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apartments safe
and sound as I was dragging my tired ass up Bootleg Mountain. Those thoughts
propelled me down the hall, through the garage, and out into the street. It was
dead quiet.
    Broken glass shimmered like jewels in the morning sun. It
crunched under my boots as I made my way to the center of the street. Walking
between the abandoned cars, I was impressed to see most of them intact. I
thought by the end of the first night they’d be stripped down to the frames.
    Considering the circumstances, I was in a good mood. I liked
the idea of having an entire week planned out ahead of me when most had no idea
what they were doing in the next hour. Somewhere there were people much smarter
than me working on the problem. I’d let them figure it out while I was pulling
trout from Carter Creek. It wasn’t like I was worried about losing my job for
taking a couple weeks off. (Besides, I hated that tiny, windowless cubicle.)
    Looking down the street that would take me to the road
north, I saw a few people sitting in lawn chairs on the sidewalk, taking
advantage of the cool morning breeze. They didn’t look menacing, so I stayed on
the planned route. When I walked past, most of them smiled and said good
morning. I returned the greetings and pressed forward. Walking for half an
hour, I was thinking trouble was taking its time getting to Midtown. Every step
I took, I felt more confident I was getting farther away from it.
    As I turned the corner between two tall buildings, trouble
came running straight at me. I didn’t know if it was a man or a woman. Whatever
it was, it was engulfed in flames.
    It took my brain a few seconds to process what was going on
in front of me. For a moment I expected to see movie cameras rolling and other
stuntmen standing by with fire extinguishers. When nobody yelled “cut,” the
surreal became real.
    The burning human wasn’t running at me. It was running away from
them. To avoid a collision I had to take two steps to the side. I watched as it
continued, running past me and then dropping to the sidewalk thirty yards away.
It never made a sound as it burned.
    My stomach sank. It wasn’t the same feeling I had when the
yellow sundress slid across my hood. It wasn’t the feeling of being helpless to
save a life. No, this was different. This was the feeling of knowing I was
about to kill for the first time in my life – or be killed.
    Seeing three more charred bodies in the street, I understood
that I had just walked into a nest of cowards. At the entrance to a parking
garage in the side of a large building, two men were doubled over laughing. One
was carrying a gas can. The other was holding a pistol.
    As Gas Can raised up, taking a breath between howls of
delight, we made eye contact. It was too late for me to run or hide. I didn’t
make much of an effort to do either.
    After hearing him yell out “fresh meat,” three more of them
emerged from the parking deck. All of them were smiling. Two of them had
revolvers pointed at me.
    Pistol and Gas Can didn’t waste time walking toward me. The
two at the entrance picked up aluminum baseball bats before joining the parade.
I stood and waited.
    Both men were holding their guns at arm’s length and
sideways. I was glad to see they received their firearms training from TV. I
needed them to come just a little bit closer.
    Closing my eyes, I inhaled deeply and remembered the three
men running from the pub after they raped and killed Sam. When I opened them
again, those men were coming towards me. I knew it wasn’t the same three, but
it didn’t matter. They were all going to die for being what they were.
    I wasn’t comfortable with my position. In a city full of
thousands of cars left frozen in place, there wasn’t one near me for cover. I was comfortable knowing the chances of them hitting me at that distance were low.
The common thug doesn’t spend his weekends at a shooting range.
    In one fluid motion, I yanked the shotgun out of the bedroll
with