Rusty Nail

But two is all she’ll need.

She walks up to the pig with the rifle, holds out her wrists to him.

“Can you take these off? They hurt.”

He snickers at her, and before he can finish she shoots him twice in the left eye.

The sound is like a firecracker, two sharp bangs, and before the pig even has a chance to fall over, Lorna is dropping the derringer and picking up the rifle, a Remington 7400 auto loader with an eight-shot magazine. She kneels behind the squad car, balancing the muzzle on the hood, and aims at the closest body – the fat sheriff.

The rifle is awkward to fire with her hands cuffed, but she manages to put one between his eyes while he just stands there, looking confused. Dumb-ass desk jockey.

Several people are returning fire, the car getting peppered with bullets. Lorna ignores them. She swings over to the FBI idiot, a tall guy in a gray suit, and shoots him twice in the chest while he struggles to remove his own gun from his holster.

The near threats removed, Lorna turns her sights onto the group by the bush, thirty yards away.

In a gunfight, the longest gun usually wins. The two pigs and the remaining Fed are too far away to hit her. Plus, they have no cover, except for the leafless, sad-looking bush they’d been digging next to.

Lorna had gone varmint hunting too many times to count. She could drop a possum from a hundred feet away.

These men were closer, and lots bigger than possums.

Lorna drops the first cop with one in the head. The second cop hits the dirt, trying to crawl into the hole they’d been digging. The Fed ducks behind the bush, which makes Lorna laugh out loud.

She shoots the cop in the neck, and then shoots the FBI idiot in the arm.

“Toss the gun!” she yells.

He throws his pistol aside and places both hands on his head.

“Stand up!”

He stands. It’s like an FBI version of Simon Says.

Lorna aims, exhaling as she squeezes the trigger.

The agent’s knee explodes in a spectacular fashion.

“I said, stand up! Or the next one is between your ears!”

Lorna truly enjoys watching the man struggle to get up, falling over twice, and finally managing to support himself on one leg.

She thinks about going for the other knee, but drills him through the groin instead.

Again he falls.

Lorna drops the rifle and kneels next to the first pig she killed, the one who took off her leg irons. He has handcuff keys in his pants pocket. She spends a moment freeing her wrists, and then pulls the cop’s sidearm – a Sig Sauer 9mm – from his holster.

“You still alive, Mr. FBI man? Lorna will be with you in just a sec.”

Lorna scans the horizon, doesn’t see another living soul. The fresh air smells wonderful. Like freedom. She walks casually over to the bush, past the dead pig in the hole, over to the Fed who is on his back, grabbing his crotch with both hands and breathing like he’s in labor.

“Ain’t no bodies out here, Mr. FBI man. I was playing with you. Pretty sneaky, wussn’t it?”

His face is soaked with sweat, but he seems more angry than afraid.

“Don’t I scare you, Mr. FBI man? You Feds are tougher than I’d’ve guessed.”

She brings up the Sig, thumbs off the safety, and shoots him in one shoulder, then the other.

There’s fear on his face now. Fear and pain and some craziness too.

“You Feds are something else. You come and visit us – me, and Bud, and people like us – and you talk about trying to understand why we do what we do. Like we’re some animals you’re studying on some nature show on TV.”

She squats down next to the Fed, a big ugly smile on her face.

“This’s what happens when you play with animals, Mr. FBI man. You get bit.”

He cries out, and she fires the gun and stares, curious, as the back of his head decorates the grass behind him.

Lorna doesn’t know how much time she has before someone comes, so she moves fast. First, she pats down the Fed and finds his car keys. Next, she strips out of the orange jumpsuit and hurries over to the sheriff, pleased to see there’s very little blood on his clothes.

She strips him, struggling with the pants, which keep getting stuck on his big feet. It takes almost five minutes, and Lorna curses at herself for taking off her own clothes before she took off his, because she’s freezing by the time she’s done.

Lorna dresses quickly. His shirt is too big, and the pants are too long and tight at the hips, but after she tucks this in and tucks that in and puts on the sheriff department jacket and snap-brim hat, she takes a look at herself in the rearview and is pleased by the transformation.

Next, Lorna gathers up four more guns – she can’t find the one the Fed threw into the grass – and a pair of reflective sunglasses. She brings it all into the dark sedan and starts the engine.

Blessed Mercy Hospital is less than ten miles away. Lorna puts the car into gear and hits the gas. It’s the first time she’s driven in over a decade, and it’s almost as exciting as shooting all of those pigs.

Lorna fiddles with the car radio, and finds a station that plays country. She hums along to an old Hank Williams tune.

The hospital is a mess of activity. There’re media folk around, all over the roads, and Lorna drives past them and into the parking lot. She leaves the car by the ER entrance, counting seven police cars before she goes inside.

There’s a handful of pigs in the lobby. Two of them eye her. She walks past, ignoring them, trying to imitate the cop swagger she’s seen so many times. The nurses’ station is hopping, and Lorna lets out a shrill whistle to get a little girly’s attention.

“Where’s Kork?”

The nurse gives Lorna a foul look. “Down the hall, to the left. Room 118.”

Lorna tips her hat, slightly large for her head, and walks into the ICU. There are two cops guarding Bud’s room. One is asleep in a chair. The other gives Lorna a lazy glance.

Lorna removes the hand from her pocket, the hand holding the Sig, and jams it up into the cop’s armpit. She pulls the trigger three times, but only two bullets fire. The cop flops over, and Lorna glances at the gun and sees the barrel is all gunked up with blood and little bits of stuff. She drops the weapon and reaches for another, a.45 AMC tucked into her belt, which she levels on the sleeping cop’s head just as he opens his eyes.

Lorna’s knuckles are the last thing he sees. She fires once, then steps into the room.

Bud is sitting up in bed, a goofy grin on his face.

“Hello, my love.”

“Hello, Bud.”

She tosses him a gun from her other pocket, then fishes out the handcuff keys she got off that cop at Rosser Park. Handcuff keys are universal, and she unlocks Bud’s thin wrist.

Bud shoots at someone in the hall, and Lorna knows that cops’ll be all over the place soon. She aims at the window and puts three rounds through it, then uses her foot to kick the spiderwebbed glass onto the lawn.

“We gotta go.”

Bud fires again, and Lorna drags him over to the window and shoves him through. She follows him out and looks around, trying to get her bearings. The parking lot is fifty yards to the right.

They run for it.

Neither Lorna nor Bud are in the best physical condition, but fear is a powerful motivator, and they make it to the car in under ten seconds. From first shot fired until now, less than a minute has passed.

Lorna expects the parking lot to be swarming with pigs, but the two cops she sees are ru

“Keep your head down, Bud.”

Lorna pulls out of the parking lot, forcing herself to drive slow and careful and not attract attention. She drives past all the reporters, turns on the road to the interstate, and merges onto the expressway.

“I knew you’d come for me, Lorna.”

She reaches down, patting his bald head.