Gumshoe: The Gathering Storm Part 2

“Come on then, make a move! You two got me so gotdang mad I'm SEEING RED!!”

He called out, earning an incredulous look from the two. A second passed, then another. He looked beyond them, then to the side before repeating.

“I said I’m SEEING RED!!” a pause, nothing. He let out a sigh, turning toward where they had come from. What difference did it make now if he faced the gun or faced away? She’d left. She had run, chosen to save herself and left him here.

“You’re Gonna Die, Gumshoe….”

And then the world erupted in gunfire….

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John 5:29-40

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The smell of old hymnals and beeswax candles was heavy in the air. A preacher stood at the pulpit, his voice resonating through the hushed congregation as he spoke of Deuteronomy, of justice, and of the divine call to rise above the transgressions of the past.

"The Lord your God commands you this day to follow these decrees and laws; carefully observe them with all your heart and with all your soul," the preacher's voice echoed off the rich oak walls of the Catholic church on the corner of 1st and Marshall in the heart of Thunderhead. The solemnity of the gospel washed over the young boy seated in the front pew. The boy’s coal black hair was parted in the middle and slicked back, his sunday best worn with holes from moths but tucked in and neat as could be.

His mother’d always preached that cleanliness was next to godliness. Matthew hadn’t remembered much about her, but he did that much.

Beside him sat his grandfather, the man he was named after—a towering figure even in the twilight of his years. His grandfather had been a gunslinger in his youth, a man whose name once invoked both respect and fear across the plains. His hands, resting on his lap, bore the callouses and scars of countless battles, each a silent testament to the untold stories etched into his weathered skin.

As the preacher spoke of a justice higher and purer than human understanding, the elder Matthew Knox leaned in, his voice barely a whisper but laden with the weight of experience. "Boy," he said, a hint of a challenge in his steely gaze, "real balance and justice ain't just about what's written in them holy texts. It's about what a man does with his own two hands—actions they'd never dare write down in the good book."

“Whatcha mean, papaw?”

The old man paused for a beat, considering his words before adding “Ain’t no one gonna tell you in here that a lot of the Good in the world? Was done through doin’ the right kind of bad…”

The snap of a twig brought him from the reverie, back to the cold and morbid reality he existed in though it did nothing to stop his grandfather’s words from twisting and turning around his mind. Words that had brought him here, the same place he’d always ended up. His wits against the gnashing teeth of whatever wrathful fool his razor tongue, soaked in whisky had set off.

This was supposed to be simple. Rile them up, the two of them. He drops the hint, Red takes out one and in the shock of it all he takes down the other. Quick, clean, and solid.

It was a good plan…

And then he stepped out.

Joe Montuori. The head of his family and the man dead set on making himself the new power in Thunderhead. Not his first lofty claim or power grab, the man lived to inform the world around him of how much of a gift from God he was. There were a couple times the act worked and an entire town knelt to him, but those times never seemed to last.

Eventually, the hot air gets forcibly let out and then its back to watching him inflate back up. It ws the only magnificent thing about him, in ll his vileness? The man didn’t know how to quit, and every time someone listened to the good sense to knock him on his ass he would rise right back up.

Speaking of…

With a straining groan the Gumshoe pushed himself up and limped through the dense underbrush of Thunderhead Woods, his breath ragged and his side aching from a hastily bandaged wound. The rain had started to pour, turning the forest floor into a muddy slipstream, and each clap of thunder seemed to roar in sync with his pounding heart.

He could hear the three of their voices, demonic shrieks bouncing off every corner of shadows, shadows that seemed to be closing in on him, calling out ghosts they were sure were his fleeing form. Every ‘pop’ of gunshot caused his muscles to convulse, preparing for that final leap into the inviting arms of the ever encroaching darkness..

The trees, once a source of solace, now seemed to conspire against him, their shadows casting menacing shapes that danced with the lightning illuminating the sky. But then, as if guided by fate itself, Gumshoe stumbled upon what could be his last crumb of salvation and the last drop of luck to his name.

A run-down cabin, its dilapidated state a mirror to his own. He looked over his shoulder, toward the bouncing voices and the charging shadows before forcing his carcass forward toward the door, which creaked on its hinges as he pushed it open. He sucked in a breath to fuel the effort to slam it back shut. In an instant, the scent of decay and old memories he'd never known filled his nostrils. At least here, he could catch his breath.

He stumbled first to the phone on the wall, picking up the receiver in fruitless effort, hearing only his beating heart in the earpiece before dropping it. He let out a seething, angry breath and ripped the phone from the wall, stumbling away into the wall from the loud CRASH that came from his outburst.

Inside the musty darkness, Gumshoe sank to the floor, the pain in his side flaring with each shallow breath. This was not how he envisioned his end. Not here, not in the heart of Thunderhead Woods. He closed his eyes, and in that moment of desperation, the preacher’s words resonated from somewhere within and before he knew it, he found himself speaking to a God he wasn't sure was listening.

“You listening, Lord?

…’Course you are.

I know I'm unworthy of your mercy, oh lord. I am a sinner as all men are…I've used these gifts you've given me for my own selfish ends, even when it was for the good of others…

But wrong in the name of right….Its still wrong, I know that…and I know you know that too, you bastard..”

