In the future, whenever fugitive and former sheriff’s deputy Gwendolyn Wolf recalled the immediate aftermath of the attack on Number 38, South 42nd street, it would play across the screen of her mind like how a noir and silent movie unfolds in slow motion.
Carter Nash, ripping open the door of his van. Kids piling in one on top of the other. A pregnant teenager followed by the suspected father, a state of shock and profound sorrow in his eyes. He is leaving the severed head of his little brother in a house on fire.
The boy named Hawk somehow has the guitar. Slips in the snow and goes down hard. The old hippie Carter Nash simply picks him up, guitar case still in his grip but covered in snow, and throws him inside on top of everyone else.
Foxy, in her white moon boots, white leggings, and white parka, running from the back door to the front of the van, the white snow swirling around her, a red sash of blood across her chest.
With Ty in her arms, Gwen looks to the front yard—police cars, the street alight in flashes of red, blue, and white. Dark figures leap the chain-link fences of the neighboring yards like deer, but they are not deer.
There’s a commotion, and she loses sense. Next, she’s through the door and in the van, lying on top of the kids, spreading her body out by instinct to protect them. Nash is flooring it, but even in four-wheel drive, there’s too much snow. The van door flails open. She madly searches for the gun—where is it? Where the hell is it? There it is. Charging the door, razor-sharp fangs, foam frothing into the frozen air, and jaws belching great puffs of steam. She is ready. She has the pistol up. BANG! A bolt of lead passes through the creature’s mouth and blows open the back of its head.
The wheels catch traction, and the van surges forward. She lifts her feet out of the way just as the door slams shut. They are off into the night blizzard.
“They’re after us!” shouts the girl at the back window. “Faster!”
The van skids on the slick street when Nash takes a corner. The rear end swings around, then grips, and they are off in a new direction.
The city slides by in darkness. People are standing outside their homes holding flashlights in the unrelenting snow, afraid to go back inside lest the earth shake again and crush them in their beds.
They pass a house on fire, roaring bright orange in the blizzard. A man hysterically jumps up and down in a bathrobe, shouting at the house. A woman on her knees crying, holding out her hand to the burning second floor.
Nash whips a sharp corner; the van groans, leans, and slides but holds and does not tip over. “Good girl,” he says and rubs the dash.
Hawk has made his way into the shotgun position, arms and legs wrapped around the guitar.
“We’ve got to hide,” Gwen says.
“Mickey’s back there… and Alan,” Foxy states softly. Her head is buried in her arms.
The kids do not speak. They clutch and huddle into each other for warmth and solace.
Someone is whimpering like a hurt little animal. Ty. Her arm is still around him—the hand without the gun holds an iron-tight grip on his jacket. She wills her hand to release him. Shock. They are all in shock.
People we loved died.
Sirens rise around them, and they are passed by two huge firetrucks, angry bulls adorned in red. Emergency lights flash across the faces of those in the van. The sirens crescendo and fade, and they drive again in the dark.
----------------------------------------
“Mickey and I rented a hotel room, a very nice one. We can go there. Maybe he’ll go back there,” Foxy said.
“We can’t go there,” Gwen said. “They might know about it now.”
Foxy stared out the window, tears making her mascara run, like a sad clown in a circus.
“I need to get this van off the street,” Nash said.
“You can go to my house,” said Nine. “There’s a garage.”
“What about your parents?”
“It’s just my mom and… us.” His voice held the vibrato of a sorrow that would never heal. “I was supposed to take care of him. She couldn’t do it. I was supposed to take care of him.”
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“Boy, this ain’t on you,” said Nash. “You hear me?” He was shouting from the driver’s seat. “Now tell me where to go?”
It was Hawk who spoke, “Go up to Grand and take a left, go straight, and turn right at the strip mall. All the way to the end.”
The roads were piling with snow so high she could hear it shove away from the side of the van. They passed another fire, this one a gas station, and then a tumbled church scattered across its own parking lot, a product of history and unreinforced masonry.
At the end of the road, Nash turned the van down a dark street that terminated in a cul-de-sac and pulled into the short driveway of a degraded two-story house. The headlights revealed a paint-stripped front with windows covered by plywood and roofing tin. Someone had scrawled graffiti across the wall and door in a random line.
The tall boy peered into the dark and snow for a moment, his eyes combing the shadows. He made a mad dash to the garage door, threw it up and over, and waved Nash inside, pulling it down behind, hiding the van from the world.
The house was large, empty, and cold. Nine rushed through, turning on little battery-powered lights attached at strategic points via sticky tape.
