American Holidays

Standing on his porch, he was greeted by the sight of several containers of garbage, including two of his own, that had been emptied and the contents scattered throughout the yard. Two of the demons, the one with the brand on his arm and another with a black skull cap, were still in the yard kicking and throwing trash everywhere. They laughed as they worked and one of the harpies, bra-less in a tank top and wearing purple lipstick and badly dyed blue and red hair, was hanging over the fence encouraging the demons and occasionally shouting her taunts of "We’re baaaack!" toward Winslow’s house. There was a black sedan, well polished and decorated with mag wheels and tinted glass, on the street in front of the fence with its trunk open. It was obvious that they had transported some of the garbage from elsewhere, probably by grabbing a few containers that had been put out for collection. This torment, Winslow quickly realized, was planned, and it was something they had gone to some length to execute. They genuinely had it in for him and he hadn’t a clue why.

The girl was the first to notice him. "Hello, Mr. Winslow," she crooned, as much to get the attention of the boys as to greet Winslow. They stopped and smiled and the big one spotted the gun in Winslow’s hand. "Oooh, you gonna shoot us dead?"

His partner added, "We just trying to decorate your house a little better, Mr. Winslow."

"Thas right," the girl added. "We from the welcome wagon. We want you house to fit in wi’ aaaall the others."

Winslow still did not point the gun, and none of them seemed to think he’d actually shoot. They had not reached for weapons, nor did they make any motion to leave.

"Just tell me why," Winslow finally said. "Why are you always after me? Why did you do this to me?"

"We don’t hafta have no reason, and we don’t hafta tell you nothing!" the thin one responded.

"Yeah! An’ it ain’t neva gonna end!" added the big one.

Winslow never hesitated once the words were spoken. He raised the gun and shot the boy in the chest. The girl screamed, and the other boy reached behind his back for a gun tucked into his belt. The one who had been hit stumbled to his knees and seemed frustrated and angry that he did not have strength to get out his weapon, which he was trying to do as he fell to the ground. Winslow turned to the other boy and fired at him before he was able to aim his gun. The boy was hit in the left biceps and howled in pain as he grabbed for the wound. The girl continued to scream, first starting toward the boys on the lawn and then toward the car, where the passenger window glided down and a voice from inside the car shouted at her, "Get the fuck out of the way!" Winslow never saw the gun in the darkness of the car, and the sound of the shots seemed only part of the clamor of shouting and chaos in his front yard. He felt the painful bite of the shot like an intense and highly charged bee sting before he ever realized that someone was shooting at him. He was hit in the leg as a series of bullets peppered his front porch from the automatic weapon. The girl piled herself into the backseat of the car and a second spray of bullets pitted the siding on Winslow’s front porch in a sloppy aimless pattern as the car screeched away with its trunk still open and banging against the back of the car.

Winslow fell to the walkway in front of his steps, still holding the gun, now fully in the throes of the pain from his wound. The first boy he hit lay face down in the garbage he had only moments before been scattering about the yard. The second sat on the lawn, whining in pain, grasping his arm and shouting obscenities at Winslow. His gun had fallen out of reach. He started to ease himself toward it, but Winslow saw him and raised his own pistol without firing this time and the boy thought better of reaching for the weapon. He did not, however, hesitate to continue his verbal lashing at Winslow, and he seemed to sense that this time Winslow would not fire. With his rage spent, Winslow sat on the concrete, waiting for whatever would come next, knowing that he no longer had to act now, only to wait.