But what else was she to do? She had been scared and sure her parents would get out without his help. After all, her dad was a policeman. He was the one that made them do fire drills once a month. So why didn't he come out? Because she had let them die. She killed them by leaving them alone.

Her screams should have waked them up. Why didn't they wake up?

Firemen began yelling at her to back up. Buster whined and managed to lead her several steps back before their voices registered, and by that time, they had begun backing away themselves.

A sudden heat burned her face for a moment, and the faithful shepherd hid behind her as debris flew from the explosion. A plank hit her leg, shattering several bones. She felt nothing and remained standing with the piece of wood at her feet. A few splinters lodged themselves into her arm. She remained numb and oblivious. Her face and her dog were protected by some unknown force.

Somehow, she overheard one of her dad's friends saying that the bodies were so charred, they were unrecognizable. An autopsy would be done that night.

A fireman thought there had been foul play.

She couldn't keep from thinking that she had let them die; foul play or no.

A friend of the family made his way to her. "Mallory, you and Buster can stay with us for the time being." She stared at the flames and the ruins that used to be her home.

"I let them die," she said softly.

"No you didn't." The man-Buckley-gently took her shoulder and pried her fingers away from the dog's collar and led them to the police car. Buster immediately hopped in and looked back at his owner. Numbly, Mallory got in the car and allowed the other cop to shut the door and drive her to his home where his two boys would be dreaming sweet dreams in their cribs. His wife would be waiting, most likely with hot chocolate and coffee.

Ten minutes later, the car stopped. Though she was looking out her window, as she had been the whole ride, she knew they were in the drive in front of a nice big two story house with a perfect white fence surrounding a big yard with a playhouse/jungle-gym. She had been there plenty of times to babysit the twins, who were about three years old.

Buckley and his wife were used to having lunch with parents of children, which is why they decided to get the playhouse. They also figured the boys would enjoy it once old enough. She heard as much during a conversation between him and her father one evening.

The familiar cop opened her door, and Buster sat patiently, waiting for Mallory to get out.

The feeling in her body was beginning to come back. Her arm was sore as if she had fallen and scraped it, and her leg felt bruised. She stepped out of the car slowly, with Buckley's help. That's when the real pain came.

Her leg instantly felt as if it was on fire, and the splintering sound it made was heard loud and clear by the police officer and his wife, who had brought out a shawl for the girl.

Buster was by her side before she even hit the ground, whining and licking her hand, trying to soothe her, and Mallory's world began to go black as she attempted to withdraw from the pain. She felt her father's best friend pick her up and carry her inside to the couch, where he proceeded to check her leg. She felt excruciating pain and a cold nose against her hand. Then, nothing.

She woke up on a hospital bed with her right leg in a cast, and she remembered the 2X4 that came flying at her. Her left arm was bandaged up, and a morphine drip was dripping ever so slowly into her veins from a needle in her right hand.

She wanted to ask the tending nurse where her parents were, but as she opened her mouth, she remembered. She had let them die. She closed it and said nothing.

Her dad's friend walked in with a smile that didn't reach his eyes, "You ready to go home?"

There was no home. It was ashes now with haunting of charred corpses that probably only haunted her memories and not what might be left of the house she once called "home."

But she did want out of the stupid hospital that smelled way too strongly of generic cleaning supplies. With all that money they made from ripping off patients, she wondered why they couldn't use something just a touch more expensive.

She nodded, and his fading smile returned to its I'm-not-actually-happy size, and he left the room. Half an hour later, another nurse came in with her clothes. While helping her dress, she asked, "Can you use crutches, or would you rather have a wheelchair?"

She looked at her arm, all bandaged u, and the nurse said, "You had several splinters so deep, we had to cut them out with surgical scissors and tweezers. I lost count of how many stitches we used to close them up. I suggest the chair."

Mallory looked at the crutches leaning against the wall. The nurse followed her gaze and sighed before walking across the room to grab them. "Using these could put strain on that arm and break open them stitches." Still, she handed them to the girl.

She took the crutches expertly and set them in her armpits. She checked her weight and stumbled around the room a couple of times. Her arm didn't hurt too much, and she was sure she could handle it.

"How many breaks?"

"Five different places below the knee. Completely shattered, but we got it all put together to where the bones will heal back together. Just don't expect to walk through a metal detector without setting it off." She attempted a chuckle. Mallory just hobbled out of the room and found her way to the waiting room and to Buckley. Silently, they walked out.

