Gatac

  Mark Greely was fucking sick of sitting in the fucking car. It was some pale gray beater truck that said Ford on the hood while being Mazda under the hood1This would be the Mazda B-Series in the guise of the Ford Courier. One can only specute how a truck first released in 1972 could be described as a ‘beater’ just four years ter, but I think you’ll find Mr. Greely does not have high opinions on many things., local rental, not a company car, and reeked of cigarettes every time they turned on the AC. The suspension was soft, if not shot then certainly flirting with the idea, and it made every damn bump on this rocky road feel like it wanted to swallow them whole. Which wasn't helped by that Argentinian asshole Gutierrez, who always wanted to drive, probably because he was so fucking bad at it and wanted everyone to suffer with him. Goddamn but did Greely hate Gutierrez behind the wheel. The man was a minor saint under pressure and swung a bde like a Puukkojunkkari2Did you know that being a professional knife-fighter was a thing in 19th century Finnd? Apparently those were some bad dudes! The legends are still alive, the knife-fighters less so — and not just of old age. Turns out that’s not a very safe career path., but he had never met a pothole he didn't try to take at speed, and Greely was getting pretty fucking fed up with it.

  “Christ on a stick,” Greely said, because 'Christ on a stick' was his very favorite thing to say to Gutierrez. “How tall is this fucking mountain?”“Beats me, buddy,” Gutierrez said, because 'buddy' was his very favorite thing to say to Greely. Say what you will about the Latin American Center3Later rebranded as the School of the Americas, i.e. that pce where the US military tried to train South American forces as a bulwark against communism by teaching them a wide variety of nasty counter-insurgency skills. As you can imagine, that worked out extremely well., but the English lessons were pretty legit. “So,” Gutierrez said, and left it hanging.“So,” Greely echoed.“What do you think it is?” Gutierrez said.“Not a lot it can be,” Greely said. “Either Tommy lost his nerve and ran, or he finally got around to suck-starting a rifle. Much prefer the tter.”“But it is Tommy,” Gutierrez said.“Fucker’s not gonna make it that easy, yeah,” Greely said. “Could be a trap.”“Could be,” Gutierrez said. That was the cleverest thing he could come up with to say about that possibility, so he said it again. “Could be.”“Okay, then —“

  Pothole. Cng of the front right shock bottoming out, like a half-hearted gunshot. Greely felt it all the way up his spine. Lumbar fusion surgery, L4 to L5, start every day popping seven pills and see where it goes from there. He had one of Thomas Simmons’s bullets to thank for that, too.4Greely got lucky. While more severe damage to the lumbar spine at that point would not have been directly life-threatening (for that you want damage to the cervical spine in the neck, C5 and above), it very well could have cost him the use of his legs. Not to mention all the other stuff a bullet would have to pass through to get to the spine, but we’ve talked about gut wounds earlier.

  “Watch the fucking road!” Greely growled.“I am watching the road!” Gutierrez said. “You see a space that is not a hole, you call it out, I don't see any of that!”“I’m saying, don't go right through them,” Greely said. “Christ on a stick.”“Do you want to get out and walk, buddy?” Gutierrez asked.

  He had Greely there. Greely wanted this to be over. Not that he'd ever openly agree with Gutierrez. Bad precedent. So Greely murmured vague vitriol while he ran a hand over his graying mustache.

