Elsewhere, ringing the park, surly but with shockingly little mourning for one of their own lost, men sit in their towers with their guns leaning against the walls, drinking coffee, glad that at least Linda is the one who has to clean up the mess. The least charitable among them resent Ray for dying and leaving one less guard in rotation so they all have to do more. The most charitable among them no longer live in the town or have anything to do with these families, so they have no presence in the towers.
Even Ray’s son Chuck cannot muster stronger feelings than general displeasure over his father’s death and the “whoopsie” inside the park, as Linda so annoyingly summed it up. They’re really going to dump this all on him next time. He’s a forty-five-year-old man, for fuck’s sake, and he’s still working for his father. Or he was, until a few hours ago. But where are his blessings from the great sacrifice? Why should he be tasked with making it run smoothly so other people can benefit? It’s a good town, but sometimes it feels like a prison sentence.
His radio statics with life at the same time several pops echo through the air from somewhere in the park. He lurches upright, scanning his limited view. He’s manning the guard tower nearest the gate, named Tommy for his great-grandfather, but he doesn’t see anything.
The static eats several of the words, but one of the guys—Ted, maybe? Sounds like Ted—is saying something about being shot at.
* * *
—
Linda has settled in bed at last, a compress on her aching head, when her nightstand phone rings.
“What?” she snaps. It’s got to be one of the men, probably wondering about the arrangements for Ray’s replacement, as if she couldn’t manage this all by herself, as if she hasn’t been managing it all by herself for decades! Maybe if she had some damn competent help, last night’s fiasco never would have happened.
“You aren’t on your walkie. Is there any way they could have a gun in the park?” Gary demands.
“No, we checked their bags on the bus, how could—” Linda drops the phone on her bed and rushes down the hallway, banging her elbow against the wall. Her purse is exactly where Mack left it on the table after thoughtfully replacing the spilled contents. Linda dumps it out, desperate. But of course she doesn’t find what she’s looking for.
She goes to the phone on the wall and picks it up, the line still connected. “Sorry, I dropped the phone. Chuck must not have checked well enough. It’s probably the military one. Treat her as extremely dangerous.”
Those filthy little cunts. Linda throws on her house robe, grabs her keys, and gets in the car.
* * *
—
“Which tower?” Chuck demands.
“Ferris wheel! They’re all here! Hurry!” The man is cut off. Chuck has a moment of confusion—the towers are named—but he knows which one Ted meant. Rose. Which is also weird, because Ted is usually on Ethel, but he must have swapped with someone. Bad luck for him. And for them all. Ted’s the worst shot of anyone, so they’ll have to get to him fast. And the Ferris wheel is on the opposite end of the park, a good two miles away since he has to go all the way around.
“Everyone! Get to Rose!” Chuck broadcasts, then climbs down and gets on his four-wheeler, gunning it away from his tower and its view of the gate.
LeGrand puts the walkie-talkie on transmit and holds it that way, jamming the line so no one can communicate. Then he fires one more shot for good measure at absolutely nothing and starts running.
* * *
—
“Goddammit, where is it?” Ava tears apart Ian’s bag, left on the floor of the abandoned pavilion. She’s the only one who isn’t in immediate danger, but she feels Mack and LeGrand’s peril acutely, a pressure in her chest, phantom claws piercing her own stomach. They’re ending this today. She pulls out an old leather book and shoves it into one of her many cargo pant pockets. Could work as a wick. But not if she doesn’t find the lighter.
“Ah!” she screams, triumphant, emerging once more from the depths of Ian’s bag with his sleek silver lighter. Thinking better of the book plan, she grabs one of Christian’s Athens Solar T-shirts, takes hold of the monstrous generator, and begins to drag it.
Her still-intact stomach sinks. Maybe they should have chosen someone with two functioning legs for this task.
“Fuck fuck fuckity fuck.” She grits her teeth against the pain. This should never have been her fight. But isn’t every fight her fight, whether she benefits from it or not? She’s so tired of having to fight.
“Mack,” she whispers to herself, closing her eyes, taking a breath. Then she crouches as best she can with a right knee and ankle that won’t bend anymore, shoves her arms through the metal roll cage around the generator—cheap fucks couldn’t spring for wheel attachments?—and stands with a roar.
One foot in front of the other is good enough, she thinks, then she laughs because she only has one good foot. But she’s enough. She has to be.
She is the goddamn strongest woman in the world.
* * *
—
In Mack’s mind, scarred over with wounds from that night, her father had lost his face. He had transformed into something towering, bent at impossible angles, with black holes for eyes. He didn’t hold a knife; he was a knife.
But Mack, staring at death, lets herself finally try to remember her father. And when she does, she laughs.
He had a beer belly. His arms and legs were thin, the hair there so sparse in some areas it wore right off. He couldn’t grow a beard. His eyes were like hers, too big, wide set, so that he gave the impression of always being distracted or slightly puzzled. The fastest way to set off his explosive temper—which was never a difficult task—was to ask if he was paying attention. That lost him most jobs.
He’d always tried to fix plumbing issues, would swear and rage and declare he was taking a break, at which point he would go out to a bar. Mack’s mother would quietly step in and finish the job so that when he got back, he could smugly explain he must have done it right, it just needed a few minutes to settle.
He yelled at his favorite television programs as though his feelings had any bearing on what might be happening on the screen.
He made pancakes with chocolate chip smiley faces, and whistled with the clearest, purest notes.
He hit their mother, and he hit them, not because he was strong, but because he wasn’t. No one who is strong hits a child. No one who is strong does anything he did.
And Mack has no questions about that: He chose to do what he did. He looked at the world and felt it owed him more than he had, and when that didn’t materialize, he took himself out along with everyone who had tried to love him, who might have been happier without him.
Finally, at last, Mack can form him in her mind as small, impotent, poisonously angry. Not a monster at all, but the most pathetically human of men.