Desperation

The others had suffered minor injuries; Joh

Oh shit, my hair!” and how she had landed on his crotch with a ball-numbing thud when the car went over. He remembered Bruno Gartner bellowing. And the sound of the Partymobile’s collapsing roof driv-ing Rachel Timorov’ s head down into her neck, splitting her skull open like a bone flower. A tight crunching sound it had been, the sound you hear in your head when you smash an icecube between your teeth. He remembered shit. He knew that was part of being a writer, but he didn’t know if it was nature or nurture, cause or effect. He sup-posed it didn’t matter. The thing was, he remembered shit even when it was as confusing as the final thirty seconds of a big fireworks display.

Stuff that overlapped seemed to automatically separate and fall into line even as it was happening, like iron filings lining up under the pull of a magnet. Until the night Sean Hutter had rolled his Party—mobile, Joh

He saw splinters jump from the jamb of the projection—booth door and land in Cynthia’s hair when Audrey fired the pistol. He felt one of the slugs drone past his right ear. He saw Steve, down on one knee but apparently okay, bat away the revolver when the woman hucked it at him. She lifted her upper lip, snarled at Steve like a cornered dog, then turned back and clamped her hands around the kid’s throat again.

Go on! Joh

But he couldn’t. He could see everything, but he couldn’t move.

Things began to overlap then, but his mind insisted on sequencing them, neatening them, giving them a coherent shape, like a narrative. He saw Steve leap at Audrey, telling her to quit it, to let the boy go, cupping her neck with one hand and grabbing her wrists with the other. At this same moment, Joh

Joh

He landed on one foot, like a skater who has forgotten his skates. His knee buckled. He let it, throwing himself forward into the woman, grabbing her hair. She pulled her head back and snapped at his fingers. At the same instant (except Joh

Joh

She voiced a guttural cry as he collided with the wall. His left arm shot out through one of the projection-slots up to the shoulder, and for one awful moment he was sure that the rest of him was going to follow it-out, down, goodbye. It was impossible, the hole was nowhere near big enough for that, but he thought it anyway.

At this same moment (his mind once more insisting it was the next moment, the next thing, the new sentence) Ralph Carver yelled: “Get your hands off my boy, bitch!”

Joh

“Grab the kid, boss!” Steve panted. He was struggling with Audrey, one hand still clamped on her wrists and the other now around her waist. She bucked under him like a canyon mustang. “Grab him and get him out of h-”

Audrey screamed and pulled free. When Ralph made a clumsy attempt to get his arms around her neck and put her in a headlock, she shoved the heel of one hand under his chin and pushed him back. She retreated a step, saw David, and snarled again, her lips drawing away from her teeth. She made a move to go in his direction and Ralph said, “Touch him again and I’ll kill you. Promise.”

Ah, fuck this, Joh

Audrey glanced at Ralph, as if daring him to try and make good on his promise, then tensed to leap at Joh

Halfway through his second spin, Steve let her go. Audrey flew backward like a stone cast out of a sling, her feet stuttering on the floor, still caterwauling. Cynthia, who was behind her, dropped to her hands and knees with the speed of a born playground survivor.

Audrey collided with her shin-high and went over backward, sprawling on the lighter—colored rectangle where the second projector had rested. She stared up at them through the tumble of her hair, momentarily dazed.

“Get him out of here, boss!” Steve waved his hand at the steps leading up to the projection-booth door. “There’s something wrong with her, she’s like the animals!”

What do you mean, like them. Joh

Audrey scrambled to her feet, sliding up the corner of the room. Her upper lip was still rising and falling in a jagged snarl, eyes moving from Joh