Yo! Didn’t I just shoot that guy’s face in half when he got mouthy? You want to see this girl look like that, too?
Jørgen said of course he would not, and might have continued had Ursula not told him to quit talking right now or she’d kill him herself, adding that he was already to blame for letting these boys into the building. How insanely stupid could he be! The gunman hollered at her and she insisted she was on his side, and he said, Shut up now! and she said, But really I am! and he said, No, you’re not! and shot her point-blank in the chest, instantly killing her.
His partner in crime, who was serenely inspecting the loot right next to her, hardly seemed to notice. Everybody else then went perfectly silent, if you didn’t count the crying. And from the corridor Quig and Landon kept quiet, too; Quig, who we must note again was then much younger, and Charter-raised, realized he had lost feeling in his hands and legs, crippling fear as he had never known it. Landon pulled him back into the corridor and motioned that they should retreat to the office, which Quig was all for, given his palsy and Landon’s frozen visage and the fact that Landon was gripping the pistol so tightly it felt as if he might accidentally pull the trigger.
They got on their feet ready to sprint back to the safety of the office, but Quig stubbed his half-numb foot on the edge of the carpet runner and toppled like a headstone. The thud brought out the quiet accomplice, who walked straight up to Landon with his gun drawn and told him to put his down, which Landon did.
I think you two own this place, he said, neither Landon nor Quig able to speak.
It was soon thereafter that everything went to hell. Surely we can imagine how horrible it was, how utterly debased and hideous, the senseless waste and loss that is an ever-present counties possibility and that in one swift, complete act remade Quig. Which was this: the whole dining room was shot dead. Then Landon and Quig, after being badly pistol-whipped, were pushed to the office by the youthful robbers.
They’re gonna get it if you don’t open up, the hyper one bellowed at the armored door. He had already attempted to shoot out the lock, but it was a custom-made blast door that magically absorbed the pellets.
Don’t open no matter what, Landon shouted. They’ll kill us anyway, like they did everyone else.
That may be true, the quiet one muttered. But it won’t be quick. He then took hold of Landon’s hand and shot it, blowing off parts of some fingers. Landon screamed as he fell to his knees and you could hear Dale’s muted cries of his partner’s name. This only prompted the young man to tap the door with the butt of the pistol and say, Listen, and then he shot Landon again in the hand, ruining what was left; the poor fellow wailed again but much more weakly, overcome by shock as Quig braced him.
Dale was now frantic and pounding on his side of the door. Quig hollered for him not to open it, his fear now replaced by fury, at the marauders but also himself, for literally falling down in every way. He had committed a crime, yes, but it was never one of malice and so what greater transgression had he done to bring such profound misfortune upon his beloved? He had only done fine veterinary work, with caring and integrity. What was otherwise so wrong with his character and life? These were his instant, infinite-sided thoughts while entreating Dale at the top of his lungs, but all at once he was prone, bludgeoned with the butt of the shotgun. He was losing consciousness, the world going milky. The door then swung in, revealing Dale lamely holding a knife, Trish and Glynnis barely shielded behind him. And before he could say a last good word to them, the one with the shotgun stepped over the threshold and began blasting away.
For us B-Mors it’s difficult to accept such a transformation, being as willingly cloistered as we are, even our entertainments and tours designed to take us the middle distances, the thrums never so intense as to invite anything more than the standard extrapolations. What’s the point? In essence, people don’t want to go too far, at least not for long. It’s too much for the mind. Charters are equally sheltered, but whether they wish to recognize it or not, the native fuel of their society is risk, and when they fall, they fall from heights that very few can survive.
Fan, gentle-hearted girl that she was, couldn’t bear to ask what the scene was like when Quig came to. She thought she could see it anyway, flashes in the cold screen of his eyes, burned in. For Quig didn’t quite survive, Fan knew that. The robbers left after a futile search of the office for cash, leaving him and Landon alive, he later realized, only because they’d run out of ammunition. So instead they set fire to the inn, Quig roused out of his unconsciousness by the heat and choking smoke. The office, with its tragic hold, was already aflame. He managed to drag Landon a safe distance from the building but realized once in the clear that he had lost too much blood and was dead. Quig lay down again, spent by vertigo, and for the rest of the night felt the heat of everything torching. In the morning it was a stand of char. But his sense of balance was back, and he walked to his car, the keys in his pocket and the contents of the vehicle the only possessions he had left.
12
Fan drove for another stretch, having no trouble. But Loreen woke up to see her at the wheel and cried out in terror for Quig, which caused Fan to cross the roadway and head straight at a car that happened to be coming in the opposite direction. Had Quig not grabbed the wheel to make a split-second correction the collision would have been surely head-on. Instead, their front bumper glanced the back end of the other car at an angle that had little effect on them but sent the other vehicle into a wild spin, kicking up a huge cloud of dust before it suddenly straightened and ran off the embanked road, disappearing. Fan slowed down and stopped and looked at Quig, and after a pause, he had her turn around. Loreen was woozy but livid and saying how she was going to throw up any second. They let her out and then drove back to the spot where the tire tracks left the road, and when they looked down, they saw the car, a wagon, on its side in some high weeds. It sat, ticking. Then passengers calmly climbed out of the windows. They kept coming out and coming out, and before they knew it, a near-dozen of them had exited the car, among them a middle-aged couple and an elderly man wearing a tattered straw cowboy hat and an assortment of children of various heights and ages. Save for the couple, who were fleshy and plump though not quite as big as Loreen, they were lithe and muscular, and every one of them wore a clingy burnt-orange-colored overall, some with T-shirts underneath and others with no tops at all, a few of the younger girls included.
With a nod, the man of the couple acknowledged them for having come back, and as they stepped down the brief slope, Fan noticed that Quig had a small hunting knife tucked in the back of his trousers; out here it was always best to be prepared, especially in a chance circumstance. The couple shook hands with Quig, who apologized for the accident and suggested they set the car back upright to see what kind of damage there was. The man agreed and he whistled at some of the larger children, who immediately took their places about the vehicle and with him and Quig rocked the wagon and gently eased it back down on its tires. There were long fresh scratches on the side of the car but no serious damage otherwise, as it had tipped over and slid a couple of lengths in the weedy vegetation. The man didn’t seem concerned about the scratches — the car was ancient and rusted about the wheel wells — and hopped in to start it. But as much as he tried, it wouldn’t turn over. It was agreed maybe the engine was flooded and they ought to wait for a while, during which time the couple talked with Quig and now Loreen, who had walked back from where she had gotten sick.