The Cabin at the End of the World(50)
Adriane points and yells, “Fuck you,” at Leonard. She shuffles into the center of the room and stands directly in front of Andrew. They share a surprised, head-tilted look. Adriane yells, “Hey!” and lunges at him.
Andrew slide-steps and knocks his chair onto its side, then kicks it into Adriane’s legs. She stumbles and plunges forward, her hands pressing on the inverted chair back to keep from falling to the floor.
Sabrina grabs Andrew’s left arm and he spins to face her with his painful, crumpled-paper fists raised. She unexpectedly grunts, winces, and collapses onto her knees. Eric is behind her, still sitting and with one arm around Wen, and he gives Sabrina another backhanded kidney punch. She crawls away from Eric’s reach, a hand pressed against her lower back.
Eric switches the arm with which he holds Wen and throws left jabs at Leonard’s midsection. Leonard clumsily fends off the blows from Eric’s pistoning arm with open hands. One punch catches him in the groin and he staggers back into one of the bedroom doorways.
Eric shouts, “Andrew, take Wen and go! Take her!”
Leonard recovers and approaches Eric from his left. Adriane has already discarded the chair-in-her-legs obstacle, but instead of going after Andrew she renews her grappling with Eric.
Eric alternates throwing quick punches at Adriane and Leonard while shielding Wen.
Adriane yells, “Hit him, Leonard! Hit him in the head!”
Leonard says, “We don’t want to hurt you,” and attempts to snare Eric’s left arm when it lashes out.
Sabrina is upright now, too, has her weapon, and steps toward Andrew.
Andrew can’t fight off all three at once. Not without his gun. He lunges for the front door, pulls the latch bolt to the right, turns the knob, and flings the door open wide all in one motion. With a rush of warm air and sunlight the door opens too wildly and the momentum of the pendulous swing almost sends him tumbling back into the cabin. He maintains his grip on the doorknob, leans all his weight forward, and stumbles outside, pulling the door shut behind him. His slow and heavy feet cannot catch up with his forward lean and he pitches down the small set of stairs, landing chest and face first on the grass.
His breaths are painful and short, air squeezing out of the pinched end of a balloon. He blinks away the shock and unsteadily restacks himself onto shaky legs. Once upright he starts the forward-moving engine again.
The cabin’s front door opens behind him. Sabrina yells, “Andrew, stop! Come back!”
Andrew doesn’t stop and he doesn’t look to see if anyone else is with her. The SUV is ten to fifteen yards away. The driver’s-side front and rear tires are flat and the side walls have been slashed. He assumes the other tires have been slashed as well. That car isn’t going anywhere.
His right hand goes into his shorts pocket in search of the familiar lump of his car keys. They’re not there. He remembers that he gave Eric the keys yesterday when the others were breaking into the cabin. If the car doors are locked, he won’t be able to get to the gun and he doesn’t know what he will do, what he can do.
Andrew races onto the gravel driveway, the loose stones part and grind under his feet, spewing clouds of dirt. The stomped-on-gravel crunch is too loud, all encompassing, like a mob is sprinting across the driveway, but he won’t look back, can’t look back. Maybe Sabrina has caught up to him. Maybe she isn’t alone. He’s almost to the passenger-side door that he’ll open because it has to open, not opening is not an option, and then he’ll jump inside the car and lock the doors, which will give him time to crawl into the backseat and to the trunk—
Something sharp and heavy crashes into the outside of his right knee, which buckles and sings with jagged, white-hot agony. Andrew falls and bounces off the car door, absorbing most of the collision with his forearms and hands, before landing on his screaming knee. He flips over into a sitting position with his back against the car and faces Sabrina.
Sabrina stands over him and says, “You can’t leave them. You can’t leave us. We all need you. Come back inside. I’ll help you,” in an oddly detached, unearthly monotone. She lifts her weapon, raising the tapered edge of the curled-over and pointed shovel blade, appearing to reload for another swing despite her promise of help.
Andrew scoops up a fistful of gravel and dirt and he underhand throws it into her face. With her eyes closed and head turned to the side, he scrambles up onto his left knee and punches her in the stomach. An almost comical oof plumes out of Sabrina and she folds in half. He tries to snatch the weapon away but she falls backward, landing on her butt, one hand over her midsection, the other on the weapon, holding it so as to ward off more blows.
Andrew pivots and he flips up the car door handle. He grunts in triumph as it’s not locked and the door clicks open. He slithers inside the SUV, coiling himself into the passenger seat, shutting and locking the door behind him. The pain in his right knee has dulled some but is now focused on the inner side, not where the weapon contacted him. Already swollen to twice its normal size, the knee is wobbly and as loose as a door hinge when he puts weight on it.
Sabrina rocks herself up into a standing position. She’s hunched over, still holding her midsection, and gasping for air. She shambles to the SUV and, in a matter of moments, she will smash windows with that goddamn nightmare stick.
Andrew shimmies between the front bucket seats and worms over the center console into the back, dragging his right leg behind instead of relying on it to propel him. His right foot snags between the console and passenger seat and while pulling it free doesn’t exactly hurt, his stomach flips at how unstable and puttylike his knee is.