Текст книги "Foodchain"

Автор книги: Jeff Jacobson

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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

The trailers and tents were still set up, but they looked abandoned. He couldn’t see Sturm’s pickup. He darted across the open ground in a low, crouching run at the corral in the middle of the field and opened the gate for the sheep. But, being sheep, they simply huddled against the far fence and wouldn’t come near him. Frank left the gate open and crawled through the stiff dead grass to the corral behind the barn.

He opened the gate, then circled around the barn to the distorted, bulging cage. Lady and Princess watched him with sleepy eyes. They’d been feeding regularly, and so they were happy, content, and sluggish. Frank pushed down and slid the bolt back, letting the cage door swing wide. The cats just watched him.

Frank ducked into the barn. He jogged around the aisle and lifted the tarp over the horizontal freezer. He decided not to try and move the air-conditioner, though it took all of his strength to lift the hood just enough to see inside. “Shit,” he breathed.

The gun safe was still inside.

He scratched his head violently. The pill wanted to go kick down the door and shoot Sturm in his bed. That way, he could come back and get the safe anytime he felt like it. But killing Sturm wouldn’t be as easy as sticking a knife in Chuck’s throat. There was a damn good chance Sturm would shoot back. Frank reminded himself of all the animals still left locked away at the auction yard.

So he lowered the lid and slipped out of the barn, heading back to Chuck’s truck. Lady and Princess hadn’t moved. That was okay, though. They’d get the idea, soon as the sheep figured out that the gate was open and went wandering around the pasture.

* * * * *

Frank started at one end of the auction yard and moved fast, popping latches and swinging the cage doors wide, bouncing from one side of the aisle to the other. Frank left the big doors at the back open, and sunlight spilled inside, beckoning the animals.

The dogs, big cats, a few wolves, and one lone hyena, mostly watched the other animals with caution before they crept out of their cages. Once the animals were out, they snapped at each other a few times, but most of them simply ran for the sunlight.

Frank stepped out of the auction yard and turned quickly, walking along the wall towards the parking lot. Two wolves burst out of the building, headed for the clowns’ trailer, and disappeared into the fields. Several lionesses slunk out, heading along the wall away from Frank. The exodus was slow at first, but more and more animals plunged into the sunlight and left the auction yard behind.

He strolled across the parking lot over to the lone car. He knocked on the driver’s side window. The window rolled down. A voice, groggy and pissed, said, “Fuck’s your problem? What?”

Frank stuck the .30-.30 into the open window and fired. Someone else inside screamed. The passenger door popped open and another other dog owner sprinted across the gravel towards the building. Frank shot the guy in the leg. The man twirled like a ballet dancer and landed hard on his side in the gravel. He saw the back doors yawning open no more than ten yards away, a possible sanctuary, and crawled over and slammed the doors behind him.

Not all of the animals had left, though, and the guy had just locked himself in the building with the rest of them. Frank got a kick out of that; he waited until he heard screaming and then reopened the doors and left them open. He climbed back into Chuck’s truck, reloaded, and drove back down into town.

* * * * *

Frank peered over the edge of the deep end of the pool and saw that the Siberian Tiger was gone. They’d either taken it or it had been able to jump clear over the fence or scrabble up one of the walls, down near the shallow end. The Komodo Dragon was curled in his corner, surrounded by Mr. Noe’s bones.

Frank climbed down into the shallow end and unlocked the fence from the ladder, and dragged the concrete blocks back, clearing a pathway for the Komodo Dragon. That long tongue shot out and it tasted the air, looking from Frank to the shallow end. It broke for the new exit, moving fast, faster than Frank had expected. He didn’t bother running for the ladder, just hoisted himself onto the deck and scrambled to the front gate. He risked a look back. The dragon’s head appeared of the edge. The vicious claws scraped concrete. It wouldn’t take long for the giant lizard to be roaming the streets.

Frank left the front gate open, climbed into Chuck’s truck, but then noticed a pickup and camping trailer in the parking lot. It wasn’t Billy’s; Frank was hoping to run into the Komodo’s owner. He pulled into the lot and stopped next to the campfire. A steel coffee pot burbled happily to itself as it rested on a blackened grate over the coals. It smelled delicious. But with all the chemicals surging through his system, Frank decided he didn’t need any caffeine. He knocked briskly on the trailer door.

The door opened. A hunter stepped out onto the steps, scratching the four-day stubble on his chin. “Morning,” he said, looking down at Frank and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

“Morning,” Frank said. “Afraid I have to take a look at your hunting licenses.”

