But it felt good to have someone telling him what to do again.
He’d been broken of his own will.
And Sarge had been too vague with what he’d wanted. And the rebels had been too unrealistic.
But this plan, it sounded plausible, with clear cut things for Art to do, things for him to accomplish.
“That’s the point of life, I suppose,” muttered Art. “You just need something to do with your time.”
“What are you talking about, you imbecile?”
“Quite the vocabulary, you’ve got.”
“That’s it. We’re getting out of here. Now we’re going to have to be quiet.”
Art felt Janet’s rough hands grabbing him. She pulled him up to the standing position, grunting with exertion.
Art stood there for a moment. His limbs felt like jelly.
He collapsed, falling into a heap on the floor. His head knocked against the floor. Hard.
“Idiot,” muttered Janet. “You’d better hope they didn’t hear that.”
They waited another ten minutes. At that point, Art was getting some feeling back into the parts of him that had gone numb.
“You can stand on your own now?”
“Yeah,” muttered Art.
Janet led him by the hand to the door. She opened it, and light flooded in.
Art’s eyes were overwhelmed. But it was only really the light of a couple candles flickering in what was otherwise nothing but darkness.
They were in the same house Art had been staying all along. He must have never been inside the room he’d been held prisoner before, since he hadn’t recognize it.
It was night. That meant everyone in his regiment would be sleeping.
They were supposed to keep a guard. Sarge’s orders and all. But everyone was so beaten, battered down, and always exhausted, that the whole guard thing had been dispensed with fairly early on in the formation of the unit. Before Sarge would get there in the morning, someone would scramble up and pretend to have been on watch all night, at the ready for anything that might have happened.
Sure, it meant that they might be attacked in the night if anyone was crazy enough to try to attack one of the militia’s own regiment houses. If enough people attacked, they might take the regiment by surprise, and Art and all the others would have died. But most of the men had just grumbled vaguely at the possibility. They’d known their lives weren’t worth that much. Even to themselves.
Janet didn’t have to tell Art to keep quiet.
They tiptoed through the hallway. They were upstairs. Several bedrooms had their doors open, with men and women slumbering on the floors. The beds weren’t there for some reason.
One guy was sleeping in the hallway, with his face up and his mouth open, snoring. Janet went first, stepping carefully over the man.
Art followed. He hoped his legs had made a full recovery. He still felt the rush of the pins and needles in them, as the blood flow returned them.
He made it over the guy.
They were headed down the stairs. As slow as possible.
Janet turned back to Art in the dim light of the flickering candles from upstairs. He could just barely see her face in the darkness.
They exchanged a knowing look. They both knew that the second to last step creaked loud enough to wake up someone.
Janet stepped carefully over it.
Art started to do the same.
And then he slipped. Maybe it was his leg. Maybe it was his footing.
It didn’t matter.
In trying to step over that creaky step, he lost his balance completely and fell with a crash down the last steps.
“What’s that?”
“If you’re going to wake me up, at least bring me a beer,” someone shouted.
“Come on,” hissed Janet, taking Art’s hand and pulling him forcefully to his feet.
They still had to walk past the main room, the one where Art had slept most nights.
They hurried along, Janet pulling his hand to get him to hurry up.
“Where’s my beer?” shouted someone’s sleepy voice.
“It’s Art!”
“He’s getting away.”
“Shit,” muttered Janet.
She pulled Art’s arm so hard it hurt.
They were almost out the front door. Janet had it opened.
Someone was behind them. Art heard the heavy footsteps.
He turned to look.
It was someone whose face he knew. But he didn’t know the man’s name. He was one of the more intense members. He wasn’t like Art. He hadn’t been an employed member of society. He’d been a criminal, and he had the look to prove it. He somehow kept his head shaved despite the lack of running water. It must have hurt to shave his head like that every day. His beard was long, and he was intensely muscular, despite the lack of food.
He was the kind of guy everyone stayed away from. If they needed something from him, they asked quietly in their most polite tones.
He wasn’t the sort of person you wanted to wake up in the middle of the night.
The man started towards Art. He moved fast. His eyes gleamed with an intensity that made Art shudder involuntarily.
A gunshot shattered the silence.
Art’s ears rang.
Art saw the bullet wound first. Right in the man’s side. But he didn’t fall.
Art turned to see Janet standing there, arm straight and long, a handgun held, her finger on the trigger.
The man kept coming. But more slowly.
Janet fired twice more.
Two more shots to the chest.
He fell.
The gunshots had woken up the entire house.
Now they had everyone after them. An entire regiment of this ragtag criminal militia.
Janet was already out the door, running across the suburban front lawn, towards the street.
Art dashed through the doorway, trying to keep up with her as best he could. But he was weak.
And he had no gun.
Art’s entire body was in pain. He was running across the lawn.
Up ahead, Janet was already way past him, disappearing down the street.
She turned back to look at him once. And she kept running.
Art tripped over something on the lawn, falling face down onto the ground.
Somehow, despite his weakness and intense pain, he managed to turn himself over.
The last thing he saw was the barrel of a revolver, pointed right at his face. He didn’t see the face. He didn’t know whether it was a man or woman. Or whether it had been someone he’d been vaguely friendly with once or twice or someone he’d offended in an accidental way.
It didn’t matter.
He was done.
26
Maybe he should have had Mandy go through the back window he’d just smashed out.
No, it was better this way. There wasn’t much room to squeeze through. It was hard to get the glass out of the edges.
She’d have been exposed.
Max looked up from where he squatted in the tiled-over pickup cab. Mandy’s butt was disappearing through the window.
No one from the SUVs had appeared.
Not yet.
All Mandy had to do was get to cover.
Max was more worried about her than he was himself.
He had his rifle ready. He kept it in the middle of the two cars, not knowing who’d exit first.
Mandy was out of the car.
“Go!” shouted Max.
One of the black SUV doors opened. Passenger side.
Max was quick. He took aim.
Hopefully Mandy was sprinting. But he couldn’t keep his eyes on her and get off a good shot at the same time.
A man appeared out of the SUV. He held a handgun that he leveled towards a target away from Max. Obviously he was aiming at Mandy.
The man was lowering his arm, his elbow bent.
Max was quicker.
He squeezed the trigger.
The shot rang out.