He let out a chuckle, grimacing as the pain shot up his side. A hand drifted to put pressure on the wound, feeling the bandage slip beneath his ruined shirt. ‘And I know…I know that you know that as bad as I am…imperfect as I am that those you’ve set upon me are worse, especially for Thunderhead..” He sucked in a breath, stoning his face against the pain as if anyone were watching his suffering.

“Joe Montuori..he’s everything you taught us to beware of…a man who smiles when the eyes are upon him. The doting husband and father, at every softball game and emptying those deep pockets for charity…..the snake putting an apple in every hand that’ll let him..

In the dark though, when only the eyes of sinners like he and I dare look? We see him for who he is Lord, you and I. A rabid dog thats bitten every hand that has ever fed it. A vengeful, vindictive soldier who so desparately wants to be the general. Someone who talks so big but is so stunningly small that he can’t see anything but how much more someone else has…

And how much he thinks he ought to have it…

I remove that snake, that pig Vaughn to make things better. To do something that was right, for once. To make things better….and instead of enjoying that. Enjoying the opporunuties of a home free of corruption and cut-throat cloak and dagger bullsh–” he paused, chuckling “Sorry, Lord…….

Still…you see it…you see that he desires to replace the Devil we knew with one of his own creation. You saw what he did to Junko Souma, the lengths he went to to try and ruin her just because she dared stand opposed to the devil we know he’s capable of being.

So I’ll make a deal, lord. Here and now..” he lazily pointed toward the floor he bled upon to accentuate the point. Another heaving breath, a nod and he grit the words out “You let me survive this, you let me stop him from becoming that Devil and I swear i’ll do better. I’ll do right by Thunderhead. From the bums to the ones with gold plated chamberpots.

See me through this, and as long as I breathe Thunderhead will never have to fear men like Joe Montuori ever again…

Just…”

A sigh, a chuckle.

“Don’t let this be the end…”

He waited silently for a response that came only in the rain that pattered against the chorus of the forest. In that echoing silence of that answer his eyelids became heavy and before long his mind wandered to Red, the woman who had been by his side, only to vanish when Joe Montuori had appeared. When he needed her most, and thought she needed him. Betrayal stung almost as much as his wound, but concern for her safety gnawed at him. Where had she gone? Why had she left him to face the Montuoris alone?

‘Because you deserve it, you fool’ the thought bit at him, and he found no resistance against the truth within those jaws. Sin, vice, cloak, dagger and a poison that killed the soul all had their days, months and years. The truth could rule these last few precious minutes.

It’d earned that much.

As the storm outside raged on, a sudden silence fell upon the woods – a silence far more terrifying than the cacophony of nature's fury. Then, the voice of Joe Montuori cut through the stillness, his words a chilling harbinger of doom. "Gumshoe, you can't hide forever! ‘ The gravelly, booming east coast tenor rang like funeral bells in the storm.

‘Gumshoe!!! KNOX!!!” the voice cut through once more, soon followed by a menacing chuckle before the bells rang their final toll.

“You're gonna die tonight!"

The declaration was soon followed by the sound of guns being cocked, and bullets soon pierced the wooden walls of the cabin, splintering the ancient timber and shattering the scarce glass that was left.

Resigned to his fate, the Gumshoe leaned his head back against the wall his eyes steeling with a quiet acceptance. Perhaps this was the end of the line, his story concluding with the thunderous roar of gunfire. He wouldn’t begrudge god ignoring the prayer. Mercy was the last thing he deserved.

Much less, did he deserve to be the one to administer it.

But as the Montuoris closed in, a new sound emerged – a rapid series of shots that sent the gang scrambling for cover.

“You REALLY thought you’d arrest me, Mtt?!” the mockery of his savior cut through the thunder and the panic.

Red had returned.

Through the bullet-riddled windows, he saw her silhouette, guns blazing with a vengeance, laying down cover fire. It was a sight that reignited the fire within him, the spark of life he thought had been extinguished. Wounded, but with a newfound resolve, Gumshoe pushed himself to his feet. His fingers reached into the holster for his revolver, he popped the cylinder out…

One shot.

He went to raise it and had to catch it, the blood on his hand slicking his grip but he focused and managed to find the balance. The weight of the iron brought him a cool, steel comfort. One tht served to redouble a quickly reviving resolve..

He peered through the broken cabin window, his aim steady despite the pain that wracked his body. As Red continued to keep the Montuoris at bay, Gumshoe took a deep breath, his resolve hardening into an unspoken vow.

A vow to end this, and keep the Viper from the Garden.

He steadied his aim, took a breath and held it until his vision focused. It only took three blinks.

One Shot

“Don’t Miss….” he croaked to himself beneath the thunderous chaos around him. For a split second in time, his face was etched in a peace he’d never known and would likely never know gain. Then, in the next…he bore his fangs for what was to come.

With a defiant cry, he returned fire, the sound of his own gunshots melding with the storm, a symphony of survival and determination. The battle for Thunderhead, for the soul of a city that he wasn’t even sure loved him as much as he’d come to love it, was far from over.

With or without Red at his side, Gumshoe was ready to fight for redemption, for his life, and for the promise of a better tomorrow.

And Besides.

Now, he had a promise to keep.