A complex of tennis courts sits on the far side of the Wizard’s north wall. There are five in total, abutting the suburban subdivision that developers named Desert Glen. The courts are flanked by large cypress trees, watered at enormous expense. This is a desert, after all. At dawn, most of the houses are locked up tight, curtains pulled. Blond heads peer out from time to time to check if the apocalypse has arrived at their door in the shape of unruly mobs of black-clad Antifa come to destroy their American freedoms, or at this point who knows—maybe spaceships from above, or the rise of hidden lizard overlords. It’s August. Everything seems possible.
As the sun rises, a young woman in tennis whites pushes a Lobster Elite Liberty Ball Machine up the middle of the quiet main street. The Lobster Elite is loaded to capacity, with one hundred and fifty balls. It can fire them at adjustable speeds to a distance of up to one hundred feet. The young woman, Story Burr-Nadir, pushes it ahead of her on a set of rear wheels like a hand truck. In her right hand she carries a can of gasoline.
It is 5:25 a.m. and the temperature in Palm Springs is already 104 degrees. Ahead she can see Mobley’s fortress. Its perimeter wall stands ten feet tall, but from up the street Story can tell that the roof of Mobley’s guest house is maybe thirty-five feet away, the main house farther on a southwestern trajectory. She pictures the rain of tennis balls she is about to launch.
A pickup truck passes her on oversize tires, slows to a stop. The cab rides some six feet above the ground. There is a gun rack in the back window. The driver’s window slides down. Inside is a man in a baseball cap.
“Need a ride?”
Story looks up. Samson DeWitt sits behind the wheel. He found the truck in the parking lot of an IHOP. All the diner’s windows had been shot out, the bodies of diners mixed with fallen patriots, police officers, soldiers.
The engine was still running, keys inside.
God or luck?
“Stop fucking around,” Story tells him. “We’re late.”
“Yeah, yeah,” says Samson, pulling forward. He flips a bitch in the cul-de-sac, aiming his back bumper toward the chain-link fence that separates the center court from the street. He puts the truck in reverse, steps on the gas. The impact throws him back against the seat, but the chain link gives, the fence toppling. Samson parks the truck next to the net, tailgate aimed at the Wizard’s back wall. He jumps out of the truck, carrying a large plastic Super Soaker—the Soakzooka ($20.99 at Amazon)—which can hold ten gallons of water and fires a deluge up to thirty feet. It is designed to be shot from the hip, like some kind of pool toy weapon of mass destruction. Samson goes around back and lays it in the truck bed. He wears a Smith & Wesson 9mm on his hip for when the real bang bang begins.
Last night, Samson sat with his father in the dark pet shop. Together they fed the store’s thirteen dogs with treats taken off the rack, throwing them across the room and watching the dogs run.
“Promise me you’ll get her back,” Avon said, not looking at his grown son. The bandages patching him up were already soaked with blood.
Samson threw a handful of treats. “We’ll get her together,” he said.
Avon thought about this. They sat in silence as the others loaded the vehicles. Neither father nor son had shaved in six days. Samson remembered standing on the toilet when he was small, watching his dad run the disposable razor over his face. It was still so surreal for him, having his father here in this place at this time. And yet of course this was how the story had to end.
“Dad,” he said.
Avon looked at him. It had been over a decade since Samson called him by anything other than his Christian name, or motherfucker.
“Do you ever—” the boy asked, for in this moment he looked like a boy again, small and scared. “Do you ever feel bad—about what we did.”
Avon turned back to the dogs, who were crowding around them in a frenzy. He threw another handful of treats.
“No,” he said.
Samson nodded. Not a day had passed since Blountstown when he didn’t relive the moment, didn’t see the troopers’ faces as he fired, didn’t feel the flush of adrenaline and the wave of shame and despair.
“I do,” he said. “I think we made a mistake. Me.”
“You protected your father,” said Avon, “as God intended.”
Samson sighed, not wanting to descend into another rabbit-hole conversation with the old man about Bible codes and Constitutional cabals.
“They were just doing their jobs,” he said.
“They were agents of oppression.”
“Dad.” Samson put his hand on his father’s arm. “They were somebody’s sons, too.”
Avon stiffened, pulled his arms away. He threw the bag of treats itself, hurling it away from him, as if renouncing the whole facade.
“All that matters now is your sister. Understand?”
Samson nodded. He thought about arguing, but there was no point. He scratched a golden retriever between the ears, got to his feet. Some divides are too big to cross.
“I’ll get her back,” he said.
Now, on the tennis court, he and Story lift the ball machine into the truck bed. Story removes the lid, and Samson pours gasoline over the pile of balls. The smell of it hits them—that semi-sweet toxic waft. Story coughs as Samson uses a plastic funnel to fill the Soakzooka.
“Surf’s up,” he says.
They settle on a forty-five-degree arc, dialing in the angle on the ball launcher. They’ve agreed that Story will stay up here for the first ten balls, to make sure nothing goes wrong, and then head for the rendezvous point. Samson has a different journey to take. He jumps from the tailgate, takes a gas lighter with a telescoping nose from his pocket. He sets it under the mouth of the ball launcher, rigging it with duct tape to ignite the balls as they fire.
They stand for a moment, staring at the tiny blue flame. It dances in the low morning breeze.
“I’ll see you soon,” he tells her.
She nods, thinking of her mother and stepfather, now dead, who used to make chocolate chip pancakes with smiley faces on them. And somewhere out there her half brother, the orphan. If she lives, she will find him and never let him go.
“Nobody else,” she says. “We don’t lose anyone else.”