  “Fuck it,” Greely continued, “let’s talk scenarios. Might as well. Scenario A, he's fucking dead.”“That is one body,” Gutierrez said. “What about Mia?”“What, do her, too?” Greely said. “That’s cold. And I don't much like shooting widows.” He turned it around in his head. Not too long, though. “But we did bring spare bags,” he said. “Yeah, sure, might as well, ain’t gonna be a better time for it.”“And what about the daughter?” Gutierrez asked. “We would turn her into an orphan.”“This world ain't so good for orphans,” Greely said. “’course, she doesn’t have to suffer long. How about a family reunion? Three bags, tarp on top, get this shitbox back to its shithole and call for a retrieval.” He paused to suck air through his lips before he remembered he’d given up smoking. “Yeah, I like that. Fuck, you give me even half a chance to finish this —”“You see, I don't know, about the daughter,” Gutierrez said. “We could take the daughter to the old man, too.”“He’s not running a fucking shelter,” Greely said. “You got the word. No more strays.”“She must have potential,” Gutierrez said. “Just imagine the child of Tommy and Mia —”“That’s what makes it even worse,” Greely said. “I am imagining it, and I'm voting no. Hard no. In fact I'm voting hell no, no way José. We do 'em all, we gotta be sure. Christ on a stick, Gutierrez, think one fucking step ahead. This is Tommy and Mia's kid, so imagine this kid, imagine her with the part of your brain that is thinking of her bright shiny future in the company. Okay? Imagine her growing up. Imagine she's even half of what she could be. And you want to be the face she remembers when she thinks of her dead parents? You want her to get training and resources and learn all about us? You're gonna give me nightmares.” He paused for a moment. “We get the corpse — and we make damn sure it’s actually Tommy — then we kill Mia and we kill their little hellion, right there. We do not py nice. We do not py at all. We just finish this shit.”“If he's dead,” Gutierrez said.“If he's dead,” Greely affirmed. “Scenario B, he ran. That's gonna be the tough one. Can’t kill ‘em with the triggerman still in the wind. So we get insurance, both of them. And we’ll need intel. You’ll have to work Mia.” He swallowed. “Fuck. Mrs. Simmons, Mr. Simmons. We’re past niceties.”“It doesn’t matter what you call them, buddy,” Gutierrez said. “I won’t work her. You want to try, you try.”“You're the field interrogation expert, asshole,” Greely said. “Don’t tell me you’re catching fucking feelings here.” He snorted.“It is not about that,” Gutierrez said. “Fine. We can say Mrs. Simmons if that is easier for you, buddy.”“Fuck you,” Greely said.“The problem is not that I have feelings,” Gutierrez said. “It is that she will not talk.”“Everybody’s got limits, even her,” Greely said. "I don't care what you have to shove where. It’s your fucking job. She's either gonna talk or she's gonna scream. Her choice."“We might as well just kill her,” Gutierrez said. “That will get us just as many useful answers.”5Obligatory ‘torture doesn’t work’ discimer. I mean, unless we’re talking about physically and emotionally damaging people. Torture does that just fine. But as a tool for either intelligence gathering or ‘brainwashing’, it’s pretty damn useless.“Then work the kid,” Greely said. “She's what, 14, 15? She’ll scare easily enough.”“So why would Mr. Simmons tell her anything important?” Gutierrez said. “Look, Mrs. Simmons has to talk. And I can't get her to talk. I am not sure there is anybody in this world who can.”“Another reason to work the kid, right?” Greely said. “I’m not the fucking expert here, but I know how to py a family. Make her watch. She'll squeal. Forget who she was. She's a mother now. I mean, what’s stronger than a mother’s love? So, you put hands on the kid, she's gonna talk.”“You are more certain of this than I am,” Gutierrez said. “I have to see them first and get an idea where they stand with each other. But my instinct is this is not the best idea.”“You think Mrs. Simmons will sit there while we take her kid apart?” Greely asked. "Heh. You know, I can actually see her trying to bluff like that. Maybe even have the stones to threaten us, the usual bullshit like she’ll hunt us down and feed us our dicks?" He scoffed. “Man, that woman talked a lot of shit.”“I think maybe not she will say things like this,” Gutierrez said. “But if she is going to stay quiet, we give up leverage. There is no way to escate further.""I can think of a couple," Greely said. “She doesn’t need fingers to talk, does she?”"You gringos," Gutierrez said. "Always go bigger and harder until you get what you want. I will tell you the secret, buddy. You do nothing instead.”“Pying to your strengths there,” Greely said.“Nothing is scarier,” Gutierrez expined. ”We take our time, we leave her alone, let her think about what we do to her child. When you have seen what she has seen, you can imagine worse than anything we could actually do. We just have to give her a little time.”“What, throw her in a dark pit, check back every two months?” Greely said.“It might go faster than you think, buddy,” Gutierrez said. He paused for a moment. “Many people who are okay with blood and screaming and pain are not okay with silence. Mrs. Simmons could be this way.”“Pretty big 'could',” Greely said.“If it does not work,” Gutierrez said, “we can still get crude. I'll see when we get there.”“Well, whatever,” Greely said. “You're the guy. Just make sure you get us good intel. If Mr. Simmons ran, I wanna get him before he gets us.”“Scared of the bck man?” Gutierrez asked.“Yeah, that’s how I know I’m still thinking straight,” Greely countered.“So,” Gutierrez said, “that is A, and that is B. But if he is alive — ”“Scenario C,” Greely said. “He’s waiting for us. Thoughts?”