Gwen stepped through with the reverence for someone’s home that all good guests should pay, but in this house, that home fire was cold. The first floor was an open kitchen and living room design with a small bathroom off to one side. Empty boxes and stray clothes littered the steps of a staircase that led up to the second floor.
Carter Nash brought an armful of blankets in from the van and handed them out to the kids, who slumped on the floor together against an empty spot on the wall that a sofa might have once occupied.
“What do I do with this?” Foxy asked. In her hand was her jacket bearing the stain of Bridger Washington’s blood.
“I’ll take care of it,” Gwen said. “Here, use this.” She gave her a soft woolen blanket and relieved her of the soiled garment. She found an empty box in the kitchen and stuffed the parka inside. It was puffy and didn’t want to go until she punched her fists into it like dough.
Foxy found a spot against the wall with the others and draped the blanket over herself, Ty, and Francis. Ty curled into a little ball between them.
“Gwen,” Nash said. He was standing away from the others with the big teen. “This is Nine.” In the scant light, his eyes were bloodshot and swollen. “Um… this is…” The old man lost his words and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “His little brother died tonight.”
She nodded. She knew, yes. The thought pained her. “I’m so sorry,” was all she could say. During her career as a police officer, there had been occasions when she’d had to console people who had just lost a loved one. There was never a right thing to say to someone whose life had been shattered moments before.
She took the boy’s hand and held it firm. She looked him in the eyes—large, dark and full of pain—and said the three sentences she had said so many times before in the line of duty. “It’s going to be okay. You can get through this. We’re here for you.” She squeezed him so he could feel it, for she knew that at that moment her words were meaningless.
“I should have pushed him over the tracks,” Hawk said. “I’m sorry, Nine. I’m so sorry.” The boy was sitting in the shadows, away from the others.
“Shut up! Do not fuckin’ talk to me,” said Nine, venom on his tongue. He didn’t look at the other boy. He gazed at a point that existed only in his mind. “He was my responsibility. It’s all my fault. Only I could protect him.”
“No,” Gwen said firmly. “Do not take that blame. Either of you. You are not responsible for murdering scum.” Tears started to roll again. “Lie down, get some sleep. We are all going to be dealing with a lot tomorrow.”
“Come here, baby,” said the pregnant girl. She guided the boy over to a blanket on the floor and helped him down.
“Jesus,” said Nash as quietly as he could.
“He’s… trauma… shock,” Gwen said. “We all are.”
“Jesus, poor Ty. I don’t even know what to… Jesus, just fucking Jesus…” Nash couldn’t find his words as he gulped back his own tears.
He was healthy and vital for an older gentleman. No one in their company had an injury that needed to be cared for in a hospital. These were small nuggets of hope. She embraced him and said into his ear, “You and I, we need to be the strong ones here. We’re going to need to figure things out.”
He hugged her in return, “Yeah, okay. We can do this. I can do this,” he choked out these words. “Fuck, Alan, Mickey, Katelyn… Do you think they’re…” He looked at her.
He didn’t want to say the words. She didn’t want to hear them.
She fought the sting in her own eyes. “I think Katelyn is dead. I don’t know about the others. I don’t think so. You know, I don’t even know how to talk about it, but when that fucking… thing… killed Bridger, I felt something. I can’t explain it, but it’s like I felt him pass.”
“Like a thread being pulled out of a garment,” Nash said.
That was exactly how it had felt. In her mind, she could see the lights, like there was a massive tapestry and everyone was a single thread. When Bridger died, there was a pulling away, and momentarily that vacancy before the tapestry shifted, and she couldn’t tell what was missing from the whole.
Nash rubbed his face with his hands. He needed sleep. “So maybe, maybe they’re still alive. What do we do now? Where are we in the planning stage?”
“We can’t do anything now,” said Gwen. “We can’t do anything we talked about with Alan or Mickey. We need to be very careful with our choices from here on out. We have at least two boys who depend on us.”
“I could try emailing Little Joe,” said Nash.
“We can send an email, but we cannot trust any response we get. Something was compromised tonight. Do you have any money? I only have about a hundred bucks cash on me.”
Nash squared his shoulders, a posture of confidence. “I got some cash, and I can get some more, but it’s gonna take a few days.”
They settled down on the cold floor of the dark house. Eventually, she heard Nash’s breathing get heavier as he fell asleep, but she didn’t. She listened to the noises that the sleeping make, the noises of a strange structure and that of its environs. The noises of the wind battering the snow against the house, all the time her hand on the pistol inside her jacket.