Andrew Klavan - If We Survive

I watched all this through the open door, sitting there cross-legged, holding the machine gun in my lap as the van raced through the plaza. Like my friends, recovering from our near-death experience, I had gone into a sort of stunned, distant daze. I wasn’t really thinking about anything. I was just looking out at the scene as if it were some kind of television show, something that had nothing to do with me. I had almost forgotten what Palmer had told me to do.

“There’s an army of these clowns on the streets, and every drunken one of them is about to come after us. When they do, shoot them.”

Then it happened. Just like he said it would.

Even over the roar of the van’s engines—even over a fresh roll of thunder from the sky above—I heard the gruff, angry shouts of the rebels. As I sat dazed, staring out the open back door of the van, I saw five or six men with rifles charging into the town’s main street. One of them, I saw, was Mendoza himself.

The rebels staggered around for a second, confused, looking as if they were drunk—which I guess they were. But Mendoza was steady as a rock. And he had already spotted us—spotted the van rocketing out of town.

Mendoza pointed after us. I saw the whites of his eyes flaring in his rage. I saw his mouth open as he shouted orders.

At his barked commands, the rebels started rushing around in different directions. Some ran out of my sight. But two of them charged into the center of the street, bringing their guns up as they came. They planted themselves, lifted their weapons, and took aim at the back of the van—at me.

For another half second or so, I continued to sit there in my stunned stupidity. Everything had changed so quickly, I was still having a hard time taking it in. I mean, one second you’re standing against the wall in front of a firing squad, suddenly realizing that life is beautiful and that you should’ve appreciated everything more and been kinder to everyone—and the next second you’re rattling around in the back of a van, racing to get out of town. And suddenly life isn’t beautiful at all! It’s nuts! Everything’s wild and confusing all around you… not to mention the fact that there are guys pointing guns at you again…

But then, with a sort of flash, I came back to my senses. I remembered where I was, what was happening, what I was supposed to do. There were the two rebels in the middle of the street with their machine guns aimed at the van.

And I thought: Oh, I get it! I get it now!

It’s time to rock and roll!

Before I could react, the rebels started shooting at us. I saw the flame spit from their rifle barrels. I saw pebbles kick up out of the road as the bullets hit the pavement just behind us. The van continued to race away from them, swaying and bouncing as Palmer kept his foot jammed down on the gas.

My sluggish mind finally came to life. What do I do? I thought.

And I heard Palmer answer: Shoot them .

Shoot them? I thought.

The rebels were getting smaller behind us as we pulled away. But once again, they raised their weapons, steadied their aim, got ready to fire again.

And I thought: Yes! Shoot them!

I lifted the machine gun from my lap, pointed it in their general direction, and pulled the trigger.

The gun leapt and jerked in my hand like a living creature as it rattled bullets out the open back door of the van. Of course, I had no chance of hitting anybody. We were too far away and I’d hardly even taken aim. But I saw the rebels duck to the side at the sound of fire, trying to get out of the way. And by the time they recovered, we were pulling around a bend in the road. They had lost their opportunity to take another shot at us.

I blinked. Hey! I thought. Hey! I had done it. Okay, I hadn’t shot anybody. I didn’t want to shoot anybody. But I had stopped them from shooting us. That was pretty good right there, wasn’t it?

I smiled, feeling pretty proud of myself.

And just at that second, another rebel stepped into view. He seemed to come out of nowhere, but suddenly he was just off to my left, raising his machine gun, ready to blow out our tires.

Without hesitating this time, I turned the machine gun on him and let off another round of shots. I didn’t hit him either. I wasn’t really trying to. I just wanted to scare him— and I sure did. The moment the machine gun leapt in my hand, the rebel let out a scream and dived for the dirt. The van raced out of his range before he ever got a shot off at us.

I laughed out loud. This was cool!

It happened again. Two more rebels—they staggered out of a house by the side of the road. They stared at us bleary-eyed as we rocketed past. Then they stepped into our dusty wake and aimed their machine guns at us.

I fired again—now I was purposely aiming my machine gun above their heads so I wouldn’t really hurt them. And it worked: I didn’t have to hurt them. Just the fact that I was shooting at them was enough to make the drunken rebels dodge for cover—one leaping one way, the other leaping the other.

I laughed again—in fact, I couldn’t stop laughing. I mean, you know what this was like? It was almost exactly like a video game. There are all these levels in Gears of War —in a lot of games—where you’re in some tank or some vehicle or other and you’re racing along a road and every now and then some monster jumps out at you and you have to shoot him with your plasma gun or something. This was just like that. Except the monsters were people and they didn’t explode into gobs of gore because I didn’t have to really shoot them. All I had to do was fire in their general direction and watch them jump for cover.

And to make things even cooler, we were actually getting away! We were already leaving the village now. We were on the road that wound down out of the hills. The van was rocking and bouncing violently over the broken pavement. There were just a few more cottages here and there to either side of us. Soon we would be racing through the jungle to the airfield where Palmer’s plane would be waiting for us.

I let out a shout: “Whoo-hoo!” Just like a video game: Escape Trophy Unlocked!

And then I raised my eyes and I stopped shouting, stopped laughing. Because I saw what was coming after us.

A truck had appeared on the road coming out of Santiago, the road behind us. It was a battered old pickup—but it was coming on like wildfire. There were two rebels in the cab and four in the open bed behind. And all of them had machine guns.

The truck quickly got larger and larger as it closed the distance between us.

I shouted over my shoulder into the van. “Palmer! There’s a truck coming after us! They’re catching up!”

He shouted back, “Well, stop ’em, boy, that’s what the gun is for!”

My breath went short. I swallowed hard. I looked out the back of the van with wide, frightened eyes. I felt clueless. How was I supposed to stop a truck?

Then I thought: the tires. What if I could shoot out the tires… ?

I had no idea whether I could actually shoot at something— and whether I would hit it if I did. But I figured it was worth a try at least.

So I sort of raised the machine gun to my face and looked down the barrel. My finger tightened on the trigger as I lined the gun up with the oncoming truck’s front right tire.

But I never got the chance to shoot.

Before I could, a man—another rebel—ran out of one of the houses we were passing. He stepped up to the side of the road. He lifted his hand—and I saw he was holding a grenade.

The truck full of rebels sped after us on the road behind. To the side, the rebel with the hand grenade grasped the grenade’s ring and pulled it free. That meant the grenade was going to explode a couple of seconds after he released it. And of course, when he released it, it would be because he was throwing it at us.