بخش 04 - فصل 32

32

Brady staggers through shin-deep snow, eyes wide with disbelief, Babineau’s sixty-three-year-old heart banging away in his chest. There’s a metallic taste on his tongue, his shoulder is burning, and the thought running through his head on a constant loop is That bitch, that bitch, that dirty sneaking bitch, why didn’t I kill her while I had the chance?

The Zappit is gone, too. Good old Zappit Zero, and it’s the only one he brought. Without it, he has no way to reach the minds of those with active Zappits. He stands panting in front of Heads and Skins, coatless in the rising wind and driving snow. The keys to Z-Boy’s car are in his pocket, along with another clip for the Scar, but what good are the keys? That shitbox wouldn’t make it halfway up the first hill before it got stuck.

I have to take them, he thinks, and not just because they owe me. The SUV Hodges drove down here is the only way out of here, and either he or the bitch probably has the keys. It’s possible they left them in the vehicle, but that’s a chance I can’t afford to take.

Besides, it would mean leaving them alive.

He knows what he has to do, and switches the fire control to FULL AUTO. He socks the butt of the Scar against his good shoulder, and starts shooting, raking the barrel from left to right but concentrating on the great room, where he left them.

Gunfire lights up the night, turning the fast-falling snow into a series of flash photographs. The sound of the overlapping reports is deafening. Windows explode inward. Clapboards rise from the façade like bats. The front door, left half-open in his escape, flies all the way back, rebounds, and is driven back again. Babineau’s face is twisted in an expression of joyful hate that is all Brady Hartsfield, and he doesn’t hear the growl of an approaching engine or the clatter of steel treads from behind him.