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“We need to go,” he said to her. “Now.”

He closed his arms around her waist, and in the next instant the Triumph was under way and the night was lit up with the thunderous rattle of machine-gun fire.





Out Back


THE SOUND OF THE GUNS SHOOK THE DARKNESS ITSELF. VIC FELT ALL that noise tearing through her, mistook it for the impact of bullets, and reflexively grabbed the throttle. The back tire smoked and slipped across the wet earth, peeled up a long, soggy strip of grass. Then the Triumph jumped forward, into the darkness.

A part of her was still looking back, watching her father double over, reaching for his own throat, hair falling across his eyes. His mouth open as if he were trying to vomit.

A part of her was catching him before he could sink to his knees, was holding him in her arms.

A part of her was kissing his face. I’m right here, Dad, she told him. I’m right here with you. She was so close to him she could smell the fresh-poured-copper smell of his blood.

Lou’s soft, bristly cheek was pressed to the side of her neck. He was spooned against her, the backpack full of explosives crushed between their bodies.

“Just ride,” he said. “Get us where we have to go. Don’t look, just ride.”

Dirt flew up on her right as she twisted the bike around, pointing it upslope, toward the trees. Her ears registered the sound of bullets smacking into the soil behind them. Through the racket of gunfire, she picked out Tabitha Hutter’s voice, wavering with strain:

“STOP SHOOTING, STOP SHOOTING!”

Vic couldn’t think and didn’t need to. Her hands and feet knew what to do, her right foot kicking up into second gear, then third. The bike scrambled up the wet hill. The pines rose in a dark wall before them. She lowered her head as they cut in between the tree trunks. A branch swatted her across the mouth, stung her lips. They broke through the brush, and the tires found the boards of the Shorter Way Bridge and began to clatter over them.

“What the f*ck?” Lou cried.

She hadn’t entered straight on, and her head was still down, and her shoulder hit the wall. The arm went dead, and she was shoved back into Lou.

In her mind her father was falling into her arms again.

Vic pulled on the handlebars, veering to the left, getting them away from the wall.

In her mind she was saying, I’m right here, while the two of them sank together to the ground.

One of the floorboards cracked under the front tire, and the handlebars were wrenched out of her hands.

She kissed her father’s temple. I’m right here, Dad.

The Triumph careened into the left-hand wall. Lou’s left arm was smashed against it, and he grunted. The force of him striking the wall made the whole bridge shudder.

Vic could smell the scalpy odor of her father’s hair. She wanted to ask him how long he had been alone, why there was no woman in the house. She wanted to know how he kept himself, what he did to pass his evenings. She wanted to tell him she was sorry and that she still loved him; for all the bad, she still loved him.

Then Chris McQueen was gone. She had to let him go, let him slide free from her arms. She had to ride on without him.

Bats shrilled in the dark. There was a sound like someone riffling through a deck of cards, only vastly amplified. Lou twisted his head to look up between the rafters. Big, gentle, unshakable Lou did not scream, hardly made a sound at all, but he took a great sharp breath of air and ducked as dozens, perhaps hundreds, of bats, disturbed from their rest, dropped from the ceiling and rained upon them, whirling through the dank space. They were everywhere, brushing against their arms, their legs. One of them whisked by Vic’s head, and she felt its wing graze her cheek and caught a glimpse of its face as it flitted past: small, pink, deformed, yet oddly human. She was looking at her own face, of course. It was all that Vic could do to stop herself from shrieking as she struggled to keep the Triumph on course.

The bike was almost to the far end of the bridge now. A few of the bats darted lazily out into the night, and Vic thought, There goes part of my mind.

Her old Raleigh Tuff Burner appeared before her. It seemed to race toward her, the headlight rushing over it. She realized, a half instant too late, that she was going to hit it and that the consequences would be brutal. The front tire smacked the Raleigh dead-on.

The Triumph seemed to snag and catch on the rusted, cobwebbed bicycle and was already turning sideways and toppling over as it exited the covered bridge. A dozen bats poured out with them.

The tires tore raggedly at dirt, then grass. Vic saw the ground fall away, saw they were about to tip over an embankment. She had a glimpse of pine trees, decorated with angels and snowflakes.

Then they went over a steep drop. The bike turned, dumping them off the side. It followed them down, crashing onto the both of them in an avalanche of hot iron. The world cracked open, and they fell into darkness.





The Sleigh House


LOU WAS AWAKE FOR CLOSE TO AN HOUR BEFORE HE HEARD A DRY, quiet crackling and saw little white flakes dropping into the dead leaves around him. He tipped his head back and squinted into the night. It had begun to snow.

“Lou?” Vic asked.

His neck was stiffening up, and it hurt to lower his chin. He looked over at Vic, lying on the ground to his right. She had been asleep a moment ago, but now she was with him, eyes open wide.

“Yeah,” he said.