Gone

She could hold on for the few seconds it’d take.
    “Holy Mary, Mother of God…”
    She gripped the railing with her left, grabbed Little Pete’s wrist with her right, and yanked him away from the rail. He fell. She caught him, held on by her fingernails, and then he was falling. He slammed onto the porch chair below.
    He had landed hard. He was stunned.
    Astrid heard Drake slamming against the door again and heard a splintering sound as the dead bolt gave way. Now only the frail chain still held and he would be through that in a heartbeat.
    “…pray for us sinners now…”
    She swung herself down and landed almost on top of Little Pete. No time for the sharp pain in her leg, no time for the blood and the scraped flesh, only time to grab Little Pete, hug him, hold him close, and withdraw back against the sliding-glass door of the balcony.
    “Window seat, window seat, baby, window seat,” she whispered, her mouth pressed to his ear.
    She heard Drake in the room above.
    She heard him slide open the door above and step out onto the balcony.
    They were out of sight. Unless he leaned out far enough.
    Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death, she finished the prayer silently and held on to her brother.
    Amen.
    She heard Drake curse in fury.
    They had done it. He thought they had disappeared.
    Thank you, Lord, Astrid prayed silently.
    And then, Little Pete began to moan.
    His game had fallen when she had dropped him to the balcony. The back was open. One of the batteries had rolled away. And now Little Pete was trying to make it work and it wouldn’t.
    Astrid almost sobbed out loud.
    Drake stopped cursing.
    She looked up and there he was, leaning far out over the railing. The shark grin was wide.
    The gun was in his hand, but he couldn’t quite get an angle on them, so he swung one leg over the railing, crouched just as Astrid had done, and now he could see them quite clearly.
    He aimed.
    He laughed.
    And then he bellowed in pain and fell.
    Astrid leaped to the railing. Drake was on the grass below, sprawled on his back, unconscious, lying on his rifle with the pistol beside him.
    “Astrid,” Sam said.
    He was above her, still holding the table lamp he’d used to smash Drake’s hand, leaning out over the railing.
    “Sam.”
    “You okay?”
    “As soon as I get Petey’s battery I will be.” That sounded stupid, and she almost laughed.
    “I have a boat down on the beach.”
    “Where are we going?”
    “How about not here?”

TWENTY-FIVE
    127 HOURS , 42 MINUTES
    IT HAD BEEN two days since Lana had survived the coyotes. The talking coyotes. Two days since her life had been saved by a snake. A flying snake.
    The world had gone crazy.
    Lana had watered the lawn that morning, careful to keep a sharp eye out for coyotes and snakes. She paid close attention to Patrick’s every bark, growl, or twitch. He was her early warning system. They’d been owner and pet in the old days, or, maybe you could say, friends. But now they were a team. They were partners in a game of survival: Patrick’s senses, her brain.
    It was a stupid thing to do, watering the lawn, since she couldn’t be sure there would be water enough for her. But the man who had owned this tumbledown desert abode had loved the few square meters of grass. It was an act of defiance against the desert. Defiance, even though he had chosen to live out here in the middle of absolutely nowhere.
    Anyway, in a crazy world, why shouldn’t she be crazy, too?
    The man who owned the cabin was named Jim Brown. She found that out from papers inside his desk. Plain old Jim Brown. There was no picture of him, but he was only forty-eight years old, a little too young, Lana thought, to leave civilization behind and become a hermit.
    The shed behind the cabin was stacked to the roof with survival rations. Not a single fresh thing to be found, but enough canned crackers, canned peanut butter, peaches, fruit cocktail, chili, Spam, and military-style meals ready to eat to last Lana and Patrick at least a year. Maybe longer.
    There was no phone. No TV or any electronics. No air-conditioning to soften the brutal afternoon heat. There was no electricity at all. The only mechanical things were the windmill that turned the pump that brought water up from the aquifer below, and a foot-powered grindstone used to hone picks and shovels and saw blades. There were more than a few picks, shovels, saws, and hammers.
    There was evidence as well of a car or truck. Tire