one of the creatures to the desert floor. Another, opening a gouge in the pulp of the night air. Now a whole torrent as the vehicle that bore the gunmen drew close enough to be recognizable as a pickup. Figures in the back leveled rifles, shouts rose over the riddle of bullets. But it was a brief hope as I felt the first of the long, reaching tendrils of their hands graze my back. Lead whizzed by my head. War zone was right on. Adrenaline pushed with an amphetamine insistence, but it wasn’t going to be enough. Goodbye Jagged, goodbye me, please let my circle of hell be far from hers.
The weight behind me—I couldn’t tell if it was one of them, two of them, or the whole goddamn army—drove me to the ground, desert searing my face as I slid across it. I turned to meet my death, to be introduced to it proper, to watch its robe swirl in the motionless wind and its sickle catch the light of the moon. Yeah like that, moon running like honey along the blade, falling in a long heavy drop.
The teeth and face before me exploded, bringing me instantly to life again.
“Get in the fucking truck, asshole!”
I turned against guns blasting like cannon fire around me. Arms reached out of the back of the spinning truck, dragging me up onto the open tailgate. My head struck the rim of the bed, bringing me even more awake, and I turned to see the fuckers falling like targets at a shooting range, only in fluid and meat, and teeth, fucking teeth, shattering in their misshapen skulls. “Hell yeah,” I kept saying. “Hell yeah, you fucks !” As I watched them fold under the butts and barrels of rifles, the crash guard and the big tires of the truck.
“Anything in the jeep we might need?” one of them asked me.
“Gas?” I said.
We sped to the jeep. Men jumped out, cutting the belts, hauling the jugs aboard. A few last pops at the dispersed remainder of the devil mob and we moved away towards the sweep of sky ruled by the moon.
In the silence that settled, the temptation to ask questions flared and then died. The faces that stared back at me were worn to their frames. Eyes that had glinted as the gunfire rained were now dull and lifeless, routine. I became aware it wasn’t the moon we were following but the wound in the earth that produced the vile. We were hunting.
There was only one more incident along the rupture, near the road I had driven in on, a few choicely placed shots in the heads of the scattered few we encountered, no passion really, no victory yells. Then we were beyond the rupture with only the moon in front of us. Again I felt the urge to ask, again it went away. There weren’t any answers. Not in this game. If anything made sense anymore, I suspected it was the staying and battling it out, the protecting your own.
We rode for several miles before the silhouette of a town came into view. This one had lights, which meant life—totally unlike the one Jagged had chased me through. I began to see the slightest changes on the faces of the men as we got closer, as if here at least was something in a world gone mad.
“We got a doctor,” the man nearest me said. “You look like you need one.”
So goddamn routine.
A low rumbling sound began. I fantasized for a moment that maybe it was an escort coming out to meet us, then I watched the degenerating shades of the faces around me: curiosity to puzzlement to consternation to awe. The rumble grew into a tremor, rattling the tail gate, the cans, bone. The driver braked hard and the truck skidded sideways, throwing bodies against me as the rear passenger wheel suddenly dropped and the frame struck ground. Curses abounded but were swallowed by the noise of the earthquake, itself a curse, a curse upon the Earth. Though the truck had come to a dead halt, it did not stop moving because it was now being carried by the lip of the opening rupture. My eyes and mouth must have opened with it as I stared over the side of the truck at the
The weight behind me—I couldn’t tell if it was one of them, two of them, or the whole goddamn army—drove me to the ground, desert searing my face as I slid across it. I turned to meet my death, to be introduced to it proper, to watch its robe swirl in the motionless wind and its sickle catch the light of the moon. Yeah like that, moon running like honey along the blade, falling in a long heavy drop.
The teeth and face before me exploded, bringing me instantly to life again.
“Get in the fucking truck, asshole!”
I turned against guns blasting like cannon fire around me. Arms reached out of the back of the spinning truck, dragging me up onto the open tailgate. My head struck the rim of the bed, bringing me even more awake, and I turned to see the fuckers falling like targets at a shooting range, only in fluid and meat, and teeth, fucking teeth, shattering in their misshapen skulls. “Hell yeah,” I kept saying. “Hell yeah, you fucks !” As I watched them fold under the butts and barrels of rifles, the crash guard and the big tires of the truck.
“Anything in the jeep we might need?” one of them asked me.
“Gas?” I said.
We sped to the jeep. Men jumped out, cutting the belts, hauling the jugs aboard. A few last pops at the dispersed remainder of the devil mob and we moved away towards the sweep of sky ruled by the moon.
In the silence that settled, the temptation to ask questions flared and then died. The faces that stared back at me were worn to their frames. Eyes that had glinted as the gunfire rained were now dull and lifeless, routine. I became aware it wasn’t the moon we were following but the wound in the earth that produced the vile. We were hunting.
There was only one more incident along the rupture, near the road I had driven in on, a few choicely placed shots in the heads of the scattered few we encountered, no passion really, no victory yells. Then we were beyond the rupture with only the moon in front of us. Again I felt the urge to ask, again it went away. There weren’t any answers. Not in this game. If anything made sense anymore, I suspected it was the staying and battling it out, the protecting your own.
We rode for several miles before the silhouette of a town came into view. This one had lights, which meant life—totally unlike the one Jagged had chased me through. I began to see the slightest changes on the faces of the men as we got closer, as if here at least was something in a world gone mad.
“We got a doctor,” the man nearest me said. “You look like you need one.”
So goddamn routine.
A low rumbling sound began. I fantasized for a moment that maybe it was an escort coming out to meet us, then I watched the degenerating shades of the faces around me: curiosity to puzzlement to consternation to awe. The rumble grew into a tremor, rattling the tail gate, the cans, bone. The driver braked hard and the truck skidded sideways, throwing bodies against me as the rear passenger wheel suddenly dropped and the frame struck ground. Curses abounded but were swallowed by the noise of the earthquake, itself a curse, a curse upon the Earth. Though the truck had come to a dead halt, it did not stop moving because it was now being carried by the lip of the opening rupture. My eyes and mouth must have opened with it as I stared over the side of the truck at the
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