The Hunted (15 page)

Shy and Carmen sprinted behind the overturned Volvo.

He took the keys from her and opened the passenger-side door of the van, then dove over the bucket seat, to the driver's side, and fumbled to get the right key into the ignition.

More gunfire.

One of the bullets tore through the back wall of the van. Another shattered the small back window. Carmen crouched in the seat beside him, her hands covering her ears.

Shy's heart was in his throat as he pulled himself all the way into the driver's seat. He kept his head as low as possible as he turned the key and pumped the gas. The engine turned over and stalled.

“Come on!” Carmen shouted, pounding the dash.

Shy glanced outside. The gunmen were fifty yards away now and closing fast. They'd figured out that Shy and his group were unarmed, that they were sitting ducks.

Shy pumped the gas and turned the key again. This time the van started up. He revved the engine and cranked the gearshift into reverse.

“Hurry!” Carmen shouted as Shy slammed his foot down on the gas, peeling out backward across the freeway. When the van made it between the gunmen and Shoeshine and Marcus, Shy hit the brakes and threw it into park and shouted at Carmen: “Let's get 'em in the van!”

Carmen leaped out of the passenger-side door.

Shy climbed out after her and slid open the side door and he and Carmen lifted Marcus into the van while Shoeshine brushed away loose tubes and hoses and boxes so they could lay him on his back.

Shy looked up.

The helicopter was almost directly above them now, its blades whipping the air all around. The side door was wide-open now, too, and a man with a gun leaned out and started firing.

Shy dove inside the van just as a bullet shattered the windshield. Shoeshine leaned over Shy, pulling the door closed and shouting at Carmen: “Drive!”

Carmen scrambled into the driver's seat, flipped the gearshift into drive and stepped on the gas. The van lurched forward, thumping over a few of the bodies. She steered them into the fast lane and gunned it, slowing only to slalom around a stalled car or a buckle in the concrete.

The sound of gunshots continued.

Shy crouched near the back of the van, pulling in deep breaths and covering his head with his hands. He kept expecting bullets to pierce the sides of the van, or the roof, but they didn't. After a few seconds he raised his head slightly and looked out the shattered back window.

“Get down!” Shoeshine shouted.

The gunmen on foot were no longer firing at the van. Their attention was on an SUV that had shown up out of nowhere. It looked exactly like the SUV that had crashed into the Sony lots. The man driving aimed a gun out his window, but he didn't fire at the pest control van—he shot at the gunmen on foot.

One was hit in the shoulder.

Shy watched him fall to the pavement.

The SUV screeched to a stop and the driver leaned out his window and fired at the other gunman, who dove behind the overturned Volvo. After that, the van was too far away for Shy to see. He looked to the sky again. The helicopter had pulled off their van, too. It was circling back toward the shoot-out.

“I said get down!” Shoeshine repeated.

“They let us go,” Shy told him.

“Do what I said!”

Shy ducked away from the window, his heart pounding in his throat as he tried to makes sense of things. Why was the guy in the SUV shooting at the two men on foot? Weren't they together? And what about the helicopter?

He turned to look at Marcus. The left side of his friend's shirt was soaked in blood, and he was blinking hard, like he was trying to wake himself up.

“Is it bad?” Shy asked. As soon as the words left his mouth he knew it was a stupid question.

Shoeshine didn't answer. He was too busy pressing one of his spare shirts against Marcus's wound.

“Who were they?” Carmen shouted from the front of the van.

“LasoTech!” Shy shouted. “Right?”

Marcus began to moan.

Carmen glanced over her shoulder at Shy, then looked back at the road. “What about that guy in the SUV, though?”

Shy shook his head and looked out the rear window again. The helicopter appeared to be landing several miles to the west of them. “Maybe he was with the Suzuki Gang. I don't even know.”

“The men on foot were LasoTech,” Shoeshine said. “So was the helicopter. They're the ones with the resources.”

“What about the SUV then?” Shy said.

Marcus's moaning grew louder.

Shoeshine held Marcus in his arms and began rocking him. “Everything's gonna be okay,” he said into Marcus's ear. He repeated this over and over. “Everything's gonna be okay. You hear me? Everything's gonna be okay.”

