Hidden Prey

She didn’t move, so Lucas took her by the arm and steered her toward Carl’s Chevy. “Just . . . stay.”
    “I’m not a dog,” she said.
     
    L UCAS WENT BACK to the garage door and shouted at the house. “Carl. We need to talk with you. Put the gun away. Put the gun away. If you shoot it at us, you’ll go to jail. We need to talk to you, son.”
    No answer. Movement on the drapes? Maybe.
    “Carl . . .”
    “Go away. You killed my grandpa.” Lucas peeked. Definite movement on the drapes on the far corner of the house. A bedroom, maybe.
    “We didn’t kill your grandpa.”
    Nadya stepped up beside him and Lucas said, “Jesus Christ, Nadya . . .”
    Nadya called, “Carl. I have just spoken to your mother. She’s afraid you’ll be hurt. She wants you to come home, Carl . . .”
    “Go away.”
    Lucas: “We can’t go away, son . . .”
    The glass broke in the window where Lucas thought he’d seen drapes moving, and Lucas shoved Nadya, hard, and went after her, pulling her down, and a second later a bullet smashed through the metal side of the building where they’d been standing.
    “Jesus . . .” He pulled at Nadya, and they scrambled behind Carl’s Chevy.
    Somebody yelled, “Davenport, you okay?”
    “We’re okay, hold your fire.”
    Another shot ripped through the garage, and then another, and small pieces of metal showered over the Chevy. Daylight streamed through the holes, and Lucas could see inch-long peels of the thin sheet steel where the slugs had punched through. Another shot didn’t hit the garage. “He’s shooting up in the woods, now,” Lucas said.
    Nadya, on her hands and knees behind the John Deere, shouted, “Carl, please, we are trying to help you.”
    Bam.
    Another shot hit the garage and maybe ricocheted off one of the snowmobiles. Wolfe wasn’t going to be happy.
    A burst of three—one of the deputies up in the woods was shooting back.
    “Hold on!” Lucas shouted. “Hold on . . . Carl, we’ve got the house covered. Come on, man, you haven’t done anything yet . . .”
    Two more shots tore through the garage. Lucas yelled, “Carl, man, you’re shooting up your own car. You’re shooting up your car, Carl . . .”
     
    C ARL RELOADED ; he had a full load plus two for his pocket. No way out? If he could get to the garage, there was still the car, he could come flying out in the car and go the other way, they’d never think of that, he could drive out the utility access, there might be a couple of small trees and some brush in there . . . and he thought, nah, you’d never fuckin’ make it.
    Grandpa’s image flashed up in his head: Grandpa dead. The gun’s muzzle floated in front of his eyes, a few inches away. He could put the muzzle up under his chin . . . wouldn’t hurt. He’d go from here and now, to nothing, with nothing in between. Be better than landing in some prison where he’d be living in a shoe box and getting fucked by some old guy.
    It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He was supposed to be underground, or a guerrilla fighter, or something—but not stuck on the bedroom floor of a crappy cabin with a half dozen shells and no food except six cans of soup and some peanut butter. When he saw the thing on TV, the cops suddenly speeding out of town, he’d thought they’d be coming, that he’d been spotted somehow, or the Wolfes had talked to somebody. He’d taken five minutes to throw a little camping equipment in a nylon laundry bag, along with the soup and peanut butter, but it was all bullshit, he really knew that—he didn’t even have a sleeping bag, or a tent, or good clothes. He’d freeze out there at night.
    The muzzle of the gun just hung there, the smell of the powder, not bad; from something to nothing, no pain, no transition . . .
    Then the guy in the garage yelled, “ . . . you’re shooting up your own car. You’re shooting up your car, Carl . . .”
    A wave of rage went through him. He worked at the fuckin’ pizza place every night for six months to buy that car, then he got screwed on the car, it was a piece of junk. But it was his car, and these people . . .
    He picked up the gun and headed for the door.
     
    T HEN C ARL CAME OUT , the front door slamming behind him. He walked, striding, angry, swift, toward the garage.
    Lucas said, “Oh, shit, stay down . . .”
    Carl had the rifle, held low, pointed into the gararge. He screamed, “Get away from my car, get away from my