Pig to the right! She crouched again, taking aim at an imaginary enemy. Off in the forest, crows called to each other. She smelled woodsmoke as she ran again, and she figured houses must be near. She entered a tangle of thicket, the sweat trickling down the back of her neck and dead leaves snagged in her hair. As she fought through the growth, battering it aside with her forearms, she thought of Jack urging her on with his stopwatch and whistle. He had written the message from the underground; of that she had no doubt. He was calling the Storm Fronters together again, after all these years. Calling for her, his true love. There had to be a purpose behind his summons. The Mindfuck State was still full of pigs, and all the Revolution had done was make them meaner. If the Storm Front could rise up again, with Lord Jack holding its red banner, she would be the happiest woman on earth. She had been born to fight the pigs, to grind them down under her boots and blow their shitty brains out. That was her life; that was reality. When she got back to Lord Jack and the Storm Front was on the move again, the pigs would tremble at the name of Mary Terror.
She burst through the foliage, her face raked by thorns. Pig to the left! she thought, and she dove for the ground. She hit the clayey dirt on her shoulder, rolled through weeds, and contorted her body to the left, lifting the pistol to take aim at –
A boy.
He was standing maybe fifteen yards away, in a splash of sunlight. He wore bluejeans with patched knees and a camouflage-print windbreaker, and on his head was a dark blue woolen cap. His eyes were large and round, and in his arms he held a small, boy-sized rifle.
Mary Terror lay where she was, the gun aimed in the boy's direction. Time stretched, breaking only when the boy opened his mouth.
"You okay, lady?"
"I fell," she said, trying to assemble her wits.
"Yeah, I saw. You okay?"
Mary glanced around. Was the boy alone? No one else in sight. She said, "Who you out here with?"
"Just me. My house is over that way." He motioned with a turning of his head, but the boy's home was about a half-mile away, over a hill and out of sight.
Mary stood up. She saw the boy's eyes fix on the revolver in her hand. He was about nine or ten, she decided; his face was ruddy, the cheeks chill-burned. The rifle he held was a.22, and it had a small telescopic sight. "I'm all right," she told him. Again her gaze searched the woods. Birds sang, cars droned on the distant highway, and Mary Terror was alone with the boy. "I tripped," she said. "Stupid, huh?"
"You 'bout scared the life outta me, comin' through there and all."
"Sorry. Didn't mean to." She lifted her head slightly and sniffed the woodsmoke. Maybe a fire in the hearth at the kid's house, she thought.
"What're you doin' out here? Kinda far from the road." He kept his rifle pointed at the ground. The first thing his father had told him: never point a gun at a person unless you're gonna use it.
"Just hiking." She saw him look at the pistol again. "Target shooting, too."
"I heard some shots. That was you, I reckon."
"That was me."
"I'm squirrel-huntin'," the boy said, and he offered a gap-toothed grin. "I got me this here new rifle for my birthday. See?"
She had never run into anyone out here before. She didn't like this, didn't like it at all. A boy alone with a squirrel rifle. She didn't like it. "How come no one's with you?" she asked.
"My daddy had to go in to work. He said if I was careful I could come on out by myself, but I wasn't to go too far from the house."
Her mouth was dry. She was still breathing hard, but the sweat was drying on her face. She didn't like this; she could imagine this boy going home and saying to his parents I saw a woman in the woods today. She had a pistol and she said she was out hikin'. She was a big, tall woman, and I can draw you a picture of what she looked like.
"Is your daddy a policeman?" Mary asked.
"No, ma'am. He builds houses."
She asked if you were a policeman, Daddy, she could imagine the boy saying. I can remember what she looked like. Wonder why she asked if you were a policeman, Daddy?
"What's your name?" she asked him.
"Cory Peterson. My birthday was yesterday. See, I got this rifle."
"I see." She watched the boy's gaze tick to her.38 once more. How come she had a pistol. Daddy? How come she was out there in the woods by herself and she don't even live around here? "Cory," she said. She smiled at him. The sun was warm out here, but the shadows still trapped winter. "My name is Mary," she told him, and just that quick she decided it had to be done.
"Pleased to meet ya. Well, I guess I'd best be gettin' on now. I said I wouldn't be gone too long."
"Cory?" she said. He hesitated. "Can I have a closer look at your rifle?"
"Yes ma'am." He began walking toward her, his boots crunching on dead leaves.
She watched him approach. Her heart was beating hard, but she was calm. The boy might decide to follow her if she let him go; he might follow her all the way to her truck, and he might remember her license number. He might be a lot smarter than he looked, and his father might know someone who was a policeman. She was going to be leaving soon, after she'd gotten everything prepared, and she would worry about this boy if she didn't tie up the loose ends. Daddy, I saw this woman in the woods and she had a pistol and her name was Mary. No, no; that could screw up everything.
When Cory got to her, Mary reached out and grasped the rifle's barrel. "Can I hold it?" she asked, and he nodded and gave it up. The rifle hardly had any weight at all, but she was interested in the telescopic sight. Having it might save her some money if she ever bought a long-range rifle. "Real nice," she said. She kept her smile on, no trace of frost or tension around the edges. "Hey, you know what?"
"What?"
"I saw a place where a lot of squirrels are. Back that way." She nodded toward the thicket she'd broken through. "It isn't too far, if you want to see it."
"I don't know." Cory looked back in the direction of his house, then up into her face again. "I figger I'd better be gettin' on home."
"Really, it's not far. Won't take but just a few minutes to show you." She was thinking of the ravine where dead leaves and kudzu covered the bottom.
"Naw. Thanks anyway. Can I have my rifle back now, please?"
"Going to make it hard on me, huh?" she asked, and she felt her smile slip.
"Ma'am?" The boy blinked, his dark brown eyes puzzled.
"I don't mind," Mary said. She lifted her Colt and placed the barrel squarely in the middle of Cory Peterson's forehead.
He gasped.
She pulled the trigger, and with the crack of the shot the boy's head was flung backward. His mouth was open, showing little silver fillings in his teeth. His body went back, following the shock to his neck. He stumbled backward a few steps, the hole in the center of his forehead running crimson and his brains scattered on the ground behind him. His eyelids fluttered, and his face looked to Mary as if the boy were about to sneeze. He made a strangled little squeak, squirrel like, and then he fell on his back amid the detritus of winter. His legs trembled a few times, as if he were trying to stand up again. He died with his eyes and mouth open and the sun on his face. Mary stood over him until his lungs had stopped hitching. There was no use trying to drag the body away to hide it. She swept her gaze back and forth through the woods, her senses questing for sound and movement. The gunshot had scared the birds away, and the only noises were her heartbeat and blood trickling in the leaves. Satisfied that no one else was anywhere around, she turned away from the corpse and pushed back through the thicket again. Once clear of it, she began running in the direction she'd come, the.38 in one hand and the boy-sized rifle clenched in the other.