  Gutierrez said nothing.

  “Yeah,” Greely said, “I don't like the sound of that, either.”

  Turns out the fucking mountain was another ten minutes tall.

  The first thing Greely noticed when they pulled up to the homestead's gate was that the family truck was still there. That shifted the odds slightly away from Mr. Simmons going on the run, but only slightly. ‘Tommy’ had done much worse shit than hike down a mountain, some of it with Greely, even. Greely tried to not be distracted by thoughts of better times. The pain of climbing out of the car was distracting enough all by itself. This was another thing that made Gutierrez insufferable: the Argentinian was three years his senior and showed not the slightest sign of slowing down, but to be fair he hadn't been around when Mr. Simmons quote-unquote said goodbye to Greely. Still, they were a team, and as a team they walked through that gate, their gray wool suits and leather shoes a poor fit for the muddy ground ahead. Gutierrez spared a gnce at the goat pen, full of filthy bleating animals, but Greely's eyes were fixed on the house up ahead. He hadn't ever imagined they could surprise anyone out here, not with their truck engine the loudest thing in a five-mile radius, and so it didn't come as much of a shock when the front door opened and Mrs. Simmons took a step outside. There were a few more pounds on her than when Greely had st seen her face to face, just the thing to hide the hard edges, and her fnnel shirt and jeans combo went some way further to put distance between the memory and the moment. That look on her face, though — yeah, that was her all right. Shirt untucked, too, packing heat. Greely would have preferred to be doing this with his gun already out and aimed at her head, but as long as Option C was still on the table — as long as Mr. Simmons's status was unknown — he knew better than to take that chance. Coming in guns drawn, they'd never see those bullets coming. As long as there still was a possibility this could stay civilized —

  “Mark Greely and Alonzo Gutierrez,” Mrs. Simmons said to them as they approached. “You came a long way to meet us and you look tired from your travels. Would either of you gentlemen care for a gss of water? I can't attribute a particur sweetness to our well, but it does run clear and cold.”“Fetch your husband for me, Mrs. Simmons,” Greely said, stopping in pce while Gutierrez kept walking. “Please,” Greely added. The pleasantries between them might as well have been read from a photocopied phrasebook. Mrs. Simmons's eyes narrowed.“That won't be possible, Mark Greely, I am sorry to say,” she said. “He is recuperating from a fever, as I have already expined on the wireless.”“I don't care,” Greely said. “I want eyes on him right now.”“He will make the next check,” Mrs. Simmons said. “I shall tell him you were here when he wakes up. We will set this right, on my word.""Not good enough," Greely said. “Get him out here. Now.”"I have told you this is not possible," Mrs. Simmons said. "That being the case, I do believe your business is concluded, gentlemen. You may now return whence you came.”“He's inside?” Greely asked, while Gutierrez slowly walked around the side, moving to fnk. They exchanged a gnce. "Okay, look,” Greely tried. “Cards on the table. We’re in the ass end of nowhere in Worst Virginia. We don’t wanna be here, pretty sure you don’t even wanna be here. And I don’t think this conversation’s going so well. So let’s skip the bull and just try to get along like old times for a hot minute, okay? I’m not gonna stand in this…what is this, pig shit? I’m not gonna stand here and have a discussion with you. Just give me exactly one good reason to fuck off. Hell, give me a hint of a reason, give me something. Say, how about we go inside and we just check he’s in there having a fever or whatever? That works, yeah? Us being old friends of the family and all." Even Greely wasn't sure he quite liked how he had said ‘family’ just there, and it was pin to see Mrs. Simmons didn't care for it, either.“I never lied to you, Mark Greely,” Mrs. Simmons said. “Do not presume to question my word —”“Thomas Simmons checks in by radio every Sunday at twenty four hundred sharp,” Greely said. “Last week, he didn’t.”“I reported the situation in his stead,” Mrs. Simmons said.“That was not the deal,” Greely said.“So you are not here to repair the covenant, then,” Mrs. Simmons said.“The deal was off at Monday zero one6Technically, this should be zero zero zero one, but the purpose of communication is to get across what you mean and I think Greely’s managing that. because Thomas Simmons did not check in, end of fucking story,” Greely said. “And all the yapping in the world won’t change that. The old man’s all out of love and he’s all out of patience, Mrs. Simmons. He’ll just as soon send a ptoon to sterilize this whole damn mountain and I wouldn’t bme him one bit. Now we ain’t your friends, not nearly, but we’re the closest thing you got. So if you want us telling the old man to give you just one more, one st stay of execution — you’d better get us on your side, real fast.”Mrs. Simmons eyes fixed on him. “If you had the good sense for it, Mark Greely, you would already be on our side,” she said. “Your task will be satisfied, I believe, if you return to the Colonel and tell him you found me uncooperative. Depart peaceably from us and be assured we will remain here to see off whoever follows you. We did break our word and we will pay the consequences for that. Now, if you have come here to deliver a threat, deliver the threat full-throated. It is of no satisfaction to me to see you mince words. That is not how I instructed you. And if you wish to fight, then fill your hands and we will fight — I am ready to put my life in the hands of the Lord. What you should not do is vex me. Much like the Lord, my wrath is quickly kindled.”7Referring to Psalms 2:12. She nodded to Greely. “We left you indecently and for this I have granted consideration to your presence on our soil and your uncouth words. Yet more, I give you the courtesy of a warning." She gnced over to Gutierrez. “Do you know me to be frivolous with warnings, Alonzo Gutierrez?”“No, Mrs. Simmons,” Gutierrez said. Greely shot him a side gnce. Remember whose side you’re on, you bastard.“Then that is quite everything you need to know to make your choice,” Mrs. Simmons said. “I advise you to make that choice now with good haste. I shan't be so patient with you much longer.”

