If We Survive

  We had come around the corner of the church. We were in a back alley now, a stretch of dirt road bordered by the backs of the plaza buildings on one side and a line of old ragged sheds and piles of garbage on the other.

  And something else. Something so terrible I can hardly bear to tell it. There were bodies. Just down the way. Three bullet-riddled bodies lying outside one of the sheds.

  One of them, I realized at once, was Pastor Ron.

  My heart cracked open with grief and fear, and I knew that within seconds my body would be lying there beside his.

  The rebels shoved us toward the church wall. I could see that the wall was chipped and riddled with holes and I knew the holes had been made by gunfire. There were bloodstains too. And some of them, I knew, were from Pastor Ron’s blood. And some of them would soon be from ours.

  We stood with our backs against the wall while the rebels stepped away from us, ready to form themselves into a firing squad. And maybe you’ll think now: Well, why didn’t you fight? Or, Why didn’t you run away? After all, you had nothing to lose. And the answer is: if we had tried to fight or tried to run away, they would have shot us dead right that second. And I didn’t want to die that second. I wanted to live every possible second I could, every one. Anyway, there was no strength in my legs or arms. I had gone weak with fear. There was nothing I could do but live until life was over.

  So I looked around one more time. At the sky, at the ragged tin sheds, at the garbage strewn in the gutter. At Nicki sobbing beside me, and Jim still trying to explain and Meredith praying—and the gunmen, lining up now, starting to lift their guns.

  And it was all beautiful and it was all perfect and I wished I could stay forever and see it this way forever because I never would have complained about anything or hated anybody. I would have just been glad to be alive in God’s perfect creation every second of every day.

  That was the last thought I had.

  Then the leader of the firing squad barked an order, and he and the three other gunmen lifted their weapons and pointed them at us. My mind stopped. My thoughts stopped. There was nothing left to see now or to think about besides the four black bores of the rifle barrels pointed at me, about to spit death.

  There was a rumble of thunder. It was that time of day. There was always a thunderstorm here in the summer afternoons. The thunder rolled a long time and it seemed like all the sounds of the world—the thunder and Nicki’s cries and Jim’s voice and Meredith’s barely audible whispers—the leader barking the order to take aim—even the breeze moving through the trees in the hills beyond the alley and the insects humming around us near the wall—all of it sort of blended together into a single buzz. In that last endless second before the gunmen pulled their triggers, the buzz grew louder. It became a roar. It seemed to fill my ears, to fill the world.

  Time was up. There was no life left to live. I gasped and swallowed an acid terror and prayed for God to take care of me when it was over. I stared at the rifles and that last second went on and on and the roar of the world grew louder and louder in my ears.

  Why didn’t they fire? I shifted my gaze. I saw that the four gunmen of the firing squad were turning their heads— turning away from me.

  It didn’t make sense. All I could think was: What? What?

  The gunmen continued to turn, to turn away. And that’s when I realized that buzz, that roar—it was coming closer. It was getting louder.

  I turned my head too—turned as the gunmen were turning in order to see what the gunmen saw, what they were staring at.

  The growing roar was not the roar of the world. It was the roar of an engine.

  Palmer Dunn’s black van was rushing toward us down the alley.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I stared, my mouth hanging open. It was like I couldn’t get my brain to work. I couldn’t understand what was happening. My mind had been so far away, so immersed in the moment of my execution, that I just couldn’t bring it back to what was happening now.

  The gunmen looked baffled too. They seemed to hesitate, their guns still trained on us, as if they weren’t sure whether to continue with the execution as planned or to turn around and face this big black vehicle that was roaring down on top of them.

  Baffled, I glanced at the others beside me. Nicki was still screaming and crying, expecting to be shot. Jim was looking around, blinking, as shocked and confused as I was.

  Only Meredith seemed to understand everything in a single second. She glanced in the direction of Palmer’s oncoming van, and one corner of her mouth lifted in the smallest smile. So help me, it was as if she had been expecting this to happen all along.

