Page 66 of Five Survive

Crack.

Too quick.

Joyce folded sideways onto the road, a space where the middle of her face had been.

“Joy—” Don said, not panicking yet, because he didn’t know, maybe she just fell.

Crack.

A plume of blood in the headlights.

A gaping hole in Don’s face, beside his forever-open mouth. He fell slowly, knees buckling first, crumpling backward over his legs, bent all wrong. Empty stare up at the stars, a halo of red pooling on the road.

Red wouldn’t move.

Simon sprinted past her, back into the RV, tripping over her feet.

“No, no, no!” Reyna was screaming.

“Move!” Oliver spun around and hurtled up the steps, pushing Reyna in ahead of him. That unseen red dot chasing them inside.

The door to the RV slammed shut. Red didn’t see who’d closed it, because she couldn’t move, but everything moved around her. Flashes and elbows and eyes.

“I have to help them!” Reyna shouted, moving back to the door. “They need medical attention.”

“They’re dead, Reyna!” Oliver’s voice. It seemed far away, even though he was right there. A ringing in Red’s ears, static in her hand. “He shot them in the head!”

Two shots in the back of the head.

Red could move now, unsticking her shoes from the ground, peeling herself away.

Maddy was on the floor, crying, head in her hands, hands pinned by her knees.

Knees. Was Don alive when he dropped to his knees, or already gone?

Red turned, the effort of picking up her feet almost too much.

Arthur’s face was hidden as well, wrapped in his arms against the refrigerator door. His back shaking.

“Excuse me,” Red whispered, her voice not her own. No one was listening. Reyna and Oliver were shouting behind her. Reyna hadn’t known about the note, neither had Simon, but they knew now, Oliver telling them in breathless snatches.

“You should have told us first,” Reyna said. “We should have all decided together whether or not to do that!”

“Oh, easy for you to say now, Reyna. I had to act quickly!”

Red tuned out, their shouts becoming just noise that she left behind her.

She walked, slowly, past Arthur and the kitchen, her heart too fast, shedding a little more of her every time it beat. Red was surprised there was any left as she passed the bunks and through the open door into the back bedroom. Surely there was just a hole in her chest now, an empty echo against the cage of her ribs.

She placed the walkie-talkie on the bed, laying it down carefully like it could feel pain too. With her other hand, she grabbed a pillow from the top of the bed, digging her fingers into it, the fabric pulling like spiderwebs around her fist. She brought the pillow to her face, held it there with both hands.

Red screamed.

She screamed, the heat of the muted sound hitting her in the face, stinging her eyes. She screamed until it started to snag in her throat, and then she stopped. Put the pillow back in its place, fluffed it up so it didn’t look disturbed. She picked up thewalkie-talkie, checked it was okay, and then walked back to the others.

Oliver watched her as she returned.

“How did you know?” His voice was hoarse. “How did you know he would do that?”