“Listen, I’ve drank enough tonight to put all of you under the table. When you’re this old, and you gotta go, you gotta go, or you go on the spot,” Verna said, sliding out. “I’ll find it myself.”
“Joe, what about Roxy’s idea of the pit?” I asked.
“We’re on top of it, and it’s covered. I’d have to move the truck and pull off the metal cover—”
“Give me your coats,” Verna commanded from outside the truck. We looked to see her standing by the light switch, her finger prepared to flick it up.
“Jesus, what is wrong with you?” Joe whispered.
“I will turn on these lights and they’ll know in a second where you are. Give me Lynn and William’s coats. Now.”
“God damn you, woman,” he said. “You’re gonna go hunch down in the bathroom under all those coats and wait this out—”
“I’m counting down. Starting now: five, four—”
“Shit!” Joe yanked off William’s coat and took mine as I shrugged it off.
“Miss Cliff,” William said groggily. “Are you leaving us?”
“Sorry kid. I’m done with all this. I know what they’re capable of doing. And your coat, too, gimpy. And that stupid sock hat of yours too, Joe. It will be cold in that bathroom.”
“I hope when they start shooting, they aim for the bathroom.” Roxy winced as she took off her coat.
Joe threw the coats out. As Verna slowly gathered them and walked towards the bathroom, the voice came again from the street. “Lynn Roseworth, you have one minute to come out. Please don’t make us harm your family.”
“Jesus, what are we going to do? We have to go,” Roxy said. “Just gun it out of here, Joe. We’ll have to take our chances.”
“They’ll be on our asses in two seconds, they’re right outside. They missed before, but now they’re at close range.”
“There has to be another place we can hide,” I said. Hearing the panic in my voice, William started to cry.
“Joe,” Verna’s voice came from the door. “Give me twenty seconds and then follow the alley down to where Janice Stoney had that crappy secondhand store. You can follow Sugarhill Street out.”
“What are you talking about…?” Joe said, watching Verna shuffle to the front of the building towards a door. Instead of her long coat, she now wore mine, and had the hood up. We could see she’d stuffed Roxy’s coat into William’s with the hood sticking out, and had placed Joe’s sock hat in the hood.
To complete the image, she’d tied her own coat around the waist of the makeshift boy, to cover his legs from the cold.
“What is she doing?” Joe demanded.
“Verna!” I whispered, covering my mouth.
She couldn’t have heard, but she did turn around and look at me. “Tell him,” she mouthed the words. “Tell him what I did. And get him out.”
Verna unlocked a door and stepped out of the building onto the main street, closing the door behind her, holding the crudely assembled dummy in her arms. “I’m here! Don’t shoot!” she cried out.
“Put the child down, Mrs. Roseworth!” the voice boomed.
“No!” Verna yelled out. “I won’t let you have him! I want a phone!”
“We have to go,” Joe said, jumping out of the truck and gingerly opening the doors to the alley.
“Mrs. Roseworth, put the child down. Walk over to us with both your hands in the air.”
“I’m not coming a step closer until you get my husband on the phone! He’s a US senator!”
Joe slid back into the truck. “What’s going on?” William asked. “We can’t leave Miss Cliff—”
“Now, Mrs. Roseworth!” the soldier on the megaphone ordered.
“No! I want my husband on the phone—”
There was no order to open fire, only the sound of automatic weapons unloading. Joe threw it in reverse. I covered William’s face as we slid out of the garage and into the alley.
The shooting continued for several seconds more, masking our noise enough for us to make a sharp turn and approach another street.
“Jesus,” Roxy’s voice was tight. “Oh my God….”
“God love you, Verna,” Joe murmured quietly.
I made the sign of the cross across my aching chest.
“What happened?” William asked.
I held him close. “Miss Cliff wanted to save you.”
“Shouldn’t we go back and get her?”
I kissed his forehead and told him to close his eyes and try to rest.
Joe drove at a slow pace, unable to use his headlights. For the first time since arriving in Argentum, I was grateful for the fact that this was a small, isolated town. There were no streetlights on the side streets, which allowed us to creep along without being seen.
“Do you even know where you’re going?” Roxy whispered.
“You could blindfold me and I could still make it around town. At least, I hope so.”
“Once they… look closer at the coats, they’ll know. They’ll start looking for us,” Roxy said.
“If we can get up and over the rise…,” he said.
“Well, I sure couldn’t,” Roxy said. “It’s complete ice and snow. You better have a plan B.”
“It’s the only way out of town.” He leaned in to the windshield.
The lights of Main Street were still in view off to our right. Joe drove as far on the side street as he could before it dead-ended. Then he had no choice but turn towards the town’s main thoroughfare.
When we reached Main Street, he edged out just enough to look. We all leaned forward, seeing the Humvees along the boardwalk start separating. One disappeared down the alley where we’d gone to reach the mechanic shop, and the others turned towards the medical center before splintering off onto side streets.
“Hold on,” Joe said, turning left. Almost immediately, we began to climb the incline that had stranded Roxy only hours before. I whispered a silent prayer for the sharpness of Joe’s snow tires. We passed the crashed van and the police cruiser, its lights still flashing.
“Looks like my dancing partner survived after all,” Roxy said bitterly. “He was lying by the car when we ran off. Someone must have come to get his sorry ass.”
As we crested the hill, I looked back, certain we were being pursued.
My eyes lingered on the empty street for a moment before they were drawn to the heavens. Even the snow was unable to block out the two massive shapes hovering miles above the far edge of town. Their color was difficult to determine, but the thousands, maybe millions of lights, outlining their diameters and edges were clear. Comprehending their size brought on a wave of fear, like a child seeing a whale for the first time. I could only gauge they were the size of cruise liners, maybe even the battleships I’d seen on TV. I felt nauseous at the thought of William in one of them and looked away, but felt compelled to return my gaze, to make myself believe I’d really seen them.
Of course I had. I’d been in one too.
As we went over the hill, the last thing I saw was another beam of light shoot to the earth below.
Joe then stopped the truck, switched gears, and began to back up while turning the wheel.
“What are you doing?” Roxy demanded.
Joe ignored her, and pulled down the stick shift. The plow on the front of the truck slowly lowered.
Roxy’s hands flailed. “Joe, just keep driving—”
“Woman, I’m telling you what,” he said, waiting for the plow to crunch against the earth. He then drove off the road, the snow immediately piling up before him.
“They can’t chase us if they can’t get through,” he muttered.
Joe continued to drive a half circle and promptly dumped a huge amount of snow and ice on the road. He backed up and took another scoop, piling it behind the first.
“Now, we go,” he said, slowly advancing onto the road.
I glanced back to see lights coming up over the hill from the town. A Humvee was over the rise a moment later.