Shy watched them for a few seconds, cringing at the amount of blood. Nothing made sense. Not the circle of bodies or the shooting or the SUV or Shoeshine's strange embrace of Marcus. Shy wiped his hands down his face and turned his attention to the shelves built into the walls of the van. All the chemicals and strange contraptions. He wanted to believe Shoeshine. That everything would be okay. Even for Marcus. But he couldn't shake the sight of all that blood. Or how wide Marcus's eyes got after he was shot. Or the moaning that now filled the van.

How could this happen?

Marcus was supposed to be on his way home by now.

Shy sifted through dusters and sprayers and fogging equipment, wondering if any of it would be useful. Strange-looking vacuums with dozens of attachments. He turned on a UV flashlight and aimed the powerful beam of light into the drawers near the bottom of the shelves as he opened them one by one. He studied the jars and bottles for a few minutes before realizing what he was looking for. This was where the people they'd found circled around the van had found their poison.

He pushed aside a dual-headed plastic container of insecticide concentrate, and found the rat poison. There were only a few boxes left. A part of Shy understood why the people did it, even if they
weren't
sick. At this point, everything was so bleak in California. And it was only getting worse. They wanted to take control of how and when their lives came to an end.

But at the same time it pissed Shy off. How could they willingly take their own lives when so many of those who'd died would give anything for another breath? He pictured all the people he'd seen die since the ship was pummeled by that first tsunami wave. Passengers in his muster station and Supervisor Franco and Toni and Rodney and the oilman and countless others, including everyone who'd lined up on the beach back on Jones Island, thinking they'd been rescued.

And that didn't even count his mom.

He grabbed a box of the poison and let it fall to the floor of the van, and then he stepped on it. He didn't even know why.

“Shit!” Carmen shouted.

Shy scrambled to the front of the van. “What now?”

“The gas light came on.”

Shy sat in the passenger seat and stared at the gauge.

The fuel light was blinking bright red. He looked out the side window. Still nobody following. “Shoe!” he called toward the back of the van. “The gas light just came on. We should just go as far as it'll take us, right?”

When Shoeshine didn't answer, Shy turned all the way around. He saw Shoeshine caressing Marcus's hair and kissing his forehead as he continued rocking him. It weirded Shy out a little, but at least Marcus had stopped moaning. Maybe Shoeshine knew what he was doing.

Shy turned back around and glanced at the gauge again, then looked through the spidered windshield at the road ahead. “We can probably make it another fifteen, twenty miles,” he told Carmen.

She let out a deep exhale. “I can't stop
shaking.
”

Shy looked down at his hands. He was surprised to find them perfectly still. His heart had calmed, too. It didn't make sense considering all they'd just been through.

“I swear to God,” Carmen said, “if Marcus doesn't make it…”

Shy looked into the back of the van. Marcus seemed more alert now. Shoeshine even had him talking a little. That had to be a good sign. But then Shy focused on the blood. He turned around and sat there, watching the road, sometimes glancing down at his steady hands.

The farther east they got, the clearer the freeway became. Carmen was able to keep them at a steady forty-five mph. Shy went back and forth between checking the gas gauge and watching the stunted towns on either side of the freeway. They passed Pomona and Montclair and Ontario. They passed a few more tent communities. They passed a large group pushing shopping carts full of their belongings near the shoulder of the freeway—all of them stopping to stare at the shot-up pest control van careening down the freeway.

They'd just passed a sign announcing
WELCOME TO RANCHO CUCAMONGA!
when Shy spotted something in his side mirror. He stuck his head out the window and watched the small dot slowly evolve into a helicopter.

It was far away, and he had no way of knowing if it was the one from before.

Still.

His heart sank.

“You see what's behind us?” he asked Carmen.

She kept her eyes on the road. “
Chinga!
What is it?”

He adjusted his side mirror so she could see.

Carmen slammed the wheel. “What now? We're running on fumes already.”

“Take the 15 East up ahead,” Shoeshine called to her.

“Where's
that
gonna take us?” Shy asked, spinning around. He was surprised to see Shoeshine sitting against the side of the van with his journal in his lap. Marcus was sitting up, too, pressing the shirt against his side and staring blankly at a bullet hole in the roof of the van.

Shy spun back to his mirror. He watched as the helicopter got closer and closer, until it was directly behind them.

