The Goose and the Gun

“You spend your life preparing for monsters, and then one day it’s just a bird — and somehow that’s worse.”

A tremor of unease rippled through me, starting somewhere deep in my chest and spreading outward in cold tendrils that wrapped around my spine like grasping fingers. The dichotomy clawed at my thoughts with sharpening insistence—clinical order set against sudden violence, domestic tranquillity frayed by the sharp edge of the inexplicable. The cottage around me felt increasingly wrong, each room a carefully constructed lie, each detail simultaneously mundane and threatening.

Whoever had been here had covered their tracks. But not completely. Not perfectly. The wet blood on my finger testified to that—the single flaw in an otherwise comprehensive erasure.

And that meant we weren't too late. Whatever had happened here, whatever violence or flight or forced departure had occurred, it was recent enough that traces remained. Fresh enough that we might still intervene, might still find whoever had left this blood behind whilst they were alive rather than discovering only bodies.

As I followed the blood trail towards the coffee table in the lounge, my heart pounded in my chest with increasing violence—loud, forceful, a bass drumbeat against the silence that saturated the cottage. I could feel the reverberations in my throat where pulse throbbed against windpipe, in my skull where blood pressure made my temples throb, in my fingertips where elevated heart rate made them tingle slightly.

The fear of finding a body—of stumbling upon the Owens lifeless and broken in their own home, of discovering that we'd arrived too late despite the neighbour's calls, despite our rushed response—pressed down on me like a physical vice around my chest. I braced for it with each step forward, muscles tensing in anticipation of horror. The first casualty of our investigation, the concrete proof that whatever pattern I'd been tracking wasn't just disappearances but murders.

Perhaps not even the Owens specifically. Maybe a stranger whose only connection was being in the wrong place. Maybe something worse—something we hadn't even anticipated yet, some twist that would make the whole situation more complicated and terrible.

I reached the end of the trail where it terminated at the coffee table, crouching slightly, weapon raised and ready, my eyes scanning every shadow in the room with desperate intensity. Looking for the body that must be here, that the blood trail promised, that logic insisted must exist at the trail's end.

But there was nothing. No body sprawled on floor or furniture. No sign of a struggle beyond the blood itself—no overturned furniture, no disturbed rug, no defensive wounds visible on surfaces. No streaks of blood dragged across floorboards that would indicate a body being moved post-injury. The trail simply stopped. As if whoever had left it had evaporated mid-step.

The next thunderclap fractured the silence with devastating force, shattering it like glass struck by a hammer. It was closer than before—much closer, violent and immediate, the kind of crack that came with lightning born directly overhead rather than kilometres distant. The sound was physical, felt as much as heard, a percussion that rattled bones and teeth.

A searing flash of light lit up the lounge in brutal monochrome, washing out all colour and subtlety. For a split second, the room was no longer quaint or mysterious or atmospheric. It was stark. Exposed. Unforgiving. Every object threw harsh shadows, every surface became either brilliant white or absolute black with no gradation between.

Then came the scream.

The sound was so sudden, so unexpected, so primal that my body reacted before my mind could process. My stomach lurched with sickening force, dropping with the elevator-fall sensation that comes with pure terror. The sound was human, unmistakably. High-pitched Desperate.

Sarah.

My blood ran cold in an instant. Every hair on my arms rose in instinctive fear response, follicles contracting with such force it was almost painful. Time faltered, seemed to slow and stutter, consciousness fragmenting under the weight of terror into disconnected snapshots rather than smooth continuity.

And then, almost in the same breath, before the scream's echo could properly fade, came the gunshot.

Louder than thunder despite the storm's competition. Closer than any sound should be. Final in the way only gunfire sounds—that distinctive report that every officer knows too well, that echoes in nightmares and sits in memory with permanent clarity.

The sound hit me with an instant spike of dread, fear, and fury that obliterated rational thought.

"Sarah!"

Her name tore from my throat before I could think, before I could plan or strategise or consider.

I bolted, weapon drawn but barely registering its presence, thoughts wiped clean by a single, driving imperative that overrode everything else: get to her. Nothing else mattered. Not the crime scene I was contaminating, not the evidence I was potentially destroying, not the tactical considerations about approaching an unknown situation. Just movement towards her location with every ounce of speed I could muster.