  The van sped toward the gunmen like a bullet. The confused gunmen hesitated another instant—but then they realized they had to do something, they had to turn and face this sudden threat, they had to shoot . . . not at us, but at the van.

  And they started turning. But it was too late. Even as the firing squad pivoted to take aim, the van smashed into them. It struck the first two rebels full speed, sending them flying through the air. The second two gunmen tried to dodge out of the way as the van kept coming. One got clipped by the front fender. He went spinning through the air, his legs flying, and dropped hard to the ground. The other gunman— the last gunman standing—just managed to wheel out of the way. He staggered directly in front of me, unsteady on his feet. He struggled to regain control. Struggled to point his machine gun at the van’s front window, the driver’s window, where I could see Palmer sitting behind the wheel.

  The gunman took aim at Palmer’s head. Palmer stuck a pistol out the window with one hand and shot him. The gunman spun around. He grabbed hold of my shoulders. His face was inches from my face. I stared in terror as I saw the light of life go out of his eyes.

  Then he fell at my feet, dead.

  “Get his gun!” shouted Palmer.

  He had brought the van screeching to a halt. He had jumped out of it even as it stopped moving.

  “Get in!” he shouted at us—and then he shouted again at me, “Get his gun, kid!”

  Jim stood still for a second, wide-eyed, stupefied. But Meredith was already hauling the stunned and sobbing Nicki toward the side of the van. She pulled back the van’s sliding door, pushed Nicki in, and started climbing in behind her.

  At the same time, quick as lightning, Palmer moved around the front of the van. The gunman who’d been thrown aside had already scrambled to his feet. He spun toward Palmer and loosed a wild series of shots at him—rat-tat-tat.

  Palmer calmly leveled his pistol at him and shot the man dead.

  The other two rebels—the ones who had been struck directly by the van—lay still in the dust. Palmer bent over and stripped their machine guns off them.

  At that point, I started to come out of my daze.

  Get the gun, I thought stupidly.

  I looked down. The dead rebel lay inches from my sneakers, staring up at me with empty eyes. His machine gun was still strapped over his shoulder.

  I swallowed. I didn’t want to touch the corpse. But I had to. I took a deep breath and squatted down. I took hold of the machine gun. I tried not to touch the body underneath, but my knuckles brushed against his bloody shirtfront. I tried to pull the weapon free, but it was held in place by the shoulder strap.

  “Let’s go, go, go!” I heard Palmer shouting.

  I knew what I had to do. I had just seen Palmer do it half a second before. Squinting so I wouldn’t have to see the dead man’s face so clearly, I took hold of the machine-gun strap and worked it quickly down over his arm until I could pull the gun away from him.

  Then, with a gasp, I jumped out of my squat.

  “Get in, kid, go!” shouted Palmer.

  Still in a haze of confusion, I blinked and looked up. Palmer had grabbed Jim by the arm and was now shoving him toward the open side door of the van. I started to follow them.

  But as Palmer pushed Jim into the van, he spun around and faced me.

  “Listen,??
? he said quickly. “Get in back, open the door. There’s an army of these clowns on the streets and every drunken one of them is about to come after us. When they do, shoot them.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “You heard me. You’ve got the guts. You can do it. So do it.”

  I nodded—but I didn’t really grasp what he was saying. I mean, about five seconds ago—really, it could hardly have been more than five seconds—I was looking down the barrels of four machine guns, literally preparing to meet my Maker. And now I was still alive—which was so wildly incredible I could hardly believe it. And Palmer was telling me—what?—to shoot at people out the back of a van? I’d never even fired a gun before. I’d never even held a gun before. He didn’t really expect me to kill anyone, did he?

  But I nodded, all the same. Because there was no time to do anything else. And the next thing I knew, Palmer had me by the arm and was hoisting me up into the van with the others, the same as he had with Jim.

  “And, kid,” he said.

  I looked back at him.

