Fuzzy Navel

responsibility. Phin’s only responsibility was to himself, to his indulgences. To avoiding pain.

Yet Jack calls, and he comes running.

Just like a dog.

Phin shivers. His bare chest is gooseflesh, cold to the touch. The smart thing to do is to eat the weed, run into the woods, and try to find a hospital, a bottle of tequila, a few grams of coke, and a clean hooker. Forget Jack. He owes her nothing. He isn’t going to be around long enough to regret the decision.

Run away, he tells himself.

But he doesn’t run. Instead, Phin stands, crawls onto the hood of the Bronco, and gets up to the windshield. He’s wearing gym shoes. The rubber soles aren’t hard enough.

But he knows something that is hard enough. Something that routinely cracks car windows.

Friendship sucks, he thinks.

Then he shuts his eyes, rears back, and slams his forehead into the glass.

It brings out more stars than the ones currently occupying the clear night sky, but he manages to crack the windshield – a spiderweb pattern the size of a dinner plate. He didn’t break through, but it’s a start.

He waits for the dizziness to pass, realizes it isn’t going to, then spins around on his butt and drives his heel against the crack. Again. And again. And again. And again.

The spiderweb gets larger. The window bends, indents. Then his foot busts through.

Phin continues to kick, widening the hole until he can slip inside, avoiding cutting himself on the glass while climbing into the front seat.

His head hurts. So does his arm. And the tumor on his pancreas feels like a piranha trying to eat its way out of his insides.

But when Phin touches the sniper rifle, he can’t help but smile.

“The truce is over, Alex,” he says.

11:49 P.M. JACK

I GET TO THE GARAGE as fast as I can, which isn’t very fast. The house feels more like a ship, rocking to and fro in the waves, making it challenging to stand. I stop in the doorway, feel for the light switch, and stumble over to the workbench.

I’m looking for the gun Phin said he dropped.

The light is just a single bare bulb, maybe a sixty-watt, and my loopy vision is further impeded by a black eye that’s puffed halfway closed. There are boxes strewn about the garage floor. Some Christmas decorations. A few books. I don’t want to let go of the bench because I’m afraid I’ll fall over, but I don’t see the gun from where I am. I’ll have to go searching.

I take two steps toward the mess, moving a box aside, peering beneath it. Nothing. The floor is cold, causing me to shiver. From inside the house, more gunshots.

Sniper fire.

I wondered if it was Phin who saved my life, grabbing one of the sniper’s rifles when he ran outside. It might have been Alex, who didn’t want anyone else to kill me because she was saving that particular pleasure for herself. Either way, I caught a break. Now I needed to capitalize upon it.

I kick away a piece of cardboard, almost lose my balance. No revolver underneath. A faint breeze tousles my hair, and I follow it and see the broken window, hidden behind the stacks of unopened boxes. If Phin dropped the gun in that maze I’ll never find it.

More gunfire. But this is from inside the house. It’s loud, even louder than firecrackers.

The Desert Eagle.

I don’t want to think about what that implies, but I do anyway. Even if the refrigerator door is thick enough to block the bullets, at close range the shooter can aim around it.

My last image of Harry McGlade – of, God help me, my brother – was of him charging the Ravenswood sniper, trying to save me.

I hope Harry’s okay.

11:49 P.M. MUNCHEL WAR IS HELL.

First Swanson bites it. Then Pessolano gets shot in the neck. The cherry on top is getting whacked full-body with a refrigerator door.

The blow knocks the wind out of Munchel, ramming him into the wall, sandwiching him against it. Like a true soldier he manages to hold on to the Desert Eagle. Unfortunately, Munchel’s arm is at his side, immobile, the door pinning his wrist. He can’t raise the gun, and has no leverage to push away from the wall.

A second shot whizzes through the window. Munchel jerks at the sound, but he isn’t the one who gets hit. Munchel stares at Pessolano writhing on the ground – the man’s leg looks like it has sprouted another knee in the middle of the thigh.

Another shot does the same thing to the opposite leg. Pessolano clutches at his throat, making a face like he’s screaming, but no sound is coming out. Munchel is horrified. It’s too much to watch, too much to bear. He squeezes his eyes closed and wiggles, trying to twist away from the refrigerator door. With a grunt and some hip action, Munchel frees up enough room to get his gun arm loose. He brings the gun around, shoots behind the refrigerator door where he guesses his attacker to be, the Desert Eagle sounding like cannon fire.

The one-armed man pinning him to the wall backpedals. Munchel fires at him twice more, his bullets pinging into the door as the man falls. Munchel has no idea if he hit the guy or not, but he takes a quick last look at Pessolano, sees his friend’s remaining good limb get turned into cube steak by more sniper fire, and decides he doesn’t want to be in this room any longer.

He sprints away from the big bay window, out of the living room, following the path of the chick cop through the kitchen and to a doorway. Munchel finds her in the garage, her back to him, rummaging through a large stack of boxes.

James Michael Munchel raises the big Desert Eagle. It’s time to end this.

11:53 P.M. JACK

NOISE, FROM BEHIND ME. The Ravenswood sniper charges into the garage, and when he raises his pistol I throw myself forward.

Two shots in quick succession, both missing. The sound is painfully loud in the enclosed garage, echoing off the concrete floor. I tumble over a container of books, roll, and land on my butt, my body forcing a trench between two stacks of boxes. The single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling isn’t strong enough to penetrate the crevice I’m in, so I can’t see a thing.

I cover my head and wait for the sniper to start firing again.

He doesn’t. Instead, he starts kicking boxes, knocking them over, swearing and yelling. A crack opens up