I burst out of the cottage through the front door, momentum carrying me forward without thought for steps or obstacles. Taking the veranda in two long strides, barely touching the boards, before leaping off the edge entirely rather than wasting time descending the steps. My boots landed hard in the saturated earth with shocking impact, the ground offering almost no resistance. Mud splashed high up my legs as I fought for balance, forward momentum threatening to send me sprawling face-first into the muck. I barely noticed the sensation, barely registered the cold or wet or the physical impact. The only thing I registered was the terror clawing at my chest with sharp talons, the image of Sarah injured or dying playing in an endless loop.

The rain struck my face in slanted sheets, cold and sharp as needles, blurring my vision instantly. I had to squint against the assault, eyes narrowing to slits, as I sprinted across the clearing with everything I had. My coat flapped wildly behind me, sodden and heavy, transformed from protection into hindrance.

The barn loomed ahead, its silhouette hulking against the churning sky, growing larger with each stride but never fast enough. Every board and nail was slick with storm, the entire structure dark and threatening, a massive shadow that could hide anything. Lightning flared again, washing the sky in violent white light for a split second of perfect clarity. And in that frozen moment of illumination, I saw the padlocked front door. Heavy iron, old and rusted but clearly still unyielding, securing the main entrance.

"Shit!" I hissed through clenched teeth, heart crashing against my ribs so hard I thought they might crack. The barn was locked. The padlock meant the front entrance wasn't how she'd entered—if she'd entered at all. Had she gone inside through another entrance? Had someone dragged her in through a different access point? Was she trapped inside with whoever had made her scream? Or was the scream from outside the barn, somewhere else entirely?

I threw myself back into motion without pausing, circling the barn rather than stopping to assess. No time for careful tactical approach or methodical clearing. Just movement, desperate and barely controlled. Skirting the barn's side, my hand trailing along its rough exterior to keep balance as my boots slipped across the wet ground beneath. The texture of weathered wood rough against my palm, splinters catching and tearing skin I didn't have attention to notice.

My shoulder slammed into a support beam at the corner with bruising force, the impact jarring my entire arm, sending a spike of pain that barely registered through the adrenaline flooding my system. The collision sent fresh chemicals coursing through me, adding to the already overwhelming load.

Somewhere behind me, thunder rolled low and threatening, like the growl of something ancient and malevolent. The sound seemed to come from everywhere at once, the storm surrounding and enveloping, transforming the landscape into something primordial and hostile.

I rounded the barn's rear corner with weapon raised, eyes scanning frantically across the space behind the structure. Looking for threats, for attackers, for whoever had made her scream and fire.

And then I saw her.

A figure, still and small, crouched beside the dam in the distance. Not standing in aggressive posture or defensive crouch, but sitting. Hunched. Collapsed inward.

For a heartbeat, I couldn't move. Couldn't process what I was seeing. Relief and dread collided violently inside me with forces that seemed to cancel each other out, locking my joints as my mind caught up with what my eyes were reporting.

"Sarah!" I called again, barely recognising my own voice—hoarse from the sprint and shouting, half-choked with emotion, shaken to the core in ways I couldn't control or mask.

She turned at my call.

The sight of her face—the tears mixing with rain, the shock blanking her features, the utter devastation written in every line—hit me like a punch to the chest. Her lips were parted in silent breath or perhaps words that wouldn't form. She clutched her weapon with both hands, a white-knuckled grip suggesting she couldn't quite convince her fingers to release it, the barrel angled downward towards the earth rather than any threat.

I stumbled forward, mud sucking at my feet with each step. And then I saw what she was crouched beside—not holding in her arms exactly, but positioned next to. My steps faltered as comprehension arrived. My stomach twisted with emotions I couldn't immediately name.

Lying in the reeds was a small body.

Not human. The realisation came with conflicting waves of relief and confusion and something approaching hysterical disbelief.

White feathers, sodden and matted.

Crimson bloom spreading across its breast.

Rainwater diluted the blood into soft, creeping tendrils that wove through the grass like watercolour paint bleeding across wet paper, turning the scene into something that was simultaneously delicate and horrific. A large goose, its chest torn by a single, fatal wound. Eyes dull with death's film. Lifeless body already stiffening slightly.

"Ahh. Shit, Sarah," I whispered, my voice barely audible over the drumbeat of rain and the distant thunder that continued rolling. My breath caught in my throat, stuck somewhere between lungs and mouth. Relief that she wasn't injured fought with confusion about what had happened, with dawning realisation of what this meant.

