“Ma!” Howard screamed. “Ma!” There was a thud against the inside of the windshield.
Lovecraft and Glory bolted upright, spilling what was left of the coffee. Lovecraft switched the light on, revealing Howard slamming his injured hand against the glass. Just beyond that were the remains of the dead cougar, barely visible behind the dried blood and saliva that caked the windshield.
Howard pounded the glass again, just in front of the cougar’s skull, a discolored white mass with black eye sockets. “Ma!” he called again, then, “I’ll kill you, you son of a bitch! I’ll kill you!” He reached for the window.
“Stop him!” cried Lovecraft.
Glory leaned forward and tried to restrain Howard, but he was too strong for her. He grabbed his pistol in his left hand and started to roll the window down with his right.
“He’s having a nightmare! Wake him up!”
Glory pulled at Howard. “Bob! Wake up! Wake up! You’re okay!”
Howard merely swatted her away, stuck the pistol out of the window, and pulled the trigger. Light and sound exploded just outside the window, and the recoil, in his loose grasp, snapped the metal barrel against the window, leaving a long crack in it. Howard suddenly froze. He looked around him, quickly, then drew the gun inside and rolled; the damaged window back up before anything could get inside. “I’ll be God damned,” he whispered.
“Bob, are you lucid again?”
“Where the hell are we?” Howard asked.
“We’re in New Mexico. You were having a nightmare,” said Glory.
She reached over to feel his forehead. “You’re feverish, Take your hat off.”
Howard brushed her hand away. “He killed Ma,” he said. “Who?”
“That bastard killed her.”
“It was a nightmare, Bob. It is the doing of Cthulhu. Wake up.” Howard blinked at the flashlight beam in his face. He frowned. ‘
Then his face relaxed, and he appeared wide-awake. He looked at’ Glory, then at Lovecraft, in the dim light, reflecting from the inside of the Windows. “I ain’t lettin’ no WIld animals kill me,” he said very soberly. “They can eat my dead carcass for all I care, but they ain’t killin’ me. No, sir.” He lifted his pistol again, this time pointed at his head. ,
“Put it down” said Lovecraft. “Put the gun down, damn it!”
“Look,” Howard replied with a deadly calm, “I saved three bullets. One for each of us. I say we use ‘em while we can. I’ll be glad to do the honors before I shoot myself. Glory?”
“You’re a raving maniac!” said Glory. “Shoot the damned animals, not us!”
“You’re sure?”
“You’re out of your mind!”
Howard rolled the window down again, this time just a crack, and fired; a coyote fell dead, punctured through the eye.
“HP?”
Lovecraft wasn’t as quick to reply. He could see the cold logic of it. Indeed, it was heroic logic, to be sure, and he wished he could participate in it like a man, but some primal instinct for self-preservation, even with the knowledge of imminent doom, prevented him. “No, Bob.”
Howard fired again, and something screeched in the near distance. He rolled the window back up, and when Glory reached for the gun, he slapped her away with the side of the barrel. “Keep on your side,” he warned, pointing it at her. Glory scooted back to the passenger’s side and waited. Howard put the pistol barrel just above his right ear and, without a moment of hesitation, he squeezed the trigger. Glory closed her eyes involuntarily at the explosion, the flash, the sharp smell of cordite. When she opened her eyes again she saw Howard and Lovecraft looking at each other over the seat back in a stunned silence. There was a thud on the roof, and blood began to ooze down through the bullet hole-animal blood.
“You stupid son of a bitch, look what you done!” Howard shouted.
“That was my last bullet!”.
“You’re a coward!” Lovecraft shouted back hysterically. “You’re just a big coward! I’m not letting you kill yourself!”
“Now how am I gonna—” Howard stopped abruptly and seemed to get his bearings once again. “Oh, sweet Jesus,” he whispered.
Glory looked at the expression on his face. “Bob?” she said. “Are you awake?”
“I’ll be God damned,” said Howard. “Did I just do what I think I did, or was I just sleepwalkin’?”
“You weren’t exactly walking,” Lovecraft replied, unable to stop a smile at seeing his old friend back to himself.
As Howard loudly berated Lovecraft for causing the hole in the roof of his car, the tearful Glory closed her eyes and prayed for God’s help. In all the excitement inside the car, they had forgotten to pay attention to the animals outside, and when Glory opened her eyes again, she noticed she could see outside without the help of a flashlight. At first she thought the sun had risen, but the light was the cold light of the moon. “Look,” she said.
The animals had begun to disperse. The loud din of fluttering bats had faded, and in the quiet moonlight the desert creatures had come to their senses once again. In a few moments only the few shadowed’ lumps of dead carcasses were visible, and the landscape was once again cold and clear.
STILL, IT TOOK a while for them to gather the courage to get out and examine the car. Howard pulled the dripping remains of the cougar off the hood and flung it as hard as he could; it broke into two pieces and landed several yards away. He opened the hood with hands trembling with fatigue; the first hose he touched hissed and fell to the ground, where it quickly slithered away, but otherwise, there was nothing seriously amiss, just some easily remedied dust clogs and patches of fur.
Lovecraft, on the other side of the car, dragged a dead coyote off the roof. Under the dimming beam of his flashlight, he cataloged the dents and scratches on the chassis, some unexpectedly deep but none detrimental to the car’s mobility. Even the tires had escaped any significant harm.
And later, while Howard and Lovecraft compared notes and argued about how best to wash the car in the middle of the desert, Glory stood against a back fender, slowly puffing on a cigarette to relax herself. Her legs would not stop shaking, and her head was still abuzz with images of the feral animals. The first cigarette did not last long; she finished it and ground it out under her heel before she realized she wanted another. With jittery fingers she fished one more out of the pack and snapped a match against the box. The small, sulfurous flame exploded with momentary light and pungency before it settled into a steady glow in the windless night. Glory put the tip of her cigarette to it, puffed until the tobacco glowed, then blew the flame out of the corner of her mouth, extinguishing it. Odd. She could still see something past the glow of her cigarette. She thought it must be the afterimage of the match flame, but when she turned and blinked her eyes, there was no afterimage. She cupped the cigarette in her palms and looked once again out into the darkness and saw a single steady light, like a lantern, approaching from the distance. In front of it bobbed two other lights, glowing orbs she was now more than familiar with-the glowing eyes of a nocturnal animal.