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That did it.
Both doors opened and the two men got out.
“The fuck you think you’re doing, you cu—”
That was as far as he got before Dez Fox hit him across the face with the rifle stock. The blow ripped a bloody gash in the man’s jaw and whipped his head around so hard that he spun into the side of the Tundra. His forehead hit the open doorframe and he dropped right onto his kneecaps.
The other man came running around the car, fists raised to smash Dez.
Billy Trout shoved the barrel of his borrowed pistol into the man’s ear.
“Touch her and I’ll blow your fucking head off,” he said.
He heard himself speak the words, felt his mouth say them, and he did not recognize the voice. It was him and it wasn’t. There was such cold honesty there and in that moment he knew that he would, if he had to, shoot this man.
It sickened him to realize that he’d come to this point.
But it made him feel stronger, too.
For maybe the first time since this thing started.
His arm was out straight, the gun in his fist, and it was rock steady.
Dez turned and saw the gun and then looked at him. Into his eyes. A tiny smile flickered across her lips. There and gone.
To the passenger, Dez said, “You’re going to help your butt-buddy into your car, and then you’re going to pull off and let us pass. That’s not a request. We got a couple hundred kids in those buses.”
The man with the gun to his head looked terrified. He licked his lips. “We have to get out, too. I got a kid at home. Barney has three kids. We’re just trying to get home.”
Dez’s eyes stayed hard. “All you had to do was pull over and let us pass. The fuck’s wrong with you?”
“God … don’t touch me,” begged the man, shrinking back from her. “Please. Don’t touch me.”
That’s when Trout noticed that no one else had gotten out of their cars. With all of the traffic stalled for so long, somebody should have gotten out. There were always people who viewed traffic jams like this as impromptu tailgate parties. But everywhere he looked, everywhere Dez looked, the people were hunched inside their cars, the windows up, eyes wide with fear, faces locked into expressions of desperation. Trout almost laughed at the absurdity of it. These people were fleeing in slow motion. Unwilling to get out of their cars, they sat there, waiting for the traffic to move, maybe praying for it to inch forward, and every single one of them terrified at the thought of contact with the people around them. Who was infected? Was the thing on the radio here?
Slow motion panic.
It was a brand-new concept, and it kept turning over and over in Trout’s mind until he couldn’t help but laugh.
Dez shot him an angry, worried look. So did the frightened passenger, and the people in the closest cars.
The only sound on the whole road was the sound of that laugh.
And, without support to prop it up, Trout’s laughter slowly collapsed. Almost into sobs, but he coughed his throat clear and stepped back until he sat down hard on the entrance step of the bus, the pistol hanging limply from his hand.
“Billy?” ventured Dez. “You okay?”
He wanted to explain it to her, to see if she’d laugh, too; but he didn’t. It would be too much like telling a dirty joke in church.
“Don’t hurt him” was all he said.
The passenger looked from Trout to Dez.
“Move the car,” said Dez quietly.
The man nodded. He picked up his friend and helped him around to the passenger side, belted him in, closed the door, and came around to the driver’s side. While he was doing all of that, Dez leaned in and used her palm to brush the glass off the seat. She stepped back to the let the man slide in behind the wheel.
“I’ll lose my place in line,” he said.
