Lexicon

was no time to lower the window, so Wil planted his feet on the side door, aimed the shotgun down his legs, and squeezed the trigger. The window blew out. The cop car jerked as if stung, its engine jumping half a dozen octaves, and fell out of view. Wil leaned out the shattered window into the blast furnace of air. There were two cops in the squad car, their faces pinched with anxiety. He brought the shotgun around, settled on the radiator, and pulled the trigger. The car’s hood popped open. It veered off the road, tires smoking. Wil crawled back inside.
    When he reached his own seat, the lights ahead had resolved into two shining squad cars, one in each lane, barreling toward them. “They’re not . . . kamikaze, are they?” Eliot didn’t answer. Wil groped for his seat belt but couldn’t find it. Surely Eliot was about to swerve off the road. The cars ballooned in the windshield, low-slung and powerful. “Eliot!
Eliot!
”
    One squad car dropped behind the other. They flew past Eliot’s window, their sirens dopplering. Wil breathed.
    “Load that gun,” Eliot said.
    He dug around the footwell for shells, broke open the shotgun.
    “They’re coming around. Keep them back.”
    “I know.”
    “Don’t talk about it. Do it.”
    “I’m doing it! I just shot a cop car, did you notice?”
    “Next time, shoot the driver.”
    “Fuck!” he said. “What’s the difference?”
    “You shoot the driver, no cop comes within five hundred feet of us, that’s the fucking difference! You shoot the
car—
”
    “Okay! Okay!” He got his elbow out the passenger window and levered himself up. The wind tore at him. Way back, a column of white smoke rose from the car he’d shot, stark against the blue sky. Closer, the two new squad cars were eating up the distance between them. Wil steadied the shotgun. He had hunted, once. He’d cleared land like this of rabbits and roos. When was that? He couldn’t remember. But this feeling, the shotgun nestled in his shoulder, an endless landscape of pressed dirt spread before him, was familiar. He waited. The cops would surely see him and stay back. He did not want to shoot anyone.
    The Valiant coughed. The car shivered, lurched. Wil clutched at the window frame to avoid falling out of it, almost dropping the gun. “Hey!” he shouted. “What the fuck?”
    “Gas! Becoming an issue!”
    “Why are you
shaking the car
?”
    “To extract gas from the tank!”
    “I nearly fell out!”
    Eliot said something he couldn’t hear over the roar of the wind.
    Wil leaned inside. “
What?
”
    “I said it’s important to keep moving!”
    “I know that! Just give me five seconds of driving in a straight line!” He pushed himself out the window. The squad cars were closer than he liked. At this range, he’d pierce the windshield. They could see that, right? They could see he had a shotgun. He waited for them to back off.
    “
Shoot!
” Eliot yelled.
    He aimed at the car on the left and squeezed the trigger. Shot spattered across its hood. Its windshield cracked. Both cars’ noses dipped to the blacktop. Smoke burst from their tires. He watched until there were a good couple hundred yards of road between them. Then he wriggled back inside. “They’re backed off.”
    “Good.”
    Eliot didn’t ask why he’d fired at the hood. Maybe he didn’t realize. He probably assumed he was a terrible shot. He didn’t know that Wil had hunted. That is, that he remembered hunting. “We seriously need to get you to a hospital.”
    “And how does that work,” said Eliot. “How exactly do we get me to a hospital, in this situation.”
    “I don’t know. But you can’t fucking die, okay? It’s not good for anyone if you die.”
    “Hold on,” said Eliot. Wil saw a turnoff rushing toward them, a dusty blacktop guarded by red and black and yellow signs promising NO ENTRY, ROAD CLOSED, QUARANTINE AREA . As they leaned around the corner, the car coughed explosively. Wil felt a softness enter their momentum. The engine gargled. The Valiant lurched back onto the straight and muttered angrily.
    “That’s not good.”
    “No.”
    He glanced behind. The squad cars had slipped into a single file. They followed at a distance, taking the turnoff with ease. “They’re going to just sit back there until we run out of gas.”
    “They’re not.”
    “Let me float something,” Wil said. “We stop, they arrest us, we get you some medical attention.” Eliot didn’t say anything. “Then you