MENSHEN GENERAL STORE ESTABLISHED 1966, BEER - FOOD - LOTTERY - AGENCY LIQUOR STORE - FUEL - HARDWARE - PROPANE - SPORTING GOODS.

There was no wind. Outside, the air was so cold and clear it felt like there was no atmosphere, nothing between them and the stars. The faint sounds of televisions and conversations from the other rooms faded away as they walked up the lot to the gas station. Freya and Dan felt the weight of the silence, heavier with each step. This was nowhere. It felt like they were the only people in the world.

Somewhere over the hills, they heard an engine coming, long before they saw headlights. They stepped onto the shoulder and let the pickup whip past them, and the road was momentarily painted red by its taillights. Freya remembered the outline of the stag’s antlers in the moonlight and the red pickup truck that honked at her a lifetime ago. She pushed it away. They both knew where the memory led.

Dan guided her away from it by remembering the first time he got high alone. He smoked a ludicrous amount of pot, and then lay with his head hanging off the edge of his mattress. For hours, he listened to cars hiss by in the rain. As they relived his memory, Freya caught a sense of his elevated feeling. She was curious. She’d never gotten high before. But Dan gently pushed back at the idea.

This is better, Dan assured her. He squeezed her hand. They crossed the road, headed for the yellow floodlights of the Menshen General Store. It was an old farmhouse with a long porch running along its front. There were scabs of rust seeping down the steel roof where snow had scoured away the galvanization. The front door was guarded by two taxidermized black bears rearing up on their hind legs. They might have looked imposing, but some wit had put baseball caps on both. The left one wore a bright red Maine Roller Derby Cap, the right a faded Bangor Blue Ox hat.

Hiiiiiicks, Freya thought, and she expected to be chastised for the uncharitable thought, but Dan hummed “Dueling Banjos.” She laughed out loud and gave his shoulder a little shove, he was grinning ear to ear. They were struck by the way the joke had surprised them both. It reminded Freya of improvising on her guitar, when ideas leapt from her head full formed like Athena.

Dan didn’t know who Athena was, and Freya was explaining to him when they were illuminated by headlights. They’d been so wrapped up in their thoughts they hadn’t heard the truck coming, and they moved to get out of the way of the gas pumps. Freya felt a tug, Dan had frozen in place.

Then they heard the engine roar.

Dan locked up, blank as a deer. Freya tugged at his hand, but her arms had a dreamlike weakness. In a panic, she grabbed his arm with both hands and threw with all her weight as if they were grappling. They rolled onto the asphalt a second before the truck shot through the spot where Dan stood. Brakes screamed, and the air filled with the smell of burnt rubber.

He almost hit us!

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Freya felt Dan’s palms worn raw from the awkward fall. They stung terribly in the cold. Freya rose, furious. It had to be some drunk driver. The truck squealed to a stop at the edge of the lights.

It was the black Tahoe.

“No!” Freya shouted, willing them both to run, but her legs would not obey. Dan could barely get on his feet. Something was terribly wrong with them.

Malcolm Lewis climbed out of the truck with a gun in his hand. He walked towards them with an unsteady gait. The harsh floodlights cast his face into shadow, his eyes sunken into sleepless pits.

Freya drew Randall’s gun from her jacket pocket, and it felt like it weighed fifty pounds. She stepped into a two-handed stance, fighting through the sluggish feeling to aim at center mass. She had pictured this moment a thousand times. Her thumb flicked off the safety. Malcolm didn’t even seem to see her. His eyes were locked on Dan, who stood with his bleeding palms up.

Freya tried to shoot Malcolm, but she couldn’t do it. Everything in her willed the gun to fire, but the cords had been cut, her finger would not pull the trigger. At her side, the Starball was a blazing mote of pain. Nausea churned in her, and she felt the same thing in Dan, amplified by Unity.

Starsickness!

Freya choked with disbelief. The orb hadn’t warned them! Instead, she was paralyzed. Malcolm pointed his revolver at Dan.

“Malcolm! STOP!” Freya found the will to shout, and her voice came out sounding half-strangled.

“I can’t!” Malcolm croaked back.

There was something terribly wrong with him. His face twitched, his shoulders shook.

“Don’t do this,” Dan pleaded.

The gunshot was deafening. Neither of their brains worked, they’d been scrambled by the explosion. Pain flooded in, burning hot and unbearable. Dan touched his body, trying to figure out where he’d been hit. Everything he touched hurt.

He shot me! Freya thought. There was a clack as the revolver slipped from Malcolm’s hand to clatter against the asphalt.

He shot me! Dan thought an instant slower. Everything was slower for him, and faster for Freya.

Her eyes locked on Malcom. He blinked rapidly and held up his palms in surrender.

“I couldn’t stop!” he cried. Tears ran down his face.

The compulsion shattered, and the impulse to fire screaming up her arm took hold. Freya shot Malcolm three times and kept firing as he fell. The shots thundered in the frozen air. When the roar subsided, she was still pulling the trigger. The tiny sound of the hammer clicking seemed miles away.

Randall’s gun burned hot, but Dan’s crucifying pain drowned it out. Malcolm’s bullet had gone through his hand and struck him in the chest.

DAN!

The hot gun tumbled from her hands. Freya rushed to Dan’s side. He was crumpled on his back, gasping for air. The hole in his coat was far too small for the red agony they felt. She tore at it, ripping his zipper apart. There was so much blood underneath. The bullet had struck just below the hollow of his neck.

Help! Dan begged her, and she didn’t know how. Neither of them could breathe. Dan’s lungs were filling with blood. Her chest heaved, in synch with his. The ringing in their ears was drowned by a static roar, and it felt like they were being squeezed by an enormous crushing fist.

There was a terrible shock in Freya’s chest as her heart started again. She felt no answering beat from Dan. His pain grew distant. He tried to reach her, but darkness swallowed him. The last thing Freya saw through his eyes was her own face, contorted in a scream.