1

Harry loved his hometown, except on nights like these. The streets of Blackwater Falls were deep indigo, the darkness blotting out the foothills and cloaking the houses at the bottom of the hills. He couldn’t see much; he could only hear the footsteps he was chasing, young voices calling out to each other. He took a terrible moment to decide whether to call for backup or continue on by himself. Budgets were tight; he wasn’t supposed to waste resources. And he was only on the trail of a couple of kids, young hoodlums who’d been marking up the town with graffiti. Street art, some said. What the young did for entertainment these days.

He turned a corner, feeling a twinge in his chest. He raised a hand to massage the twinge, and at the same time switched on his body cam. Best not to make mistakes, like getting out of his car when he should have radioed in. But the suspects he was chasing had disappeared down a lane where the car couldn’t follow. He was a middle-of-the-road cop, never amounting to much, but he was good at keeping the streets safe at night, and was liked by the people he met.

Not by these hoodlums, though. They were shouting insults at him like “pig” and “fuck the police.” It gave him a sense of who he was dealing with. There weren’t many Black kids in town, except for the kids of workers at the local meatpacking plant. The ones he was chasing might not be local; graffiti artscapes had popped up all over the greater Denver area. Blackwater’s gazebo had been hit, as well as the concrete wall behind the falls. Both had been cleaned up, but now a quiet residential neighborhood was at risk of being defaced.

Harry didn’t like it.

“Stop! Police!” he shouted, hearing the strain in his voice that echoed the pumping of his lungs. He was definitely getting past this. It was time to talk to Sheriff Grant about retirement. The sheriff took good care of his boys—he’d often told Harry he was a credit to the department. Be nice to go out on a high note. One final collar, all violence avoided.

Harry stopped for half a second, fumbling for his flashlight. Where was it? There. His thumb switched it on, flooding the dark crosswalk.

One of the runners had sprinted away, vaulting a fence, something Harry couldn’t hope to do. The other was straight ahead, heading into a cul-de-sac. The vandals had already been here, garbage bins lined up in a row, the lurid sprawl of graffiti on the cans.

“Stop!” Harry shouted again. “There’s nowhere to run, son.”

He gave chase, the flashlight veering wildly. He was closing in on his suspect, who was trapped between the fenced-in dead end of a cul-de-sac and the bins Harry had just passed.

The runner stumbled. Harry didn’t get a good look at his face, but the runner had something solid in his hand, he saw it in the beam of his flashlight.

Gun!

“Don’t do it, son,” he cried. “I don’t want to shoot you.”

His hand sweating, and his heart thumping wildly in his chest, he slicked his own gun free, dropping the flashlight to the road. He was supposed to hold them both, he thought, but somehow he couldn’t manage it. If he fired—God, if he fired, he didn’t want to cause any harm.

The runner darted at Harry, his raised arm menacing. He loomed above Harry, his build disguised by the baggy hoodie he wore.

Harry fired a warning shot, a sharp crack through the silence.

“Stop now, kid! Please!” His voice shook.

The runner charged as Harry fell back, his hand raised squarely in front of his face.

Harry couldn’t see a thing. He gave the runner one more warning, saw him raise his hand.

Harry’s gun went off.

The runner’s hand opened and the object in his hand rolled away down the street.


Copyright © 2023 by Ausma Zehanat Khan