Ben realized which side of the house the helicopter was on, so he rushed through the kitchen toward Walt and the position that might have given them some defense. He loaded the magazine into the AK, a weapon he used once before.
The lights inside blinked out a second before the house became bathed in a blinding glare, as if time flashed forward to midday. Ben and Walt didn’t speak, but Ben knew they were too late. Escape wasn’t an option.
The bullets came like a meteor shower as bursts of machine-gun fire competed against the helicopter’s roar. At first, the glass of the sliding door and windows tinkled as bullets cut through them without a care, followed by the chaotic symphony of clangs, slams, bangs and thuds of impact deeper inside the house. Within seconds, however, the glass shattered, spraying in every possible direction. Shielded for the moment in the foyer, Ben glanced to his left, saw Walt’s eyes racing in a panic, no doubt plotting their escape plan. Then he realized what was missing. He looked over his shoulder into the kitchen, which was being shredded.
Grace Huggins glowed in the helicopter’s searchlight, her twisted body sprawled across the floor, her bullet wounds visible, hundreds of tiny shards of glass shining as they intermingled with the blood.
“We have to move out,” Walt yelled over the insane cacophony. “On my mark, through the front door. Follow my lead. Understand, Sheridan?”
As Ben slipped through the open door, bullets ricocheted through the foyer. The men raced out onto the wooden deck, their cars a few yards away. The searchlight’s glare cast the house in a bizarre glow. The barrage of bullets from the other side seemed muffled. That’s when Ben heard the crackle of single rifle shots. The first bullet ricocheted off the landing a few feet ahead, splintering the wood. Ben brought up his weapon, but he was too late. The first shots intensified. Ben tripped down the short flight of steps, never letting go of his rifle.
He lost track of Walt for a second, but that was long enough to feel the piercing of a bullet as it entered just above his right collar bone. A hand reached out and tugged at him, but Ben had no sense of where he was anymore.
21
J AMIE NEVER LOOKED back. He and Sammie were almost a half-mile from the lake house, following the trail westward less than ten feet from the shoreline.
Jamie kept the pistol aimed at the back of Sammie’s head. They passed through tiny whiskers of fog creeping along the shore like misshapen ghosts hunting for bodies. The path was muddy at times and overgrown in brief stretches, but otherwise as Jamie remembered from his last visit. It continued for two miles if they remained close to the water, or they could take a sudden turn where it branched off not far ahead. It would turn sharply up the bluff, a tricky incline in which the soil often gave way, and exposed roots acted like rungs on a ladder. The trail then intersected the lake road and continued on the northern side, winding in convoluted swoops through the deep, unspoiled forests.
Jamie followed the flashlight’s beam, making sure they didn’t miss the intersection.
He resisted Sammie’s nonstop efforts to end this nonsense.
“We don’t have to do it this way,” she said. “You’re scared, for good reason. You just found out you’re dying.”
“If I’m dying, it’s because of people like your parents and mine. Besides, if I go nuke, you and your folks get to take a trip back home. I’ll bet you’ll be heroes. Then you can go off and play soldier girl. I mean, that’s what your folks been training you for, right?”
“Is it so bad to want to be who you were always meant to be?”
Jamie laughed. “I figured I was made to be a cartoonist. But that’s just too damn bad for me, now ain’t it?”
Jamie wanted to lay it on thick, to be as sarcastic and angry about his fate as he thought Sammie could take, but he didn’t have the chance. The echo of squealing tires distracted him.
“What’s that?” Sammie asked.
The echo came from well ahead of them and above the bluffs. He swore the sound came from a car approaching from the west. Jamie perked his ears. This time he heard the sounds of brush being battered as something tumbled down the bluff, perhaps thirty yards ahead. The car burned rubber once more, this time heading east toward the lake house and beyond. Jamie caught a glimpse of the headlights.
“Rednecks. Probably throwing their empties down the bluff. Or a used refrigerator. Just rednecks.”
“No, Jamie. I really think we should turn back.”
He insisted she keep moving. The air off Lake Vernon was moist and cool. He almost forgot how perfect the summer nights out here could be. The gentle lake breezes gave way to an idyllic stillness as peaceful and cleansing as the stars above were brighter and closer.
Sammie stopped without warning. Jamie stumbled into her, the gun pressing into her back.
“Jamie, wait. I don’t think the people in that car were throwing out beer bottles. Look.”
She focused the flashlight on an object, and Jamie recognized the back of a human head on its side in a mud pack. Jamie thought the young black man’s profile was familiar. He grabbed the flashlight, shined it on the face and fell to his knees.
“Oh, God. Oh, God. It’s Coop.” He dropped the gun to his side, handed the flashlight to Sammie and told her to come in close. “Please, Coop. Don’t do this to me. Please.”
He wrapped one hand gently under the side of Michael’s face, which was caked in mud. His best friend’s eyes were closed, but blood stained the side of his forehead, just
