Hit List(48)

I breathed, “Shit.” I climbed into the truck, shutting the rear door behind me. I had time to say, “Drive!” Edward put it into gear and started backing up at speed. I made Newman move over so I could try for a seatbelt as the SUV slithered across the gravel. I knew right where they were; I felt them standing there watching us drive away. Why were they just watching? My pulse was in my throat. I was suddenly more afraid than I had been a second before.

“They aren’t chasing us, Edward. They’re just watching from the trees.”

“You saw them?” Newman asked.

I ignored him.

“Why are they just watching?” Tilford yelled from the front passenger seat.

“I don’t know.” I slid the buckle of the seatbelt home just as Edward found the four-way with its stop signs. He turned the big SUV in a circle of flying gravel. He got us facing the right way around and hit the gas. The car jumped forward. He had a moment where I could feel him fighting to keep us on the road, and then we were speeding away from them.

Almost at the edge of even my night vision, two figures stepped out from the trees. They stood and watched us go.

“That’s them, isn’t it?” Newman asked.

I nodded, watching the two figures as if afraid to look away, for fear of what would happen if I took my eyes off them. It was silly, almost superstitious, but I watched them stand there until even I couldn’t see through the thickening dark.

“Why didn’t they chase us?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“I don’t care why,” Tilford said, and he turned around in the front seat so he could see us both, “I’m just glad they didn’t.”

“They didn’t need to chase us. They blocked the road again,” Edward said.

We all looked, and this time it looked like they’d pulled up half a dozen trees and formed a wall. “That took time,” Tilford said, “and more manpower than we thought they had.”

Edward slowed the car. “Tilford, you’re driving.”

“What?” Tilford asked.

“Anita, cover me. Newman, help her.” He was already climbing out from behind the wheel. Tilford cursed under his breath as he fought to slip behind the wheel before Edward was completely out from behind it. The SUV swayed, but we stayed on the road.

Edward was climbing past us and into the far back. “What are you going to do?” I asked.

“Shoot them if they get too close. Shoot anything that moves around that barrier.” He was rummaging around in the back in some of the weapons that were too big or too cumbersome to carry easily. It always scared me when Edward started getting into his big stuff. The last time it had been a flamethrower, and he’d damn near burned a house down with us in it. But I did what he asked. I rolled down a window and divided my attention between the barrier on the road and the way we’d just come.

Tilford had stopped the car. “What do you want me to do?”

“Move forward, slowly,” Edward said. His upper body was mostly below the back of the seat.

I did my best to ignore him and do my part of the plan. Edward had a plan, and I didn’t, so he was in charge until either he ran out of plan, or the plan turned out to be too crazy. Though right that second, I couldn’t think of anything crazy enough to make me say no.

Newman said, “Holy Jesus!”

It made me glance back at Edward. For a blink, I thought it was just a bigger gun, and then I forgot to watch the dark or hunt for vampires. I took a few seconds to stare at what he had in his hands.

“Is that . . .” I said.

“Light anti-tank weapon,” he said.

“It’s a LAW,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. He rolled back over the seat so he was kneeling between Newman and me. “Open the sunroof,” he said.

“If you had this, why didn’t you use it on the tree?” I asked.

“It’s the last one I have,” he said.

“Last one,” Newman said. “How many did you have?”

“Three.”

I said, “Don’t argue, just open the door. Watch the road edge and the sky and be ready to jump back in when Tilford guns it.”

“Why not just aim through the windows?”

“Because we can’t watch the sky as well from the window.”

“But . . .”

“Just do it,” Edward said.

Newman glanced at me, then at Edward, and opened his door. I did the same on my side. When I was standing with one foot on the ground and the other on the running board, MP-5 snugged at my shoulder, I said “Edward.”

“Anita?”

“Do it.”

I heard him slithering up through the sunroof. I just trusted that he was halfway through the sunroof.