Nick heard a car door slam, then the grind of a starter and the roar of the engine. Bent in a crouch, he began moving in the direction of the sound.
And then he turned around the front end of a Chevy pick-up and came face-to-face with the enemy: the big deputy who had been giving the orders.
The deputy was in cover between the pickup and a Pontiac wagon. He crouched in front of the Chevy, leaning against its bumper. His hat had been knocked off, and his forehead badly gouged by one of the claymores’ weird munitions. Blood ran down his face, spattered his khaki uniform. He still carried his shotgun in both hands. His left hand was bloody where the middle finger had been shot or blown or blasted off.
At the sight of the man, Nick’s blood seemed to flash info steam. The deputy looked at Nick in surprise as Nick came running around the truck’s fender. Maybe he’d been deafened by the mines and hadn’t heard him coming. Nick could smell the man’s sweat. He screamed and lunged at the man. The deputy lifted the shotgun in both hands to fend Nick off, and Nick grabbed the shotgun and drove into the man, knocking the startled deputy on his back. They sprawled onto the soil of the parking lot, Nick on top. He scrambled to a crouch above his enemy, his hands still gripping the gun. The barrel was slick with the deputy’s blood. The deputy writhed under Nick, trying to throw him off, bucking like a horse. Nick bore down with all his weight onto the shotgun, trying to press the gun against the deputy’s throat and strangle him.
They both gasped for breath in the hot afternoon air. Nick drove the shotgun down, toes digging into the soil, slipping on the slick grass. His sweat dripped onto the deputy’s face. The deputy blinked blood from his eyes, saw the barrel coming near his throat. His eyes widened as he saw the danger, and then Nick saw determination enter the deputy’s face; the deputy gave a long, growling exhalation as he gathered his power and began to press Nick back like a weightlifter bench-pressing a set of barbells. To Nick’s astonishment the deputy lifted him upward, pressing him into the air no matter how much weight Nick put on the shotgun.
Terror sang through Nick. If the deputy could throw him off, then he could finish Nick through superior strength.
The deputy’s body gave a heave under Nick as he positioned himself for greater effort. From the way the deputy shifted, Nick realized he had one leg between the two legs of the deputy, and with a roar he shifted his own weight, pivoting off the shotgun as if it were a high bar in gymnastics, and dropped his knee with full force into the deputy’s groin.
The deputy’s eyes popped, and his breath went out of him in a great whoosh. Instead of bearing down further on the shotgun, Nick pulled at it, trying to snatch it out of the deputy’s grip. “Mine!” he shouted. The barrel of the shotgun came free from the deputy’s maimed left hand. Nick tried a final wrench to yank it entirely free, but the barrel hit the chromed front end of the Chevy, cramping Nick’s movement, and the deputy hung on with his big right hand. Nick yanked the gun back and forth, banging the weapon into the Chevy and the Pontiac wagon on the other side, until he realized that the deputy was reaching his left hand across his front, toward the pistol that was holstered at his belt.
“No!” Nick yelled. He hammered at the deputy’s wounded hand with his right fist. The deputy gave a gasp of pain and surprise and snatched his hand back. Nick gave a wrench to the shotgun, managed to break it free of the deputy’s grip.
“Mine!” he shouted, and smashed the butt of the shotgun into the deputy’s face. The deputy gave a convulsive heave under Nick and almost threw him off. The man’s hands clawed blindly upward, trying to grab the shotgun again or defend himself. Nick slipped the gun butt into the deputy’s guard and smashed him again in the face. Blood spattered from the gouge on the man’s forehead. “Mine!” Nick cried. “My gun!” He smashed another time. The deputy arched his back and Nick drove the gun butt again into his face.
“Mine! Mine!” The shotgun rose and fell. “Mine! Mine, you bastard!” Nick stopped striking only when he ran out of breath. Both Nick and the deputy were spattered with blood.
A cry of savage joy rose in Nick’s heart. He lurched to his feet, brandished the bloody shotgun over his head. “Warriors!” he screamed to the heavens. “Warriorrrrrrrrs!” The shout was taken up by the other fighters now streaming through the parking lot. Some waved guns, others clubs. The shooting seemed far less intense than it had been, though a shot that snapped over Nick’s head drove him again into a crouch.
He looked down at the deputy lying at his feet and felt his raging triumph die and turn to cold, creeping horror. Dazedly, Nick read the plastic name tag on the deputy’s uniform. Jedthus C. Carter. His head swam. He closed his eyes. He had done this, had beaten this man to death with his own weapon.
“Move! Keep moving!” People shouted to each other as they ran through the parking lot. Nausea eddied through Nick’s vitals. He put the shotgun down. He heard the thud of feet nearby. “Don’t stop!” a woman’s voice shouted close by.
Don’t stop, Nick repeated to himself. Don’t stop except to pick up a weapon. His own rules. He reached blindly for the deputy’s gun belt. The blood on the leather sent a surge of acid into his throat. His fingers felt thick as sausages as he tried to work the buckle.
“Go! Go!” someone shouted. “Get in the car!”
Go, Nick thought numbly. He finally got the belt open and pulled on it, rolled the deputy partly over and dragged the free end out from under. He rose to a crouch and stepped clear of the deputy and finally, now that he could look someplace other than the body, dared to open his eyes. The gun belt dangled heavy from his hand. He saw the deputy’s automatic pistol, a leather case for ammunition, another for hand cuffs, and a portable radio. Keys dangled from a spring-wound key ring.
“Warriors to the cars!” a woman shouted. “Home Guard give them cover!” Those were Nick’s own rules the woman was shouting. Nick listened dully as he blinked at the radio on his gun belt. Cars rumbled into life. Then Nick strapped the gun belt over his hips and picked up the shotgun and stepped from between the two vehicles, careful to keep his head down and lots of Detroit iron between himself and any likely enemy.
The deputy had a car, he thought. And these keys would fit it. It would be a good car, a fast car. And there would probably be ammunition and other supplies in it.
There was a shot from the southernmost of the two roadblocks, and a horrid scream from somewhere in the parking lot. Another voice began loudly to call on Jesus, a voice with a desperate keening edge that raised Nick’s hackles. Nick bit down on the bile that rose in his throat at the sound, stuck his head up for only a brief instant.
There was only one police car in the area, parked next to one of the two trucks that had been backed up to the gate. During his escape Nick had run right past it without taking notice. Nick ducked low, ran to the vehicle, and flung himself into the driver’s seat. He kept his head below window level, picked what looked like a car key on the deputy’s key ring, stuck it in the ignition, and turned it.
The engine roared into life like a beast emerging from hibernation. Air-conditioning began to blast cold air. The radio turned on as well.
“Miles,” a voice said, “what’s the situation now?”
“We got people runnin’ all over the camp,” another voice said. “I hear ’em startin’ up some cars. We’re keepin’ their heads down, but I don’t think we got any men left up there.”