'It's your choice,' Clint said. 'Now, make it.'
'I'm staying with you.’
'Okay.'
'So, now what?’
'I'm not sure yet.’
'Terrific.'
Em dropped again to her hands and knees, lowered her head and scanned the area underneath the nearby vehicles. A moment later, she sprang up. 'Still there,' she said.
Mary sneered at her. 'What did you think, they'd go away?'
'I was afraid they might be sneaking closer.'
'They're staying put?' Clint asked.
'So far.'
'Just waiting for us to walk by.'
'And then they grab our feet?' Em asked.
'Something like that, guess.'
'Let's just make a big detour around them,' Mary said.
Clint shook his head.
'Why not?'
'A lot of reasons.'
'Name one.'
'We know where these are.'
'So?'
'That makes 'em easier to deal with. I don't wanta waste time making a detour just so we can get jumped somewhere else. Come on.' They backtracked out of the space, and Clint led the way alongside the pickup truck. When he came to the driver's door, he stopped and faced them. 'Okay,' he whispered. 'We need a plan. Any ideas?'
Em raised her eyebrows. 'They're hiding underneath, trucks and cars and stuff, right? So they can grab us when we go near. It's kind of like this I movie saw, only there was this monster worm-thing that came up out of the ground to get you. So what Kevin Bacon did - he and the others - they got away from it by polevaulting from boulder to boulder. That way, they stayed off the ground and the thing couldn't get them. Tremors, that was the movie.'
Mary said, 'Do you see any poles around here?’
'No, but…'
'Yes!' Clint blurted. 'That's it! Em, you're brilliant!'
'It was just a movie saw.'
Scowling, Mary muttered, 'Who knows how to anyway? Even if we had poles, which we don't.'
'We don't need poles,' Clint said. 'Everything's close together, we oughta be able to make it across just jumping - never have to touch the street at all. We stay above and move fast, and…'
'Wait, wait,' Mary said. 'jump? You mean like from car to car? From their roofs?'
'Roofs, hoods, trunks.'
'I can't do that.'
'Sure you can,' Em said.
'No. No way.'
'It'll be easy.'
'We're wasting time,' Clint said. 'Come, or don't.'
He pushed his knife back into its makeshift sheath in the right front pocket of his pants. Then he turned around and climbed onto the hood of the pickup truck. On his feet, he approached the other side. The space between the lanes looked clear. So far, nobody was coming out from under the van or any of the nearby cars. He waited for Em and Mary to join him on the pickup's hood. Then he stepped up onto the roof of the cab. It seemed to be about the same height as the top of the van. The two vehicles were separated by a gap that looked about five feet wide.
Not bad, he thought. Turning around, he offered a hand to Em. She took it, and he gave her a pull as she came up onto the roof. She smiled, squeezed his hand, and stepped out of the way. Mary halted at the base of the windshield. She glanced over the side, then gazed up at Clint. He held his arm toward her, and nodded. 'Come on,' he mouthed, not speaking the words.
Looking scared and miserable, Mary stopped clutching her blouse shut. She switched the butcher knife to her left hand, and raised her right toward Clint. They clasped hands. She planted her right foot at the top of the windshield. Clint pulled.
She bounded up. The left side of her blouse flapped open. Her breast was bare above the flimsy material of her bra. Clint glimpsed it, looked away, then felt its firm, pressure against his chest as she stumbled into him. The moment Mary seemed steady on her feet, he backed away from her. She hadn't covered herself and they still faced the gap. The area below still looked safe. Maybe they aren't even under there anymore. Maybe they've moved on, and all this is a waste of time. Who you trying to kid? They haven't gone anyplace. Just fall, and see what happens. There's no reason to fall, he told himself. Just one stride and you'll be across. It won't even take a jump. Not a real jump. Just give it a little oomph. He stepped to the edge of the pickup's roof. He swung his right leg out over the chasm and shoved with his left. His stomach dropped away as he moved. For a moment, he hung above the gap. Then his right foot landed on top of the van. A couple of quick staggers, and then he halted himself. He turned around. Em and Mary stood side by side atop the pickup's roof. Em, smiling, gave the blade of her knife a twirl. She clamped it between her teeth, was using both hands to tuck the bottom of her blouse into her skirt.
Clint gestured for them to come over. Em mouthed something to Mary that looked like, 'You go first.'
