Issue 22 - 1992

Coe Review • Issue 22
Shelley stood frozen in the doorway with the frigid wind
blowing her hair. She tried to form words with her lips but she could
say nothing. “Don’t you see him?” The old man pleaded while
scrambling up from the floor. The old man turned and pointed to
Death who stood behind him silently caressing the curved length of
his blade.
“I don’t know what’s wrong... if you’d just calm.”, Shelley’s
voice was shaking and tears were beginning to form in the corners
of her eyes. “Please stop, you-you’re scaring me.” Shelley took a
step into the cabin but before her foot could touch the floor the old
man whipped back around to her and she cringed away from him.
Inside the old man’s mind there was only the white blankness of
confusion that ran through his entity and tensed every muscle. All
that was clear was the need to get Shelley out. “Stay right there,
don’t come in,” the old man commanded. He backed up, opened the
cigar box and thrust his hand into the neatly stacked cigars. His hand
emerged from the falling brown cylinders grasping a silver, twoshot,
Derringer pistol. The old man pointed it directly at Shelley’s
forehead while he said in a taught voice, “Shelley, I want you to turn
around and walk out of that door. I want you to take your keys and I
want you to start your jeep. Then I want you to drive home and
pretend this never happened.”
Shelley began to walk backwards. “Please... I’m sorry... I, I.
I don’t understand this!” Shelley rushed blindly towards the old man
with her arms stretched wide, she wanted to hug him, she wanted to
make this all go away, the fear the confusion the warning shot from
the pistol stopped her completely.
“Leave!” the old man ordered as she ran out of the cabin and
into the cold darkness of the night. “You will never touch her Death,
not while I’m alive,” the white blankness returned as the old man
turned and saw that Death had disappeared. The old man was alone
again in the cabin. The fire was crackling and he heard the thudding
hooves of elk in the forest, an image of his wife came to his mind.
The sound of Shelley’s jeep starting up broke his trance and he
stumbled outside.
Shelley did not pull out, she began to roll down her window
and the old man fired the second shot that ricocheted off the fender.
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