“Hunting license?” The hunter turned into the trailer. “Greg, you know anything about any licenses?”

Frank couldn’t hear Greg’s reply. The first hunter turned back to Frank. “You’re looking for what now?”

Frank shot the hunter in the chest. The guy went down hard on his ass, legs sticking out of the trailer. Frank stepped over him and found Greg rolling off the bed, bloated white flesh spilling out over his jeans as he struggled to pull a handgun from a leather holster. Frank shot him in the jaw. Greg spun sideways and left a spray of blood against the yellow fridge.

Frank slung the rifle over his shoulder and picked up Greg’s handgun. Greg waved his own hand a little, but Frank ignored him, concentrating on the pistol. A 1911 Colt .45. Semi-auto. Frank liked it immediately. Compared to the rifle, it was small, compact. It took a while, but he figured out how to release the magazine It held seven rounds.

Greg tried to get up. He was doing a damn fine job too, despite having half a jawbone and only one lower cheek, when Frank slapped the magazine back into the gun, yanked the slide back, and shot Greg in the stomach.

It was a practice shot, and it worked beautifully. Frank admired the lethal efficiency, the simplicity of the handgun, the feel of it jumping in his hand like something alive, while Greg fell against the table, landing on his ruined jaw. Greg made a sound like a rat getting its tail caught in a garbage disposal and dropped heavily back to the floor. Frank stepped over him and poked around a little and found a full box of shells. He slung the holster over his shoulder and put the box of shells in his suit pocket. Greg was still rolling around on the floor, but he was slipping into shock and wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

He heard a pickup door slam outside.

Frank stepped on the first hunter’s chest getting out. A third hunter was running for the road. He must have been sleeping in the pickup. Frank decided that, as much as he liked his new .45, this was a job for the .30-.30. He stuck the handgun into Chuck’s jeans, pulled the rifle in snug, tracked the running man for a moment, and shot him in the base of the spine.

The third man flopped onto the single rope of chain that separated the parking lot from the highway and twitched erratically, like a worm hung over an electric fence. The guy was making a high-pitched keening sound, and it hurt Frank’s head. He walked over and shot him a few more times with the .45.

Something out of the corner of his eye made Frank look up, bringing the Colt around, ready to fire. But there, not more than twenty yards away, he saw the Gloucks’ four-wheel drive station wagon, slowly rolling to a stop. Edie was driving, Alice next to her, Annie in the passenger seat; a handful of kids were stuffed into the back. They all stared.

* * * * *

Frank stuck the pistol in Chuck’s loose belt and tried to smile as the pill walked him over to the car. He caught a glimpse of himself in the car windows and something disgusting uncoiled in his chest and he thought he might throw up. He looked like some careless butcher with a hungry tapeworm; flecks of blood, tissue, and bone were splashed across his suit and hands and face. The chassis of the station wagon was so high off the pavement he could look directly into their faces without bending over.

Annie stared through the bug-spattered windshield at the corpse on the fence and wouldn’t meet his eyes. Her expression told Frank that she didn’t care about anything, but he knew that wasn’t true because her legs were half-crossed, knees crushed against each other, calves rigid as she pushed up on the balls of her feet, fingers hanging onto each other for dear life. She felt Frank watching her, and tears spilled over the corners of her eyes and slid down her cheeks.

Alice raised a trembling hand. “Is that who…who killed Petunia?”

Frank thought it might make them feel better. “Yes.”

They were silent for a moment. “We’re going up to the lake to bury her, Frank. Would you like to come?” Alice asked.

“I can’t,” Frank said and focused on Annie. “Last night. I told you. Why didn’t you take the safe and leave?”

“Leave to where, exactly?” Edie asked. “This is our home.”

“I don’t think it’s your home anymore.”

“That’s not for you to decide,” Edie said.

“I don’t think you understand. Things have changed. Sturm—”

“We’ve dealt with Sturm for years. We can handle this.”

“Yeah, but once Jack and Pine and Chuck find—”

“You leave Jack and Pine to us, Frank. They’re family.”

“What?”

“Annie didn’t tell you? Jack and Pine don’t like to admit it, but they’re still our sons, even if they don’t come around much anymore.”

