She couldn’t see anything.
She tried hitting the glass out with the flat of her hand. It didn’t move.
“I can’t see!”
Olivia smashed it with the butt of the rifle, and the windshield collapsed, spraying them with glass.
The walkie-talkie fizzed to life. “Give it up, Heather! You’re going to get yourself and the kids killed! Nobody wants that!” Matt said.
Olivia looked at her. “Do you want to answer?”
“Don’t worry about that. You just keep your head down.”
“I can answer him from down here.”
“There’s nothing to say.”
“Heather, please, pull over before anyone else gets hurt. We can talk this over. Ma agrees with me that this has gone on long enough. We can go back to the original plan,” Matt said.
She drove through the boggy grass and stole a look at the Hilux. The Toyota had much higher wheel arches and was making easier progress across the terrain.
But it was not so far to the sea now.
Another bullet sang past the car. She flinched after the bullet had already missed. Olivia sat up. Heather pushed her head down again.
Heather grabbed the walkie-talkie. “If we’re going to negotiate here, Matt, I suggest you stop shooting at us.”
There was a pause before Matt came back on. “We’ll stop shooting if you pull over,” Matt said.
“You stop shooting first and then we’ll talk.”
“Where are you going, Heather? This is pointless. There’s nowhere to go.”
“How much gas you got, Matthew? How’s that transmission?”
“We’re doing fine.”
Maybe they had enough gas for one car but not enough for the rest of the family to follow.
She looked in the rearview again. The Toyota was five car lengths behind them now.
She was hitting fifty miles an hour. A ridiculous speed on this terrain.
She hadn’t heard from Owen in thirty seconds. “Owen, are you OK back there?”
“Yeah.”
They hit something; the whole car shook and went up on two wheels for a second and then came down with a heavy thud.
Rearview.
Kate driving, Matt riding shotgun. With an actual shotgun. Ivan squeezed in there too. Ash from the bushfire they’d started falling now like snow.
Matt leaned out the truck’s window.
“Everyone down!” Heather said.
Birdshot tore through the Porsche.
Olivia was thrown forward into the dashboard.
“Kids!”
“I’m OK,” Owen said from the floor of the car.
“Olivia? Olivia? Olivia?”
Olivia wasn’t saying anything.
“Owen, get up here and take the wheel!”
“What?”
“Take the wheel!”
Owen grabbed the wheel as Heather bent over Olivia.
“What do I do?” Owen asked.
“Straight for the beach. It’s on cruise control. Just steer.”
Olivia was a rag doll.
Heather examined her. No gunshot wounds, but she’d hit her head.
“Uhh,” she said.
“Are you OK, sweetie?”
“I’m OK.”
“Heather, this is crazy! What’s your plan?” Matt asked through the walkie.
Wouldn’t you like to know? She looked through the smashed rear window and aimed the .22 rifle at Kate driving the Toyota. She squeezed the trigger; the Porsche hit a bump and she missed. She loaded another round and aimed at the engine block. That was a bigger target. She shot into the Hilux’s engine, and she definitely hit something.
Damn it. That was the last of the .22 rounds.
“Keep your heads down, kids! I’m taking over, Owen,” she said.
But before she could get both hands on the wheel, the heath ended and they were on the beach.
The Porsche went into a spin and the Toyota was on top of them.
Kate rammed them and the Porsche went up onto its side again. If they flipped, there would be no mercy. Logic demanded it. Ma demanded it.
Kate would slam on the brakes. Matt and Ivan would get out, drag them out of the car, and execute them one by one.
Heather wasn’t going to allow that to happen.
She slid her legs back into the seat and fought to bring the Porsche level.
The car landed with a heavy clump.
Her foot found the gas pedal.
The Porsche began to accelerate. Kate was still behind her but the Toyota’s windshield was cracking.
“Gotta smash that glass somehow,” Heather muttered.
“What about this?” Olivia asked, lifting The Complete Stories and Plays of Anton Chekhov from the floor.
“Go for it!” Heather said. Olivia switched the book to her left softball-pitching arm, took aim, and tossed the heavy hardback Tom had lugged all the way from Seattle.
It curved across the excited air like a tiercel on its killing parabola and hit the corner of the windshield, shattering it.
“Yes!” Olivia said.
The Toyota veered chaotically as Kate punched out the frozen glass.
Heather slowed and drove them along the beach, looking for the causeway they’d read about. The causeway that appeared only at the lowest of low tides, with the new moon and the full moon.
Where was it?
Where was it?
Where—
There. A little line under the water that went from Dutch Island to the mainland.
She accelerated the Porsche into the sea and pulled the lever that activated the snorkel.
She reached the causeway no one knew about except the two kids.
“We’re in the sea!” Owen said.
The causeway was about a foot underwater.
She wasn’t sure what to expect and was alarmed when the Porsche began filling with seawater.
Water sloshed around their feet.
The Toyota was still following them.
Olivia and Owen got off the floor as the water got deeper.
The whole car was swimming. She checked the mirror.
They were halfway across.
The Porsche’s snorkel was working well.
The current lifted them and began to carry them.
The current set them down again.
“Shit!”
The wheels lost their grip and gained their grip.
The Toyota was still in pursuit.
They were two-thirds of the way across.
“Shark!” Olivia said, sitting up.
Heather opened up the penknife and held it in her mouth. She pitied the goddamn shark that was going to mess with her now.
Come on. Come on.
Water.
Land.
Water.
Come on. We’re flying! Under the crow’s wing. Under the sickle moon. We’re swimming. With the fishes and the— No…we’re driving. The wheels were turning; they had hit sand.
“Do you feel that, kids?”
She drove through surf.
Something solid under all four tires. They were on the beach. The mainland!
She looked in the rearview.
The Toyota was just behind them, coming close for a last-ditch ram— Nope.
The Toyota lost its grip, hit a wave, and flipped.
Heather turned on her iPhone. She had no idea that in Seattle, Carolyn had called Jenny, the conference rep, and the Victoria police had been looking for them where the Porsche’s GPS had last pinged. If she could get a signal on the phone, they would be rescued in minutes.
The phone came on.
The battery was at 3 percent.
She drove up the dunes onto a deserted beach road and discovered she had a full bar of bandwidth signal. There was a text from Carolyn about Star Trek: Voyager.
“Is the phone working?” Olivia asked.
“Yes!” she said and dialed 000.
50