How to Kill a Mockingbird

A narrow lake glints like a knife in the distance, wedged into dark, snow-dusted mountaintops flashed through with sheer rock faces. The road and its gravel shoulders snake upward, looping lazily through cloistered huddles of squat buildings, the town trickling down from the mountain like a little stream. Mabel stands before an old barn at its base, breathing into her scarf and braced against the bitter mountain air, rifle in one hand and a little blue Government-issue handbook titled ‘Guide to Paracausal Creatures’ in the other that she uses to scratch her head through her itchy cap. She has never been a fan of the cold, and according to the book, neither has the thing she’s hunting. It’s some joke, she thinks, that they would both wind up here.

“Hellooo? Anyone home?” Mabel shouts across the wind. “Come out little guy, helpless human ripe for the taking!” The barn creaks softly in response, but there is nothing. Mabel sighs. She turns around and starts counting down from thirty in her head. In her little book there is a two-page spread on Class 3 Signal-Receptive Water Entities. How to spot them, how to draw them out. They don’t like being seen. Look away and count to thirty, it says. She stops when she hears movement. Taking a deep breath, she wheels back around, bringing up her gun. Mabel has learned about the things, her handler has even told her the old sailor’s tales of stalking low-tide horrors in the shapes of long dead friends or wives across the sea, but this is the first time she has ever seen one. It is almost in the shape of a human, four, maybe five limbs, the fading imprint of the person it wore for its last victim. It ripples, flesh shifting like water, taking a quick step back as if caught off guard. Don’t give it time to change. Kill instantly. The last part is bolded. Mabel shoulders her rifle, loosing a round with a hollow crack. The impact makes waves in the thing’s body, pushing it further back as it loses its shape. She chambers another, looking over her sights at the writhing, seething mass as it quickly begins to change. Crack. She fires again, but the thing sinks low and she just misses it. “Shit,” she whispers under her breath as she sees a flash of newly formed eyes and teeth, quickly enveloped in a thin veil of roiling flesh. The movement settles as Mabel goes to chamber a third, but she freezes. A face. So delicate that for a moment Mabel is afraid to move lest she disturb it. It opens its eyes, its expression quickly contorting into pain and fear as it stumbles to its feet, clutching a bleeding arm in the other.

“Mabel! Stop! You’re hurting me!” Ellie hops gingerly between bare feet in the snow, naked and shivering in the cold. Her breath condensates around her, and Mabel can even see goosebumps. Perfectly human, She is just as she remembers, down to the little mole below her belly button. Mabel takes deep breaths.

“Mabel please, it’s so cold.” Ellie takes a step forward, tilting her head slightly in that way she does when she wants a hug.

“Stay back!” Mabel shouts. Ellie stops, tears welling up.

“Why are you being so mean to me? I love you.” Mabel bites her lip as Ellie speaks, fighting back her own tears.

“You fucking coward! Leave her out of this!” Mabel’s voice trembles as she chambers the round. Ellie begins to sob, squatting down and hiding her face behind her elbow. Mabel remembers the last time she saw her. She was crying then too, arms full of hastily packed bags that Mabel had to help her fit through the doorway of their flat. One moment she was there, the next gone. Mabel never looked for her. Maybe she should have. She only tried to forget, and after two years she thought she nearly had. Mabel aims at Ellie’s head, before lowering her rifle. 

“Fuck...I don’t get paid enough for this shit.” Ellie looks up sniffling, as Mabel sighs. She can’t do it. She sits down in the snow, rifle across her lap. The two are quiet for a minute, looking at each other as Mabel regains her composure.

“You should give me that,” Ellie finally says, pointing at the gun.

“Why?” Ellie stares at her for a moment before responding.

“You know my dad likes to go hunting. I thought I’d try it too, bond with him a little. We’ve been so distant since mum died.”

“Clever,” Mabel says, shaking her head. There is a pause, before Ellie speaks again.

“I’m cold, and hurt. I think you should go get me a blanket and first aid kit from your car.”

“And leave the gun here?” Ellie nods and smiles, showing her dimples. 

“If you hold it, you’ll have to make two trips,” she says.

“I don’t think so.” Ellie frowns and opens her mouth to respond but Mabel cuts her off.

“Listen…Ellie. I’m not giving you the gun. But I might let you live, if you tell me why you left.”

Ellie pauses, as the thing digs deeper into Mabel’s mind. Mabel closes her eyes, and Ellie starts speaking.

“I…don’t know. I think...I think maybe I was afraid.” Mabel breathes out with the wind, keeping her eyes closed as Ellie inches closer.

“Afraid of what?”

“Afraid of…I’m sorry. It wasn’t you, I just…I just saw myself old and still in that shitty flat in that shitty town and, I don’t know if you didn’t see it or if you were ok with it but, it scared me, and I ran.” Ellie’s form begins to shift, her mouth stretching a little too wide, teeth a little too long. Her eyes lock on to Mabel’s throat. “God, I sound so selfish. I’m sorry Mabel. You don’t deserve me.”

“You’re right. I don’t.” The creature lunges, its shape twisting as it abandons its likeness for speed. Crack. It pinwheels back on its own momentum as Mabel plants her third round right between its eyes. It falls to the ground, flesh twisting impossibly before quivering, then falling still. Mabel breathes a sigh of relief, her heart pounding in her chest. Burn the body after the kill. She fetches a gas can from her car with shaking hands, spilling some on her gloves as she pours it out over the formless body. The creature makes a gurgling sound, twitching weakly as it detects Mabel’s intent.

“Goodbye, Ellie,” she says, striking a match.