He walked back into the polar night with Medora’s boots beneath his arm, the mask still fastened to his face.
VII
Cheeon started shooting as soon as Marium reached the line of vehicles in front of his cabin. He didn’t know the make of rifle Cheeon had in the attic but it was without stop, ripping cup-sized holes through the trucks. He could not fathom why a man would have a weapon like that, how he’d even go about getting one. He looked over to a cop to tell him to duck, duck lower, then saw a piece of his face and skull tear off in sherbet under his helmet. He ducked then and fell dead.
The rounds came faster than he’d ever seen or heard. He could see the flame from the long barrel in the attic window. It pivoted smoothly up and down, right and left, attached to a tripod. Cheeon wasn’t quitting to reload. He didn’t need to. The windshields and windows of the trucks were shattering, spraying over Marium, the men, the ground. Air hissing from shot tires. Rounds clunking into engine blocks, dull but loud like hammer hits.
When Cheeon turned the gun to the nearby pines the rounds trimmed off branches, hacked the bark through. The snow showered down in great mist. The men in those trees fell dead to the ground with branches and snow. He couldn’t hear any men returning even a single round. They were crouched close to the earth, hands over their heads despite their helmets. Those who weren’t shot dead looked amazed that this was happening to them. Or that such a thing was even possible at this place.
He crawled over to the end of the nearest truck, beneath the back bumper. He waited there with the carbine for a break in the fire, for Cheeon to reload. But it’d been a minute or more and the lead would not stop. He thought that soon one of the trucks would catch fire and blow, that they’d all be burnt or worse. He could aim at the attic window from beneath the bumper. He fired there, splintering the wood of the cabin. Maybe getting a round or two inside at him. He just couldn’t tell.
Cheeon’s fire broke for several seconds, then started again at the truck Marium was under. The lead piercing the truck sounded again like quick hits with a hammer. He didn’t know what they were doing to the fuel tanks. He could see the rounds erupting in snow beneath the truck, hear them against the chassis. And once more he just could not understand why this man would have that weapon here. What purpose it was supposed to serve other than this one upon them.
He crawled back around, crouched behind a wheel, saw a man try to dash to a spruce where another flailed, yelling. This man was hit halfway there, his blood flaring bright against the white before he fell sideways. His insides spilled, steamed there pink in the snow.
A minute more of this and Cheeon quit. Whether to reload or just watch all he’d done, Marium could not know. At the left flank of the cabin a man shielded by spruce began firing at the alcove. It must have been his service pistol—the pop-pop discharge sounded pitiful after the barrage they’d just heard. Marium hollered for him to hold his fire. He knew as soon as Cheeon saw where the rounds were coming from he’d mow down those trees and that man along with them.
The trucks were perforated, made of tinfoil. He yelled again for everyone to stay low. A man was facedown near him, by the exhaust pipe, in an oval of his own blood. Marium turned him over and saw that the rounds had gone through his flak jacket, into his throat. This man hadn’t had even a second for a last tally. Marium heard himself yelling again—for someone to get on the radio, the satellite phone, something, to call in backup. But no one responded to him.
He could tell they didn’t want to move at all. Someone he couldn’t see, whose voice he didn’t recognize, yelled for a doctor. It was an odd request, he thought, since there wasn’t a doctor among them or coming. No doctor who could undo what was being done here. Then Cheeon’s fire hit where this man lay and the voice abruptly quit calling.
He saw Arnie there on the ground with his carbine. He crawled near him and said his name. Arnie looked at him as if trying to remember who Marium was. Or what Marium might have to do with this alien thing now pressed upon him. He said Arnie’s name again, could see the shock in his eyes. Shock always looks the same, he knew—a cross between surprised and sleepy.
Arnie wouldn’t respond. Marium slapped him then, hard on the face, and was ashamed at the force of his hand. The snot flew slant from Arnie’s nostrils and he seemed embarrassed by this. He wiped his nose with a glove and the snot froze there in a white streak. He began blinking, swallowing, and Marium knew then that he’d come around.
“Are you hearing me now, Arnie? Arnie, goddamn it, please look at me.”
“I hear you.”
“You see those rocks there?”
He pointed behind them at the uneven row of boulders beside a snowed-in patch of spruce. Arnie looked to the boulders and nodded.
“You’re gonna go to them, get behind them. I’ll cover you as you go. Are you hearing me?”
“I am. I’m hearing you, Don.”
“Don’t run till I start unloading, but when I do, run quick, please. As soon you get there stay low between that dip there, between those two big ones, you see there? You see where I mean, Arnie? Please look, goddamn it.”
“I’m looking. I see it.”
“Then I’ll let up, and as soon as you hear me stop I want you to train that rifle on the window and don’t let off the trigger till you see me reach the cabin, the right side of it. The right side. Am I clear?”
“It’s clear, boss.”
“Is that magazine full?”
“It’s full.”
“Please check. Check right now.”
“It’s full.”
“You have others in that vest?”
Arnie felt his vest as you might feel for your wallet. “I have them,” he said. “They’re right here.”
Marium saw that the lap of his pants was soaked through with urine. On the hood of the truck sat an unshot cup of coffee, smoking there with the lid off, waiting for someone to come sip from it.
“You ready, Arnie? Are you ready now?”
“Yes. Yes, I am.”
“You haul ass to those boulders as soon as I start, and when you get there unload on the son of a bitch and please don’t stop till you see me reach the cabin. Do not let off on that window but for Christ’s sake watch me too, okay, to make sure I’ve reached the cabin before you stop. Tell me you understand.”
“I understand. I’ll do it, boss.”
“You do it, Arnie. His weapon can’t go through boulders, you understand that? Stay behind the rocks.”
“I’ll do it.”
Marium motioned to the others, to those who were left, those looking at him. Motioned to hold their fire. He crawled beneath the back bumper of the second vehicle in their line. He began unloading on the upstairs window full auto. He hoped the rounds would last in time for Arnie to make the row of rocks. Arnie couldn’t spare those few seconds it’d take Marium to load in another magazine. The rounds dislodged snow from the cabin roof, which slid down and off in a powdered sheet.
In a minute he was empty. Cheeon knew it and trained fire on him then. The rounds filled the wheel well, loud near Marium’s face. They hit the rear axle as he crawled backward from beneath the truck. When he was clear he looked himself over for blood.
From the boulders Arnie began shooting hard at the cabin. Cheeon waited it out. When he did, Marium sprinted, out of view of the attic window. Slipping, falling in ice and snow. Crashing heavy onto both elbows, his stomach onto the stock of the carbine, the wind kicked from him. He struggled to breathe. Between a gap in their trucks he saw Arnie’s fire stop. Marium showed him a thumbs-up but didn’t know if Arnie saw or not. And then Cheeon started in on him, the rounds sparking against the boulders, chipping off shards in a thin cloud of snow and rock dust.