Though he’d never admit it, not under threat of torture or death even, Jeff Ferguson loved his older sister.

She’d just helped him with his sixth-grade math homework—he felt a grudging respect for Jessica and her ability to do the kind of complex story problems that a calculator couldn’t dent.

Like everything with Jessica, her aid came at a price. Jeff would be taking his sister’s shift doing the dishes every other night. That meant dishes duty for a solid week.

Jeff’s dad, the town marshal, would call this cheating. But it wasn’t like Jessica had just filled in the answers for Jeff—she’d shown him, as they went along, how to solve the complicated problems. In fact, he had done the last two on his own, Jess watching over his shoulder.

Blond and blue-eyed, the pair could have been clones of their mother, a successful real estate agent here in Placida, Florida. Jessica was in the eighth grade, but seemed older than that to Jeff.

Sometimes, though, she seemed really immature to him. She texted constantly during various stupid shows that she and her clique of girlfriends found “awesome,” always about girls their age or a little older and a lot richer. Jeff had agreed to make sure Jess didn’t get busted by Mom for texting when she was supposed to be doing homework—that was the second half of his payment for the math boost.

Even in the family room, where he sat curled on the floor in stocking feet with his math book, Jeff could detect the wafting aroma of spaghetti and meatballs, a family favorite. The tomato sauce would mean extra scrubbing when he did the dishes tonight, but why complain? He was guaranteed an A on his math homework, and he loved spaghetti.

Then he heard the sound of trouble—Mom’s heels clicking in the hallway.

“Jess,” he hissed, voice low.

His sister, eyes glued to the family room’s big TV, didn’t hear him, or those clicking heels either.

“Jess,” he tried again, struggling to keeping it low enough to avoid their mother’s radar-like hearing, but loud enough to snap his sister out of her texting trance.

Still no response.

Panicking now, knowing that if he slipped up in his guard duty, Jess would make his life eternally miserable, the boy did the only thing he could think of: he hurled his pen at his sister’s noggin.

After the pen careened off her skull, she spun on him, her eyes wide with homicidal rage.

Making a terrified face, he pointed violently toward the hallway, and Jess’s expression melted immediately. She fumbled for, and got, his pen, tossed it back, hid the offending phone under a pillow, and turned down the TV to a more reasonable volume. She also managed to pick up a history book and appear to be enthralled.

The whole series of actions seemed to Jeff like a great baseball play—Evan Longoria, his favorite player, diving to his left to stop a hot grounder, then rising, stepping on third, and throwing to first to complete a double-play.

Mom strode in—slender, blond, blue-eyed, wearing the slacks and blouse she’d worn to work—and moved immediately to Jeff’s side. She tousled his hair and gave him a huge smile that he couldn’t help but return.

Jess smiled at her mother too, but to her brother it seemed forced.

“What are you reading, dear?” Mom asked her.

Holding up the book dutifully, Jessica answered, “American History.”

Mom didn’t miss a beat, glancing at the screen and saying, “Like the invention of lip gloss?”

Jessica, her mouth moving, couldn’t find words.

Trying extra hard not to laugh as his sister got busted, Jeff buried himself in his math book and did his best to look both busy and completely disinterested in Jessica’s fate.

“Let’s turn off the TV,” Mom said, “and get ready for dinner.”

Jessica didn’t argue, simply used the remote.

Mom asked Jeff, “How was your day?”

He shrugged.

“Did they teach you brain surgery or anything?”

“Mom,” he said, drawing out the last letter.

Jessica fell into line behind their mother, who led the way out of the family room, Jeff trailing. Mom was making her usual left turn to the kitchen, Jess about to head over to the stairs to the bathroom, Jeff ready to head down the hall to wash his hands when the front door opened.

Jeff at first thought it was his father, but this figure was skinnier, and maybe not as old, and held a pistol, which Jeff’s dad would never do in the house.

The man’s entrance was so sudden, Jeff was more surprised than afraid, stunned to see the stranger step inside and close the door behind him, as casual as if this were Jeff’s father.

Mom, however, seemed to instantly see that something was very wrong and moved between the intruder and her kids.

