The Strip Judge

De: L. Brooksby

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Now leaden slugs rained through the smashed window. Others pounded the door, knocking it almost off its hinges. Excruciating pain hit again as she crawled across the floor to the table straddling the cellar door and she felt blood and water run down the inside of her legs. She shifted her shoulder against the table, shoving it off the door. Pushing the rug from over the door, she exerted all her muscles to pull the door open and lean it against the table. Crawling back to the bed she heard her husband’s rifle boom twice. She pulled both babies off the bed, tucking them under her arms as lead pellets sang over her head and sunk into the wall. How could she crawl back to the cellar door with both babies in her arms? Making a decision, she laid the second one on the dirt floor, tucked the other one under her right arm and crawled to the opening on her knees and one hand. Rolling onto the steps leading into the darkness of the cellar, she half crawled and half walked down to its cool dirt floor. She’d been down these stairs so many times that even in the darkness she knew when her bare feet would touch the floor. Standing up she hurried to the back wall. Knelt down and placed the baby on the floor, then covered him with the sheet she’d pulled off the bed upstairs. Another contraction hit as she started for the steps. Feeling faint, she reached the bottom of the steps and started up. Rifle fire rang constantly in her ears as she reached the top and rolled across the floor to retrieve the other baby. Tucking it in one arm, she started crawling toward the cellar door. Her husband suddenly stood straight up. This time his words were soft and hardly loud enough for her to hear them. “I’m a dead man.” Then his body fell against the table, knocking it into the cellar door. The door slammed shut with a bang almost as loud as the rifles sounding out front. Her eyes dilated even more when she saw the blood covering the front of his shirt. She looked up at his face as it turned toward her. A bullet hole between his eyes stared back at her. Her stomach muscles contracted again and she felt blood and water run down the inside of her legs once more. Then the afterbirth slipped out and fell to the floor between her knees. Reaching her husband, she leaned over him to push him off the door. A bullet came through the open space where the door once stood, hitting her in the middle of the back and knocking her forward. Another bullet sliced through the now open space of the doorway, slamming into the side of her head and knocking what remained of her head onto her husband’s chest.