Quentin’s radio crackled as he stepped off the curb. He turned it up enough to hear it as he walked toward the Ford.
“Sheriff, we got some kind of riot at the K-mart. Attack by some kind of gang—Sheriff, are you there? Quentin?”
“Yeah, I’m here,” Quentin said, as calmly as he could. “I think we have an armed robbery in progress across from the station, at the Bank of America.”
“Could you repeat, Sheriff? There’s something wrong down at the K-mart. I think you better get down there. I’ve sent—did you say armed robbery?”
Quentin had stepped down into the dirty snow-covered street. The man behind the wheel of the Ford was staring directly at him, the black man’s eyes intense, his hands gripping the steering wheel.
“I said, I think we have an armed robbery in progress,” Quentin repeated carefully, holding the button down on his radio. A car passed him, coming between him and the Ford. He recognized the driver, a neighbor, who waved. He didn’t wave back. He drew his pistol. He used the cover of the car’s passing to pull it out of the holster. He slid the radio’s handset back into place, lowered his pistol and hit the safety on the Sig, making it hot. He simultaneously pressed the pistol against the back of his thigh, which he hoped would keep it out of the black man’s sight line.
The deputy was speaking to him again over the radio. Quentin’s heart had kicked into overdrive, thumping hard enough for him to feel it beating. His vision started to close down, the adrenalin creating a tunnel-vision effect: the front of the Ford, the black man’s face staring at him over the steering wheel, now all distant and sitting at the bottom of the tunnel.
Walking slowly, Quentin turned his head and glanced up at the steps of the bank. A women and a child were heading up the stairs of the bank building. The young woman stopped and motioned to Quentin with her hand, as if she were warning him of something.
Quentin, thinking he’d missed a car, turned to his left. The street was clear. He tried to re-focus on the black man in the Ford. The girl on the stairs was yelling something; he couldn’t quite make it out. He was having trouble finding the black man’s face at the bottom of the adrenaline-created tunnel. Then he heard the scream behind him and was shoved forward, viciously. He knew he was going to lose his balance and fall. He tried to get his gun hand up, away from him, so that he wouldn’t shoot himself.
He landed better than he thought, his pistol in front of him; he was facing the front wheel of the Ford he’d been heading toward. He heard the scream again and something was on him, jumping up high on his shoulder. He felt himself being dragged over the street. When it stopped, his face was shoved down hard against the rough salted-and-snow-covered asphalt. He saw the asphalt come and go. He almost lost consciousness, his head slammed down hard again on the asphalt.
On the edge of consciousness, Quentin heard the scream again. Then a gunshot, very loud and very close. He felt the pressure on his neck ease. He saw something roll to his right. A body came into view. A car horn honked loudly as his vision returned to normal, and he could see clearly again. He tried to get up, his pistol still in his right hand.
Quentin looked up at a man standing a few feet away and wearing a ski mask. The man had a short combat-style shotgun pointed at the body lying on the ground to Quentin’s right. The man with the shotgun turned toward Quentin, racking the shotgun. The man’s eyes were penetrating, dark, efficient.
“Get up,” the man said. “Get the fuck up!”
Quentin picked himself up off his hands and knees.
“Put the gun down.”
Quentin dropped his pistol as he stood, still slightly dazed. The end of the man’s shotgun barrel was touching his chest. Quentin realized he was bleeding; it was the blood in his eyes that was making it hard to see clearly. He had half a picture of the snowy street.
Three men were in the Ford now. He looked to his right. An old man was lying in the street, a spray of blood around him on the snow. Quentin didn’t recognize him. He couldn’t believe that the old man had been the one to knock him down and then pick him up and fling him around like a doll. He must have been eighty years old. The old man’s chest was imploded from the shotgun blast; a portion of his face, from his nose down, was blown off completely.
Quentin turned toward the sheriff’s station across the street. One of his deputies had come out. His hands were up in the air. The deputy was looking at Quentin. The deputy’s face, a confused blank, took in the scene. The traffic on Main Street had stopped to the left and the right of the masked man.
“You got a real problem, lawman,” Ski Mask said. “There’s plenty more of those things. They’ll be all over town soon. You’ll see.”
Quentin looked into the eyes of the man speaking. He didn’t understand. Had the robber just saved his life?
Ski Mask ran to the Ford and jumped into the back seat. The Ford moved out into the street, not quickly, but as if it had all the time in the world. It drove into the intersection slowly and deliberately, and headed down the street.
Quentin bent and picked up his pistol. He looked up at the girl on the stairs of the bank who had tried to warn him. She was gone. The deputy was jogging across the street toward him.
“Sheriff, you all right? Jesus Christ, I never seen anything like it!” Quentin looked to his right at the body of the old man that had almost killed him. “You’re bleeding bad, Sheriff. We better get you over to the doctor’s.”
“What happened, Troy? I don’t understand. They just robbed the bank?”
“Sure did. But that bank robber just saved your life. That thing that came down the street just killed three women in The Copper Penny.”
“What?”
“That’s why I came out. Someone ran into the station and said some old man had gone crazy in The Copper Penny and was killing people. That bank robber just saved your ass!”
“That’s impossible,” Quentin said. He looked down at the dead body lying in the street. The car that had been stopped in front of him raced on. “That’s an old man,” Quentin said, half out of it.
“Old man or not, that guy body slammed you like you were a little girl,” the deputy said. “I saw it myself.”
Quentin touched his face. His right eye was starting to swell shut and his face was covered with blood. He could feel the stickiness and the gravel and salt that had gotten into the lacerations on his face and chin. A siren wailed in the distance and Quentin, wiping his eyes, saw a fire truck making its way down Main Street, its canary-yellow engine bright against the falling snow. He watched in horror as it approached, cars pulling over to make way. People were crawling on the fire engine, hanging onto the ladders and onto the engine’s side, like apes at the zoo. One of them—just a kid—threw the driver from behind the wheel and down onto the street.
“My God,” the deputy said. “Oh my God!”
The thing driving started to howl loudly.
“It can’t be,” Quentin said. “That’s Eileen’s son, isn’t it?”
The young boy stood up on the seat as the fire engine raced down Main Street, out of control, and began to hit cars and plow over them. Eileen’s son put his head back and howled as loud as the engine’s siren. The deputy pulled Quentin out of the fire truck’s way.
They watched the fire truck crash into the AG Edwards storefront down the street. The people hanging from the ladder dropped off and loped up the street toward Quentin like great apes. Some of the things used their knuckles to propel themselves.
Quentin stared in disbelief. Bystanders on the sidewalks were being attacked. In a moment the gang of ape-like things were on them, and it was complete chaos.