Conflagration

XXXI

Within the engine of the truck they could hear the belt whine and the suspension squeal as they drove over uneven ground. The forest was a void of blackness. Crystal went to flick on the high beams but no change came when she did.

"So there ain't nothin here beyond two or three stragglers and a bunch of hookers?" Bryce asked from the passenger seat.

"That's right," Boots said from the back.

"You're sure. How many times you been back here?"

"Enough times to know." He looked up at Bryce. "And I'd hold off on callin them hookers."

"You would."

"Well it ain't like they're here voluntarily. Seems a bit disrespectful."

Bryce turned and faced him. "So now you're worried about disrespectin them. Not when you pay to have sex with them against their will."

Boots shrugged. "I don't know. Just sayin."

Another shriek from the springs as they drove over a protruding root.

"If this ain't the biggest piece of garbage I ever been in."

"Least I still got somethin to drive."

"Better than walkin I give you that."

"Don't worry. We got some of that comin up too."

On them and beside them was a glittering of metallic surfaces. The shotgun Boots had used earlier on Bill was sitting on the back seat to his right. Bryce's AR was strewn across his lap and the Sig Sauer given to Crystal earlier was resting in the cup holder face up as if it was some kind of rudimentary turret.

Trees closed in around them. A low-lying branch thumped against the windshield, producing a crack that spanned its corner.

"You better not have us lost."

"We ain't. Y'all can park just up yonder."

Bryce looked back at Boots whose fingers were drumming his thigh. "You nervous?"

"I don't often get into shootouts on a Sunday night."

"Don't you worry." Bryce tapped the AR. "You ain't gunna hear a peep outta them."

"Not a peep."

"That's right."

"Good. Go on and throw her in park over there."

They reached a small gap and killed the engine. Boots reached into the toolbox attached to the side of the truck bed and pulled out a long flashlight. He turned it on. Evidence of tire tracks that were not their own beneath their feet.

"How long we got?" Bryce asked.

"About a quarter mile."

"They ain't of heard us drive up?"

"Hell no. Not in here. Y'all could be hollerin just up ahead and I wouldn't hear nothin through the trees."

They walked along the side of a valley carved from a small and stagnant brook. Beside them rose a perfectly orbital hill, as if it was a half buried Christmas tree ornament or some kind of lost and forgotten planet. Boots cupped his hand over the light as they grew closer.

He cut the light entirely minutes later and not ten yards beyond did they start to hear voices. Too muffled and suffocated to interpret. Boots turned around and found the other two digging through a bag of powder with their thumb. The scene was overlit by the light of Crystal's phone and they turned their head back and let it fall into their nose to save the sound of their inhale.

"Y'all have lost your damn mind," Boots whispered.

"Want some?"

"I'm already shakin like a leaf."

Bryce sealed the baggy and shoved it back in the pocket of his jeans. He shook his head violently.

"Phew. Y'all ready?"

"Don't shoot none of the women."

"You shut up. Don't you be shootin one of us."

Bryce took several quick breaths and did a kind of jig on the forest floor. "Alright," he said. "Let's go. Three. Two. One."

They plowed through what was left of the bush in front of them and landed at the edge of a clearing which was lit up by headlights from all angles. In front of them stood a dozen men with rifles draped over their shoulders and sleeves of ammunition festooned around their waste. The men turned their heads curiously toward the sound and looked them over.

It took them several seconds to process what they were seeing.

When they had, Crystal shrieked—hermouth unhinging to speak like the tomb of a pharaoh.

"We been snookered!"

Without further hesitation they cut back out for the woods.

"Que es eso?" A voice said.

Boots fumbled with the flashlight as they ran and just as he flicked it on a hailstorm of gunfire erupted from the clearing. Leaves, branches, and bark were severed and fell to the Earth around them as the three sprinted back in the direction of the car. They could see the flash of muzzles behind them and knew that they were being pursued.

The onslaught was so thick that in the act of shooting one of those laying chase caught fire to a branch which burned and illuminated the forest for a brief moment before sizzling out.

"It's a set up!" Bryce screamed although his voice could not be heard above the gunfire. He then looked at Boots as he ran like a prime suspect and as he did this a bullet ripped across Boots's hand and blew off his index and middle finger. Simultaneously his sandal caught the lip of a root and he fell screaming and rolled down the hill back towards the creek.

Crystal turned her phone light on again and with this they navigated through the woods, feeling those behind gaining ground.

They looked at one another. Stone fear on both faces. And that was when true hell engulfed the world around them.