Five survive, p.24
Five Survive, page 24
Red couldn’t stand it, the scratching of the pens. She bit down on her bottom lip to stop it from shaking, her eyes darting around too fast that they started to water.
Simon was writing now, and then it was over in less than two seconds, pocketing the pen to fold up his vote.
Red realized she hadn’t been the only one watching, studying the others. Oliver had been too, only now turning to his own vote. He leaned over it and pressed the pen down, moving it up and across in jagged lines. Then he laid his pen down neatly on the surface, straightening it so it ran parallel with the side of the table. He folded his vote, once, twice.
“In the bowl, everyone,” he said, dropping his own in.
Maddy leaned across the table, placing her vote in next. She didn’t retake her seat, standing instead, pacing to the front of the RV, where she brushed past Simon.
Simon sidestepped over, just as Arthur pushed up from the sofa with a fake-leather creak. They dropped their votes in together, at the same time, the small puff of the paper landing.
Reyna was last, walking across from the door, eyes straight ahead. She reached over and let go. It fell, not featherlight this time, into the bowl.
She stepped away, the sofa catching her in the back of her legs, pulling her down.
Simon and Arthur were in that middle space between the kitchen and the front door, Red still behind the counter, separate from everyone else. Maddy up front.
Oliver stood up, a bone cracking somewhere beneath his skin. He sidled out of the booth, coming to stand in front of the table. He reached back to slide the bowl over, dragging it against the wood and against Red’s ears. Too loud, every sound was too loud and every breath was too hard, her ribs folding in, one by one.
This was it.
Did she live or did she die?
They couldn’t have voted for her to die, could they? These were her friends. Simon, who could always make her laugh, even on this awful, endless night. Maddy, her Maddy. Arthur, not hers, but maybe he could have been. Reyna, and that understanding they had between them, the knowing glances.
Oliver picked up the bowl and gave it a shake, the pieces of paper sliding over each other, whispering and shushing. What did they know that Red didn’t? Oliver placed the bowl back down and nodded. At least he was kind enough to not be smiling.
His hand moved into the bowl, shuffling through the papers. He pulled out the first vote, plucked between his finger and thumb.
He unraveled the double fold, eyes skipping across the word written there.
“No,” he read aloud.
No. Red’s heart leaped to her throat. No. One vote for her to live. Her hands were shaking, but she needed them, sticking out the thumb of her right hand to keep the tally. One vote to live.
Oliver was digging through for the next vote, pulling it out. His lips tensed.
“Yes,” he read.
Red’s heart sank again, dropping into the acid of her stomach, where it fizzed and fizzed, like a two-way radio. Yes. One vote for her to die. But she’d known that was coming. She knew Oliver was voting yes, she didn’t need to be scared. But her heart didn’t listen, drowning down there. Red stuck out the thumb on her left hand to match. One vote each.
Oliver picked up the next folded bit of paper, pulling it apart.
“No,” he said, dropping the opened vote on the table, beside the others.
No. Thank you, thank you. Red stuck out the index finger on her right hand. Another vote for her to live. Two against one. They’d already had Oliver’s vote, wouldn’t the rest be NOs, filling up her right hand?
Red’s eyes dried out, scratchy and raw, staring too hard at Oliver’s hands, fingers dipping into the bowl for the fourth vote. He pulled it out and unfolded it.
He breathed in, held on to it just too long.
“Yes,” he said.
No, no, no.
Red’s throat constricted, cutting her breath in half. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Another vote for her to die. This wasn’t just fear anymore, was it? This was what terror felt like, her body reshaping around it. But who? Who else voted yes? Her eyes snapped wider, panicked, skipping from Maddy to Arthur to Reyna to Simon. Which one of them was it? Which one wanted to force her out of the RV, out into the wide-open nothing? Which one of them was okay with her dying out there? They all looked shocked, afraid, wretched. Red couldn’t tell. But someone wasn’t shocked, that vote belonged to someone.
She raised another finger on her left hand. Two votes each. To live or to die.
“Last vote,” Oliver said, scraping the final piece of paper out of the bowl.
The deciding vote. Live or die.
He twisted it between his fingers, taking too long. Unpicking the first fold, then the second.
Oliver spun the piece of paper around.
He cleared his throat.
“No.”
Oliver crumpled the piece of paper in his fist.
That crushing weight lifted from Red’s chest, just a little. She could breathe again and she did. No. The final vote was no. Three no, two yes. Which meant they weren’t going to kick her out of the RV, they weren’t going to send her out to her death. She was alive.
Arthur sighed, closing his eyes.
Maddy clasped her hands to her cheeks, bottom lip threatening to go.
Simon nodded, his mouth tight, and Reyna looked up at the ceiling, stretching out her neck.
Oliver kept the vote in his hand, fist tightening around it, crushing it.
Something curdled in Red’s gut, beside the cool rush of relief, something hot and unwelcome. Two people voted for her to die. Oliver she’d expected, it was his idea after all. But of the four left—Maddy, Arthur, Reyna and Simon—one of them voted for her to go. That hurt more than she could say, twisting through her insides, the feeling making itself a home there beside the guilt and the shame, those hot, red feelings. What was worse, knowing or never knowing who it was?
