“Oh, God!” Kyle ran into the house and grabbed his cell phone that was left on the dining room table to call an ambulance. He sped back through the kitchen onto the back porch and was about to dial 911. To Kyle’s shock Mario no longer lay there but was sitting upright as he did moments before. Kyle squat down next to Mario’s side. “Mario, you oaky?”Slowly, Mario turned his head, glaring at Kyle. Dark circles surrounded wide, unblinking eyes. Like an animal, Mario’s upper lip curled and bearing yellowed teeth, he gave a low snarl. Mouth open wide, ready to bite, and with the energy of a sprint runner Mario rose from the sitting position and lunged toward Kyle’s throat. Kyle jumped backward avoiding the attack and fell on his buttocks on the back porch. Mario stood up, turned around to attack. The adrenaline in Kyle’s body caused him to jump up to his feet. Kyle was backed against the railing of the porch as Mario advanced, white foam dripping from his mouth. The back porch was built right next to the chain linked fence that separated Tim and Sharon’s backyard from Jim’s backyard, the next door neighbor. Kyle quickly turned and leaped over both the back porch railing and the fence. He landed easily on the Jim’s grass then ran up the path between the two houses toward Jim’s front yard. Half way up, Kyle peeked back at Mario. Although clumsy, Mario leaped over into Jim’s side of the fence. Releasing guttural noises, Mario hastily followed suit keeping his wide eyes focused on Kyle. Kyle entered Jim’s front yard and quickly spied the neighborhood for help, no one was present. The houses aligned on both sides of the street were silent. No cars traveled along Curtis Drive, no pedestrians walked up the side walk. It was a typical, boring Saturday afternoon in this small suburb. The neighborhood’s emptiness did not deter Kyle to call for help. No one heard him.Swiftly, Kyle leaped over the fence that separated the two front yards and back onto his parent’s property. Screaming, Mario chased after him. Kyle remembered the front door to his parent’s house was locked. “The keys!” he shouted. He ran for the front porch fumbling through his pant’s pocket to find them. Mario stopped at the gate that Kyle just leapt over and gripped the top edge of it with both hands, letting out gurgling noises. He couldn’t get over the gate. To solve the problem, Mario simply ran out of Jim’s yard through the front gate and directly over to Kyle’s parent’s yard. This gave Kyle a bit of time.Kyle stopped on the porch of his parent’s house, in front of the locked front door which had a plane of large glass in its center. Cell phone in one hand, he pulled out his keys from his pocket and fidgeted with them to find the right one. Mario entered the Kyle’s parent’s yard through the front gate and ran up the walk way to the front porch.Kyle found the right key, opened the door, and stepped into the foyer, slamming the door behind him as Mario pounded on the thick glass, screaming incoherent sounds. Kyle locked the door as Mario watched at him through the window, pounding harder. The back door is still open, Kyle remembered. He quickly ran through the house into the kitchen and secured the back door.Kyle needed a weapon; he had to fight off Mario if he got in. Dad has a gun, he thought. Calling his mother on his cell, Kyle ran back into the living room. Mario pounded harder, it was just glass. If Mario found a brick he could easily shatter it. “Hello?” Kyle’s mother answered.“Mom! Where does Dad keep the gun?”“What? Why? Why do you need a gun?"“Mom, it’s an emergency, tell me where the gun is!”Mario picked up a chair from the porch and struck the glass panel of the door. It fractured a bit with a loud crack.“Mom! Where’s the gun? Tell me!”“It’s in the…”Mario pounded relentlessly on the glass of the front door with the backend of the chair. “What’s that noise?” Sharon asked.“It’s Mario! He attacked me and is trying to break into the house! You have to tell me where the gun is!”“It’s in the bedroom dresser! Bottom drawer on the right!”“Call the cops mom!” Kyle said before hanging up then jolted into the dining room and through a door into the only bedroom on the first floor. He pulled open the correct drawer and searched through a pile of white socks. And just like his mother said, a loaded .38 revolver sat at the bottom like an unearthed buried treasure.The sound of loud shattering glass crashed throughout the house. Mario finally broke through the front door. Kyle would not let himself stay cornered in his parent’s bedroom. Gun in hand, he quickly ran out through the dining room and into the living room. Mario was absent from the scene.Kyle moved forward, closer to the foyer. He could see the large broken window of the front door, jagged shards scattered on the floor, but no Mario. Perhaps he saw someone walking by and went after him instead? As Kyle took a step closer Mario came running into the living room from the foyer, mouth ajar, foam dripping from it. Mario lunged toward his prey as Kyle fired two shots into his torso. The slugs caused Mario to pause but it did not stop him. He continued forward and Kyle fired one more with no effect. With both hands, Mario grasped Kyle’s neck and attempted to take a large chunk out of Kyle’s throat with his teeth.Kyle put the nose of the gun into the forest of Mario’s thick black hair and pressed it against his skull. Mario, oblivious to the pistol, grunted like a mad man. With remorse, Kyle fired. This time Mario silently fell to the floor.Distraught, Kyle fell back onto the couch still clutching the gun handle. He just shot a man in the head. Could what he did really be called self-defense? Is a bullet to the brain be a proportionate justification against a weaponless man? There would be some serious explaining to do in front of a jury. Police sirens whaled in the distance outside and grew louder by the second. The authorities would soon see what Kyle had done.The sounds of creaking footsteps came from upstairs. Kyle looked up the stairwell and his brother, Jeremy, stood at the top with a wound covered in coagulated blood on his left arm. His skin was pale and he looked down at Kyle. Dark circles surrounded wide, unblinking eyes. Like and animal, Jeremy’s upper lip curled and bearing teeth he gave a low snarl.
