A bullet punched through the wall of the black camper and clanged against the pipe above her head.
LUKE
Luke saw KT’s hand go up, saw the other boys in Whiskey’s truck all struggling with their seat belts, saw Garrett’s shoulder buck ever so slightly as the AR-15 fired.
The truck’s windshield puckered. KT’s head snapped back like a doll’s. His eyes bulged. A piece of his forehead disappeared. His open mouth was empty one second. The next it was full of blood.
Boys started screaming, sprinting for cover, the doors of trailers, anywhere they could hide. Luke watched as Bethany sprang to her feet and bolted toward the Water House. Coach Parter raised his shotgun. Mitchell Malacek, his eyes glassy with meth and adrenaline, turned toward Luke with a raised Glock—
A memory chimed in Luke’s mind. He remembered the sight of kerosene cans in Dylan’s truck the morning after the church burned down, remembered the way Dylan had laughed when Luke had confronted him about it. Luke finally realized something: these boys hadn’t brought him here to be their friend.
Luke turned back toward shelter.
The door to the orange RV was closed. Luke slammed against it in surprise, his head striking the frame. The door budged but held firm. Bryan the Stallion was inside, pressed against the door to keep it closed, and Luke was trapped out here on the porch.
“Bryan!” Luke shouted. “Bryan, open the—”
Thump-thump.Two rounds passed over Luke’s shoulder and pierced the door of HOME ON THE RANGE. A shotgun boomed. A windshield shattered.
Thump-thump.
Luke tried to slam his shoulder against the door but he felt a cool pain in his side, felt his knees folding under him. Felt the cold porch strike his cheek.
CLARK
She shouted “Freeze!” in the seconds before Garrett started firing, fumbled for the pistol on her hip, but it was too late. Garrett fired four quick shots into the cab of the truck, two more at the blurry boys fleeing toward the black camper.
“Stop!” Boone was screaming, waving his handgun in the air. “What are you doing? What are you—”
Garrett glanced at Parter. Parter gave a little nod of assent.
Garrett made a quick swivel and planted two rounds in Mr. Boone.
The county attorney gawped at Mason. Coach Parter turned the shotgun her way and Clark ducked beneath the open door of her truck a moment before the windshield exploded.
Clark finally got hold of her pistol. She didn’t bother asking herself if this was real, to ask how any of this was possible, no. She heard a few stray beads of the shotgun’s spraytingagainst the old truck’s door. She didn’t plan to find out what a concentrated round of buckshot would do to this old Chevy metal. She took a breath.
One-two-three go.
Clark spun out from around the door, arms locked out, knees bent, praying that she remembered enough tactical training to survive this second, and this second, and this. She brought her pistol up, trained her eyes on the sight, aimed at the big man pumping a round into his shotgun.
She fired twice.
Her first shot grazed Parter and whizzed on to strike something behind him with a loud metallicwhang. The second bullet struck the coach somewhere in the arm. He threw a hand over the wound and bolted for cover.
Clark readied herself to fire again and saw Mitchell Malacek turn his attention from the orange trailer—Luke Evers, blood smeared over his stomach, was collapsing outside its door—and turn a black Glock in her direction.
Clark fired first. She didn’t hesitate. A warning shot, but good enough to spook Mitchell. The boy took three steps backward and squeezed off a round but Clark had already cleared the short distance to the jaunty green trailer on her left and heard the bullet strike the dirt where she’d just been standing.
She touched her father’s old revolver, felt it tucked tight against her waist, ready and eager.
Anything would help.
Silence fell over the Bright Lands, broken only by a chugging generator.
Clark poked her head around the green trailer to survey the scene. The circle was deserted. No men, no boys, no Bethany. With a stab in her heart, Clark saw Luke Evers lying on the concrete porch of the orange RV ten yards away, on the far side of the circle from her.So much for brotherhood, Clark thought: Mitchell Malacek had shot him in the back.
She heard a faint, high shriek beneath her feet, a sound like a nail dragged across a brick. When the ground shook a moment later the force of the quake was so strong the field lights above the circle trembled on their stalks, threw wild shadows around the trailers. That thing down there was almost here, and Clark had an ugly suspicion it would find a way to get aboveground soon enough. If she didn’t get Joel and the others out of here they might just have to introduce themselves to Bosheth himself.