The funeral was filled with respect and was like any other funeral of an officer. The 21 gun salute was performed effortlessly by the marines with their somber faces, though Mallory suspected most of them never even met her father once.

Everyone expected her to cry, or so she figured by the way they kept looking at her. Buster stood calmly even as the gunshots went off.

A prayer was spoken by the pastor of a nearby church as the ashes of her parents were handed to her. Tombstones marked the plots her parents had bought so long ago. Already, flowers decorated them-none from her; not yet. That was something she had to do alone-she needed to ask forgiveness. After all, she had let them die.

She didn't notice herself being guided along into the limo. Every action was robotic. Buster jumped in and sat beside her, panting from the heat. It was late August. If she remembered correctly, it was almost her parents' anniversary.

The limo went back to the church the pastor was from where food was laid out in a buffet manner in the gymnasium. How anyone could eat was beyond her, but Buster looked more than happy when the smell of all the home cooked dishes wafted to his nostrils.

Somebody put the end of a leash in her hand, and she felt a small tug from the other end when Buster began walking towards the table.

"I'm so sorry for your loss." Mallory looked at the woman who had touched her shoulder. The black dress she wore seemed to swallow her in its darkness. She looked away and grabbed a bagel off the table. She didn't realize she was so close to it and grabbed it reflexively. She didn't feel hungry and had no appetite , but she ate it anyway, not even tasting it.

Somebody tossed a piece of meat to her dog, who snapped it out of mid-air, and which was gone in two seconds.

Somebody else laughed, and it seemed so out of place and so loud, it startled her. Suddenly, she felt claustrophobic. She couldn't breathe. One of her crutches fell to the ground beside her, and Buster barked twice as she fell to the floor. Every sound seemed a fading echo, and the world became a blur.

When she opened her eyes, she found herself in the guest room downstairs. Her loyal canine was laying beside her. He put his head on her chest and whined. She scratched the tops of his head, grimacing at the blood stained bandages on her arm. She found the crutches right next to the bed, and her parents sitting on the dresser across the room.

She got her crutches and made her way to the living room. The two boys were watching a show about cartoon characters of some sort. She went to the kitchen, where Buckley was talking with his wife. They hushed when they saw her coming.

"Have you thought about what to do with the ashes?"

"Buckley!" His wife got up and mumbled probably a gazillion things about her arm before escorting her to the bathroom to check the incisions.

He followed, "Well, we need to know."

His words weren't meant to cause any pain, but each word that fell from his lips hurt worse than when she first noticed that her leg was broken.

She turned slowly, "They are my parents. I will deal with it when I decide to deal with it."

Her voice was soft but stern, and Buckley left without another word. His wife silently checked to be sure the wounds weren't bleeding and changed the bandage.

Mallory continued looking out the door in front of her without seeing a thing.

~:~

Running.

Three steps, exhale. Three steps, inhale. Repeat.

The thud of her shoes against the pavement seemed to match her heartbeat. The Wal-Mart sack rustled in her own wind, and the boxes beat against her calf. The barely healed leg injury ached with every landing of her foot.

Still, she kept going. Her heart was heavy, and it was a weight she needed to unload.

She hurt all over, and it was almost impossible to keep her breathing and pace the same.

She passed the police station and wanted so bad just to stop there and rest. She pressed on. Her destination was so much more important. She would rest there.

The cemetery came into view, and Mallory lost her pattern for a moment. "Just one more hill," she told herself. Her legs moved robotically up the last hill and turned into the drive.

She slowed to a jog and then into a walk. She became numb again; oblivious of her pounding calves and aching injuries.

Though she hadn't visited the dual tombstone since the day of the funeral, she instinctively knew where it was. It still took her a couple of minutes, though.

She knelt by the stone with tears in her eyes; the first tears she cried concerning their deaths-the deaths she had allowed.

For a long moment, she let the silent tears fall, watering whatever seeds that had been planted there. This time, no flowers marked the lonely stone, and she had none to give.

Finally, she reverently pulled out one box at a time. The first box, she placed in front of her mother's marker. The second, in front of her father's.

"I'm sorry. I should have woken you up. I should have let Buster go back into the house." Her words were choked by tears, and her voice was hoarse from months of saying hardly a word. "But now you can be where you belong; together; where people can pay their respects."

She stood up slowly; the silent tears stopped as if her standing up was turning off the faucet. She made no move to wipe any fallen tears from her face.

"Thought I'd find you here."

Mallory didn't jump; didn't turn around, "Do I know you?"

"I don't believe we've met."

"Then why were you looking for me?"

"I have things for you."

