. . .” Their shadows growing darker in the bluish snow, the priest led the group out of sight, back into the church.
Michael and Patrick hadn’t found any weapons in their canvass of Coalmount. Evidently, that was because they hadn’t thought of the church as a possible arsenal.
The congregation reemerged with two axes, three pipes, four crowbars, and seven pistols. The priest himself cradled a rifle with a scope and banana clip.
He motioned in different directions, and the people began spreading into the streets and side streets and alleys, like a great spiderweb being spun. Looking for us. Oh God, yeah, it’s a search party, just not the kind I wanted.
One woman was waiting in the road. A hammy woman—red coat, no gloves, a sweet, dimpled face—paced parallel to the coal office, not fifty feet from the front door. She was carrying a crowbar. She raised a hand to her brow, scouting the tree line that rose behind the buildings on the opposite side of the street. Amazingly, she seemed to have no interest at all in the side of the street where Michael was hidden.
And she had not even noticed their Volvo station wagon.
Situated between Michael and the woman—dusted with fresh inches of snow from last night’s storm—was the only possible hope of escape for the people she was stalking.
God bless you, crappy West Virginia winter! “Gamer, we’ve got to sneak out. I bet you’ll do it awesome, huh?”
“H-heck yeah,” Patrick said weakly. And added with a struggle: “woot.”
God, he tried so hard. Ya-ya.
Michael thought: Breathe. Just breathe.
Here, Michael thought, we go.
And did.
In the milli-moment when Hammy was turning and turning away, Michael, carrying his rifle and his brother both, opened the door of the office of Southern West Virginia Coal and Natural Gas, and silently stepped out.
Because he did not want the steam to rise, he locked his breath inside his mouth.
And in his temples, he felt his thudding blood.
In seconds like these—strings of seconds that seemed sewn together, tethered easily with light—everything glowed. Everything flowed. His feet floated down before him, instructing themselves, finding seamlessly the empty space between the iced-over parts of snow that would crunch. He was not thinking. In seconds like these, he was pure doing.
He could smell the snow. He tasted and heard the cold. The car was sliding closer to him, and as it did, behind his eyes, he saw them driving off in it.
“Michael!” Patrick whispered uncertainly.
Michael flinched, ready to hiss at Patrick, but then everything inside him froze.
On the other side of the Volvo, Hammy was turning toward them.
Run! But Michael ignored the panic. He threw himself down, Patrick still on his back. His shoulder bucked against the side-rear bumper of the Volvo; snow from the bike attached to the back fell down on them.
He could see the woman’s feet, under the car. Her fat legs were stomping in the snow.
His own legs burned and quivered underneath him.
The office was only maybe ten paces back, but it might as well have been in another world. He’d be spotted if he tried to return.
Patrick looked panicked, and Michael understood that he had to hurry.
He crouched-crawled to the front passenger door. His hand gripped the handle, and just as he tugged it, he thought:
Locked it. I locked it before we went in the office.
The Volvo’s alarm exploded the air around him. Michael’s legs softened. Bright spots of shock popped in front of his eyes. He jammed his gloves into his mouth.
Patrick screamed into the glow of now-flashing hazard lights.
She began to run, but slid and stumbled as she made the transition from sidewalk to road, slamming onto a knee. “Waahh-hoooo!” she wailed. Beyond her, in all directions, shadows neared: Bellows in the woods, killers in the roads, wailing and approaching.
Patrick, his eyes white and afraid, said, “Michael?”
NOW! FEEL YOUR—
—blood, blood, hammering his heart—
And suddenly, suddenly Michael was calm!
He took Patrick’s hand into his own, knowing this: he would get the keys, or it would be Game Over.
He got Patrick up, back across the sidewalk toward the office, shouldered the door, into darkness, where he tripped over a can of paint, quickly regained footing—to the desk, to their duffel bag beside it—kicking the paint can away and as the can burst open and splashed red color, Michael tore open the bag and fanned apart the Pop-Tart wrappers and there were his keys, there were his keys, winking, like they were happy to see him too.