Frank remembered Chuck telling him not to bring up Annie around Jack and Pine, their resentment over not being invited to dinner, and their unrelenting hatred of the Glouck family. Now, looking at the mothers, the resemblance was faint, but it was there. Jack was Alice’s son, and Edie had had Pine. Looking back on everything, it made a weird kind of logic, but Frank had a feeling that if things got bad, real bad, if it came down to it, the clowns would take Sturm’s side over their own mothers. Being a family clearly meant more to Edie and Alice.

“You had no business volunteering Annie to go get that safe,” Edie continued. “We didn’t raise our children to be thieves. No, this is still our home, and it will be our home for a long, long time. We’re not looking to push Sturm into a fight.” She looked at the dead man on the fence and shook our head. “Our dog is gone. That’s enough. No more. You seem like a good boy, Frank, but you’ve gone too far. You should clear out before things get worse.”

Annie touched his hand. “Goodbye, Frank. Please take care of yourself.” And with that, Edie put the car in gear and they pulled slowly away. The few boys and Amber in the back, knees drawn up around the shrouded figure of Petunia, watched Frank with wide eyes.

He went back and sat in Chuck’s pickup. His head was starting to throb and he wondered if he should take another pill. Maybe Edie and Alice were right. Maybe he should just leave. This was their home. He had a little cash, not much, but enough that he wouldn’t have to spend the first few nights in the car. He could head west, see the ocean. He had a full box of rum in the trunk, after all. It might not be so bad, just sit on the beach and watch the waves for a while. He’d caused enough damage this morning. If nothing else, the remaining animals would most likely be shot, and wouldn’t be forced into fighting for their lives. Their deaths would be quick.

He watched the sun climb higher and made up his mind. He would go back to the long black car and drive away and never look back. It was over. He had done enough. The Gloucks knew where the gun safe was if they didn’t get paid. It was up to them now.

He twisted the key and stomped on the gas. Something about the animals nagged at him, like an infected tooth, but he couldn’t figure it out. He had done everything he could. He had turned them all loose. Sturm would have his hands full with over a dozen cats, a tiger, a few wolves, one lone hyena, and a goddamn Komodo Dragon running loose through town. If Frank’s luck held, he would make it back to the car without anyone seeing him and he could leave this valley forever.

Frank was nearly out of town when it hit him like a punch in the gut.

The rhino. He’d forgotten the rhino.

Last night, he’d turned the cats loose from the vet hospital, but hadn’t thought to go out to the barn. Goddamnit. He punched the steering wheel, pissed at his own stupidity and thirst for rum. It had gotten in the way. He pulled the truck in a wide U-turn and shot back into town, back to the vet hospital.

* * * * *

The rhino was gone.

The gate stood open, a few handfuls of grain scattered across the floor. “Shit,” Frank said, gritting his teeth. The drugs were really kicking his heart into high gear now, marching double-time through his limbs, making him flail and shiver and jump. He scratched his scalp with trembling hands and paced up and down the barn aisle.

The sudden urge to simply grab the .45 and start shooting at anything, everything, seethed through his veins, just unload his rage and guilt on the barn, the vet hospital, Chuck’s truck, the trees, the sun. But that wouldn’t get him anywhere.

As much as he tried to tell himself that all he had to do was jump back into the truck and drive out to the long black car and he would be free, he knew, deep down, that this was different. No matter how many bottles of rum he had, it wouldn’t be enough to blot the memory of the rhino’s warm breath on his hand. It wasn’t like the horses. Not that the rum had helped his nightmares much.

It didn’t matter that the rhino was damn near dead to start with. He was responsible. And if didn’t try, that wrinkled gray beast would haunt his nights for the rest of his life. “Shit,” Frank said again.

He went outside and stood in the sun. It wasn’t even ten o’clock yet, but already the air was hot enough to singe his skin, his eyes, his lungs. Sweat boiled out of his pores, trickling down his temples and back and collecting in the insides of his elbows and knees.

He turned in a slow circle, wondering which way to head. Sturm’s ranch was probably the most logical place to start, but he sensed that it would probably be the last place he would have a chance to look. Sturm might be there, and even if he wasn’t, the place was undoubtedly crawling with hunters with guns.

So on the chance that the rhino was somewhere else, he decided to circle the town, check out some of the other fields where’d they been shooting. Then maybe swing by the auction yard again. If he got lucky, he would find the rhino and be on his way.

But as he drove into town, he wondered what the hell he was going to do if he found the rhino. It wasn’t like he could take it away with him. Shit, it wasn’t like he had really helped any of other animals out, not really. They were going to die, just the same. If you wanted to get right down to it, it was his fault these animals were here in the first place.