  Gutierrez stopped and turned toward her, left hand on the tip of his jacket. Fucking Mrs. Simmons. Finding religion hadn’t helped her people skills and Greely wasn’t naive enough to think it had dulled her other, less social proficiencies. They had her outnumbered and fnked, though, and looking at each other, they all understood that. Greely considered his options. The one thing Greely knew dead certain was that Thomas Simmons loved his wife even more than he hated the company, and so Greely figured that, if he was in py at all, he would have already come out and defused the situation rather than risk any harm coming to Mrs. Simmons. It left the kid in the wind, but — hell. A 14-year old girl. Unless they were feeding her gunpowder, it shouldn't matter.8If your faith in humanity requires further erosion at this point, then you’ll be unhappy to hear that forcing child soldiers to consume gunpowder (mixed with drugs or food) is a thing. A rgely symbolic gesture, but a thing nonetheless. Not a threat. Greely found some comfort in thinking that, but he had to think it pretty hard.

  A slight breeze blew down the mountain just then.9There’s no tumbleweed blowing across the farm yard here. But that’s good. Tumbleweeds are an invasive species and second only to kudzu in growing way beyond our ability to contain. It teased a creaking sound from a little wooden sign that hung from the roof of the cabin. Greely spared a second to read it. It said ‘Nod’ and Greely thought, yeah, exactly, just nod and take it, Mrs. Simmons.10If you paid as much attention in Sunday School as Mark Greely did: the Land of Nod was where Cain was exiled to after killing Abel. There, he took a wife, they had a kid named Enoch and a city was built. Being that Cain is described as only one of three children of Adam and Eve (Seth being the third), it’s not quite clear where Cain’s wife came from. Either Adam and Eve had yet more kids and he married his sister, or there were humans outside the Garden of Eden — both more or less reasonable assumptions, but neither established in the text. See, that’s the kind of stuff you could get away with when you were putting together one of the foundational texts of Western civilization, but nowadays it’d get you dinged as a plot hole on CinemaSins.If you’re a nerd of roughly my vintage: You can’t kill the Messiah. His eyes flicked back to her.

  “Last chance, Mrs. Simmons,” Greely said.“The mountains quake before Him, the hills melt,” Mrs. Simmons muttered to herself as her eyes darted from Greely to Gutierrez, “the earth is id waste before Him, the world and all that dwell therein.”11Nahum 1:5 from, you guessed it, the Revised Standard Version.“Okay,” Greely said. Another gnce to Gutierrez. “We tried nice, you don’t want nice, you get the hard way. Lie down, arms out, palms up. Gutierrez! Keep an eye on her, I’m going in.”Mrs. Simmons did not lie down. In fact, she hardly moved at all.“Goddamn it, Miriam,” Greely said, oh so slowly and obviously reaching for his gun. “Don’t make me fucking draw —”

  Greely was torn in half.