Looking past his mother, Jeff watched in silent horror as the stranger brought the pistol up and pointed it at her.

“No,” Mom said, holding up a hand like the crossing guard at school, and the man fired the gun.

Orange and yellow flame and sparks erupted from the barrel like the sparklers last Fourth of July….

Mom took an involuntarily step back, her other hand coming up as if to protect herself, but it was too late. A tiny pink misty cloud hovered as she teetered.

Jessica screamed—it was shrill and almost fake-sounding.

“Mom!” Jeff shouted, his voice barely a whisper in his own head as his ears rang from the roar of the pistol in the enclosed space.

Frozen, Jeff watched as the stranger with the gun swivelled toward Jessica. Down on the floor, Mom had stopped moving, her eyes open, staring but not seeing.

Another loud pop turned Jessica’s scream into a gurgle, as she made a slow pirouette, her shirt blossoming crimson as she held out her hand to her brother, then sagged to her knees, then fell onto her side.

As the stranger turned in his direction, Jeff ducked into the bathroom and slammed the door. He managed to push in the knob lock and twist it, but knew the killer wouldn’t need long to get through. Only one thing to do—the bathroom had a window overlooking the fenced-in backyard. Jeff’s only chance.

He heard two more pops and dove into the tub. Peeking, he saw holes in the door, around the knob….

…but for now the barrier held.

The boy climbed up onto the toilet, stretched to unlock the window. Though seldom used, the mechanism worked fine. Lifting the window, though, proved harder—stiff in its tracks, the thing did not want to move….

Jeff glanced toward the door just as two more bullets punched through. They barely missed him, thunking into the wall beside him, cracking wall tiles like eggs. Blinking at sweat, heart pounding, Jeff gave a mighty tug, and the window moved just enough. He grabbed the frame and swung through feet first, kicking out the screen, even as he heard the bathroom door splinter open.

He flew through the opening, his back scraping the bottom of the frame, and dropped into dusk that was almost darkness, landing with a jolt on the grass, a good six feet below, his stockinged feet stinging. He rolled and came up running, his legs hurting, his back burning, as he half sprinted, half limped around the corner of his home. Not home free, however—the backyard was enclosed by a six-foot wooden privacy fence.

He hoped the bathroom window was too small for the killer to get out—if so, that would give the boy more time. More time to do what, he didn’t know. He had no idea why this was happening or what was really going on. His mom and sister were dead; despite all the gunfire and blood, that tragedy seemed abstract to the child, though he did sense he was next on the stranger’s list. Why he was next, he had no idea.

That was the extent of his mental processing of what had happened to bring him to this moment. And now that moment, and the moments tumbling thereafter, were all that concerned him.

If he tried to get to the neighbors, could he make it? From the fenced-in backyard, he could get into the garage, and out onto the driveway. Dad’s shed, back here, led nowhere, a dead end. But the fence between the house and its freestanding garage had a gate—through there, Jeff could get to the street and the neighbors.

As he neared that gate, however, Jeff heard the back door swing open, nearby, and light poured out. If the boy went through, he would walk into the stranger’s path. In any case, the killer would turn toward the fenced-in yard and come through, looking.

Jeff figured if he ducked into the shed, he could at least hide in there long enough for the killer to go in to check the garage. Then the boy could make a run for the gate and the neighbors.

That seemed his best chance.

He slid open the shed door as quietly as he could, then squeezed into the hot, musty-smelling metal structure and just as carefully closed the door. Dad’s lawn mower shared space with a roto-tiller, a weed-whacker, and some garden tools inside the dark, cramped space.

He prayed that his father was on his way home from work. His father was a marshal. His father had a gun. Again sweat ran into his eyes, and he rubbed them furiously, trying to get them to stop burning, but they only burned worse.

Straining to hear any sound beyond the door of the shed, Jeff wondered if maybe the killer had gone. Other than the pounding of his own heart, he heard nothing. Maybe the killer had given up and gone away….

Jeff allowed his eyes to slowly scan the walls of the shed, and they came to rest on his mother’s gardening shears—the ones Mom used to clip off flowers. She kept them very sharp, he knew. He reached across, trying to not make the slightest noise, and plucked them off the wall.