* * * * *

Frank had just unscrewed the cap on a fresh bottle of rum when he came upon a bunch of pickups at the town park. He slowed down, pulled Chuck’s hat lower over his face, and got a better look. Six or seven hunters gathered around one of the picnic tables out near the sidewalk. A bunch of small caliber rifles were laid out on the table. Theo walked along the bench seat on the other side of the picnic table, throwing his arms out in grand gestures and laughing.

And there was the rhino, tied to a tree in the middle of the park.

Frank hit the brakes. He pulled in next to the pickups and shut off the engine.

Theo’s voice drifted in through the open windows. “Fuck, it’s easy, ya’ bunch of pussies. Fifty bucks a bullet. That’s it. Just fifty bucks. You decide the target. Head or heart. It’s your call.” He had seen Chuck’s truck, assumed it really was Chuck, and just ignored him.

“We been shooting for half an hour,” one of the hunters said. “It ain’t going down.”

Theo snorted. “I s’pose you’re the kind of pussy that goes to Vegas and whines when you don’t hit the jackpot after giving a slot machine one pull. You never fucking know. Could be your bullet’s the one that cracks that skull. Or punches through that heart. Or it could be that the fucker finally just bleeds to death and you happen to have had the last shot. That’s the kind of game this is.” Theo checked his watch. “And in, oh, thirteen minutes, the price of the bullets go up to a hundred bucks a pop.”

The last hunter to shoot said, “Take your time, boys. Look at it, it’s not going down.”

“Fuck you, Todd,” another hunter said. “That sonofabitch is ready to fucking drop any second. Oh hell, here.” The hunter handed Theo two hundred. “Gimme four bullets.”

Frank felt icy fingers claw at his insides.

The thin crack of a .22 split the air. A tiny pop of rough hide and blood burst out of the rhino’s head. It swayed, blood running in swift rivulets along the wrinkles, but did not go down. The hunter fired again, at the same spot. More blood. The rhino still stood.

Frank squeezed the .405’s barrel until he heard his knuckles crack.

* * * * *

The hunter fired two more times, but still couldn’t kill the rhino. “Who’s next?” Theo cried. “We’ve gotta be close now. Could very well be the next shot is the one. Any bullet could do the job. You just never know. Just fifty bucks for another,” he checked his watch, “seven minutes. Then we’re up to a hundred bucks a pop. Come on you cunts, you drop it, you win it all.”

The hunters checked their wallets, argued with each other, and watched the rhino. It stood in the full sun, gray hide the color of ash, head down, eyes closed. Bullet holes the size of peas were clustered in two main areas, in the chest just behind the front leg, and in the head, under the ears. It had taken over fifty rounds of small caliber bullets, and somehow, it was still on its feet. Frank could hear its wheezing, agonized breathing from thirty yards away.

Theo was in the middle of saying, “If nobody has the balls the step forward and do some shooting, then—” when the heavy blast of a serious game rifle rolled through the park and something punched the rhino. It stumbled sideways, and slowly, gratefully, sank to its knees, and rolled onto its side. It took one more breath, and then lay still.

Theo jumped on the table. “Who the fuck used a bigger gun? You just made a big fucking mistake, you—” And then he saw Frank, coming across the dead grass, face pale and gaunt and streaked with dry blood, moving in uneven, quick steps, like a grim spectral shadow that had slapped on some flesh and blood and went walking among the living for a while.

Even Theo didn’t know what to say for a moment. But he recovered quick, shouting, “You just wait ‘til my dad—”

Frank shot him in the knee with the .30-.30.

The impact blew Theo’s leg out from under him and he went down, landing on his chest on the table of guns. Frank kept moving forward, slinging the rifle over his shoulder and pulling the .45 out of his jeans. None of the hunters moved. Until Frank shot the closest man in the face. He shot another before the first hit the ground. The other hunters scattered, squirting in all directions like water from the giant wheel sprinklers out in the fields. Frank shot two more with the .45. The last hunter was nearly across the street when Frank jammed the handgun back into his jeans, unslung the .30-.30, and shot the hunter in the neck. The man went down, arms and torso on the sidewalk, legs in the gutter, and didn’t get up.

Still, Frank followed him across the street and shot him in the head, just to make sure. He methodically walked back to each hunter, shooting every one in the head with the .45, until he was back at the picnic table and looking down at Theo. The boy had rolled off the table and lay whimpering in the grass, clutching at his thigh, just above his knee. Tears squeezed from his eyes and ran back towards his ears.

