When they didn’t answer he walked in and sat on a stool at the breakfast bar drinking his coffee. Looking around he noticed their coffee pot was missing. It must have been packed already. Apparently they have not been up at all yet.
He called out again, “Bonnie! Ian! You guys awake?”
After a moment when his little girl didn’t emerge, sleepy eyed, wrapping her robe around her, he walked down the corridor to the bedroom.
He stopped suddenly, reaching out a hand to lean against the wall. His senses were on overload; a scent he was familiar with but hoped he’d never smell again. Slowly he moved forward, the whoosh from the ceiling fan behind the door ringing louder and louder in his ears sounding like helicopter blades. It was during the Tet offensive, jumping from the chopper as it briefly landed in the village, entering the home of the village leader to find the bodies piled to the ceiling, dripping with blood. He pushed open the door in front of him slowly, knowing what he would find and hoping that this was nothing more than a momentary flashback. He peered in. Nothing could have prepared him for the sight of the naked spread-eagle body of his daughter strewn across the bed, or at what remained of her maimed body. Her chest, throat and chin had disappeared to be replaced with a red gaping bloody hole. Her long blonde hair laid out across the pillow, her eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling. Blood was splattered against the headboard, and pooled on the mattress next to her body. Grasping the footboard of the bed with both hands he could just stare, every muscle in his face taught, eyes wide at the carnage he was forced to witness. He did not need to look any closer to know. Death was apparent. His knees buckled and he felt his body slipping out from under him. His breath came in rough sawing gasps until it erupted forcefully.
“Bonnie… NO! NO! NO!”
As if in miraculous answer to his cry he noticed a slight movement from the right side of the bed. Ian’s head was moving back and forth slightly as he struggled to his knees. Trying to ignore the bloody remains of his daughter, the red gaping hole and sightless eyes, he rushed to the side of the bed where Ian lay. He looked down to two dark eyes staring back at him.
“Ed?” the voice croaked. “Help me, I’m can’t get up.”
He realized that Ian must have been lying here, most of the night. He’s slick with blood, is it his or hers? It was hard to see the scope of any injuries Ian had. They stared at each other, tachypsychia altering how long they stared at each other. Time slowed to a crawl. Ian, in shock, half leaned against the wall to stop from falling again, his gore streaked body naked and shivering. The floor was sticky with congealing blood that had dripped from the sheets during the night.
“Come on,” he said gesturing with his hands and pulling Ian to his feet.
The two men stumbled out of the bedroom, leaning on each other, Ed half carrying the younger man, leaving a trail of bloody footprints down the hallway. Seating Ian on the sofa Ed disappeared back down the hall, and came back with a sheet from the linen cupboard, draping it like a toga around Ian. Still shaking, Ed sat silently at the dining table, head in his hands. The dripping blood and unaccustomed whip-whip-whip of the ceiling fan sent signals to his brain via the auditory nerve; neurons passed information to the amygdale. Both cortisol and adrenaline suddenly kicked in and surged through his system causing his emotions to trump reason during the primal response of his brain, so when he heard Ian he had to shake his head to help clear the fog for a moment.
“Ed, I need to get to the hospital,” Ian said, a moment of clarity forcing its way to the surface through the shock that was shutting his system down, “You need to get the police out here.”
Ed pulled it together long enough to get to the breakfast bar and grab the phone. He dialed 911, glancing over at Ian hunkered down, holding the sheet tight around his shoulder. Must be too numb to feel the head injury, his blood congealing on a nasty looking scalp wound. His ear and face had been peppered with shotgun pellets. With the emergency operator on the line Ed asked for an ambulance and police up on Gully Lane off of Rollercoaster Road, just north of the Oklahoma County line. They kept him on the phone, talking him through his anguish until the screaming sirens could be heard. His head kept turning toward the bedroom where his daughter lay unmoving and he just felt numb, dead inside.
The paramedics were first there. Pulling in a gurney behind them, they assessed the two occupants of the living room. The short chubby one double checked on Ed, had him sit while giving talking to him briefly. Satisfied he was okay, just a little shaken up, he went back to the bedroom.
After a moment he popped back out. He looked at his partner and shook his head.
“Let’s get this one off to Memorial quick.”
The skinnier of the two helped Ian onto the gurney administering initial first aid. Satisfied that the injuries did not seem to be life threatening they gave Ian a shot of morphine and bandaged his head wound, preparing to rush him to Memorial Hospital. Ed sat in silence and watched the two of them seemingly flit around, pulling the gurney down the steps like Laurel and Hardy with the piano. He could hear the sirens shrieking for a few minutes after they had departed. The living room floor was left littered with bloody pads, gauze packaging, tape and syringe wrappers. Another fine mess.