Go for the Door

The Peacemaker spins across the floor between me and the door. For one frozen second, I stare at both. The gun gleams in the light beside shattered plates and spilled beer cans. The door hangs half open beyond it, black desert and cold moonlight waiting outside. Freedom or firepower, fight or run?

Behind me, Mars and Lizard slam into the kitchenette hard enough to shake the entire camper. Cabinets burst open. Glass explodes against the walls. Mars growls low and deep like an animal while Lizard screeches curses through bloody teeth. The gun is close, but that means stopping.

The gun means staying inside this camper with them. My body decides before my brain does. I run for the door. I hit the floor hard with my shoulder and scramble through the opening like a terrified animal escaping a trap. The metal camper steps slam into my bare knees as I tumble outside into cold desert dirt and scrub.

Then I am running. Moonlight floods the desert silver and blue around me while sharp rocks slice into my bare feet, but adrenaline keeps me upright. Behind me, Lizard screams, “There she goes!” I hear boots hammering across the camper floor. Another gunshot detonates behind me.

The sound echoes across the open desert like thunder. I flinch instinctively, expecting pain. Instead I hear Lizard howl. “You shot me, you no good son of a bitch!” I risk one terrified glance backward while continuing to sprint through the scrub and dust.

Lizard sprawls in the dirt outside the camper clutching his leg while Mars stands in the doorway holding the smoking Peacemaker one-handed, ight pouring around his massive silhouette into the night. Mars is not aiming at me. Lizard screams obscenities from the dirt while Mars steps calmly down from the camper, revolver hanging at his side.

He looks straight at me. Even from this distance, I feel it hit me like a physical thing. It is not rage or panic. It is not the wild excitement burning in Lizard’s eyes. Mars looks calm. Patient. Like a hunter flushing prey out, watching it finally break from cover exactly the way he hoped.

My stomach drops so hard it hurts the instant I understand. Mars does not want me dead. He wants me running. He wants me exhausted, terrified, and alone out here beneath the dark with nowhere left to go. The realization terrifies me so badly I nearly trip.

I turn and sprint harder into the desert night while dust kicks up around my bleeding feet. The camper shrinks behind me beneath the moonlight, swallowed slowly by darkness and distance. But I can still hear Lizard screaming. And somewhere behind that, Mars laughing softly to himself while he follows.

I run until my lungs feel flayed open inside my chest, then finally risk slowing long enough to look around. Moonlight washes the desert silver-blue in every direction, turning the rocks into black teeth and the dry brush into crouching shapes that make my pulse jump every time the wind moves them.

Behind me, far off now, the camper glows faintly beneath the night like a dying cigarette ember in the dark. I **** myself to stop and think. The gas station sits back the way I came. Maybe there is a phone, if they have not ripped it out already. Maybe I can find another car or somebody alive besides me. But the thought of going back makes my stomach knot immediately.

Further down the road feels worse somehow. The dirt road stretches desolate and empty beneath the moon, disappearing into miles of nothing, no lights, no houses, no traffic. I imagine myself limping barefoot down the center of the road while headlights slowly appear behind me in the dark, growing larger and larger until... No.

My breathing quickens again. That leaves the hills. I stare toward the broken maze of mesas and canyon ridges rising against the horizon. The desert gets rougher out there. There are more places to hide, more caves and ravines and abandoned things swallowed by rock.

The hills feel wrong, like the desert itself is alive out there beneath the moon and waiting for me to step inside it. The road feels exposed, a long dusty strip with nowhere to hide while headlights hunt me across open ground. The station feels like a trap, walking through the dark around the shelves and pumps.

Every direction feels like a different kind of ****. I stand there trembling in the moonlight while blood runs warm down one ankle from where the rocks have split my foot open. I snap the crotch of my overall shorts back together, ignoring the mess underneath. Somewhere out in the dark behind me, I hear Mars whistle once, mocking and patient.