“Thank god,” Maddy exhaled, rushing forward, past the others. She stepped up to Red and wrapped her in a tight hug, trapping Red’s arms by her sides. “Thank god,” she said again, pressing her cheek against Red’s, not letting go. Red could feel her heart too, wingbeat fast in her chest.
“It’s okay,” Red said as Maddy finally pulled away. “I’m fine.”
Maddy stood back and studied her face, eyes brimming with the threat of tears. “You sure?” she asked.
No, Red wasn’t fine at all, put another check in the NO box on the back of Arthur’s hand. She wasn’t fine but she was alive and, really, how was that much different from the rest of her life?
Arthur caught her eye across the way. He lifted his chin up, blinking slowly at her, his hands clasped together in front of him, squeezing, like it was her hand he was holding.
Red squeezed back, fist at her side.
“What do we do now?” Simon asked, speaking into the emptiness of the RV, only their breathing and the swirl of the ever-present static.
No one answered, no one knew how to. Especially not Red. Should she thank them for not sending her out, was that what everyone was waiting for? Thank three of them, at least. How was she ever going to stop thinking about that?
Red pressed her elbows into the counter and leaned into them, taking the weight off her feet. Fuck, she was tired. Bone-tired and bone-scared, and when would this terrible night ever end?
Oliver blew out a mouthful of air, cheeks ticking as his mouth flickered. He turned, collecting the unfolded votes from the table, dropping them back one by one into the bowl. Two yes, three no. It had been close. What if just one more person had turned?
Oliver picked up the bowl and walked toward the kitchen counter, toward Red.
He placed the bowl down, skidding around its lower rim, the ceramic clattering against the surface before it came to a final stop.
Red watched it and then she watched him. He glanced up then, meeting her eyes, dark shadows across his.
“I’m sorry, Red,” Oliver said, voice too flat, too normal in this most un-normal time and place.
It happened so fast.
Oliver lunged at her, arms coiling around her waist, iron-tight, pinning down her arms.
“Oliver, no!” Red screamed.
He lifted her off her feet, body braced against his as he stumbled toward the front door.
“NO!” Maddy screeched, inhuman, the sound curling in and out of Red’s ears as she writhed in Oliver’s grip.
She couldn’t move her arms, but she kicked out, trying to catch the wall and push back against him.
Her feet slipped off.
Oliver stretched out one arm, slamming his elbow down against the handle and kicking the door open.
“OLIVER, DON’T!” Arthur’s voice roared.
Footsteps crashing.
Screams.
The RV shook.
But it was too late.
The door was open into the wide-open nothing of outside. The black night ready and waiting.
Oliver’s arms were crushing her, and then they weren’t. He let Red go, shoving her forward, out through the open door.
Red landed on one ankle on the steps. She tripped, falling over herself, the momentum too much.
She rolled down, the final step jumping up to crash against her hip, sending her on.
Red crumpled, facedown, hands-down, against the dirt and gravel of the road. Spitting out a mouthful.
The door of the RV slammed shut behind her.
She was alone.
She was outside.
Not alone, actually, as she raised her head from the road, dirt and grit on her tongue, against her teeth.
There was Don, just a few feet away, folded backward in a way people shouldn’t bend. Looking toward his wife, even in death. His head was undone at the back, a mess of blood and bone, hunks of flesh and brain matter on the road.
Only shoes, that was all Red could see of Joyce. The rest of her disappeared beyond the corner of the RV, the full beams carving a path through the black of night, trees waving in the distance.
“OLIVER, MOVE!”
Red heard shouting behind the closed door.
Thumping.
Scuffling.
Red pushed herself up, onto her knees.
She stared out at the scrubland, eyes scanning across the darkness. The grass spoke to her, staggering in the wind, cool on her cheeks.
The sniper was out there, hiding in the night. She couldn’t see him, but he could see her.
“GET OUT OF THE WAY, OLIVER!”
Where was the red dot? Was it on her forehead right now, somewhere between her eyes? Last few seconds of having a face.
Her eyes flicked again to Don, those tiny pieces of flesh and skull and brain that would rebuild the puzzle of his head. Which part of the brain was it, the part that told you where you’d put down your keys or your phone? Red must already be missing that part. And where were those red feelings kept, the guilt, the shame? Red hoped those would be the first to blow apart, leave her with some of the good fragments, the better memories.
She waited for the crack, the last sound she’d hear.
There’d be no volley of rifle shots at her funeral. No bagpipes weeping “Amazing Grace.”
“Simon, help me!”
Her knees were wet against the road, the sweet, cloying smell of gasoline soaking through.
No, no. She couldn’t die like this. On her knees, like Mom. Knowing it was coming.
She tried to push up, but all the strength was gone from her, all the fight, crashing back down.
Red glanced down at her legs. Why weren’t they working?
And then she saw it.
The red dot.
Circling there, on her chest. Riding up and down the lines of her checked shirt. Hiding in the frame of her buttons.
This was it.
Soon there’d be a hole there instead, where her heart used to be.
This was it.
Red closed her eyes.