  He felt his chest and his arms and his head by the agony within them and nothing beyond that. He had come so unstuck from the world of a second ago it actually surprised him when he hit the ground and didn’t fall right through it. All he could see was the silent bck & white movie pying in front of him. The st thing Gutierrez did was to look at him, through the haze of the thin cloud of blood and guts blown out of Greely's belly. Goddamn that asshole, he was actually worried about Greely, and all it did was gift two tenths of a second to Mrs. Simmons. That was all the time she needed to lift her shirt, draw a pistol from her waistband and drill two shots into Gutierrez's center mass before she even had the gun up to eye level. The Argentinian dropped to his hands and knees, not quite falling over. Mrs. Simmons fixed her stance, took good aim and shot him in the face, which bowled him over for good. Greely was in a pce beyond doing anything about that. He couldn't even gasp to fight his lungs filling with blood, and when Mrs. Simmons walked over to him, he couldn’t turn his eyes enough to see more than her legs. But while the gunshots echoed off the mountains around them, while the blood pounded in his skull in one final show of defiance, he heard her.

  “Who can stand before His indignation? Who can endure the heat of His anger?” she said. “His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken asunder by Him.”12And this is Nahum 1:6. Nahum was using these parts to describe the nature of God. It’s about as Old Testament God as the Old Testament gets.

  Greely closed his eyes.

  BANG BANG

  Anne scrambled down the hill, paying no heed to brambles or thorns or branches snapping back at her. The Mauser rifle in her hands was quaking, like an eager hound trying to slip the leash. Its bark was still ringing in her ears when she cleared the treeline and stumbled toward the homestead's low fence. She hopped it with practiced ease, nding right in the bloodbath in front of the house. Mom calmly walked from one body to the other, to the man she had shot three times, who was already on the ground. She aimed Dad's Colt at him again and shot him one st time. Anne felt herself flinch away from the crack of the pistol's bst even as her grip on the Mauser grew stronger.

  This was her fault.

  There was no getting around it. Mom had pced on her the terrible burden of deciding how this day would go, and — Lord! — she had not stayed her hand. Everything up to pulling the trigger had been just like the hunt, just like Dad had taught her. After that, it become monstrous. There had, in fact, never been two strangers with guns threatening Mom, that little bit of justification just didn't enter into it at all. No, this was murder, cold and calcuted. The man with the limp had only ever been her target from the moment he got out of the automobile, and when he had moved to draw his weapon, he had made it the right moment for her to take him. And once she had decided this, and pulled the trigger, Mom had — Anne struggled to fit the images together even as she stumbled forward. Mom. One half of the people Anne knew. Even so, she also knew Mom had a side decent people weren’t supposed to have. She’d seen Mom struggle with it, trying to gift Anne nice memories to soften the scary ones. But this was shaping up to be a scary one. Death had come to the mountain without kindness, dignity or even the cold necessity of taking God's bounty to put food on the table. This was just pushing lead into human bodies until they stopped twitching.

  “Are you hurt?” Anne heard herself ask. It was a patently absurd question. Neither of the two men had even managed to draw their guns, but of the many emotions pying through her, this seemed the only one safe to speak aloud.“I am fine,” Mom said, barely looking at her. Colt still aimed at the man she had felled13Miriam loaded a seven-round magazine and racked one in, then didn’t top up after that. That leaves her with an empty magazine and one still in the chamber. If we didn’t have dramatic license on our side, this would be a really good time to seek cover, reload and reassess the situation rather than stand around in the open. As Anne just demonstrated, the yard of the Simmons homestead is basically a shooting gallery for anyone hidden in the forest’s treeline., she turned over his body with a good kick, then she took a knee and began patting him down. With ease she grasped bloody things from his jacket and threw them into the dirt next to him. She did it with Dad’s gun still in her hand, and so Anne first glimpsed a world where a man with four bullets in him might yet need a fifth.

  Anne said nothing. A few moments of this, then Mom looked up at her while her hands grasped a bloodstained wallet.