“Oh please, please, please don’t hurt me,” Theo whispered. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I promise, oh please…oh please…” He rolled slightly back and forth, recoiling from the pain. “Please…”

Frank tilted his head and regarded Theo for several long moments. He eyed the .22s on the table and set the .30-.30 down. He selected a Ruger .22-.250, released the box-like clip, and grabbed a box of shells.

Theo kept begging. “Please, please call my dad. Please. He’ll take care of everything. He’ll give you all the money. Everything. Just please…Please…”

The clip locked into place back inside the rifle and he drew back the bolt, snicked it back closed. He shot Theo in the same bloody, ragged knee. Theo screamed, a raw squeal that swirled up and around and died in the dusty leaves. Frank shot him again in the thigh. And again in the crotch. Theo’s scream hitched, catching on itself, like long hair caught in a motorcycle chain and dragged into the wheels at eighty-five miles an hour, until he was only making a series of “Uhhh, uhhhh, uhhhh” sounds. Frank shot him in the stomach a few times, just for the hell of it.

Theo’s white face stretched tight over an open, silent mouth.

Frank said, “That’s the kind of game this is.”

* * * * *

Theo writhed in slow motion in the dead grass. His screams were too weak to carry across the street. Frank thought about running, jumping in Chuck’s truck and racing back to the long black car. But the rest of him didn’t want to run anymore. Despite the drugs rocketing through his system like an out-of-control roller coaster, he was terribly, terribly tired.

Frank paced while he waited. Theo’s guttural moans just made him itch to fire a few more bullets into the little shit. Frank figured he’d better save his ammo. Not only would he have Sturm to deal with, but also Jack, Pine, and the rest of the hunters. He went through all of the pickups, gathering guns. He left the rifles on the table alone; the calibers were simply too small for any serious gunfights. He stashed rifles around the park, in the trees, under the picnic table, around the fire engine.

But just as he was wedging a shotgun between the folds of fire hose, he froze, and stood stock still for several moments, as if he had gone into some kind of trance. The drugs had left his body alone for a moment, and ricocheted around his brain instead, firing off signals.

He unscrewed the cap to the tank and found it bone dry. If there was a fire, this particular fire truck would be useless. The keys were still in the ignition. He took one last look at Theo, surrounded by the corpses of seven hunters. Sturm’s son had stopped screaming and was now grabbing the picnic bench and trying to pull himself into a sitting position.

Frank started the engine. It wasn’t smooth, but it ran. He let the engine warm up a moment, grabbed the shotgun from the back, and walked back over to Theo. Frank was getting impatient, and Theo wasn’t bleeding to death fast enough. The last thing he wanted was for Sturm to come along and give first aid to his son. He rested the barrel of the shotgun on Theo’s knuckles, pinning them to the wood, and squeezed the trigger.

* * * * *

Frank put the fire truck in gear, and drove out of the park. He rolled down Main Street, gaining speed. He wanted to hit the siren and lights, but figured that might draw more attention before he was ready. He was pleased with his plan, and didn’t want anyone screwing it up before he had a chance to have some fun.

Myrtle was faithfully waiting in her plastic box inside the gas station. Frank drove right on in and left the engine running. He grabbed the nozzle and dragged the hose up to the top of the tank, stuck it in, and locked the nozzle handle, filling the empty fire engine water tank with gasoline. He turned and waved at Myrtle’s shocked face.

As the gallons of gas splashed into the tank, Frank reloaded the shotgun. It didn’t have the comforting feel of his own Winchester, but it would do. He kicked open the door. The broken bottom half was sealed in cardboard. The bells tinkled, and Frank wondered who in the hell would need a warning; the place wasn’t much bigger than a large closet. It wasn’t like you could sneak inside without the attendant spotting you. Frank put on his best smile. “Howdy.”

Myrtle’s pinched face got even more severe, as if she was trying to squeeze her eyes, nose, and mouth into one single organ. She said, “I don’t know what exactly it is you think you’re pulling, but you are not getting out of here without paying for that gas.”

Frank said, “Put it on my tab. You call Sturm?”

“That’s none of your damn business.”

Frank brought up the shotgun. “Let’s pretend my business is testing just how bulletproof this plastic really is.”

Myrtle swallowed. “Fine. Yes, yes, I called him.”

Frank said, “Good,” and squeezed the trigger.

