But beside him, he felt Denny’s gun swinging up, just like in practice. Then the general’s pistol was up, and firing.
ABOUT THE SAME TIME. ATHENS, TNG DISTRICT. 12:40 AM EST. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2025.
“Four larks and a wren,” Larry Mensche said, loudly—but not nearly as loudly as the wild laughter from the guards. “Fuck you,” one of the guards said. “We even knew that would be your fucking password, but we ain’t none of those guards. You got the wrong guards. You stayin’ where you stayin’.”
On the surface of his mind, Chris thought, I am deranged by this. I am mad. I cannot comprehend the failure of the plot. What do I do?
Deeper down, he thought, Thank God you couldn’t be in broadcast news without getting some actor training.
Chris drew a deep breath and tightened his vocal cords. Make’em jump. Sound like a gut-shot cougar. He screamed, “Four larks and a wren, four larks and a wren, four larks and a wren.”
The guards roared with laughter. So far so good. He wailed it, sobbed it, chanted it, and kept it coming. “Four larks and a wren, four larks and a wren.”
“All fucking right,” one of them yelled, “that’s enough, you know it ain’t gonna work, you poor stupid bastard, cut it out.”
He stepped up his volume and energy, driving his voice till his throat was raw and his ears rang from his own volume. “Four larks and a wren, four larks and a wren, four larks and—”
The guard burst in, shouting, “Shut up!” and reached for Chris’s collar.
Chris reached over the man’s arm, gripped the little finger, and yanked back, turning the arm over and extending it. His left hand, fingers compressed into a spear-hand, jabbed along the man’s extended arm and over the shoulder to strike his throat with crushing force. Chris grabbed an ear, pivoted forward so that he went up the man’s still-extended arm like a swing dancer coming back in, and slammed his right fist into the man’s already-crushed larynx.
He felt his opponent’s body go limp. Ecco, Samson, thanks. Chris pulled the pistol from the guard’s holster.
This wasn’t any weapon he knew, but it didn’t matter; the next guard through the door was still unsnapping his holster when Chris swung the gun by its barrel backhanded into the man’s chin. He followed him down as he fell over, and used the gun like a hammer on the man’s forehead, twice.
Chris backed away on the opening side of the door, and lunged forward when it opened and the third and final man came through. With the gun jabbed against the man’s temple, Chris screamed “Open all the doors now!” like a movie psycho.
The man raised his hands above his head. “The keys are in my pocket, you’ll have to—”
The man was staring at the gun and never saw Chris’s foot sweep; with a startled cry, he fell backward, and Chris raised the gun high and brought it down with all his force on the top of his head, and then on the face.
With the keys from the guard’s pocket, Chris unlocked Larry’s cell, and Jason’s. Behind them, a door clicked open; General Phat came in with his hands up. “Don’t shoot, the irony would be too much for anyone. I thought with all the action going on, it was time to use the screwdriver Cam had smuggled to me last week as a just-in-case,” he said. “I need to grab something and then we need to be on the road west, now.”
Outside, torches and lanterns, whooping and shouting, filled the campus a few hundred yards away. “Wish we knew if that was a good thing or a bad thing,” Larry said.
“If it were a good thing, Cam would already be with us,” Phat said. “That’s either his failed diversion, or he lost his gamble. We’ll have to say our prayers for him while we run.”
“One more thing to check,” Larry said. “Chris, hand me that gun you took off the guard.”
Gingerly, Chris did. “I didn’t feel any safety and I wasn’t sure I could figure out—”
“Yeah. It’s a Newberry .65, bastard child of a horse pistol and a modern automatic.” Larry pointed it into the air and pulled the trigger; it dry-fired. He pulled out the magazine. “Not loaded. So they weren’t supposed to kill us, so Grayson doesn’t expect to hear gunshots.” He darted into the main guard room, rifled the desk, found eight full magazines. “Works just like the Newberry Standard rifle,” he said. “Bigger slug because it’s a smoothbore. Accurate to about arm’s-length compared to anything you’re used to. Massive stopping power if you do manage to hit anything. Let’s go.”
As they hastened along the dark road, Larry said, “Cam said you had the plan.”
“Such as it is,” Phat said. “We’re going to cross this bridge and follow the maintenance road onto the abandoned golf course, out onto a big flat stretch of fairway. Once we are there, I’ll use this gadget in the jar to call in help. Meanwhile, for a bigger challenge, you will be laying but not lighting a triangle of three fires, about a hundred yards apart.”
“Has it been cold enough to send all the snakes to ground?” Chris asked.
“Not being a snake, I wouldn’t know. I’d avoid sticking your hands down holes or under bushes.”
“Also,” Larry said, “our gear is gone; I don’t suppose you have anything we can light a fire with, assuming you do want them lit eventually?”
General Phat chuckled. “This is the first time since I was twenty-one that I’ve been glad I smoke.”
ABOUT 3 HOURS LATER. ATHENS, TNG DISTRICT. 1:15 AM EST. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2025.
Jenny had never looked more beautiful than she did in candlelight; she had been waiting in his favorite nightie to give him a hero’s welcome, and he’d accepted enthusiastically.
Now he sat cross-legged and upright on the bed, catching his breath. Jenny lay gasping like a trophy marlin. Pity that the only men I actually killed were those pathetic stooges, he thought. I would have liked to see old stone-faced Cam-boy beg for his life… .
The thought of Cam screaming, the real memory of his slack dead face, Jenny’s spill of blonde curls across the pillow, and the sheen of sweat on her big breasts, started him again. He sprang onto Jenny, pinned her, pushed her legs apart.
She squirmed and cried out; this was past the point of her pleasure. He knew she was sore, and he knew too that she would not only forgive him but come to treasure the memory, as she had their wedding night and the other triumphant nights when he had been like this. Teenage-boy bragging resounded in his mind: she’ll walk funny for a week, she won’t be able to sit down—
Her cries of pain and fear brought him to another climax. She curled away from him. “No more, please, baby. I hurt.”
Instantly remorseful, he brought her ointment, stroked her hair, soothed her while she cried about how scary he was. She clung to him; he rubbed her back. If ever he had really made anything his own—
Pounding, then shouting, at the door.
He rolled from the bed, yanked on sweater and pants, put his boots over his trousers, and threw the door open. Reverend Whilmire and Reverend Peet stood there, escorted by four soldiers with rifles.
Whilmire said, “We have an emergency. The Pueblo spies and General Phat are gone, two of their guards are dead, and the medic doesn’t think the third one will regain consciousness. Did you know anything about their escape plan?”
“Only that Shorty Phat was supposed to be the guy that knew it, and if we kept them all locked up it wasn’t going to matter.” Grayson grabbed his coat from the rack; it was freezing outside. “Are any troops in motion yet?”