Nick is just now rising back up, his eyes wide and hot, taking in all the residue on the inside of the glass. Penny, curled up in Brian’s arms, keeps her eyes shut, as Brian frantically looks around, peering through all the windows, looking for any other intruders.
Philip slams the Suburban into reverse, kicking the accelerator as he quickly rolls the window back up. Everybody jerks forward as the vehicle screeches backward—a hundred feet, a hundred and fifty feet, two hundred feet—away from the smoking tanker truck.
Then the Suburban skids to a stop, and they sit there in stunned silence for a moment.
Nothing moves outside in the flickering shadows. Nobody says anything for the longest time, but Philip is convinced he’s not the only one, at this moment, wondering if this twenty-mile trek into the city is going to be a lot harder than they originally thought.
They sit there in the idling Suburban for quite some time, debating their best course of action, and this makes Philip very antsy. He doesn’t like sitting in one place for very long, especially with the engine running, burning gas and time, with those moving shadows behind the burning trees, but the group cannot seem to come to a consensus, and Philip is trying his hardest to be a benevolent dictator in this little banana republic.
“Look, I still say we try to drive around it.” Philip gives a nod toward the darkness to the south.
The far shoulder of the oncoming lanes is littered with smoldering vehicles, but there’s a narrow gap—maybe the width of the Suburban, with a few inches to spare—between the gravel shoulder and the thicket of pines along the highway. The recent rains combined with the oil spill from the overturned tanker have turned the land to slop. But the Suburban is a big, heavy vehicle with wide tires, and Philip has driven the thing through far worse conditions.
“It’s too steep, Philly,” Nick says, wiping the gray matter from the inside of the windshield with a grimy towel.
“Yeah, man, I have to agree,” Brian says from the shadows of the backseat, his arm around Penny, the anguished features of his face visible in the flicker of firelight. “I vote for heading back to the last exit.”
“We don’t know
“We don’t know that,” Nick says.
“We gotta keep moving forward.”
“But what if it’s worse in the city? Seems like it’s getting worse the closer we get.”
“We’re still fifteen, twenty miles away—we don’t know shit about what it’s like in Atlanta.”
“I don’t know, Philly.”
“Tell you what,” Philip says. “Let me take a look.”
“What do you mean?”
He reaches for the gun. “I’ll just take a quick look.”
“Wait!” Brian speaks up. “Philip, come on. We gotta stick together.”
“I’m just gonna see what the ground is like, see if we can make it through.”
“Daddy—” Penny starts to say something, and then thinks better of it.
“It’s okay, punkin, I’ll be right back.”
Brian looks out the window, unconvinced. “We agreed we’d stick together. No matter what. C’mon, man.”
“It’ll take two minutes.” Philip opens his door, shoving the Ruger into his belt.
The cool air and the sound of crackling flames and the smell of ozone and burning rubber waft into the Suburban like uninvited guests. “You guys sit tight, I’ll be right back.”
Philip climbs out of the car.
The door slams.
Brian sits in the silent Suburban for a moment, listening to his heart thudding in his chest. Nick is looking through each and every window, scanning the immediate vicinity, which is alive with flickering shadows. Penny gets very still. Brian looks at the little girl. The child looks like she’s shrinking into herself, like a little night bloom, contracting into itself, pulling its petals shut.
“He’ll be right back, kiddo,” Brian says to the kid. He aches for her. This is not right, a child going through this, but on some level Brian knows how she feels. “He’s a tough old boy, Philip. He can beat the crap outta any monster comes along, believe me.”
From the front seat Nick turns and says, “Listen to your uncle, sweetie. He’s right. Your daddy can take care of himself and then some.”
“I saw your daddy catch a rabid dog once,” Brian says. “He was maybe nineteen, and there was this German shepherd terrorizing the neighbor kids.”
“I remember that,” Nick says.
“Your daddy chased that thing—foaming mouth and all—down to the dry creek bed, and he wrestled the damn thing into a trash barrel.”
“I totally remember that,” Nick says. “Grabbed it with his bare hands, threw it halfway across the gully before slamming the trash can down on it like he was catching a fly.”
Brian reaches down and tenderly brushes a strand of hair from the little girl’s face. “He’ll be okay, honey … trust me. He’s a mean
Outside the vehicle, a piece of burning wreckage falls to the ground. The clatter makes everybody jump. Nick looks at Brian. “Hey, man … you mind reaching back into that zipper bag by the wheel well?”
Brian looks at Nick. “What do you need?”
“One of them goose guns.”
Brian stares at him a moment, then turns and leans over the back headrest. He roots out the long, canvas hunting bag wedged between a cooler and a backpack. He unzips it and finds one of the Marlin 55s.
Handing the shotgun across the backseat to Nick in the front, Brian says, “You need the shells, too?”
“I think it’s already loaded,” Nick says, hinging open the barrel and peering down into the breech.
Brian can tell Nick is handy with the thing, has probably hunted before, although Brian never witnessed it. Brian had never been the type to participate in the manly pursuits of his younger brother and his cronies, although he secretly yearned to do just that. “Two shells in the breech,” Nick says, snapping the barrel shut.
“Just be careful with that thing,” Brian says.
“Used to hunt feral hogs with one of these babies,” Nick says, cocking and locking it.
“Hogs?”
“Yep … wild hogs … up to Chattahoochee reservation. Used to go on night hunts with my dad and my uncle Verne.”
“Pigs you’re talking about,” Brian says incredulously.
“Yeah, basically. A hog is just a big ol’ pig. Maybe they’re older, too, I’m not—”
Another loud metallic crash comes from outside Nick’s window.
Nick jerks the barrel toward the noise, finger on the trigger, his teeth gnashing with nervous tension. Nothing moves outside the passenger window. Muscles uncoil inside the Suburban, a long sigh of relief from Nick. Brian starts to say, “We gotta get our butts in gear before—”
Another noise.
This time it comes from the driver’s side, a shuffling of feet—
—and before Nick can even register the identity of the shadowy figure approaching the Suburban’s driver-side window, he swings the Marlin’s muzzle up at the window, takes aim, and is about to squeeze off a couple of twenty-gauge greetings, when a familiar voice booms outside the car.
“JESUS CHRIST!”
Philip is visible outside the window just for an instant, before ducking out of the line of fire.
“Oh God, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Nick says, instantly recognizing his mistake.
Philip’s voice outside the window is lower now, more controlled, but still seething with anger. “You want to point that thing away from the goddamn window?”
Nick lowers the barrel. “I’m sorry, Philly, my bad, I’m sorry.”
The door clicks and Philip slips back into the car, breathing hard, his face shiny with sweat. He shuts his door and lets out a long breath. “Nick—”