The shotgun instantly blasted the clear plastic into an opaque spiderweb of cracks and tiny holes. But the plastic held. Myrtle shrieked and flinched, flinging both hands in front her face. She glared out at Frank. “You sonofabitch. I’ll have Sturm cut your balls off, you lying, cat killing sack of shit.”

Frank gave her another grin and pumped the shotgun.

She whirled, unlocked the door, and ran. The last time Frank saw her, she was running down the highway, slippers slapping the asphalt, arms waving, red hair bobbing like a lit match.

* * * * *

Gasoline started to run down both sides of the fire engine tank. Frank took another drink from the bottle of vodka and climbed back into the driver’s seat. The vodka didn’t have the sweet, seductive bite of the rum, but he could feel the chill bloom into warmth as it hit his stomach. It would do. Before the rest of him could talk himself out of it, he plucked another pill out of the baggie and washed it down with vodka.

The distant whine of ATVs rose above the clunking gas pump and Frank realized that he’d only seen about five or six Glouck boys in the back of the station wagon. That left at least eight boys or more somewhere in town. The engines slowed and stopped and Frank knew they were at the park.

He hit the accelerator, pulling away without bothering to take out the nozzle, turn the pump off, or screw the cap back on. The fire engine roared down the wide street.

His original plan was to hose down the park and the rest of the surrounding buildings with gasoline and wait for Sturm to show up. Then, with a match or even a few bullets through the tank, he could take out everyone with a three-block radius. Hell, if he could, he’d burn the whole fucking town. Just turn everything into a fiery holocaust.

But the arrival of the Glouck boys had changed his plans.

* * * * *

The fire engine handled like a fat woman slathered in cooking oil with the shifting weight of the gasoline in the tank. The sun stabbed into the cab. Frank blinked and felt his eyes slipping again, flipping over into photo-negative mode. But this time he was ready. He fumbled for his sunglasses. He glanced up, saw the street, in blinding white light, and had just slipped on the glasses on when he heard gunfire.

He hit the brakes, feeling the truck surge and jump under him. Using a combination of the brake pedal and the emergency brake, he managed to slow down without sliding over the road too much. More gunfire.

He saw the trees in the park. Felt, rather than heard, booming shotguns, interspersed with the purposeful cracks of two revolvers. And finally saw Sturm as a ghostly figure striding through a desolate landscape, shooting smaller shapes. Jack and Pine trailed along behind, finishing off the Glouck boys, making sure there were no survivors. Jack had a shotgun, and stopped every few seconds, shooting wounded Gloucks. Pine had a machete, and hacked away at anything that moved.

It took Frank a few seconds to comprehend that were killing their own brothers and stepbrothers.

* * * * *

Sturm heard the fire engine, turned to it, and fired. A hole appeared in the windshield and Frank felt something thump into the seat, inches from his right shoulder. Frank hit the clutch and the emergency brake at the same time.

Sturm fired again, and another hole appeared. But this time it smashed through the window behind Frank’s head with a dull whistling rush. He must have been out of bullets because he put his revolvers back into the holsters and put the picnic table between him and the fire engine.

Frank hit the gas. The truck yawed and pitched and Frank fought her the whole way, sliding through the grass. Frank crunched the gearshift into first and popped the clutch. The truck launched itself through the picnic table after Sturm.

For a split second, Sturm was a fearless matador without a red cape, facing down a pissed off three ton vehicle. Calm, like he was going out for a Sunday stroll with the dog, he moved to the left, and Frank tracked him. And when Frank knew he had him, he eased off on the gas but Frank wasn’t expecting the tank full of gasoline to slam forward, pushing the cab before it in mindless fury, throwing the steering all to hell. Sturm simply stepped aside.

The fire engine smashed into a two-foot thick elm tree with the sound of dry thunder, the back end bounced with the impact, and for a moment, under a burning mid day sun, everything, even the dust in the air, was still.

* * * * *

Frank heard voices. The words didn’t make sense. He thought he was sitting upright in the fire engine cab, but all he could see was some smooth, curving piece of metal and the dry leaves under a bleached sky.

He had been thrown into the dashboard and had his head stuck somehow between the steering wheel and instrument panel and the door, staring up through the windshield. He untangled himself and sat upright as much as possible. The seat and the dash had suddenly gotten much closer. He didn’t know if it was the first or second pill or the crash but suddenly, he was feeling decidedly calm. Relaxed, even. Blood, both fresh and dry, streaked his face. He’d somehow ripped his shirt. But nothing much hurt anymore.