Mary shook her head. Let's not dawdle, ladies! Let's move it before the creeps crawl out! He beckoned again. Em nodded. She took a couple of backward steps to give herself a running start. She switched the butcher knife to her left hand, didn't seem to like it there, and returned it to her right hand. She took a deep breath. She wiggled her eyebrows at Clint. Then she rushed toward the edge. She kicked out over the gap. As she shoved off, her left foot slipped.
***
Clint glimpsed a look of disbelief on Em's face. In midair, she tilted backward. No. Her arms thrashed. Her knife waved. For a moment, it looked as if she were trying to slide into base, right foot reaching for the edge of the van's roof. Clint was going to be there to catch her. But he knew she wouldn't make it. She was almost horizontal. Dropping to his knees, he bowed his head down to grab for her foot. Caught it! The sole of her sneaker pounded the van. Gasping, she bent at the waist and swiped her left hand towards Clint. It didn't even come close. She was already dropping. Clint braced himself. A moment later, Em's back slammed against the side of the van. Clint didn't let go. He held her right ankle in a solid handed grip.
She hung upsidedown directly beneath his eyes, leg waving about as if she didn't know what to do with it, panties showing through the wide and drooping leg holes her shorts, her body bare below her shorts, her arms outstretched to the sides, her face hooded by her fallen T-shirt. Clint strained backward, trying to raise her. 'Somebody's got my hair!' she yelled. No!
Had an arm reached out from under the van? He couldn't see it, but he couldn't see much of anything; the Roadkill T-shirt had flopped down until it stopped by Em's armpits. It shrouded her face - her entire head - concealing whatever might be happening between her neck and the street. They could scalp her… Slash her throat…I wouldn't even know it. He saw that Em still had hold of her knife.
'Use your knife!' he called.
She started stabbing at the area hidden under the loose tent of her shirt. Someone cried out as if wounded. Clint tugged at her ankle. He couldn't raise her at all. She kept on stabbing. With each jab, her body jerked and twisted. Clint felt a freezing sickness in his bowels as three people came squirming out from under the van. They came out on their bellies. The hair on the backs of their heads was matted with blood. Their arms, shoulders and backs were smeared and blotched with it. Two men and a woman. One of the guys appeared to be a boy, skinny, small enough to be ten or twelve years old. He wore a T-shirt. He held a claw hammer in his right hand as he scurried out from under the van.
The other guy, possibly his father, was much larger. Like the boy, he wore a T-shirt. He clutched a Bowie knife. Its broad, stained blade was as long as his forearm. The woman, as bloody as the others, had her hair in a ponytail. She wore some sort of top that left her back bare except for strips of cloth that tied behind her neck and in the middle of her back. In her hand, she held a hunting knife. Is this the mother? Clint wondered. We've got a family here? The family that kills together, stays together, Clint tried again to pull Em up by her ankle. This time, she started to rise. Yes! But a pair of red arms suddenly shot out from under the drooping shroud of her T-shirt, swung up and then
swept down. Their hands hooked into her armpits. Clint held on. He knew he could keep holding on. But he couldn't bring Em up. Not with someone holding onto her like this. The man was still squirming out, but the boy and woman were already clear of the undercarriage and getting to their knees. I can't do her any good up here, Clint thought. I've got to let go. Drop her on her head? I can't. Gotta. As he was about to release Em's ankle, he glimpsed a quick plunging movement directly in front of him. Was somebody leaping down from the other side? What, more of them? He looked. Mary. He couldn't believe it. Not Mary, leaping down to help Em. But that was certainly how it looked. Hair and skirt hoisted high by the wind of her descent, she landed on her feet beside the cab of the pickup truck. Her shoes struck the pavement with a clatter. The impact seemed to jolt her whole body. She staggered forward, and Clint thought she was falling. She was falling. She fell to her knees by the head of the man as he tried to shove himself up from the pavement, and slammed her butcher knife into his back. He squealed. Mary tugged out the knife and stabbed him again. The woman and boy started to rise.
Still hanging onto Em's ankle with his right hand, Clint let go with his left. He used his left to brace himself while he bent down fast over the edge of the roof and reached as low as he could. He opened his right hand. Em dropped. As she plummeted down the side of the van, he sprang. He sprang for the boy, who was just to the left, standing but still bent over. Both Clint's feet landed on his back, driving him toward the street. He rode the kid down. He knew what he was doing. He hated it, but not enough to leap off. The boy's face struck the pavement. The sound of it made Clint wince. He stumbled off the kid's back. The woman, halting her rush at Mary, looked over her shoulder. She glared at the sprawled body. she whirled aro