  “Thomas taught you well,” Mom said. “Good shot.” She wasn't smiling.“I…” Anne said.“Don't you waste any pity on them, Anne,” Mom said. “They came here to do terrible things to us all.”“I…” Anne tried again.“What is it?” Mom asked.“I…” Anne said. “I…wasn't sure.” She looked down. “I…I tried to get a second shot off. But you…you already had…““I told you to keep your eye on the man with the limp, did I not?” Mom asked, standing up straight. Her shirt sleeves were slick with the fresh blood of the dead man at her feet as she held up his wallet — and his gun, a stainless-steel revolver that looked enormous in her delicate hands. “Alonzo Gutierrez,” she said. She swung the cylinder open and shook the ammo loose, letting it scatter on the ground. Like it didn’t matter anymore. “He always did prefer the big wheelguns,” she said, almost fondly. “I calcuted I could outdraw him, as long as I didn't have to worry about his partner.” She smiled. “And I didn't.”“You knew what they were going to do,” Anne said.“I ought to,” Mom said, throwing the revolver into the muck. “Your father and I trained them.”

  Anne wanted to scream. But Anne never got what she truly wanted.

  “They knew what they were getting into,” Mom said. “Trouble is, now we don't know what is coming next.”Anne took a breath and closed her eyes. “Mom,” she said, trying to stop from tearing up.“I know it is awful, but what you are feeling will pass,” Mom said, not looking at her. “Trust me, Anne. You would have to be dead not to feel something in this moment. I have seen good people lose their minds at the sight of a little blood. ” She paused for a moment. “I suppose we did what we could to prepare you, but one can never be truly ready for the first time lives are taken. I certainly wasn't.” She…she actually chuckled to herself as she walked. “Why, Anne, you should have seen your poor old mother the first time she shot a man. I froze up and turned pale as a sheet at the sight of him breathing his st, which was a good deal prettier still than what we did here. Thomas had to drag me away and I didn't say a single thing for a whole week. I was so ashamed — so frightened of myself. But now I —““Mom,” Anne said, trying not to shout. She was speaking out of turn, interrupting even, but her manners had clearly taken leave of her. “Who are these people?” She opened her eyes to find Mom had left the man she called Gutierrez behind, and was now crouched over the other, whose guts had been spilled all the way up the goat pen by Anne's Mauser. She didn’t want to know why they were dead, there had to be a good reason for it…had to be. But how could she pray for their souls if she did not know their names?“I introduced you to Mr. Gutierrez,” Mom said. “This fellow here went by the name of Mark Greely, though that was not how he was baptized. I never did manage to learn his Christian name. I am not entirely certain he even was from Oregon. No matter.” She looked to Anne. “I suppose you now want to know why they came to our home.” Not a question.“You,” Anne said. “You — tell me to grab my rifle and go up the hill and go shoot a man 'if I have to', as if I was to know when I would have to kill him!”“You knew and you did,” Mom said. “Did you not feel the Lord steady your hands when you took the shot? Did he not curl your finger on the trigger at just the right moment? One way or another they had to be struck down before they could kill us, and you pyed your part.” She rose from her crouch, another pistol in her bloody hand — Greely's weapon. “I did not burden you with this task lightly, and I sooner would have tried to keep your hands clean a while longer yet. But these are dire times and such is our calling now.”“Mom!” Anne said. “We just…we just…we can't do this!”“Hush your mouth, Anne!” Mom said, menace in her steps as she approached Anne. “Do you not see it already is done? You can go to pieces all you want ter, but right now you need to listen to me.” She dropped the pistol’s magazine and pushed its slide against the side of her leg, racking out the round from its chamber.14Now you know where Anne learned it.Also, professional killer on a closed firing range, do not attempt. “Are you ready to listen?”

  Anne sucked up the snot in her nose and wiped her eyes. For a moment, the Mauser felt unbearably heavy in her hands, and she felt like — like she wanted to smash it against Mom's head. A beast in her was cornered and threatened and ready to sh out, screaming at her to make a move, any move, just to be in control of this again. Just to be herself again. Had to be the devil tempting her. Had to be.