  “Don’t fall out.”

  I nodded again. What else was I going to do? And clutching the dead rebel’s machine gun, I stepped up into the van as Palmer slid the door shut behind me.

  It was dark inside. Dark and cramped: two bench seats filled most of the space in the van’s narrow interior. My friends were sitting on the benches, Jim in front, Meredith and Nicki in back. Jim was leaning forward, his hands clasped between his knees. He was rocking himself and staring at nothing and muttering. Nicki was leaning against Meredith. She was staring too, and trembling so hard I thought she was having some kind of spasm. Meredith held on to her. Meredith’s face was almost expressionless, but she was breathing quickly, nearly gasping, and I could tell that she, like the others, was trying to get over the shock of not being shot, of still being alive.

  I was shocked too, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t have time to be shocked. I had to get to the back of the van and do . . . something—I wasn’t sure what.

  Carrying the machine gun, I edged along the side of the benches. I reached the van’s back doors. They were double doors. “Open the door,” Palmer had said. So, okay, I grabbed a handle and pushed one of the doors open.

  At that exact moment, Palmer jumped back into the van, back behind the wheel. He put the van into gear and jammed his foot down on the gas.

  The van spurted forward, and I nearly went flying out through the open door onto the dirt street. I just barely managed to grab hold of the edge of the door that was still closed and keep my footing and stay inside.

  Don’t fall out of the van. I reminded myself of Palmer’s orders. Not “ fall out of the van.” Don’t fall out.

  Well, it was a good thought, anyway. But by this time, the van was bouncing and rollicking over the rutted dirt of the back alley, careening toward the far corner of the church. The back door kept slamming shut in my face. I kept pushing it open again. And every time I pushed it open, the van would hit another bump and nearly hurl me out into the road where I would have been left behind.

  I tried to think. It wasn’t easy. My mind felt like a jigsaw puzzle with all the pieces scrambled. The bright clarity of those moments before I’d been put up against the church wall—that was totally gone. I had left the bright moment of my death behind and was back in life, back in the world. And the world, let me tell you, was a mess, absolute confusion. I couldn’t even get the van door to stay open so I could do what Palmer had told me to do.

  I looked around for something that would help. I found it in a pile of tools and other junk lying on the van’s floor. There was a coil of thick rope there. I picked it up. I pushed the door open one more time. I wedged a coil of the rope in the hinges, really jammed it in there. That did it. The rope kept the door from snapping shut as the van continued jouncing and rattling over the road. Now if I could just take care of that “don’t fall out” part.

  “Get ready!” I heard Palmer shout from the driver’s seat. “It’s time to rock and roll!”

  Well, I had no idea what that meant, but somehow I didn’t think it was going to be good.

  I couldn’t get steady on my feet, and there was no way to use the gun while I was being thrown here and there by the bouncing of the van. So I sat down—it was the only solution I could think of. I sat cross-legged—you know, like you do when you’re sitting on the ground around a campfire, ready to cook some s’mores. Only instead of a box of graham crackers on my lap, there was this machine gun. So I sat like that, cross-legged, and held the gun and looked out the open door, not really sure what I was going to see but telling myself that I should get ready because we were going to . . . you know, rock and roll.

  I was looking out at the back alley, the sheds and the garbage and the back of the church. I saw the bloody wall against which we’d just been standing, and I saw the gunmen who’d been about to kill us and were now lying dead or unconscious in the dust.

  Then the van swerved, hard, to the left. We turned a corner, with me leaning so far over to one side that, even sitting down, I nearly flew across the floor.

  The execution wall disappeared. I wasn’t sorry to see it go. Now, for a moment, anyway, I was looking out at a pile of garbage, and a hill of trees, and a patch of sky covered with black clouds in the background.

  Then, almost at once, I heard Palmer let out a roar, and the van swerved again. We were barreling through the plaza, the center of Santiago. I looked out—and I could not believe how much everything had changed in such a short time.