There was no threat here. No ambush. No attacker. Just death—and the kind that shouldn't have mattered in the grand scheme of missing persons and blood trails and mysterious disappearances, but somehow did. The kind that mattered because of what it revealed about state of mind, about reactions under stress, about how close to breaking point we'd both come.

There were objectively worse things than a dead goose. Much worse. But in this moment, in this weather, after the days we'd had, after the assault and the blood trail and the mounting pressure, it somehow felt like the universe was mocking us. Playing some cosmic joke at our expense. Taking all our fear and training and desperate response and making it ridiculous through disproportion between threat and reaction.

"I didn't mean to," she murmured, her voice cracking with emotion barely controlled. She rubbed at her eyes with one hand whilst maintaining weapon grip with the other—more habit than utility, considering the rain hadn't stopped and was if anything intensifying. Her hand trembled slightly, fine motor control compromised by cold and shock and adrenaline aftermath.

She wasn't just upset. She was undone. Completely dismantled by what should have been a minor incident. And it undid me too, seeing her like that—this brilliant, tough woman who'd withstood all the horror and madness our work regularly inflicted, who'd faced down actual human threats without visible fear, brought low by one aggressive waterfowl and an ill-timed flight response. The disproportion between cause and effect would have been comic if it weren't so obviously devastating to her.

I stepped forward and took hold of her arm. The sleeve was sodden, clinging cold to her skin beneath, the fabric heavy with absorbed water. I pulled her up with gentle insistence. She came reluctantly, resisting slightly, as though rising meant owning what had just happened, accepting responsibility for something she couldn't quite process.

Her legs were unsteady beneath her, knees caked in mud that had worked up past her trouser cuffs, probably uncomfortable but unnoticed in her current state. She holstered her weapon slowly, fingers fumbling slightly with the mechanism, unsure of themselves. Like she didn't quite trust her own hands anymore, like the betrayal of firing when she hadn't meant to had made them foreign.

"You just shot their goose,” I said, the words escaping louder than I'd intended.

"It was an accident! She flew at me. I swear she was coming for my face," Sarah shot back defensively, gesturing with her free hand to the faint red line on her cheek. The movement was sharp, aggressive, daring me to contradict her lived experience.

A thin scratch marked her pale skin, barely bleeding, angry red against white. A scratch that, in any other context, might have warranted no more than a bandaid from a first aid kit and a cup of tea for shock. But here, with the dead bird at our feet and the discharge of a service weapon to explain, it somehow carried the weight of a far more serious mistake. It would need to be documented, photographed, included in reports as justification.

I stared at her, water dripping from my brow into my eyes in steady streams, blurring her face just enough that I had to blink repeatedly to focus properly. Her expression was equal parts mortified and furious—embarrassment at what she'd done warring with anger that I wasn't being more sympathetic, that I was finding fault when she'd genuinely felt threatened.

The absurdity of the moment battled with the tension still lodged firmly in my chest. My heart rate was still elevated from the sprint, adrenaline still flooding my system with nowhere productive to go.

"Do you have any idea how much paperwork this is going to be?" I muttered, half to myself, half to her, voice dropping to more normal volume. The words were a pressure valve, releasing some of the pent-up emotional energy with dry sarcasm rather than anger.

Forms in triplicate. Statements from both of us. Incident logs detailing discharge of weapon. Possibly even a visit from Animal Control or rural liaison officers if the Owens filed a complaint upon return. All because of one panicked waterfowl and a trigger-happy partner who'd fired on instinct rather than assessment.

Sarah's eyes narrowed to slits, lips tightening into a thin line. "I could have been seriously injured," she snapped, indicating the scratch again with sharp gesture. The thin cut was now running in a diluted rivulet down her cheek as rain mixed with the minimal blood, creating pink trails. Her pride bled more than her skin did, ego wounded by the mockery of the situation more than her face was damaged by the goose.

"Well, at least you wouldn't be dead," I replied, motioning toward the goose with a gesture as weary as it was sardonic. It lay where it had fallen, wings akimbo at unnatural angles, head twisted awkwardly on its neck like a downed puppet with strings cut. Its soaked feathers clung to its body in ragged clumps that made it look smaller than it had probably been in life. One beady eye was still open, glazed with death but still somehow judging us, the lid frozen in its final position.