If the killer was still out there, maybe Jeff could stab him or poke out an eye or something. His father said a man had to defend himself.

And Jeff intended to try.

He listened for what seemed like a very long time and heard nothing—not the garage, not the gate; even the shed door didn’t open.

Moments became minutes, and he was sure the killer must be gone….

Carefully, Jeff cracked the shed door and looked out. Darkness had taken over the yard, normally such a friendly playground for him and his sister over the years, now barely visible in blue shadows.

But he could not make out anything except his house beyond. None of the shadows seemed to be a person.

He allowed himself a brief relieved exhale, then continued to slide the door open ever so slowly, still being careful to be quiet about it….

His eyes quickly scanned the yard as the opening grew, but he saw nothing, no one. He finally allowed hot tears of grief and fear to run down his cheeks. For a moment, he wondered if he’d dreamt the whole thing, maybe this was a nightmare, maybe he was napping in his room, and Mom and Jess were downstairs right now.

Taking one tentative step, he felt moist grass bleed up through his socks—Mom kept the grass watered and green. The wetness felt cool and almost soothing. The threat was gone. The nightmare might be real, but it was over.

Still, he listened with the ears of a rabbit, the shears in one gripped hand, ready to protect him. No sound, not even crickets or night birds or wind.

Even his footsteps were silent. He took another, then another. He was into the yard now, and there was no stranger. He turned toward the gate, took one quick step to start running the short distance, but his second step hung in the air, foot wriggling there, as something, someone, grabbed him by his head of hair…felt like it was being pulled out by its roots!

He howled, but a hand clamped over his mouth and his protest was swallowed. He kicked and fought, but nothing did any good, his captor far stronger. Bringing up the shears, trying to jab them at the arm holding him, Jeff found no target, the stranger throwing the child to the grass. The stranger simply muscled the shears away with one hand and cuffed him with the other, knocking Jeff into a whimpering pile.

The fight was out of the boy. Defenseless, he squeezed his eyes shut as the stranger lifted him and carried him back into the house. Jeff wanted to scream, but nothing would come out—nothing was left. Once inside, the stranger tossed the child like a doll into the hallway and Jeff plopped next to the bloody corpse of his sister.

Not just a bad dream after all.

Looking up, finally, he could see the barrel of the pistol, a big black eye staring at him, inviting him, forcing him, to stare back.

Another Fourth of July flash, and the nightmare was over.

Taking a step back, the man who thought of himself as the Messenger wiped sweat from his forehead with a sleeve. Wasn’t supposed to be this hard. His message should be easier to deliver.

The Messenger felt admiration for the boy. He had fought back. He’d had spirit. A pity such a strong child had to be sacrificed; but nothing was free, not in this life, at least. And he had a job to do. A message to get across.

He gazed down at the woman. Pretty, and the spitting image of her two kids. His eyes fell to her left hand. To the wedding ring on the fourth finger.

This wouldn’t be the first ring he had taken. In the beginning he hadn’t taken any, but he’d thought he could get his point across better if he began taking them, and something in him liked having souvenirs of his efforts.

Still, for all its obviousness, no one seemed to be deciphering his message.

Maybe it was time to start making the message more clear. More emphatic. Without really thinking about it, he withdrew from his pocket the garden shears the boy had tried to use on him.

Maybe this brave boy had been sent to deliver a message to the Messenger.

Perhaps it was time for him to spell the message out. Hadn’t his own marriage been severed?

Just taking the ring was not a strong enough sign. He understood that now. He bent down, as if proposing, and took the woman’s hand in his. It was still warm. Placing the fourth finger between the blades of the shears, he squeezed.

It took more effort than he had expected, but in the end, the finger crunched and snapped like a thick twig, the ring and finger coming off as one, the blood spill minimal since the heart no longer pumped.

He found a plastic sandwich bag in the kitchen, slipped his prize inside and put the shears back in his pants pocket. He had a new trophy, in the ring finger…and a new tool. Despite the trouble he’d gone through, and the sacrifice of a brave child, this message had been successfully delivered.

If only someone out there could understand. Only then could he stop.