“Get back,” Sawyer called again, to Cam, and Silverstein screamed, “You get back! Stay away from us!”
Cam had never heard Doug Silverstein speak in any way except a controlled manner, not even during their worst arguments, and the hysteria made him seem like an imposter.
There was more. Silverstein was shorter, hunched to one side. Price made a familiar slashing wave yet stayed silent.
These were not the same people Cam had left on the mountain.
Hollywood’s voice held no trace of the confident madman who’d crossed this valley for them. “Just go away,” he said. He sounded lost. He sounded old.
Sawyer ignored him. “Put ’em down, Price.”
“Get out of here!” Silverstein brayed.
Then Bacchetti coughed and there was an answering hack from someone at the rear of the other group. A weak, wet rasp. It could have been enough to reunite them. Their suffering was the same. It had always been that way.
But Sawyer yelled again, “Put the guns down!”
Caught between them, Cam was afraid to move or speak. Motivation came from a sharper fear. Sawyer and Price, here, now, had only one conclusion.
Sawyer and Price had too much hate between them.
Cam flicked his gaze over his shoulder, shaping words inside his crowded head before he reconsidered making himself a target. Manny had followed them down the block and stood ten yards back. Sawyer was still in the intersection but stepped close to a blue mailbox with his revolver.
“Come on, hey,” Hollywood said, louder now. His intent must have been the same as Cam’s, but the poor deluded ass-hole had never understood the depth of the fear and resentment among them. They had tried to conceal it from him, yet Hollywood had also willingly ignored a thousand clues.
The boy repeated his words, “Hey, hey,” and his voice seemed to stir Price, who directed nonsense at Sawyer.
Price said, “Took too long, killer.”
The bewilderment in Cam resolved into a fleeting memory of Chad Loomas, the second man they’d murdered and eaten. But they had all eaten. They had all wanted the stew. What had Price been telling Hollywood, redirecting the blame?
“Killed her,” Price muttered again. Cam had misunderstood, deafened by his own guilt. Lorraine. Price must be talking about Lorraine; too long meant hijacking the pickup truck.
He looked for her but the people behind Price were too similar, all hoods and goggles. Apparently she was missing. “I helped her, Jim, her arm, remember?”
“Spic.”
Cam hadn’t heard that curse since the end of the world. In all their time together, all their confrontations, no one had ever condemned him out loud for the color of his skin — and it meant nothing now except that whatever remained of Jim Price had been burned down to something base and primitive.
“You goddamn spic, you faggots, you killed her.” Price waggled his right arm, his rifle. “Faggots,” he said.
Something happened behind Cam. He saw Silverstein and Nielsen react together. Silverstein pulled his rifle from his shoulder and pushed it forward like a spear, as Nielsen lifted both pistols.
Cam moved. He yanked hard on Erin’s arm as he turned and Bacchetti came with them, one step, two.
Sawyer stood behind the mailbox now, his revolver leveled.
“Get away, get away!” Silverstein screamed, and Hollywood said, “Come on, hey, just let them—”
Sawyer fired first.
12
Bacchetti stayed with Erin and Cam. Otherwise they would have fallen. Erin managed only a cramped, kicking motion as they began to run, and Cam put his boot down on her ankle. Then Bacchetti hauled her forward and Cam regained his balance. That first gunshot still had yet to roll beyond their hearing.
They were twenty feet from the end of the block but it looked like forever, a wide, flat-walled canyon. Sawyer’s revolver barked again and stamped a hundred details into Cam’s mind; screams behind him; the square shadows of the buildings painted on the street. A rifle cracked and Nielsen’s pistols stuttered pop pop pop pop—
All three of them instinctively ducked and Bacchetti dodged sideways, pushing Erin into Cam. The noise felt like a solid thing, each slap backed by a crazy weave of echoes.
The corner building was brick. They ducked past it and fell together as the noise disappeared. There were still human sounds — hysteria, the ragged screech of someone hurt — but the shooting had stopped.
Unsteady even on his hands and knees, bumping against the rough brick, Cam looked for Manny first. He saw Sawyer across the intersection on this same crossroad, crouched against a shop wall, a barbershop, busy with something in his lap. Reloading. Cam’s face mask had pulled down over his chin and he reset it as he poked his head around the corner.
Silverstein had come several paces after them, still holding his rifle away from his lanky torso. He lurched stiffly, trying not to disturb the nano infection in his gut. “Get away!” he screamed. “Getaway getaway!”
Price didn’t appear to have moved, rifle leveled. Someone near him ran into the hunting shop. Everybody else was down, either wounded or making themselves as small as possible, bright jackets like human confetti strewn over the asphalt.
Some of the confetti moved, crabbing away, kicking in agony.
Manny was a blue figure between Silverstein and Cam, his goggles ripped from his thin, bloody face. The kid had been smart enough not to run for Sawyer’s corner, even though he’d been closer to that side of the street. Most of the fire must have been directed back at Sawyer’s gun, but at least one stray round had caught Manny nevertheless — or maybe he’d been too slow, too easy, hopscotching on that bad foot. Maybe Nielsen had targeted him in frustration when Sawyer escaped. Maybe Price had done it from spite.
The kid was alive. His body was bent as if he’d been thrown from a great height, chest down, hips turned on their side, but he was alive. He looked like he was still trying to run or maybe dreaming of running. Both legs worked pathetically and he inched one blue-sleeved arm over the filthy road.
In his heart, Cam said good-bye.
“Getawayyy getawayyyy!” The yelling was more frightened than frightening, and deprived Silverstein of any element of surprise as he paced closer. Silverstein had lost his mind.
Sawyer knew exactly what he was doing. Sawyer had always known. He looked across the intersection at Cam, hefting his revolver and pointing with his free hand. He walked two fingers, then tapped down on them with the weapon’s short barrel.
Club him if he comes up your side of the street.
The clarity of the idea, just the act of communicating, gave Cam focus. He slipped out of his daypack. The canteen in it was no more than ten pounds, but it was the only weapon he had. He balled his hand around the top of one shoulder strap to give himself as much reach as possible, then glanced back for Erin, not sure what he would see.
Both she and Bacchetti were in ready crouches and she bobbed her head once, the way Sawyer always did, like once was plenty. Cam nodded back. He knew then that he genuinely loved her.
“Getawayyy!” The warning cry sounded no closer.
Cam dared to lean over, peering through the chink between two bricks. Silverstein was still reeling around the beast in his stomach but he’d altered his direction, patrolling a line across the street instead of continuing to advance on them.
Cam’s eyes went to Manny again, left out there like a bloody sack of garbage. It should have been Price. It should have been Sawyer. The idea resounded through him with no sign of madness, quiet and clear and definite.