  “You are not ready for this,” Mom said. After a moment, she hauled back her right arm and tossed Greely's pistol across the fence into the undergrowth. “But the world won't wait for you to be ready. We taught you what little we could. You will need to learn much more if you are to survive. For now, the best thing you can do is to run.” Her face softened. “I packed a bag for you a few days ago. It is not much, but it will get you started on your journey.”“Where…where will I go?” Anne whimpered.“I don't know, Anne,” Mom said. “Far away, as far as you can make it. Don't tell me where, don't go to anyone whose name we told you, don't even try to follow us. We are leaving, too, Anne. And it is safer for you if you are not coming with us.” Mom was crying, Anne could tell; it just pressed neither tears nor sobs from her. “Best to avoid the obvious road into town, we will be taking that with the truck, it will draw the heat off you. I recommend you go east down the slopes, you should meet the river in about four hours. Follow it north to find a bridge and a town, and go from there to wherever you can.”“I can't do this,” Anne said. "Mom, I…can't do this without you."“Nonsense!” Mom hissed, grabbing her by the shoulders. “Anne Simmons, listen to me and listen good. What you can and can't do is not written. So clear your mind and remember well what I say now."

  Anne took a breath. Closed her eyes. Bit her lip.

  "Tell me," Anne said."There is a map in your bag," Mom said. "Study it on the way. If you are questioned, you are a hitchhiker going to see your aunt Rachel in — whatever direction you find yourself, pick a suburb of a big city to say. Say you are eighteen, people will believe you, you are tall. Don't let anybody promise to take you all the way. If you are going to accept a ride, you get them to drop you off at a gas station or a diner and you change your destination for the next one. Or a bus station, you had best take a bus when you can, it is safer that way. Keep your money tight to you but pay for everything you take and use. Never take your hands off your bag and show nobody what is inside. Sleep in a motel if you can't avoid it but make sure you always barricade the door from the inside, don't trust the locks on those doors. Don't trust people inviting you to their homes. Trust nobody. If it doesn't feel right, you walk away from it. And for Pete's sake, Anne, do not do anything that will get you noticed. Don't steal, don't fight, don't kill unless you have to. Keep moving until you have gone as far as you can. There you go to ground and make a new pn. And you never — never — come back here.” She took a deep breath. “Do you understand, Anne?”“Yes,” Anne said, and that was a lie; she had heard all, memorized it as best she could, but she understood nothing. Not yet.“Do you?” Mom asked again.

  Anne cried. She knew she was disrespecting Mom, knew she had to be strong now, knew her tears would change nothing — but she cried. It came pouring from her, a flood that could not be stemmed. The Mauser rifle dropped into the mud and Anne twisted her body, trying to turn away from Mom. Mom wouldn't let her, though, tightened her grip on Anne's shoulders, and Anne tightened her jaw. Tears ran over her lips as her eyes cmped shut. She needed to be shouted at, to be torn from her little spiral of misery and be told how things were. She needed to be set right. Wanted to be set right.

  But Anne never got what she truly wanted.

  “I'm so sorry,” Mom said, drawing Anne into an embrace. “I'm so sorry, Anne,” she whispered into her daughter's ear. “I put you on the path to Hell. Quia in inferno nul est redemptio.”“Miserere mei, Deus,” Anne whispered, “et salva me.”“We are wicked, all of us,” Mom said. “But I pray for your deliverance, Anne.""Dad," Anne said, gathering her composure as best she could. "Can I…can I see him now?""No," Mom said. "Anne, I am sorry, but he is in no condition to see you."This pressed new tears from Anne. "What if I never —""We will always be with you," Mom said. "You remember that, Anne. Your father and I, we'll be with you. Always."

  Mom released the embrace, and Anne felt something cool and slick pressed into her hands. She looked down to find Dad's Colt in her hand and Mom's hand on her wrist.

  "This will protect you, if you use it wisely," Mom said, then grasped for Anne's shoulders again and touched her forehead to her daughter's. "I will go fetch your bag. Take a moment to calm yourself, Anne. You have a long walk ahead of you.""Yes," Anne said, with what little remained of her voice. She couldn’t spare enough to say “Goodbye” or “I love you”.

  Mom broke contact with her and, once more, reached for a handkerchief to wipe Anne's face with. That done, she looked Anne up and down, then nodded one st time and turned away. Without another word, she disappeared into the hut Anne had known as home for her whole life. She wouldn’t come out again until Anne was well and truly on her way off the mountain. The Mauser in the dirt beside Anne, the most precious thing she owned, would stay right there as well, and maybe that was a little bit like not having to leave. Maybe the weight of Dad's Colt in her hand and the weight of Mom’s words in her heart was a little like having them by her side. Anne squeezed out the st of her tears and wiped them on the back of her sleeve. She looked at the carnage behind her, and the unknown before her.

  It was all downhill from here.