“No,” Phoebe said. “You were right.”
I spotted some bones further out, near the oval of rusty water at the center of the mud flats. They looked like they might be human. I headed back toward Phoebe. “It felt good in a way though, and that scares the hell out of me. It’s like what we were talking about just yesterday. I
Phoebe considered. I was tempted to tell her that her eyes were the color of those little turtles you bought at the pet store, back when there were pet stores, but clearly it was not an appropriate time.
“Maybe the change is temporary,” she suggested. “Maybe you’ve had to bury your true nature for now, because you have no choice.” She nodded, as if she was convinced she was on the right track. “Like a soldier. The soldiers who fought the Nazis didn’t lose their humanity, even though they had to do awful things.”
I kicked at the dry mud. I wasn’t in the mood to see myself as some sort of honorable soldier. The more time that passed, the sicker I felt about the two bodies lying a hundred yards away.
“I don’t know. I think something died in me when they killed Ange. I don’t know what it is, but it sure feels like my humanity, and I don’t think it’s coming back.”
Phoebe’s eyes filled with tears.
“Guys, we need to move!” It was Cortez. There was no mistaking the urgency in his voice. As we raced back toward him, we heard distant voices through the bamboo, maybe a hundred yards away.
We gathered our stuff (Cortez grabbed the two automatic rifles) and headed down the railroad tracks.
We’d gone a few hundred yards when shouts erupted behind us. I glanced back; one of the figures in the clearing raised a pistol and fired a shot that kicked up gravel ten yards short of us. We ran harder.
Another shot rang out. I half-expected to see one of my friends drop on the tracks, but no one did.
“They’re chasing us. Keep running,” Cortez said. I glanced back again. There was no point—Cortez had just informed us that they were coming after us, but I needed to see it for myself, see how fast they were coming, whether it was a half-hearted trot or a hard sprint.
It was a hard sprint. One of them was holding a walkie-talkie to his mouth as he ran, probably alerting a bunch of others, maybe the families of the two guys I’d shot.
“Drop your packs,” I said. We couldn’t outrun them carrying fifty pounds each. I shrugged mine off, felt suddenly light as a feather. The others followed suit, but we were still limited to how fast Colin could run carrying Joel. He was cradling Joel’s head so it wouldn’t roll around.
I looked back again. The men were no more than a hundred yards behind us. “They’re gaining,” I said.
“Keep moving,” Cortez said. He pulled one of the automatic weapons off his shoulder and dropped to one knee. A deafening burst of gunfire followed.
I realized I should help him. After all, I was the gunslinger who got us into this catastrophe. I stopped, pulled the pistol out of my belt, realized Cortez was in my line of fire and ran back toward him.
By then the men were gone. Cortez leaped up, looked surprised and somewhat annoyed to see me standing behind him. “I hit one,” he said, breathless. “The others carried him into the bamboo. Come on, I’m guessing they’ll be back.”
We caught up with the rest of the tribe.
“We should get off the tracks,” I said, pointing into the bamboo to the right, the opposite side of the tracks from where our pursuers had gone.
Cortez took one look back, then broke off the track and into the jungle. “Come on.”
We tore through the bamboo. If it hadn’t been so serious, it would have been comical: seven of us running single-file, at times hitting bamboo so thick we had to back up like a seven-car train and seek another way through. Eventually we slowed to a brisk walk, but we kept moving, and no one talked except to suggest a route through the tangle. Joel was crying now—he was probably hungry.
An hour into our flight, long after I’d decided we were safe, we heard a shout behind us, and then an answering shout.
“Shit,” Colin said.
We ran again.
“How can they know which way we went?” Colin asked.
“They must know how to track—broken branches, footprints,” Cortez answered. That was the last of the conversation. It was grueling; my lungs ached, my legs were rubber. Joel cried in earnest in Colin’s arms, his face red with outrage at being jostled so roughly for so long.
We kept running until the light began to wane, then slowed to a walk again.
I heard sniffing behind me, turned to see that Jeannie was crying. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “We lost everything. We’re out here with nothing.”
Nobody responded. I was true, and there was no sugar-coating it, no bright side.
“What now?” I asked.
“I guess we look for shelter,” Colin said.
We were heading in the wrong direction—northwest, away from Savannah.
We walked on, everyone in a black mood, until we came upon a neighborhood choked in bamboo and overgrown with kudzu. It wasn’t so much a neighborhood as a cul-de-sac set with half a dozen duplexes. Cortez kicked down the door of one and we took shelter inside.
“I don’t think we should stay until morning,” I said. “Let’s rest an hour, then keep moving.”
Nobody argued, although nobody agreed either. There were two bedrooms; Cortez suggested the two couples take them while the rest of us rested in the little living room.
We had no bedding, but we found some clothes in the closets and used that. It was growing dark. Phoebe lay along a wall, a half-dozen feet from me, hugging a pile of t-shirts.
“I’m sorry you lost your keepsakes,” I said.
She shrugged. “You can always buy me another postcard the next time we visit a Timesaver.”
“But Sir Francis Bacon…” I meant to strike a jovial tone, but it came out flat.
Phoebe smiled grimly. “Maybe one of the people chasing us will give it to his kid.” She closed her eyes, took a big, sighing breath. There was a ragged cut on her wrist, but it wasn’t too deep. Probably just some thorns.
Exhausted as I was, I couldn’t just drop off to sleep. I felt responsible for the mess we were in. I knew how Sophia felt about what I’d done, but I needed to know if the others thought I’d acted irresponsibly, or even criminally. I got up, knocked on Colin and Jeannie’s door.
Colin had pulled off his shirt and stretched it along the windowsill. Two rows of ribs ran down his back in sharp relief. He didn’t yet look like someone rescued from a concentration camp, but he was getting close.
“Was I wrong?” I asked.
They looked at each other, deciding who was going to tackle the question.
“No,” Colin said. “It was just so…” He struggled for the right words.
“Like I murdered them? Something like that?” I suggested. “But if I’d waited long enough to be sure, I probably wouldn’t have been able to catch them by surprise, and we’d all be dead.”
“No, I agree with you—” Colin said.
If you’d have told me when I was eighteen that one day I would debate whether or not I’d murdered people or shot them in self-defense, I’d have been spectacularly surprised.
“Japer, we’re not criticizing you,” Jeannie interrupted. “You saved us, and you saved our son, and we’d do anything to protect Joel. We were just surprised that
“Exactly,” Colin said.
I nodded. “Fair enough.” I turned to go.
“Jasper?” Jeannie said. I turned back. “What happened to Ange?”
I sat on the edge of the bed and told them the truth. Cortez heard me telling the story, and came in. Phoebe hovered in the doorway. Difficult as it was, when it was over I was glad it was out. Secrets eat at you; they’re nothing but lies in drag.
“Hey, Jasper,” Colin said as I stood to go. “Thank you for saving my son.”
I nodded. That was all I needed.
The door to the other bedroom was partly open; Sophia stood holding a blanket she must have found in the closet. Our eyes met for a moment before she turned away.