  The place where the people had celebrated their new school was completely transformed. It had been a nice little place. Kind of jolly. The church, the cantina, the market stalls. Christmas lights strung up for decorations.

  Now the square was decorated with dead people. Men and women lying on the pavement, shot, bleeding on the stones. The Christmas lights were gone—I saw where a string of them had been trampled into the ground. The market stalls were all broken and turned over, their pillars splintered. The windows of some of the other buildings were broken and their shattered glass lay sparkling beneath the walls. A rebel with a gun staggered into view. He tipped a bottle of whiskey up to his lips and took a long swig. Then he fired a few bursts into the air and gave a shout of triumph.

  I watched all this through the open door, sitting there cross-legged, holding the machine gun in my lap as the van raced through the plaza. Like my friends, recovering from our near-death experience, I had gone into a sort of stunned, distant daze. I wasn’t really thinking about anything. I was just looking out at the scene as if it were some kind of television show, something that had nothing to do with me. I had almost forgotten what Palmer had told me to do.

  “There’s an army of these clowns on the streets, and every drunken one of them is about to come after us. When they do, shoot them.”

  Then it happened. Just like he said it would.

  Even over the roar of the van’s engines—even over a fresh roll of thunder from the sky above—I heard the gruff, angry shouts of the rebels. As I sat dazed, staring out the open back door of the van, I saw five or six men with rifles charging into the town’s main street. One of them, I saw, was Mendoza himself.

  The rebels staggered around for a second, confused, looking as if they were drunk—which I guess they were. But Mendoza was steady as a rock. And he had already spotted us—spotted the van rocketing out of town.

  Mendoza pointed after us. I saw the whites of his eyes flaring in his rage. I saw his mouth open as he shouted orders.

  At his barked commands, the rebels started rushing around in different directions. Some ran out of my sight. But two of them charged into the center of the street, bringing their guns up as they came. They planted themselves, lifted their weapons, and took aim at the back of the van—at me.

  For another half second or so, I continued to sit there in my stunned stupidity. Everything had changed so quickly, I was still having a hard time taking it in. I mean, one second you
’re standing against the wall in front of a firing squad, suddenly realizing that life is beautiful and that you should’ve appreciated everything more and been kinder to everyone—and the next second you’re rattling around in the back of a van, racing to get out of town. And suddenly life isn’t beautiful at all! It’s nuts! Everything’s wild and confusing all around you . . . not to mention the fact that there are guys pointing guns at you again . . .

  But then, with a sort of flash, I came back to my senses. I remembered where I was, what was happening, what I was supposed to do. There were the two rebels in the middle of the street with their machine guns aimed at the van.

  And I thought: Oh, I get it! I get it now!

  It’s time to rock and roll!

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Before I could react, the rebels started shooting at us. I saw the flame spit from their rifle barrels. I saw pebbles kick up out of the road as the bullets hit the pavement just behind us. The van continued to race away from them, swaying and bouncing as Palmer kept his foot jammed down on the gas.

  My sluggish mind finally came to life. What do I do? I thought.

  And I heard Palmer answer: Shoot them.

  Shoot them? I thought.

  The rebels were getting smaller behind us as we pulled away. But once again, they raised their weapons, steadied their aim, got ready to fire again.

  And I thought: Yes! Shoot them!

  I lifted the machine gun from my lap, pointed it in their general direction, and pulled the trigger.

  The gun leapt and jerked in my hand like a living creature as it rattled bullets out the open back door of the van. Of course, I had no chance of hitting anybody. We were too far away and I’d hardly even taken aim. But I saw the rebels duck to the side at the sound of fire, trying to get out of the way. And by the time they recovered, we were pulling around a bend in the road. They had lost their opportunity to take another shot at us.

  I blinked. Hey! I thought. Hey! I had done it. Okay, I hadn’t shot anybody. I didn’t want to shoot anybody. But I had stopped them from shooting us. That was pretty good right there, wasn’t it?