"Who are you?"

"Jessie."

She turned around, uncaring of the sticky lines that traced her face. Whether he could see the paths the salty tears more often took or not, she didn't know. She really didn't care.

The man in front of her had blond shaggy hair and stood just a couple of inches taller than her. His gray eyes looked both bleak and anxious.

"What things?"

He closed the gap between them, reaching into his long black trench coat. For the first time, she realized that the clouds had rolled in. A slight gust of wind tugged at her, threatening to toss her to the ground. And then it died.

The man named Jessie looked around before slowly pulling his hand out of his jacket. The bleakness had left his eyes-they were full of anxiety now. She half hoped for a gun.

He pulled out a large yellow envelope. "Open this either alone, or with me; preferably with me." He looked around, a tad more frantically before thrusting the envelope at her, "Take it! I could get in trouble for this."

She took it slowly, fully knowing no one was going to show up and fully knowing she was making him more nervous by the second. Her fingers made their way to the brad holding it shut, curiosity almost overwhelming her.

His hand gripped her wrist before she could open it. "Not in public. Please."

She shrugged, "I want to know. What's in this?"

"Here. Come with me. I'll explain. I promise."

Most people would run away. Most people feared death. Mallory didn't. She followed him to a black car, which took them to a small house. He ushered her quickly inside to the living room. The folder remained clutched in her hand until he took it from her, opened it up, and laid its contents onto the small table by the couch.

The papers took Mallory's breath away. Her hands shook as she flipped through police and fire chief reports, suspect lists, and the page that considered the fire an accident.

"Read over these carefully. They are all copies." He took her hand in his softly, "You didn't let them die."

Her heart stopped a moment, and she glared up at him. He took his hand off of hers and pointed back to the reports, "The case was closed after a tone of dead-ends. I'm going to do what I can to help you, but there's a chance it could cost me my job and any future job I'd have any chance of getting."

"Then why are you helping me?"

He looked her in the eye, "Your father is the reason I got this job. When he first took me out, he made me promise I would take care of you and his wife if ever something happened. The only way to help you is to catch the one who took his life."

She sighed, and they went over the papers for the next hour, him explaining police lingo, and her making calculations and assumptions.

The next afternoon, while everyone was gone, her and Jessie went to the pile of rubble. It had rained the night before (and several other times after the fire), but they still hoped to find some evidence. They got lucky with the kitchen window. The screen had been cut with a serrated edge and then torn. Sticking in a wall on the opposite side (what was left of it) was the culprit; an unfamiliar knife.

Jessie pulled on his gloves and got a baggie. He put the knife in it, and the two inspected the spot it was wedged in. It was obvious the explosion and thrown it there and lodged it deep into the stud. The reports said the stove was on. The explosion was in the kitchen. Evidence matched.

Gas cans had been found at the scene and confiscated. Mallory silently wondered why the knife had been left.

"What did they die of?"

"Injuries explainable by the explosion and fire."

"Did they do an autopsy?" She recalled somebody saying that after the explosion.

"Yes. They didn't do a full one, though. Didn't figure they needed to. They found the COD and explained it away."

Mallory remembered some noises that had woken her up that night and made her way to the medicine cabinet. Jessie handed her a glove, and she opened it up. Somehow, the inside was untouched by the flames and smoke. She opened the bottle of prescription sleeping pills. It was empty. She showed it to the cop, who nodded, "I suspected as much."

Her parents wouldn't have woken up no matter how hard she had tried. Still...

He took the bottle and placed it in a second baggie. "I'll check prints tonight. Can you meet me someplace tomorrow morning?"

"Cemetery. You know." He nodded again, and they left.

He was at the cemetery earlier than Mallory. She tapped him lightly on the shoulder, and they started their meeting. The prints matched a suspect who was in jail for killing a different cop. Mallory told him she wanted justice. He was he was motioning to reopen the case. He would find her once he had either succeeded or failed.

He found her at her parents' graves a week later. She had waited every day for him, growing anxious with each passing hour. When she saw him paying his respects to another stone, she was genuinely happy for the first time since their deaths.

"They didn't know where the extra evidence came from. They thought they just couldn't remember. I spent hours fixing the paperwork. But you are getting your justice."

She grinned, and he stepped back a moment, his breath caught by the simple transformation.

Nine years later, Jessie and Mallory started a PI service together. They had been married for five years. Both were unfortunately unable to have children of their own but adopted German Shepherds from the pound instead. Buster made an excellent model for them and even helped with their training until he passed on at the age of seventeen.