Page 82 of Confessions of the Dead

Matt brought up his elbow and caught Stu Peterson under his chin with enough force to send the top of his head into the door frame with a hardthunk!Then he yanked the gearshift down into drive and stomped the gas. “Hold on!”

The engine screamed and the car shot forward, straight for the men in the street. Still in the window, Peterson twisted, cracked against the side of the car, and vanished behind them as the other men dove out of their way. They were still picking up speed when the gunfire started. Matt yanked the wheel hard to the left, and they skidded off Main to Thornily, but not before their back window blew out as the shots tore into the car.

63

Hannah

MALCOLM YELLED OUT SOMETHINGbehind her, but Hannah ignored him. She ran as fast as she could, following the fence line toward the voices, the sound of heavy machinery. She’d gone at least two hundred feet before they came into view around the thick trees—at least a half dozen trucks, a flatbed weighed down with rolls of chain link and tall metal poles. Some kind of tractor with a corkscrew drill as tall as her and as wide as her waist was busy chewing into the ground as at least twenty or thirty men busily worked extending the fence. Those men wore white overalls, orange vests, and hard hats. Scattered between them were soldiers—dressed in black and gray fatigues, holding large rifles.

“Help!” she screamed out. “He’s trying to kill me! Help!”

The soldiers were busy watching the workers installing the fence and seemed surprised at the sound of her voice. The one nearest her looked to be no more than early twenties. His gun hung loosely from his neck, and he was holding a bottle of water in one hand and a rugged-looking tablet in the other.

Behind him, someone shouted, “Stop her! Somebody stop her!”

Hannah followed the voice and froze.

A priest.

Dressed in a full-length black cassock, standing near a bulldozer, he raised his arm and pointed. Rosary beads dangled from his fingers. “Do not allow her any further!”

The soldier dropped the water bottle and tablet and fumbled for his rifle. He brought the barrel up, pointed it directly at Hannah’s head.

Another shot rang out, followed quickly by two more. Those came from a soldier twenty feet down the line. Hannah turned fast enough to see two red blooms in Malcolm’s chest and a black hole in the center of his burlap mask, directly above his eyes. His body jerked and dropped. The ax clattered down next to him.

Hannah screamed and shuffled back toward the trees.

The first bullet caught her in the left temple, passed through her brain, and came out the center of her right cheek. She never heard the other three shots.

64

Riley

“THOSE WERE GUNSHOTS.” RILEYfroze and looked deep into the trees. Rather than go down the mountain and have to come all the way back up to get to Roy Buxton’s cabin, they’d cut through the woods. It was tough to say, but it sounded like the shots came from somewhere below them.

“Probably hunters,” Mason suggested before continuing down the path, although he didn’t look like he believed that any more than the rest of them.

“Someone screamed, too. I heard a scream.”

“That wasn’t a scream.” Mason pointed the tip of his bat in the direction the shots had come. “That was a buck dropping. Maybe a wild turkey or something. You plug them wrong, and they make all kinds of noises.”

Evelyn had stopped a few paces between them both. She reached out and tugged the hood of her brother’s sweatshirt and held him still. “Everybody stop moving for a second. Just listen.”

“It’s just hunters.” Mason groaned but did as she asked. “Black bear and buck season started two weeks ago.”

Robby twitched next to Evelyn. “That wasn’t a hunting rifle. That was an assault weapon.”

“That what your Rain Man Spidey-sense is telling you?” Mason asked.

“An M4 carbine, gas-powered, magazine-fed assault rifle. Developed in the United States during the 1980s. It’s a short version of an M16, first used in—”

Evelyn yanked her brother’s hoodie. “Zip it, Robby. Everyone just listen for a second.”

“Listen to what?” Mason muttered. “I don’t hear jack.”

“Jesus, Mason, shut the hell up.”

When he did, when they all stopped talking, Riley understood what Evelyn meant. “I can’t hear anything. No birds, no bugs, no animal sounds at all. The wind isn’t even blowing. There’s nothing.”

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