What thoughts should be her last?
The same as her Mom’s? Anger. Hate. Replaying that last fight when everything ended, so she lived for eternity in that horrible moment, stuck in the loop. Mom died and she took everything with her. How could she do that to Red? Mom died on her knees and it was all Red’s fault, and Red was going to die on her knees and it was all Mom’s fault. Blame enough to go around, doubling and doubling until there was too much and Red couldn’t bear it anymore. Take those feelings away, blow them out of her head.
She waited.
Waited.
Red opened her eyes, just as dark outside as it was in.
It had already been long. Too long. Lifetimes in seconds. But it had been more than seconds, hadn’t it? It had been minutes now.
Why hadn’t he taken the shot? The red dot was right there on her chest, ready. Why was she still alive?
Pounding in her ears, but it wasn’t her heart. It was coming from the RV behind. Screams and shouts and crashing and—
The sound of the door flying open, whacking against the metal-sheeting side.
Three footsteps.
Arms around her waist again, locking on.
“I’ve got you, Red,” Arthur said in her ear, hoisting her to her feet, dragging her back up the steps, her body pressed against his.
The red dot slipped off her chest, down one leg, and disappeared into the night.
Arthur tripped on the top step, legs skating on the floor to pull them back inside the RV, fingers imprinting between Red’s ribs as he dragged her.
“Maddy, the door!” he shouted in Red’s ear.
Maddy jumped over them on the floor, darting forward to snatch the T-shirt rope tied to the door. She heaved it, grabbing the handle as it swung back within reach.
The door slammed shut.
Red collapsed back against Arthur, looking down, searching her chest for the red dot, for a hole, for a burble of blood.
Someone was screaming.
It was her.
Arthur drew Red’s head back, brushing the wayward hair out of her eyes, and the dirt and the grit.
“You’re okay.” His words against the back of her head, warm and spreading. One hand against her forehead. “You’re okay.”
It was hot in here but Red was shivering, winter-night-without-heating shivering. Worse. Muscles vibrating uncontrollably beneath her skin, teeth chattering, crunching the last flecks of dirt in her mouth.
Her breath was too fast, whistling in and out of her chest, agonizing. Why was there pain everywhere? She was alive and it hurt to be alive.
“He didn’t shoot,” Arthur said, stroking the back of Red’s head, because she still had one. “You’re okay, you’re not hit. You’re in shock. Just breathe.”
Maddy bent down in front of her, angry red streaks down her face from crying, almost as deep as scratches, like fingernails had put them there, not water.
“You’re okay, Red,” she said it too, grabbing for Red’s hand, squeezing it.
“Here.” A glass of water appeared in front of Red. Reyna was holding it out, her hair out of place, bunched up like it had been grabbed. But Red couldn’t take the glass, she was shaking too hard, the air quivering around her.
“He didn’t shoot you.”
Oliver’s voice, from farther away.
Red turned against Arthur’s chest, looking for where it had come from. Oliver was standing in front of the driver’s seat. He was holding one arm across his stomach, bending over it. There was a red mark on his cheekbone, the eye watering on that side.
“He didn’t take the shot,” Oliver continued talking, confusion in the one eye that wasn’t glazed. “I was blocking the door. You were out there for three minutes at least. And yet he didn’t take the shot. Why?” he asked her, like Red could possibly know why she was still alive.
Red shuffled, pushing herself away from Arthur, onto her unsteady feet. Her hands were still shaking, betraying her as she pushed against the floor.
Arthur straightened up too, faster than her, holding Red’s elbow to guide her up. She glanced down at the point of contact, where he held on to her. There was another mark on the back of his hand now, not just the checkboxes and the YOU OK? There was a graze, raw and bleeding, across three of his knuckles. And just to their right, on the floor, the white-and-blue bowl was smashed to pieces, the unfolded paper votes strewn about.
“Why didn’t he shoot you, Red?” Oliver said, straightening up with a wince, his voice finding its footing again.
“Oliver, no,” Reyna said, a hint of warning, a growl just beneath the surface.
But Oliver couldn’t be stopped. He wasn’t sorry. That was what he’d said, before he threw Red out of the RV, but he hadn’t meant it. He couldn’t.
He took a step forward.
“You’re the anonymous witness in the Frank Gotti trial, the entire case rests on you, why didn’t they kill you?” he said, shaking his lion head. “He had his opportunity. You were right there. For three minutes. Why didn’t he shoot you, Red?”
“I don’t know!” Red shouted back, rage churning in her gut, taking over all those other red feelings. It was brighter, hotter. “I don’t know why he didn’t fucking shoot me!”
She didn’t. She’d almost wished for it, kneeling in the dirt out there. Now the terror was receding, withdrawing from her fingertips and her limbs back into her gut, and she was just as confused as Oliver. This must be about her, about the trial. It was the only thing that made sense.
“He didn’t shoot you,” Oliver said again, like saying it would bare the answers, wringing them out of the words. “Why are you immune? He killed that old couple out there. He shot at Simon in the mirror. Would shoot any of us if we tried to leave the RV, but he didn’t shoot you, Red. And there’s only one reason why.”
