The Forsaken

Lillie steadied the weapon inside the clubhouse, the space smelling of stale cigarette smoke, urine, and vomit. The walls were adorned with pictures of girls in bikinis straddling Harleys and posters advertising beer. Above a makeshift bar was an old velvet painting of a black woman with enormous breasts lying sideways and smiling. It was a well-worn space that smelled and felt abandoned.

Lillie took the shot. And then three more.

“Ha!” she said, reloading.

“Hell is coming,” LeDoux said. “Hell is coming.”

Qui

Lillie took another shot.

Qui

She reloaded the rifle with bullets from her pocket. She handed her weapon to Qui

“They’re coming up through the tree line,” Lillie said. “I’ve got six of them behind your truck.”

“How bad’s my truck?”

“Boom is an artist,” Lillie said, “but he’s no magician.”

Qui

The automatic weapon was silenced.

Ke

“How many shots you got left?” Qui

“Don’t ask,” Lillie said, “unless you want to walk out to the truck for my tac bag.”

“They get an inch closer and shoot them,” Qui

Art had his Glock leveled out the broken window, the cold air battering the ragged blinds against the wall. Nearby, Confederate and Nazi flags fluttered from the ceiling. Dave was clenching his jaw, body convulsing, breathing slowed.

“They’re inching around,” Art said. “Lillie?”

Lillie fired just once.

“Nope,” Art said. “That shit’s stopped.”

Dave was conscious but in shock, Qui

Someone was pushing against the back door and hitting the cigarette machine. Ike McCaslin fired into the open space. The pushing stopped.

“How’d they know?” Lillie said. “How’d they fucking know?”

LeDoux was still laughing where they’d left him. Lillie told him to shut the fuck up or she’d kick him right in the throat. The other two boys were silent, tossed together in a trash pile by the bar. “Y’all are dead,” he said. “Don’t you see it?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Lillie said, “or I’ll shoot your ass right now. You hear me?”

She turned the rifle on LeDoux to make her point. Qui

Qui

He walked back to where Dave lay. Lillie exchanging more shots. Even if they could get most of them, it was a long walk back to Jericho. More wind whistled through the busted windows. The old clubhouse felt hollow.

“Sheriff!” a man yelled from out by his truck. “You hear me?”

Qui

“They got you,” LeDoux said. “They fucking got you.”

Lillie walked up to LeDoux and kicked him hard in the side. He yelped but laughed at the same time.

Outside, beyond the vehicles, stood a muscular bald man with a tattooed face. He held an AR-15 aimed at the clubhouse. “Send out Chains,” he said, “and we won’t finish y’all off. Y’all got about sixty seconds.”

Qui

God damn, everything was so quiet.

So quiet until they heard the revving of a big car engine rolling straight down dirt road. Qui

He shot several bikers, taking out the big man with the bald head first, the bald man firing off a couple shots before the bullets hit him in the center mass and left him sprawling. The other bikers behind the cruisers started to run instead of staying with their cover. More shots from the man in the mask and they were down, too.

Qui

Art shot a ski

The bikers who were left walked from the woods with hands raised. Qui

I believe about everyone I know is pissed at me,” Qui

“I’m not pissed at you.”

“My momma won’t speak to me on account of me talking to my dad,” Qui

“She moved out because she found a house to rent near The River,” Ophelia said, sitting on an old metal chair beside Qui

They’d finished an early breakfast, blue and green Fiesta plates, cleaned of biscuits and country ham, sitting on top of an old whiskey barrel.

“I miss Jason.”

“I know you do,” Ophelia said, reaching out touching Qui