Walter Williams - The Rift

“If there was a misfire,” he said, “we don’t want them going off now .”

“Gotta get up there,” Nick said, as much to himself as Armando. There were a lot of shots now, including the sustained, stunning clamor of at least one of the deputies’ machine pistols. Nick looked around for a weapon- he hadn’t thought to provide himself with one- and saw the old lady carefully crouched down behind the brick walls of the barbecue grille, clutching her spatula as if it were a spear. It was probably the safest place to be in the whole camp.

Nick didn’t want to wrestle the old lady for her spatula, so he gave up his search for a weapon and ran forward into the melee. The dust in the air had dispersed, and Nick saw a dozen bodies lying in the dirt. Most were deputies, but some were not. The bodies of the deputies were surrounded by clumps of refugees stripping them of their weapons. A pair of deputies retreated through the gate, a wave of club-waving refugees close behind. One of the deputies was wounded and had his arm around the shoulders of the second, who was supporting him in his withdrawal while firing back into the advancing crowd with a pistol. One of the pursuers sprawled to earth, and then with a series of triumphant cries the two deputies were engulfed by the wave of attackers. Nick saw knives and cudgels rising and falling, heard bone-chilling screams from one of the fallen.

He kept going. Don’t stop except to pick up a weapon. That’s what he’d told everyone. The heavy air labored through his lungs. “Keep moving!” he gasped. “Keep moving!”

The air was full of gunfire, but Nick couldn’t see who was shooting, or at whom. He burst free of the gate- a yell of defiance rose to his lips- and then he was in the parking lot. Some of the cars had suffered cracked windshields from the claymores’ munitions. Shotguns boomed. Nick crouched low between two cars.

Gather in the parking lot where there’s cover. Take your car keys. Start your cars and get ready to move out on a signal.

That’s what he’d told his army. But he didn’t have any car keys, he didn’t have a car; he’d have to wait for others. He leaned his back against one of the cars, tried to catch his breath, mopped sweat off his forehead with his sleeve.

“Warriors!” he shouted. “Warriors! This way!”

He wondered what was happening in the camp. Bullets snapping overhead convinced Nick that it wouldn’t be wise to stick his head up and find out.

Whoever was firing the machine pistol had stopped. That was good, at least.

Nick heard a car door slam, then the grind of a starter and the roar of the engine. Bent in a crouch, he began moving in the direction of the sound.

And then he turned around the front end of a Chevy pickup and came face-to-face with the enemy: the big deputy who had been giving the orders.

The deputy was in cover between the pickup and a Pontiac wagon. He crouched in front of the Chevy, leaning against its bumper. His hat had been knocked off, and his forehead badly gouged by one of the claymores’ weird munitions. Blood ran down his face, spattered his khaki uniform. He still carried his shotgun in both hands. His left hand was bloody where the middle finger had been shot or blown or blasted off.

At the sight of the man, Nick’s blood seemed to flash into steam. The deputy looked at Nick in surprise as Nick came running around the truck’s fender. Maybe he’d been deafened by the mines and hadn’t heard him coming. Nick could smell the man’s sweat. He screamed and lunged at the man.

The deputy lifted the shotgun in both hands to fend Nick off, and Nick grabbed the shotgun and drove into the man, knocking the startled deputy on his back. They sprawled onto the soil of the parking lot, Nick on top. He scrambled to a crouch above his enemy, his hands still gripping the gun. The barrel was slick with the deputy’s blood. The deputy writhed under Nick, trying to throw him off, bucking like a horse. Nick bore down with all his weight onto the shotgun, trying to press the gun against the deputy’s throat and strangle him.

They both gasped for breath in the hot afternoon air. Nick drove the shotgun down, toes digging into the soil, slipping on the slick grass. His sweat dripped onto the deputy’s face. The deputy blinked blood from his eyes, saw the barrel coming near his throat. His eyes widened as he saw the danger, and then Nick saw determination enter the deputy’s face; the deputy gave a long, growling exhalation as he gathered his power and began to press Nick back like a weightlifter bench-pressing a set of barbells. To Nick’s astonishment the deputy lifted him upward, pressing him into the air no matter how much weight Nick put on the shotgun.

Terror sang through Nick. If the deputy could throw him off, then he could finish Nick through superior strength.

The deputy’s body gave a heave under Nick as he positioned himself for greater effort. From the way the deputy shifted, Nick realized he had one leg between the two legs of the deputy, and with a roar he shifted his own weight, pivoting off the shotgun as if it were a high bar in gymnastics, and dropped his knee with full force into the deputy’s groin.

The deputy’s eyes popped, and his breath went out of him in a great whoosh. Instead of bearing down further on the shotgun, Nick pulled at it, trying to snatch it out of the deputy’s grip. “Mine!” he shouted.

The barrel of the shotgun came free from the deputy’s maimed left hand. Nick tried a final wrench to yank it entirely free, but the barrel hit the chromed front end of the Chevy, cramping Nick’s movement, and the deputy hung on with his big right hand. Nick yanked the gun back and forth, banging the weapon into the Chevy and the Pontiac wagon on the other side, until he realized that the deputy was reaching his left hand across his front, toward the pistol that was holstered at his belt.

“No!” Nick yelled. He hammered at the deputy’s wounded hand with his right fist. The deputy gave a gasp of pain and surprise and snatched his hand back. Nick gave a wrench to the shotgun, managed to break it free of the deputy’s grip.

“Mine!” he shouted, and smashed the butt of the shotgun into the deputy’s face. The deputy gave a convulsive heave under Nick and almost threw him off. The man’s hands clawed blindly upward, trying to grab the shotgun again or defend himself. Nick slipped the gun butt into the deputy’s guard and smashed him again in the face. Blood spattered from the gouge on the man’s forehead. “Mine!” Nick cried. “My gun!” He smashed another time. The deputy arched his back and Nick drove the gun butt again into his face.

“Mine! Mine!” The shotgun rose and fell. “Mine! Mine, you bastard!”

Nick stopped striking only when he ran out of breath. Both Nick and the deputy were spattered with blood.

A cry of savage joy rose in Nick’s heart. He lurched to his feet, brandished the bloody shotgun over his head. “Warriors!” he screamed to the heavens. “Warriorrrrrrrrs!”

The shout was taken up by the other fighters now streaming through the parking lot. Some waved guns, others clubs. The shooting seemed far less intense than it had been, though a shot that snapped over Nick’s head drove him again into a crouch.

He looked down at the deputy lying at his feet and felt his raging triumph die and turn to cold, creeping horror. Dazedly, Nick read the plastic name tag on the deputy’s uniform. Jedthus C. Carter. His head swam. He closed his eyes. He had done this, had beaten this man to death with his own weapon.

“Move! Keep moving!” People shouted to each other as they ran through the parking lot.