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desperately. Saw the short man's arm flinging something. Philip twisting in
midrun, tumbling sideways, his hands clutching the knife sticking out of his
throat. In the hazy darkness, the blood pumping out of his throat looked like
spraying oil.
Another man jumped from the van, then another. Their clothes were dirty and
tattered, their hair long and wild. One had a spear made from a broom handle
with a steak knife lashed to one end with wire. The other had a compound bow
with the distinctive green tape wrapped barber pole fashion along the upper
limb. It was the same bow that Matt Southern had been carrying the day he'd
led his group out of University Camp for the last time.
The first man was running toward Philip's body to retrieve his knife. Eric
followed him through the sights of his crossbow for a few yards, then squeezed
the trigger. The sound was like a zipper being closed too fast, then the dull
thud as the short bolt punched into the man's chest, spun him around into a
comic pirouette, and dumped him onto the pavement.
The other two let out eerie howls, like coyotes baying at the moon. The one
with the spear ran forward a few steps and hurled his weapon. It lofted high
into the air, arced smoothly, then clanged into the wall five feet above Eric.
The man with the bow was tugging his arrow back with a bead on Eric. But he
never made it. Five arrows snapped at him almost simultaneously, though only
two actually. hit him. One caught him in the chest, the other chipped a hunk
of flesh off a rib. Two of the arrows bounced off the van while the third
disappeared into the darkness of the parking lot, skidding along pavement.
The man with the bow crumpled. His fingers released the half-pulled string,
catapulting the arrow ten feet ahead. He fell backwards, knocking his head
against the van's bumper.
The spearman, now without a spear and too frightened to grab for the bow, took
off behind the van, vanishing into the same thick darkness that had swallowed
the arrow. They could hear the thwacking of his feet for a few more seconds.
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Then silence.
Rydell started after Philip but Eric pulled him back. "Wait."
Eric peered intently at the darkened parking lot, the black husks of the
abandoned cars lurking like so many backs of dinosaurs trapped in a tar pit.
"Okay, Rydell and Molly, see to Philip. Tag and Season, come with me."
They split into two groups and crab-walked across the lot. Eric motioned for
Tag and Season to bracket the open door of the van. With his crossbow cocked
and loaded, he dove into the yawning black door, his bow lifted toward the
darkened back. His shoulder smacked into a surfboard, but otherwise the van
was empty. There were crumbled cellophane wrappers from Twinkies and some
empty Sugar Pops boxes, some tattered clothes, torn comic books, but otherwise
nothing.
"Empty," Eric said as he jumped out of the van.
"Philip's dead," Rydell called.
Eric walked over to the man with Matt Southern's bow, tipped him onto his back
with a nudge of his foot. Beneath the long, wild hair was a dirt-smeared face.
He smelled foul, even by current disaster standards, his skin oily and broken
out, his gums peppered with raw sores. The short bolt with the red plastic
feathers sticking out of his chest was Eric's. Dark blood bubbled around the
shaft like boiling soup. The other arrow that had wounded him had nipped its
chunk of flesh from the rib and kept going. Eric leaned closer to the face for
a better look. Beneath the ravaged face, a boy of seventeen or eighteen.
Eric's stomach muscles bunched up, his fists balled against his legs. He
remembered this feeling from Nam. The clawing in your guts when you faced your
dead or wounded enemy, his limbs half ripped from his body, an eyeball hanging
on his cheek by a tiny strand of nerve. The smooth face of a thirteen-year-old
boy or girl. The only way you got through it was to remember your own dead
buddies, not much older, screaming in agony as they tried to scoop their own
intestines back into the hole in their stomach.
Eric marched over to Philip's body. He needed to see what these kids had done,
to stoke his hate like a furnace until the guilt evaporated.
The blade had entered the back of Philip's neck, severing the sternomastoid
muscle, and puncturing the esophagus before the knife's handle wedged into the
neck. Philip's eyes were still wide with horror and surprise. Death wasn't at
all the way Philip had expected it to be. Not the way he'd read about it in
history books.
Molly was bending over the body of the kid who'd thrown the knife, Eric's bolt
sprouting from his chest in almost the same spot as on the other kid. "Hey,
Eric! I think this one's still alive. I've got a faint pulse. Just barely."
Tag and Season were still over by the van gathering the spent arrows.
"Jesus," Season's voice rang out with excitement, "it was me. My arrow. It's
got blood on it. I shot the bastard too." Her face was flushed as she held the
arrow up to show the others. "My God, I really did it. Would've skewered his
fucking stomach if he hadn't moved. I goddamn did it."
Eric walked slowly toward her. The others watched, confused about what
response to have. Congratulate her? Too grotesque. Offer sympathy? She was too
high, too excited for that. She was pacing in circles, waving the arrow. Once
she almost tripped over the kid's leg and hauled off and kicked the corpse,
"Son of a bitch," she growled.
Eric had seen this kind of reaction before, had experienced it himself the
first time in battle. The thrill of having survived when a buddy dies. Then
the guilt at being alive, compounded if you've killed someone and get to look
in their face afterwards. Then the hatred. At your friend for having died, at
your enemy for having made you a killer. And finally at yourself,
Season was laughing in Eric's face as he approached her. "You see, you pompous
ass. I did it. Even with a man's bow. Maybe it wasn't a kill shot, but it was
better than any of these other clowns did."
Eric laid his crossbow on the ground, took another step toward her. She
flinched back as if she thought he would strike her. Instead he opened his
arms and hugged her close to him.
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"What the hell are you doing?" she screeched, struggling to push him away. But
his arms held her tenderly, yet tightly, and soon she stopped resisting.
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