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But mine’s only a grazing, I told myself, and prayed I wasn’t lying. Just a skim. Not too bad.
I pushed my fingers around and felt a short channel of torn skin, but there was no entry hole that I could find. That much was reassuring, even if the sounds of screaming coming from behind me and two more revolver rounds were not.
“Tripp!” Dana was still shouting, and it sounded like she hadn’t run far.
I didn’t know where Charlie had gone, but the mad charging through trees somewhere off to my left suggested that he’d headed in roughly the same direction that Jamie had. That left the married couple and all their equipment behind—alone so far as I knew, and unprotected.
On the battlefield, acoustics are funny; things echo where it seems they shouldn’t, and noises feel like they’re hitting your head from all angles at once. Therefore, it was hard to pinpoint Dana’s exact location. But depending on how much ammunition the shooter carried, his aim might not need to be precise.
“Oh my God! Oh my God!”
She wasn’t getting any quieter, and it sounded like she’d stopped fleeing—she’d maybe even doubled back. Bad plan. Sticking around the field was a good way to get killed.
“Hey asshole! Come and get me!” It was Benny, but I couldn’t tell where he was hollering from.
“Shut up,” I whispered back, knowing he couldn’t hear me. I held my position, but only because I didn’t think the shooter’s odds of catching me were very good so long as I stayed in the woods and kept low. Heaven knew he couldn’t see me, and if I kept my mouth shut he wouldn’t hear me, either. But Dana, frozen to her place and panicking for all she was worth, was a very loud fish in a murky barrel.
The searing heat on my chest was either wearing its way down to a warm, dull line of pain, or I was getting used to the sensation and it didn’t feel so bad.
I braced my back against the tree trunk and used it to slide myself upright, catching flaky bits of dirty bark all over my back. I felt shaky and scared stupid, but otherwise not too bad. I was not hurt bad. Not too bad. Not bad at all. I mumbled it like a mantra.
Up and around I flexed my right arm, testing the ligatures and making sure that my assessment had been correct: just a graze. The arm pulled my skin tight across the deep, nasty scratch, and it stung like hell, but it was nothing I couldn’t live with.
There was always the possibility that I was in shock, and simply unable to process the extent of the damage, but, given the circumstances, I’d take what I could get.
I pushed myself away from the tree with my hip, stepping around it to face the direction of the distraught Dana Marshall. All the running, stumbling, crazily thrashing retreats had fled beyond earshot; and another round was fired—farther away this time, and back towards the field.
I cringed, remembering that Benny had taken off that way. I thought he’d hit the road and run along it. That way would be quieter and easier to navigate. There would be less chance of trees and rocks stopping him.
Surely he hadn’t cut through the field?
Benny wasn’t a big guy, but he was wiry and fast when he needed to be. I consoled myself with the thought that he must’ve gotten a good head start, and was surely halfway to the car by now. Also, he had the flashlight with the dim red beam. If he was far enough ahead, he could flip it on and make even better progress.
Bless his heart, the loony little bastard was leading trouble away from the rest of us.
I held my arms out in front of me and felt my way out of the woods, homing in on Dana. She was closer than I thought, maybe twenty yards from where the guys and I had been spying. I almost tripped over her, but grabbed her instead and fell down beside her. I whipped my stronger arm around her face to muffle the crying.
She tried to shriek, and gave me a mighty elbow jab that honestly winded me, but I was larger and stronger; I pinned one of my legs around her waist. “Shut up,” I muttered into her ear, stronger than a whisper, so she could hear from my voice that I was a woman. “Shut up, or you’ll get us both killed. ”
Dana nodded, and when I removed my arm she clapped her own hands over her mouth. Whatever was making her sob could not be stopped by willpower alone. When I unwrapped my leg from her lap I kicked something prone on the ground, and then I knew why.
I let her go, and felt my way along the body. His head was sticky, and in the dark it looked like tar had been poured over it. With a grimace, I ran my hands up Tripp’s neck and felt around for a pulse. I only found gore, and a wound the size of a plum behind his right ear.
The shooter had made one remarkably lucky shot—two, if you counted hitting me. I prayed that those were the only two hits he’d made.
Once I’d forced Dana to muffle herself, things had gone quiet again in a very scary way.
Click.
Distant. Farther away than when he’d first begun shooting, but close enough still that he might get lucky again. I wiped my hands on my jeans and let my fingers crawl up Dana’s face.
I took her chin and turned it towards the direction of the gunman’s approach. Her chest shook and her face quivered, but she swallowed back everything she could and we held there, immobile.
Down, I gestured to her. Down.
With tedious, careful slowness we lowered ourselves until we were lying flat. I pushed the camera over to the side so it snuggled against my shoulder. Dana and I both put our chins on the ground and drew our limbs up close. The fog rolled over us in a damp, wooly blanket, obscuring everything beyond a small circle’s diameter. He wouldn’t be able to see us until he was literally on top of us.
I parted my lips and breathed through my mouth. Dana copied me, and I was glad. Her sinuses had filled as a result of the crying, and any trace of sniffles would give us both away.
