The Night Crew

'You're always messing with me, all of you,' Judge screamed back.

A

'Jakethere's a big old iron tub in the bathroom.'

'That'd help,' Harper said. 'Let's see if we can move her.'

Judge was still screaming at them: 'All the time, all my life, you fuckers. Let's see what you think about it now I've got the big gun.'

'What the hell is he talking about?' Harper panted. He trailed his leg behind him as they moved Glass across the office floor and into the bathroom, wincing every time he had to pull his leg forward.

'I don't know,' A

'Let me do this,' Harper said. He was on one knee beside Glass, and picked her up, gently, and lifted her over the side of the tub. She opened one eye and said, 'Car?'

'She's awake,' Harper grunted.

'We're trying to get you out of here,' A

She crawled to the door and shouted at Judge: 'The cops are coming. If you get out of here now, maybe you've got a chance.'

'If the cops were coming, they would have been here,' Judge screamed back. 'If I take you down, I walk. I'll drag you out in the desert somewhere, with a shovel.'

A

A

Harper pushed himself up from behind the bathtub and as A

Crack. A slug pounded through the side wall of the back room, but much lower this time. A

'A

'Yeah, I'm okay.'

The windows on the side of the back room were double-hung, with slide latches. She turned the latch on the first one, struggled to lift the window, got it up. There was a screen on the outside, with hooks inside. She unhooked it, and pushed it open.

Harper was shouting: 'The women are both still alive in here. If you stop now, you'll just go to treatment.'

Crack.

Something wooden exploded in the office. 'Is he in the same place?' A

'I think so. came from the same direction.'

'I'm gone.'

A

Light poured from the house and she could hear Harper yelling, but could not make out what he was saying. And she heard Judge shouting back from the other side.

She had the gun and she thought: 'If I take him now.'

But if she tried and lost, she'd be dead, and so would Harper and Glass. She moved back a bit into the brush, turned on the flashlight and let the needle of light lead her toward the driveway. The moon was higher now and if she didn't look straight at it, she could see that lighter strip that marked the rut coming up from the road.

She turned off the flashlight: better to let her eyes adjust. A minute passed, and another, as she patiently moved toward the track. She couldn't afford to blunder into a tree, or twist an ankle.

Then Judge spoke: 'Hey.'

Close by; the hair rose on her neck. He was not within an arm's length, but within fifty feet, she thought. She couldn't hear him breathing, but she could hear the snap of twigs beneath his feet. He said it again, 'Hey.'

The gun was in her jacket pocket. She slumped onto the ground, eased her jacket up over her face. In the dark, with her dark hair, if she could keep her face covered, she'd be nearly invisible. She used to play war with her brothers, ru

No radishes up here.

Then a thump, and the sound of a man's feet pounding on the hard earth, ru

'HEY ANNA.' Not the shadow. Judge screamed at the house, and now he was off to her left, coming up on the window she'd crawled through. Would he step into the yard? How long a shot would it be? And she thought, Time.

But if she could take him out.

She pivoted on her spot, waiting. Then crack, and she saw the muzzle flash from the rifle. Seventy-five feet away, back in the brush. Jude was apparently moving around the house.

If she moved on him, while he was sitting still, he'd hear her: there was too much dry brush. She bit her lip, thinking, then turned down the road. The ground was rising beneath her, and she felt vulnerable, slinking along. Was he right there, behind her? Then the road began to fall. She stopped, drew back into the brush, and looked back toward the farmhouse. Nothing moving, nothing.

Crack.

She didn't see the flash, but it sounded as though it came from the back, the way Judge had been going. A

Never in her life had her legs seemed shorter, the distances longer. Twice she thought she saw the gate ahead, and passed the spot with no gate in sight. The third time, it was the gate. What about the alarm? No help for it. She'd have to trip it to get the car in anyway. To save time, she pulled the gate open as she went through, then turned and ran up the dark road toward the car.

She was breathing hard when she got to it, fumbled for the key, found it, pushed the unlock button when she was still fifty feet downhill. The taillights blinked and the interior lights came on, and a few seconds later, she was cranking the engine over.

Lights on going back up the hill? Yes. The lights might push Judge back, might confuse him, get him ru

She swung through the gate, and started up the dark lane, sca

She kept her foot down and the car bounded up the ruts, throwing her around in the seat: no seat belt, she might not have time to get it off. At the top of the rise, she hit the high beams, caught the ranch-house full in her headlights. No sign of Judge, nothing moving except herself in the car. And the car was moving fasttoo fast. She skidded around the side of the ranch, straightened it out, spotted the back porch. hammered the car right to the edge of the porch, flicked open the door.

'JAKE!' she screamed. 'JAKE!'

Nobody there. She leaned out the door to scream again, and saved herself:

Crack.

And the passenger side window exploded, showering her with splinters of glass.

Crack.

The back window went out. The gunfire was coming from out in the darkness, back toward the buildings she thought might have been chicken houses.

She jammed the car into park and threw herself across the porch, through the door into the house.

Crawled frantically to the bathroom.

Harper was there, groaning, bleeding: 'Hit me,' he moaned, 'Got me from the side.' And he looked at her. 'Ah, Jesus, what happened to you, you're bleeding.'

A