Just then the van's engine started to sputter and cough. “What am I supposed to do?” Carmen shouted, pumping the gas pedal.

Shoeshine was suddenly hovering over her shoulder, pointing through the windshield. “Get us to that underpass!”

A man leaned out the open door of the helicopter and fired a shot. Shy ducked as the bullet burrowed into the hood of the van.

“Fuck!” Carmen cranked the wheel toward the median and then quickly straightened out.

“What's happening?” Marcus shouted.

The helicopter flew slightly ahead of the van and turned, giving the man hanging out the door a clear shot. “Get down!” Shy yelled. The side mirror exploded into pieces.

Carmen swerved again.

As the bridge ahead of them grew closer, an idea came to Shy. “Turn off the engine!” he shouted.

“What?” Carmen shouted back. “We're too far!”

Another shot pierced the hood of the van.

“Just do it!” Shy shouted. “Coast in neutral the rest of the way! I have a plan!” He was surprised Shoeshine didn't ask any questions. The man just climbed back to Marcus and took hold of the duffel.

Carmen shut off the engine and let the van coast.

The gunman fired off two more rounds, one shattering the driver's-side window, the other puncturing a back tire. The helicopter then rose slightly to avoid the bridge.

As soon as the van was underneath the bridge, Shy shouted, “Stop here!”

Carmen hit the brakes, and the van screeched to a stop.

The engine stalled.

Shy scrambled into the back and cranked open the sliding side door and motioned everyone out. Carmen climbed into the back and jumped out first. Shy and Shoeshine carried Marcus out onto the shoulder of the freeway, where they laid him on his back. Shoeshine limped back to the van for the duffel while Carmen grabbed their backpacks.

Shy couldn't see the helicopter, which meant it was hovering directly above the bridge, waiting to pick them off when they came out. Dirt and debris swirled all around, getting in his eyes, coating his teeth.

If his plan didn't work, they were done.

He jumped back into the van and slid the door closed. He grabbed Shoeshine's makeshift cane and crawled up to the driver's seat and started the van again, his breaths coming in great, rapid gulps. He shifted it into neutral, then snapped the stick over his knee and jammed one half between the gas pedal and the steering column.

It stayed.

The engine screamed.

Please let this work, he kept repeating in his head.

Please let this work.

Please let this work.

As he slid halfway out the driver's-side door, though, the stick popped out. He quickly jammed it back in place again, making sure the gas pedal was pressed all the way to the floor. Then he cranked the van into drive and dove out onto the hard concrete.

Shy watched from his stomach as the van lurched forward, careening out from underneath the bridge.

The helicopter quickly emerged, following closely behind the van, the man hanging out the open door firing shot after shot through the back windshield, through the side, through the roof. The van continued on several hundred feet until the man shot out the front right tire. At that point the pest control van veered sharply toward the shoulder, where it clipped the back half of a pickup truck and flipped over. It landed on its side with a tremendous crash and slid into the median where it burst into flames.

Shy was on his feet now, sucking in breaths, watching the fire. He looked back at Carmen. She was watching it, too. Shoeshine had his back turned, hovering over Marcus.

Shy spun back around when he heard a flurry of gunshots. The helicopter was hovering directly over the flaming van, the gunman still hanging out the door and unloading his weapon. He kept firing until he ran out of ammo, and then the helicopter rose slightly and lingered there awhile, waiting to see if anyone would emerge from the fire.

“Go on,” Shy mumbled. “Get the hell outta here.”

Carmen was beside him now. Both of them standing in the shadow of the bridge, watching the chopper.

To Shy's great relief, it dipped its nose, spun to the east and started flying off. He moved out from under the bridge slightly to watch it go.

“Holy shit,” Carmen said, grabbing Shy by the wrist.

Shy turned to her, nodding. His plan had actually worked.

Carmen stared at the fading dot in the sky with him for several seconds, her chest rising and falling. When the chopper had all but disappeared she turned to Shoeshine and Marcus and shouted: “They're gone!”

Shoeshine didn't turn around, though.

Shy saw he had Marcus in his arms again, rocking him back and forth rhythmically. But now he was kissing his ear every once in a while, too.

Carmen looked disturbed. “What's he doing?” she asked Shy.

“Hey, Shoe!” Shy called out. When the man still didn't turn around, Shy motioned for Carmen to follow him.