What happened next happened very quickly.
Keith Sturling had played a little football in high school, mostly running back, but he’d hit the blocking sleds enough to know what to do at that moment. The trick, as the coach had explained, was to run through the obstacle in your path, to make a ramrod of your body and not let it bounce you back on your ass. And that’s exactly what Keith did: launched himself at the spindly legs and elongated penis in front of him and ploughed through them like a bull in a Halloween corn maze.
Ed made a startled and breathless sound, something between a hiccough and a grunt, and as he hit the concrete the gun fired into the wings of the kiosk above their heads. One of the florescent tubes exploded and a hail of broken glass tinkled down.
Mike launched himself at Texas as the sleek, chrome pistol swung round toward Keith. Keith had his hand in his pocket now, reaching for the 9mm Mike had given him out of his glove compartment. He pulled it free, checked the safety, and pointed it at Ed, whose own gun had clattered away.
Rudy ran out of the store dropping tampons as Keith assumed a shooter’s stance and squeezed two quick rounds into Ed’s ribcage. His body twitched with the impact of each slug and then lay still in the bright glow of the filling station, his pants twisted around his ankles and his penis lying across his belly like a dead mackerel. Blood began to ooze out from under him, searching for cracks and channels in the concrete as Mike and Texas struggled for the shining silver gun.
The struggle ended when Keith walked over and put Mike’s pistol in the would-be thief’s face.
A shocking spray of blood and brain splattered against the gas pumps. The man’s Rangers cap flew away and landed near Rudy’s feet. It had a ragged hole the size of a baby’s fist punched through the crown.
The three men looked at one another in the ringing silence.
The world had suddenly changed. They found that they were changing with it.
Strange days, indeed.
“Grab that last load you went in for,” Mike told Rudy, then bent down and took the former Rangers fan’s gun from his cold, dead fingers. “Then let’s get the hell out of here.”
Keith took a step toward the Cherokee then stopped, his expression clouded, unable to recall what he’d been doing before the Suburban pulled into the lot.
“Grab that gun,” Mike said, pointing to Ed’s .45, lying several feet from the man’s outstretched hand. “And check their rig. See if they brought any spare ammunition.”
Keith nodded, grateful for the distraction.
Three minutes later they rolled back onto Valley View, heading west this time, back to Quail Street. Back home.
On the way they passed a brightly-lit Subway franchise. The booths were empty and the young girl behind the counter looked bored, ready to wrap up her meats and cheeses and close up for the night.
Rudy marveled at this, knowing that two blocks away a 7-Eleven had just crumbled off the face of the Earth.
Part Three
THE LIVING
1
Three days passed.
During those three days gunshots could be heard at a distance and the electricity went on and off, as if a heated battle were being waged around a master switch at the local substation.
The men of Quail Street (a subdued Larry Hanna included) stood in a knot at the end of Bud Iverson’s driveway, trying to divine which way the storm was heading. For the most part it seemed confined to town, but occasionally a charged volley would erupt much nearer.
Rudy suggested they might better use the time reinforcing their homes, nailing up plywood and bracing their doors with 2x4’s, working in pairs to get it up quickly and efficiently. At the same time he broached the subject of a last safe fallback room with Larry, reminding him of his bomb shelter.
“Sounds reasonable,” Larry allowed, nodding his head. “I’ll have to clear it out; we’ve been using it for storage for years; Christmas stuff mostly, lights and decorations¼ I guess we won’t be needing any of that.” The thought seemed to deflate him, as if there was little else to live for.
“Not until December anyway,” Rudy said, offering a hopeful smile. “Do you need help cleaning it out?”
Larry glanced back at his house, regarding it with puffed cheeks and squinty eyes, as if calculating how many men it would take to lift the whole structure off its foundation and move it ten feet to the left.
“I think Jan and I can probably manage, but I’ll holler if we come across anything that might take an extra hand or two.” He turned back. “How soon will we need it?”
“I’d say the sooner we start moving in supplies, the better,” Mike ventured. A gunshot punctuated this sentiment and the men turned toward Kennedy Street. The war sounded like it was getting closer, perhaps as little as a quarter-mile away. It was hard to say once the echoes died away.
“All right,” Larry said, his voice gray and sluggish, as if he hadn’t been sleeping. “Why don’t I get right on that.” He turned and retreated toward his driveway.
“Well,” Keith said, hands on his hips, looking at the remainder of the group. “Where do we start?”
Bud and Rudy went to work on the east side of the street, beginning with the Iversons. Mike and Keith took up at the Sturlings.
“What about me?” Shane wanted to know, his eyebrow hoop gone and black eyeliner scrubbed away.
They put him on the Sturling’s rooftop with a rifle and a pair of binoculars.
2
Rudy held the sheet of plywood over the Iverson’s picture window while Bud hammered in the nails. They were long nails and took a long time to drive in, but once Bud got the top two corners secured, Rudy was able to let go of the sheet and pick up his own hammer.
“You know Larry a lot better than I do,” Bud said, pausing between windows to wipe his brow. “Do you think it’s a good idea to set up the safe room in his house?”
Rudy took a drink of water from his canteen. “He’s the one with the bomb shelter.” He shrugged and wiped his chin. “Can you think of somewhere better?”
Bud glanced next door at the Hanna’s. Larry and Jan might be inside clearing out the shelter, but all the curtains were drawn, so it was difficult to say what they might be doing. “It’s not the bomb shelter I’m questioning, it’s Larry. He doesn’t seem to be drifting on an even keel. I’m debating the wisdom of putting all our eggs in one basket and then giving them to him to hold.”
Rudy nodded. The same uncertainties had been nagging him for the past three days, yet he found himself wanting to defend Larry, or at least give him the benefit of the doubt. “I think he’s coming to terms with what’s happening; it’s just taking him a few more days to find his feet. I think the fact that he was out here today and willing to cooperate is a good sign.”
Bud reflected on this and nodded, donning his gloves again. “I’m just having a hard time reading him. One day he’s with us and the next he’s locked in his house, not answering the door or the phone. It gives me a bad feeling, right here.” He thumped his stomach. “I have this image of all of us pounding at his door while he’s inside his shelter, laughing at us.”
Rudy had visions as well, only in his Larry hadn’t been laughing, he’d been sobbing. All the rest amounted to the same though.
“Well, what do you suggest?”
Bud shook his head. “I’m not suggesting anything, mostly because I don’t know what we can do about it. I’d sure feel better if we had some sort of failsafe though, a guaranteed in.”