Is he? Oh. “I think I’m having some kind of breakdown,” Lawson says, gesturing at the side of his own head, and he can feel that he’s smiling, now.
“Well, do it on your own time,” Ray says. “That’s creepy as–”
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The sound is so foreign to him that he doesn’t react to it right away.
It goes again:Boom. Boom. Boom-boom-boom. Like the blast of dynamite at the quarry, but up close, and all-encompassing. Then a series of staccato cracks like firecrackers.
Ray throws himself ungracefully to the ground and drags Lawson down by the hem of his jacket, and that’s when he realizes the booming sounds are gunshots, and the firecracker pops are their echoes, the rebounding off the granite cliff face that houses the mine shaft. Movies and TV make them sound like such discreet little pops, people talking over them. But it’s like a cannon going off. Lawson’s ears are ringing, his eyes tearing from the sheer force of the sound.
They stop.
“Fuck,” Ray says. “Fuck, fuck.” He’s not smiling, now, but floundering in the gravel like the dumpy toad he is. “Fuck,” he says again, and Lawson realizes what the problem is.
In his panic, he dropped the gun.
It’s right beside Lawson’s left shoe.
That odd peace he made with his own death evaporates in an instant. He doesn’t know who’s shooting, but it’s not a friend of Ray’s, so that counts for something. And he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing, but he’s going to dosomething, by God.
He snatches the gun and scrambles to his feet.
“Fuck!” Ray shouts behind him. “Stop! Get back here!”
Then gun’s lighter than he expected, benign-looking matte black plastic. It fits easily into his hand as he jogs around his car and then skids to a stop when he sees what’s become of the Town Car.
For starters, he can see straight through it, because the windshield and back window are both shot out. The driver sits slumped face-down on the wheel, and the passenger is tipped backward, unblinking eyes pointed up at the ceiling, face a wreck of slick blood. They’re both dead, clearly.
Then he sees a car idling back at the entrance to the clearing. It’s a Navigator.
A figure steps around the back of the ruined Town Car, and Lawson flinches – but only for a second, because it’s a familiar figure.
Tommy has the sleeves of his white shirt folded back, and the wind plays with his red tie and with his hair. His face is a thunderhead, and he doesn’t walk, he stalks, aggressive and purposeful. The gun in his hand is silver, and much bigger than the one Lawson got from Ray; no wonder it sounded like artillery going off.
Lawon’s heart leaps.
Tommy sees him, and his shoulders push back, and his posture shifts, and a broad, relieved grin transforms his face. “Shit,” he says, hastening his steps. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I–”
Crack.
Gunshot. It’s quieter, but Lawson knows what it is this time. The sound comes from behind him, and his whole body freezes and tenses, waiting for the pain to hit.
It doesn’t.
Tommy staggers back as though shoved, and a bright red flower blooms across the stomach of his white shirt, a pinprick that quickly unfolds, crimson and wide-petaled as a poppy.
Lawson doesn’t understand what he’s seeing…and then he does. It’s blood. Tommy’s blood. Tommy’s been shot.
Time slows.
Lawson turns his head, back toward the sound of the report, and he sees Ray striding forward, another gun in his hand.
He had a backup. Of course.
He strides straight past Lawson, toward Tommy, and Tommy has a gun of his own, he has a big gun, flashy and bright, which he lifts with one hand, while the other covers the growing bloodstain on his stomach.