"You can be a real insensitive bastard sometimes, Karl!" she exploded, the sharpness in her voice cutting cleaner than any scalpel.

She turned without waiting for a response and stalked off toward the car, mud sucking noisily at her boots with each step, creating a percussion that matched her fury. The reeds parted in angry waves around her passage, bending and springing back with violence.

I stood there watching her go, rain streaming down my face and neck in constant flow, soaking into my collar where it ran in cold rivulets down my spine. The cold had worked its way deep into my bones by now, settling into joints and core, but I barely noticed it anymore. Had stopped registering the physical discomfort somewhere in the last few minutes as larger concerns dominated attention.

My clothes clung to me, sodden and suffocating, transformed from protection into burden. The wet fabric dragged at my every movement with tangible resistance—a physical weight echoing the emotional one pressing down on my chest with increasing force.

The absurdity of it all tugged at the corners of my mind like a mischievous child demanding attention—Sarah, shooting a goose in panic born from cumulative stress; our investigation derailed yet again by a twist no one could have anticipated or prepared for; the cosmic joke of maximum response to minimal threat. But there was no laughter in me. Not anymore. The humour that might have carried me through had been exhausted somewhere in the past forty-eight hours.

Just an ache behind my ribs and a silent prayer that whatever thread we were pulling on here, whatever pattern connected deliveries and disappearances, might still lead somewhere that mattered. That this detour, this absurd incident, hadn't cost us crucial time or opportunity.

"Sarah, wait!" I called out after her, though even as the words left my mouth I wasn't entirely sure what I wanted to say beyond her name. Sorry for being harsh? Don't go? Let's start again and pretend this didn't happen? Can we salvage something from this disaster?

It didn't matter what I'd intended—she didn't stop. Her pace was sharp and defiant, eating up ground with long strides, her silhouette shrinking rapidly against the misty backdrop of grey skies and swaying trees. She shoved her wet hair away from her face with violent gesture like it had personally offended her, like attacking the hair was safer than attacking me or the situation or herself.

"There's blood in the house," I yelled, pitching my voice above the wind and thunder to ensure she heard, offering the one piece of information that might matter more than dead livestock.

That stopped her. Not immediately but within a few steps—a slight falter in her stride, a stiffness entering her spine that betrayed professional instincts overriding personal fury. Detective reasserting dominance over wounded ego.

She turned just enough that I could see the outline of her face, sculpted in profile against the sheeted rain. "And a body?" she asked.

I shook my head, rain flicking from my lashes with the motion, water cascading from my jaw in sheets. "No. Just this goose," I replied, nudging the limp carcass with the toe of my boot to emphasise the point. It shifted in the mud with sickening limpness, one sodden wing unfurling slightly with the movement, as if death itself was embarrassed by the fuss we'd made. As if the goose's spirit was apologising for the inconvenience its demise had caused.

"I'll go call for forensics," Sarah declared, her voice clipped but even. Then she turned and kept walking, headed for the car without another word or backwards glance.

I watched her retreat with jaw clenched, frustration curling around my thoughts like smoke—visible but insubstantial, present but unable to be grasped. I wanted to call out again, to bridge the distance opening between us. To apologise properly, maybe, for being harsh when she was clearly shaken. To say something that might soften the edge that had returned to our interactions, that might recover some of the fragile détente we'd achieved with the chickens and the potoroos.

But the time wasn't right, and the words didn't come. They stuck in my throat, blocked by pride or fatigue or simple inability to articulate complex emotions whilst standing in the rain beside a dead bird.

Turning toward the cottage, deliberately breaking the tableau, my thoughts shifted back to the trail of blood inside. That strange, halting line that ended without explanation. The wet droplet that didn't belong chronologically, that contradicted the dry trail and suggested impossibilities. Someone had been there. Someone had bled there. And the timing of events remained mysterious, the sequence unclear.

Something had happened here. Something important that transcended both the blood in the cottage and the dead goose by the dam. And we were close, I could feel it in my bones.

But for now, I was alone again—me, the dead goose, and the storm. The trinity of absurdity. With a final glance at the bird, acknowledging its sacrifice to my partner's panic and our collective stress, I muttered something unintelligible beneath my breath. Not quite prayer, not quite curse. Just sound giving voice to frustration and exhaustion.