Mike unlocked the door to his house, stumped inside and collapsed into his chair with a sigh. He took off his fake beard and mustache and grimaced as he unscrewed his wooden leg. He eased into his chair and closed his weathered eyes, longing for a peaceful spring. He stayed this way for a long time, letting his joints relax after the ferocious workout of walking to the house from his 89 Cutlass Supreme. As he relaxed, Mike’s mind was filled with memories. He didn’t remember specific moments, words, or faces, simply emotions. He saw Isabella, her dress blurred by the weakness of his memory, her gentle figure slowly turning in the New England sunshine. He saw her hair, freely flying behind her in the warm breeze. He couldn’t make out the details of her face, only a brilliant crescent of a smile looked back at him beneath a sea of freckles. He was brought back to reality abruptly as the left wing of his house exploded in a swarm of broken glass and debris. Mike instinctively threw himself to the ground. Spring had officially begun.

Frank felt the heavy bass of ridiculously sized subwoofers before he heard his enemy’s approach. He yanked out his hearing aid and grimly wheeled over to his dresser. He pulled out his top drawer and set it on his lap. Rifling through medals, ribbons, pictures, and papers, he found what he was looking for, a beaten cardboard box, which he snatched from the mess and shoved the rest to the floor. His hands shook as he hurriedly pulled a revolver from his waistband. He ripped open the box to reveal an outdated handful of bullets rolling around in the bottom. Quickly, he loaded the chambers of his revolver one by one, feeling the earth tremble with an explosion. Spilling half of the bullets on the floor, he poured the remainder into his shirt pocket and reached for his bifocals. He felt the walls tremble as his neighbor’s door was kicked in and he hurriedly wheeled himself behind his couch, cocked his weapon and steadied his breathing. The peephole darkened and his pulse quickened. Then the door slammed to the floor and a young man in a bloody oversized hoodie with a shotgun burst through and looked around wildly. Frank fired twice; the first shot broke the youth’s sunglasses on its way through his cornea and prefrontal cortex, the second shot hit him squarely in the left pectoral, shattering his breast plate as it ripped through the soft tissue of his right ventricle and exploded through his spinal chord, embedding itself in the door across the hall.