Avon rises, ejecting the empty clip. Reflex has another one out of his cargo pants pocket and into the gun in under three seconds, and he chambers the first round, ready to go again if that bitch comes back for seconds. But then he hears a cracking sound, like a tree snapping in two, and half the roof comes down. Avon, by sheer instinct, dives out of the way. Feeling the rest of the house coming down, he scrambles toward the kitchen’s absence, blinded by smoke, racing on his hands and knees toward the smell of fresh air, and then the floor disappears from under him, and he tumbles out of the house and onto the concrete outside.
He gets to his feet and runs, still blind, crashes into a fence, the burning house listing toward him, ready to topple over. He rears back and hits the fence again, then again, driven by the heat and by this core certainty: the Witch isn’t dead and she is coming for him.
He hears the wood splinter, smashes the fence again, and then he is through, tumbling forward onto dirt. He scrambles up, moving away from the feet, away from the inevitability of death. And then Girlie grabs him, stops him, her voice in his ear. But the fear is still in him, so he pushes her away, brings up the gun, steps back off the curb, trying to find some tactical distance. As he does, he blinks away the soot and smoke, his eyes clearing. He sees them there, Girlie and Rose, the boy and the judge’s daughter. And something else, a shadow figure in the flames, standing impossibly still in the heart of the fire.
“We need to go,” he tells Girlie. “Now.”
Keeping the gun up, he nods toward the car. “Get in the car now.”
“But,” says Girlie.
“Now!”
Simon sees the fear on Avon’s face. He knows what it means. She isn’t dead. He grabs Story’s arm.
“Move,” he says.
“With them?” Story asks, but Simon shoves her and keeps shoving her until they are in the backseat of the Kia, folded in next to Rose, and Avon jumps in the passenger seat, gun pointed back out the open door.
“Go,” he says, and the fear in his voice makes Girlie stomp the gas pedal all the way to the floor, and the car leaps forward, tires eating asphalt, until they are at the corner, running the red light, flying toward the freeway. Only then does Avon holster his pistol and slam his door.
*
They drive till they run out of gas, mostly in silence. In the backseat, Rose starts to cry, big broad tears, her bosom quivering.
“I’m sorry,” she tells Story and Simon, over and over. “So, so sorry.”
Story has her feet under her and her face buried in her knees. They have listened to the reports on the radio. The world has gone crazy. Margot and Remy are dead, along with fourteen senators and more than a hundred bystanders. And around the country there have been attacks on military bases and state houses. Story knows she should cry, but her heart feels like a glass ball stored in Bubble Wrap. Once upon a time she was a baby who couldn’t sit or stand, who needed everything, and isn’t that what a mother is? Everything? Food and warmth, safety and love. Once upon a time Story was a toddler stumbling through the world, heading for every sharp corner, an engine of grievances and demands. And still her mother was there, patient, nurturing. Once upon a time her father left, and a new father came, and she stopped eating. But still the mother was there.
Once upon a time, she stood on a stage and sang the national anthem, but where is her anthem now? That human anthem, nationless and true, with all its sorrow and yearning, all its hope and grief. The music of existence. Everyone you love will die. Everyone you need will pass from this world without warning or reason. Where is their song, the anthem of their lives, soaring to the rafters, celebrating all their sweet, pathetic attempts at permanence? Where is their anthem of fury, their anthem of love?
When the people who fill your heart die, Story thinks, all that’s left is emptiness and regret. Nothingness. And a heart filled with nothing feels nothing. So she doesn’t cry. She just rocks back and forth and stares into the void.
Sitting next to her, Simon watches the sun rise through smoky haze. The Santa Ana winds are blowing hot and dry from the east and in places the sky is clear, pockets of morning blue. Not for the first time he thinks about the others: Louise and the Prophet, Duane and Felix and Randall Flagg. Are they alive? In prison? They were on a mission together, a quest, but it all seems meaningless now in the face of catastrophe, in the face of revolution.
“Can I borrow your phone?” Simon asks quietly, leaning into the front. Avon is putting first aid cream on his burned right hand, the skin blistering where he gripped the gun. Girlie reaches into her pocket, hands him back her Samsung.