“Nobody,” he says, and tucks his gun into his belt.
Then Simon hears something whistle past his ear, followed by a crack. Avon grunts, falls to one knee. Another crack, and the side-view mirror of the rental car explodes. Story scrambles into the driver’s seat.
A third shot. Simon dives into the ditch. It is soft with corpses, their blood already dry from the wildfire scorch. In the distance, he sees three figures emerge from the darkness.
“I got one of ’em,” calls a voice.
More shots ring out, these from behind him. Simon turns. Avon is leaning against the front bumper, his arms resting on the hood. Blood is weeping from his side, just above his belt line.
He squeezes off ten shots, drops the clip, grabs for another.
To the west, one of the shadows says oof and tumbles backward. The others dive for cover. Simon can see them now. Two men wearing red firefighter helmets, like trophies, and carrying AR-15s. Avon reloads.
“Kid,” he calls. “Help me to the damn car.”
Simon thinks about that, about going out there, exposing himself. But there is no time for anxiety, only fear, and fear he can handle. He crawls out of the ditch, crouch-runs to Avon.
“Quick now,” says the older man, pushing himself up with his left hand, keeping his gun trained out over the car. Simon gets his shoulder into Avon’s armpit and lifts. Together they slide along the car to the open passenger door. Avon gets a grip on it.
“I got it,” he says. “Go.”
Simon moves toward the back passenger door. He grabs the handle and pulls the door toward him, but then bullets punch into the doorframe and shatter the glass. One of the shots takes Avon’s left ear off.
“Son of a bitch,” he says and drops into the car, firing wildly.
Simon tumbles onto his back, the wind knocked out of him by the road.
A dozen bullets punch into the trunk and shatter the back windshield. Simon crawls around the front of the car, scrambling to the driver’s side. He has visions of Story panicking and running him over. For some reason the idea of this is more terrifying than the firing squad, so he gets up and runs, staying low. He is barely inside the back door, before Story floors the car and tears off, the two back doors slamming shut from centrifugal force.
Gunfire tears up the car, spiderwebs the windshield. Story ducks low, peering over the dash. Beside her, Avon has his hand to his bloody head.
“Motherfucker,” he says. “Son of a goddamn cunt fucking Jew.”
Simon is in the rear footwell, hearing the hard thwacking sounds of bullets zippering the car. Story steers onto the left shoulder, scraping the guardrail as she veers around the parked truck. The nose of the Bradley tank clips the passenger door, tearing a gash, but then they’re past and racing into the night.
And it is here that the levy breaks for Story. Tears pour from her eyes. Her breathing stops, chest tightening. They’re going ninety miles per hour, and suddenly everything gets blurry. A wave of grief hits her. No, forget wave, a crushing tsunami of grief, because, of course, her heart isn’t empty. It’s weak-walled and swollen bigger than her body, and when it bursts, the feeling that floods through her is animal and uncontrollable. It explodes out of her, a ragged caterwaul. Her parents are dead and she is alive. Her brother is out there somewhere alone and scared in the middle of a civil war. Her boyfriend is either dead or a different person than he said he was, or both. The world is on fire, and she is on fire with it, and when the fire stops there will be nothing left.
*
The two shooters get to their feet, rifles smoking in their hands. They can’t see the car anymore, but they can hear the engine.
“Shit,” says the heavyset one. His heartbeat is jacked, on account of he worked in a battery and lightbulb store until this morning. Now he’s a full-on warrior.
“Shiiiit,” he repeats, “that was all the way epic.”
The pimply one looks down at Leroy, their corpse friend. Or corpse acquaintance is probably more accurate, seeing as how they just met him this morning. When Avon shot him, Leroy fell straight back with both legs bent under him, like a gymnast stretching.
“Look at Leroy,” says Pimply. Two hours ago, he slid out of the hills like a ninja and shot the living fuck out of six army boys, watching them dance, just like in the movies.
Fortnite Megadeath, he calls himself now.
Heavyset peers down at Leroy—who, ten minutes ago, wouldn’t shut up about how he sold ladies’ shoes and sometimes got to look up women’s skirts when he was fitting them.
Pimply crouches down, holds out his phone.
“Get my picture,” he says, throwing a peace sign, his AR-15 in his other hand.
Heavyset takes the phone, snaps the picture. Pimply’s face is streaked with soot like an Indian in war paint.
“Sick,” says Pimply, checking himself out on the screen.
Then they hear a low rumble, getting closer. Another sucker headed for the spider’s web. They see a muffle of light pinprick the highway to the west. Together they run back toward the army truck, Heavyset holding his pants up by the waist. Pimply is giddy. He doesn’t even mind coughing so much. They set up behind the truck’s real bumper, swapping in fresh clips.
A single headlight approaches, slows.
“Dude,” says Pimply. “Motorcycle. Think I can shoot him off?”
He raises his barrel, but Heavyset pushes it down.
“No, no,” he says. “Hold up. Let’s—”
He lies down on the ground, points toward the shoulder. “You go—and I’ll—” He moans. “Ohhhh. Help. I’m—I’m hurt.”
Pimply gets it, cracks up. He grabs both AR-15s, crouch-walks over to the ditch, slides in sloppy, getting a mouthful of soot, but he doesn’t care because this is how rock stars fuck.
Down the road the headlight slows, stops. They can hear the engine idling.