Lexicon

women. “You . . . dicks!”
    The man with the shaved head reached her. His face was guarded; she had no idea what the boys had told him. Her bra was lying on the concrete, she noticed. She had forgotten it. “You okay?”
    “They attacked me.” She picked up her bra and clutched it to her chest. “Those boys.”
    While the man with the shaved head was beating up the boys, she got her bra back on. She pulled her hair free of the back of her T-shirt. The old women had backed up to the far corner and were waiting for the lights to cross. The sidewalk was otherwise empty. She had a minute. Charlotte said, “Diversion by physical threat. Twenty-one.”
    “Oh my God!” she yelled, because a pair of middle-aged women were coming now. “It’s Demi Moore!” The women stopped. Emily pointed at Charlotte. “Can I have your autograph?”
    Charlotte’s lips twitched.
    “There is a similarity,” Emily said.
    “Attraction by . . . feigned celebrity, I suppose. Twenty-two.”
    “What’s a pass, again?”
    Charlotte’s sunglasses regarded her. “Five.”
    “Five,” Emily echoed. She felt good. A teenage girl in big headphones rounded the corner, heading down the sidewalk. Emily had no idea what she was going to say to the little whore, but it was something. She opened her mouth.

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[FIVE]
    They left the freeway and passed through a series of snow-sunk towns. Wil fell asleep without meaning to and woke from guns and blood and dead girls. There was drool on his chin. In the high beams, the road glittered and vanished into night thick as a blanket. “Where are we?”
    “Safe.” Tom peered at the road. “Almost.” They were slowing. The pickup truck’s lights swung across a driveway. Wil saw a wire fence and wooden posts and a sign that said: MCCORMACK & SONS STOCK SALES . They came to a stop and the pickup gargled. “Hmm,” Tom said.
    “What?”
    “Do you trust me?”
    “Do I trust you?”
    “I phrased that badly,” Tom said. “I mean, if I tell you your life depends on doing exactly as I say, without hesitation, can I rely on you to do it?”
    “Sure,” Wil said, then, because that didn’t sound very plausible, added, “Maybe.”
    “That’s not really good enough.
Maybe
leaves you
maybe
alive.”
    “I thought we were meeting your friends.”
    “We are.”
    “So what’s the problem?”
    Tom gazed at the sign. “Nothing. There’s no problem.” He harassed the gearshift. The truck rolled into the driveway. It was thick with mud, dark tire tracks clearly visible. Tom pushed them forward two hundred yards, then paused at a fork. To the left, the road disappeared into darkness. To the right was a bare light on a pole. Within its sphere of illumination lay nothing but mud. Tom steered toward it. Their tires slipped briefly, found traction.
    “What is this place?”
    Metal railings appeared beside them for a while, then vanished again. They entered an open expanse of mud. The ground seemed oddly chewed up. They reached the pole and came to a halt. The engine idled. Tom pressed a button; the doors went
ka-chunk
. He took the shotgun from the footwell and laid it across his lap.
    “What are we doing?”
    “Quiet.”
    There was no noise but the engine. “Should I have a gun?”
    Tom glanced at him.
    “If we’re in danger, and I’m doing what you say, then how about I have a gun?”
    “That would increase the danger,” Tom said. “To me.” He peered into the dark.
    Wil saw motion in the darkness. A man ran toward them, waving his arms. His jacket blew. He had long, straggly hair. He reached the truck and slapped the hood, grinning. Wil’s window whirred down.
    “Hey! Goddamn!” said the long-haired man. “Is this him? This really him?”
    “Where are the others?” Tom said.
    “Inside.” The man’s eyes crawled over Wil. “Holy shit, I cannot believe you found him.”
    “I can’t see an inside.”
    “There’s a house.” The man gestured into the dark, his eyes not leaving Wil. “Get out of the truck. I’ll take you in.”
    “Where can I put the truck?”
    “Don’t worry about the truck. Leave it. We’re gone in ten minutes.” The man tried Wil’s door handle. “Let’s move.”
    “Why’d you come running out like that?”
    “I’m excited, Eliot! I’m