Laughter. Rifle shots ripped through the house. A shotgun blast smashed a wall beneath them; a single pellet popped through the rafters, then bounced off the roof joists.
"Glen," his wife whispered, "come be here with me..."
"I can't!" he hissed.
Boots stormed up the stairs. Doors slammed open, furniture fell. A voice shouted: "Check every closet!"
The blast of a shotgun. Plaster exploding upward. "That closet's checked!" Laughter.
"Rings! Diamonds. Hey, asshole. Split it with me."
"They're mine. Find your own."
"Both of you!" Stonewall's voice boomed. "Stick that trash in your pockets. Search this house. You got two dead buddies and you're fighting over some phony rings? Search that closet, under the bed, up in the attic, everywhere!"
"Psst!" Glen hissed to Roger. Then he and Chris blocked the vent near them. The attic went pitch dark.
Furniture crashed down. The closet door leading to the attic access creaked open. Shoes and suitcases fell from the shelves.
"Hey, there's a trapdoor going up," a biker said.
"You going up there?"
"Going up. First, some reconnaissance by fire!"
An explosion of plaster, insulation, and splintered wood filled the attic. Sudden light flashed as the debris flew. Dim light glowed through the several holes in the access panel and closet ceiling.
As the biker pushed up the splintered access panel, Glen could hear Roger's breathing shudder slightly. But he could do nothing. He could not encourage or comfort the teenager. A word or a sound would betray them all.
The biker's head appeared above the rafters, swivelling in all directions. "Hey, you! You! I see you..."
"You got one?" a biker called from below.
Glen heard Chris stop breathing. Slowly, very slowly, Glen grasped the butt of the Magnum in his belt. Outside, bikers laughed and shouted. A motorcycle raced down the street.
The head dropped down. "Nah, nothing up there."
Stonewall shouted again. "Move it! We got this whole block to search. Find anything?"
"Nah," the biker answered, the last to leave the house.
"Then move it! Find that hero! Horse is going to waste my ass if I don't come up with that bastard."
Glen glanced out front, saw the last biker leave the house and start down the block. Stonewall came out of the house, shotgun ready, its long bayonet flashing. He turned, stared at the house. He saw the attic vent, stared at it. From the hip, he pointed the shotgun, fired.
Glen jerked Chris away as the louvers exploded. Light streamed into the attic. For a half minute, Glen and Chris lay without moving on the rafters.
"Glen!" his wife whispered.
"I'm all right," he gasped. He went back to the shattered louvers and snuck a peek. The front lawn was deserted.
They listened. In the house, there was only silence. But in the house next door, there were shouts and shots and crashing.
"Mr. Shepard," Roger whispered from the far end. "Can I let down the blanket now? I'm shot."
"What?" Glen crept over the rafters, crab-style, moving slowly and silently. As he passed his wife, he hugged her, gave her a quick kiss. Continuing, when he passed Jack Webster, he smelled fecal matter, heard the boy's teeth chattering with fear. Glen said nothing.
A single double-zero ball had punched through Roger's right forearm. There was a hole in the blanket that he had held over the vent, then a hole in the wall stud. Roger had obviously held the blanket over the vent for minutes after taking the through-and-through wound in his arm.
"Oh, god, it hurts," Roger sobbed.
Glen put his arm around the teenager's shoulders. "That's all right. You saved us. You're the hero of this battle. That Aryan punk over there talks tough, but when the going gets rough, he shits his pants."
"You fucker!" Jack shrieked. He lunged across the narrow attic, snatching the .45 auto from where Glen had left it. Glen pulled the Magnum from his belt. But the boy didn't turn the weapon on Glen. Instead, he grabbed the M-14 too, and the ammo bandolier, and disappeared down the access hatch.
"Jack! I'm sorry! Don't go out there." Glen stumbled to the hatch, but Jack Webster was gone. Glen grasped his belt of bullets and started after the boy.
"Glen, don't!" his wife called.
"Let him go, Mr. Shepard," Chris pleaded.
"It was my big mouth," Glen called back. "They'll take him if I don't get to him first. I don't want it on my conscience."
Glen Shepard dropped through the blast-splintered hatch.
10
Crying with shame and rage, Jack Webster ran from the back of the savaged house. He heard shots and voices in the houses down the block, motorcycles on the streets. Not wanting to chance going over the back fence, he slipped into the decorative hedges screening one yard from the other. For a minute or two, he lay there on his stomach, his face pressed into the rotting leaves, and cried.
But the rifle in his grip reassured him. "I'll show them. I'll kill some of them."
Hidden by the hedge, he crawled along the fence, searching for a hole. The rotting wood slats crumbled when he touched them, but the neighbor's chain link prevented him from crawling through. He continued to the corner of the yard.
In the corner, dogs had burrowed under the fences. The dog holes had been blocked with bricks. Jack pulled out the bricks, crawled under the fence, coming out in the backyard of the house diagonally behind the house where the others still hid.
The shooting continued as the Outlaws searched. Jack crawled through the untrimmed bushes of the backyard until he came to the back door. The door hung open, a ragged hole where the knob and lock had been. Crouching there for minutes, he listened for voices or steps inside the house. He heard nothing. Struggling to work the rifle's action, he jerked back the cocking lever. A cartridge flew out.
He marvelled at the size of the cartridge. He had only fired .22 rifles before. The bullet was huge. He put the .308 NATO round in his pocket. Holding the rifle at his hip and his finger on the trigger like he'd seen in the movies, he crept into the house.
Broken dishes littered the kitchen floor. He slid his feet over the linoleum, gingerly pushing the fragments of glass and china away rather than step on them. Once onto the dining room and living room rugs, he walked quickly to the front windows.
Down the street a few addresses, he saw the Davis house. The front door hung by one hinge. Looking up and down the other side of the street, he saw all the front doors had been kicked in or shot open.
Creeping to the blasted front door of the house, Jack eased it closed, then carefully blocked the door with a heavy cabinet. He went to the back door, blocked it also.
Sure he couldn't be surprised, he searched the house. In one of the bedrooms, he found clothes almost his size. He changed his stinking pants. The evidence of his fear and shame gone, he felt bolder.
He found jewelry, wristwatches, and money. He wore the man's wristwatch, pocketed the other loot. In the children's room, he found a knapsack. He filled the pack with food, soda pop, and a bottle of vodka from the kitchen. Then he had a breakfast of white bread and sandwich meats.
"This ain't a bad time at all," he laughed. After breakfast, when there was no further sight and sound of bikers, he looted all the other houses on the street.
Glen Shepard couldn't find the boy. He searched all the rooms of the house, the garage, then the backyard. He didn't risk the street or the other houses on the block. He couldn't believe Jack would have been so stupid as to go into the street. Finally, Glen returned to the others.
"Anything on the walkie-talkie?" he asked, clambering into the attic.