They were fifty odd miles into the night when the horizon lit up with red and blue starlight. Long shadows cast. The whole landscape filled with pairs of darting vehicles converging on them from a parallel road unseen. Everywhere police. Before, behind, left, right, it was like the shower scene in so many prison—anyway, there were lots of police. He turned to face DeeDee, she was asleep. Good. Something in him said that she wouldn’t like whatever was about to go down. He put on music, no voices, no volume but for what might help mask the future in shots. The lights were closer now, and his hands began to sweat. Where the hell were they going? Could there possibly be a mistake? Could it all be one big bureaucratic fuck up? He imagined some busty blonde officer with a shirt barely hanging in there, rolling her batten up his inner thigh and—stop it. Not now. At a time like this? He took deep, controlled breaths and rolled down the window, and he imagined Hillmon somewhere performing another bloody ritual as sacrifice for Caro’s own surrender. He apologised to his friend under his breath and snapped his head back and forth until his brain ached inside.
‘What’s going on officer? Something I can help you with?’ The herd stopped, and people were leaving their trucks to get a better view. Pale faces in the night lit up like red and blue masks floating in space. The firepower these guys were packing… This whole place could become a bloodbath. And the desert drinks what man bleeds, he quoted. Things outside were picking up, there were police everywhere, innumerable cars on both sides. The herd made a line and the police made another, wildebeest and pride face to face. Tensions grew. Caro locked the doors and wound up the windows. He was only a babe in his beat up little dinger, and babes are always the first to target in a melee, everyone knows that.
‘Get in the back,’ Caro whispered and shook DeeDee awake, his heart throbbing in his chest. Someone outside had a gun, those twinned steel barrels he’d seen earlier now dangling by the giants waist and peeking out from the shadows like a nefarious tree snake ready to haemorrhage. Someone had to shoot here, there were too many guns and too many itchy fingers for it not to happen. The air choked him. He could almost smell the gunpowder and iron of blood already. DeeDee climbed into the back seat quietly and hid in the slot behind his seat with her hands over her head and her forehead tucked down to the floor and her chin touching her knees. Something like pride flashed in him for a moment, maybe he’d be shot, maybe he’d die, but if he did, at least he died protecting something. He’d make Hillmon proud that way. He wouldn’t be such a fuck up after all.
‘What’s happening?’ she whispered. He felt adrenaline rush through his limbs, surging like the pressure blast which precedes the fire itself. The shotgun, and now more guns gathered. Steel guns with vibrating apes attached at the handles all hooting to learn how their tools worked. The police were slowly being outnumbered by these bonobos. You could sense it in the air, there were so many police, but so many wildebeests. In his wing mirror, Caro saw a man crouching behind his car with a weapon that had a magazine like a horses—shake. His hands twitched out there in the cool desert breeze. For a while, the desert hummed with a solemn indifference. One further altercation on a field of so many ground down bones and ancestral vendetta was hardly worth the presence of the place.
‘I’m scared,’ he whispered, squeaked rather. He sounded like a pig, or some other frightened animal. ‘I’m scared,’ he said again. His hands trembled, and he breathed into his cupped fingers.
‘Me too.’ He felt her hand on his shoulder, and recoiled. He looked back, and her eyes were fear all. He wished he had the words or the courage to help her then, but he was afraid, dreadfully afraid.
‘I need to focus,’ he said, breathing heavily. She scared him almost as much as the growing violence. What if it turned out to be true? What if? What if?
There was shouting now, somewhere outside and dust kicked up in a minor grapple. The temperature grew until the heat rose from the sands in twisting spires of accusations. A policeman drew his gun. A shot went off. Not sure from who on who. Hell opened from both sides. The night sky lit up with the blinding shots of guns, and even through the car his ears hurt from the volume. His front window shattered open and he hid below the deck, hoping that DeeDee did the same. More gunshots. Screaming now, but from where. The desert lit up like a slideshow, or a rave. His heart felt as though it were about to burst. Unsure where to go or what to do next, he grabbed the wheel and accelerated, inadvertently punching a hole through the police blockade and driving away. He ran someone over. Bullets in the air whizzed past him, glass sliced into his skin. Sirens. He screamed and tears filled his eyes. Foot down. No more thoughts. Go fast, as fast as this shitbox will take you.
They were away shortly, leaving the carnage behind them. From the backseat he heard her breathing through gritted teeth and was happy to find her alive. She whimpered, and the sound was muffled. She whimpered into her legs from the car floor. That feeling sank away as the truth set in. That truth was this. In the action he had ducked behind the counter, exposing her to the gunshots. In spite of all his posturing, he’d been a coward when it mattered. He let her die, even if she had lived, because she might have died, he let her die. A helicopter soon past overhead. He thought it was for him, but it flew straight past. No stopping what’s coming. More than a simple gang of thieves. A herd of unstoppable vagabonds tearing the night.
They were into the morning when on the ridge behind them trailed the herd. They had been chased since the melee, unfaltering, unrelenting, dark blue monsters on the edges of vision.