Andrew Klavan - If We Survive

Nicki did stop—for a moment. She stared at Meredith through big eyes ringed with black mascara. Her mouth hung open. “Faith?” she asked, her voice breaking. “Courage?” And then a light of understanding seemed to dawn in her. “Because they’re going to kill us next, aren’t they? That’s why you’re talking about faith and courage! They killed Pastor Ron and they’re going to kill us next!”

Nicki was winding herself up to another fit. But Meredith took her face in her hands, held it hard, forcing Nicki to look at her.

“Nicki,” Meredith commanded. “Look at me. Do what I tell you. Have faith. Have courage.”

Trapped in her grip, Nicki could only go on staring at her. “Why?” she asked. “Why should I?”

“Because they’re all we’ve got,” Meredith told her.

Nicki stared at her another second, uncomprehending. Then she cried out, “I can’t, Meredith! I can’t! I can’t!” And she collapsed, weeping, into Meredith’s arms.

Jim, meanwhile, had wandered off the balcony into the room like a man in a trance. He was walking in aimless circles over the small open space of the floor, obviously in shock. He walked right past Meredith and Nicki as if they weren’t there. He was muttering to himself in confusion.

“How… why did… they must’ve… they must’ve thought…”

For a moment, I stood watching him. I was also numb and dazed with shock and horror and grief. But then my anger came back—it came back with a vengeance. Before I could stop myself, I rushed into the room and planted myself in Jim’s wandering path.

“You did this!” I shouted at him. “You told him to go! ‘Go talk to him,’ you said. ‘They’re not monsters.’ You told him!”

Jim came to a standstill. He stood and gaped at me as if he couldn’t comprehend what I was saying. That only made me angrier still. I don’t know what I would’ve done next or what terrible thing I would have said next. My fists were clenched at my sides. Some awful words were about to explode out of me.

“Will!” said Meredith.

I turned to her. She had her arms around Nicki, who was sobbing against her.

“Don’t,” Meredith said. “It’s not his fault.”

“He told Pastor Ron…,” I began to protest.

“Pastor Ron was a grown man who had the courage to do what he thought was right. And what happened isn’t his fault either. We’re surrounded by bad men and they have guns and we don’t and those are just the facts. This—this was coming from the start. There’s nothing we can do but face it as well as we can.”

I tried to take that in, tried to understand the magnitude of what she was saying. But I never had the chance.

Before I could think it through, before I could react at all, the door came flying open and Mendoza came in with four gunmen behind him.

Nicki screamed again and started up out of Meredith’s embrace. She backed away from the intruders in fear. I found myself doing the same—backing away—my feet moving automatically, outside my will. Jim did the same thing. It was useless—there was nowhere to go—but we couldn’t help ourselves.

Only Meredith stayed where she was. Still and erect in the center of the room. Looking at Mendoza, her expression as calm as ever.

Mendoza strode right to her. He stood before her, smiling— smiling cruelly—as if they had played a game to its end and he had won.

Then, all at once, the smile vanished. The rebel leader turned—toward me, I thought at first—but then I realized: no, he was looking at the balcony behind me—staring at the balcony, his mouth a grim line.

“Where is Palmer Dunn?” he asked.

Startled, I turned, looked over my shoulder.

The balcony was empty.

Palmer was gone.

My heart was so full of fear at that point—I was so sure that Mendoza and his men had come here to execute us—that I seized on Palmer’s escape as a ray of hope. Surely, I told myself, surely he won’t just leave us here like he said he would . Surely he’s going to at least try to come to our rescue . I don’t know what I expected him to do—one man, unarmed, against an army of machine gun–toting rebels. But I guess I couldn’t stand the thought of my own helplessness so I told myself there might yet be something… something…

Mendoza shoved me aside as he marched quickly to the balcony. He looked over the railing, down at the alley below. I heard him shouting orders to someone down there, some of his gunmen, I guess. A second later he was back in the room. Looking at Meredith again. Smiling at her again.

“Your friend Palmer is not a fool,” he said to her. “Desperate—but not a fool. He sees that your situation has become impossible.”

“Impossible,” said Meredith quietly. “Because, you mean, you’ve murdered a pastor, and now you have to murder the witnesses.”

“Oh, please!” said Nicki. She was backed against the wall. Bent over, clutching her stomach with both hands. Sobbing and sobbing. “Oh, please! Don’t murder us. I won’t tell anyone, I swear. I just want to go home!”

Mendoza ignored her. He strolled back across the room toward Meredith—but before he got to her, Jim stepped up to him.

“Señor Mendoza, I don’t think you understand…”

Barely glancing at him, Mendoza drove his elbow into Jim’s belly. Jim gasped and doubled over, clutching himself. I caught hold of him by the shoulder, held him steady. I knew how he felt. The terror of the last few minutes had made me forget my pain, but my head and gut were still throbbing from the beatdown Mendoza had given me. I gave Jim’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze before I let him go. I wasn’t angry at him anymore somehow. There didn’t seem to be any point. We were all in the same fix. And Meredith was right: blaming one another didn’t change anything. The situation wasn’t our fault. It was just our bad luck that we had gotten caught here, that’s all.

Mendoza, meanwhile, confronted Meredith again, standing close to her, completely ignoring the sobbing Nicki over against the wall, who kept saying, “Oh, please! Oh, please! I just want to go home!”

“You had your chance to make friends,” Mendoza said to Meredith.

Meredith’s reaction amazed me. She rolled her eyes and shook her head at him—as if the murderous rebel were nothing more than some kind of annoying child who didn’t know any better.

“Oh, señor,” she said—really, as if he were a child. “You can have whatever… friendship you want from me—if you’ll give my companions a car and let them leave this village unharmed.”

“No, Meredith,” I said. The words burst out of me. “Don’t say that. What’re you talking about?”

But Mendoza only sneered at her. “It is all too late,” he told her. “You spit in my eye, señorita. I do not forgive this. Now you are going to die regretting it.”

“I won’t, you know,” Meredith told him quietly. “Regret it, I mean.”

Mendoza snorted—and I couldn’t tell just then if what he felt for Meredith was hatred or some kind of twisted affection, some kind of twisted admiration. He seemed about to speak again, but he was interrupted by a shout from the alley outside.

The rebel leader pivoted away from Meredith and strode back out onto the balcony. I heard him shouting down to someone below. I heard someone shout back to him.

When Mendoza returned to the room, he said quietly,

“Well, I suppose we must salute the United States Marines. Somehow, your Palmer has reached his van and left the village.”

Whatever small hope I’d had that Palmer was coming to our rescue crashed inside me and went up in smoke. In the same way Jim had thought that the rebels couldn’t kill Pastor Ron, that they would have to listen to reason, I had thought Palmer couldn’t just abandon us to die, that he would have to try to help us. We were both wrong. People can do all sorts of terrible things. They do them, every day. And now Mendoza had murdered our pastor and Palmer had left us to the rebel guns. It was like Meredith said: we were unarmed and surrounded, and there was nothing left for us to do but to have courage and faith and face what came next as best we could.