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CHAPTER 73

Bend, Oregon Friday, August 2, 2024

SLOAN DROVE HER SHOULDER FORWARD, LIFTING ELLIS OFF THE ground and driving her legs like she was pushing the heavy sled at the gym. In a final effort she lunged upward and threw Ellis to the ground, landing on top of him. With Ellis on his back and Sloan straddling his chest, she dug the thumb of her right hand deep into his left eye socket. Ellis released a guttural moan as a sickening popping noise came from his eye. Sloan rolled to the side and looked for the gun in the tall cattails.

She ran back to the spot where she had originally tackled him and searched while Ellis moaned. She spotted the black handle first, then the silver metal of the barrel. She reached for it just as she felt a hand grab her ankle. She screamed as she fell forward, Ellis pulling her leg backwards. She reached for the gun but as her fingers brushed the handle, Ellis dragged her backwards through the tall grass. Sloan kicked her legs and tried to crawl forward. The gun was just out of reach, but her body moved in the wrong direction as Ellis rose first to his knees and then to his feet, gaining traction with each movement.

Sloan flipped onto her back, breaking her ankle free from Ellis’s grip. She pulled her knee to her chest and then exploded forward in a powerful kick to his groin that connected with full force and brought the man to the ground. Sloan scrambled back to the gun as she heard sirens in the distance. She found the gun again, this time taking it in her hands and turning to Ellis. But he was no longer doubled over from her kick. He was standing over her, his left eye swollen shut and sunken, with blood flowing down his cheek.

Sloan’s back was against the giant yellow machine and she pointed the gun at Ellis. She knew instantly from the deranged look in the man’s only remaining eye that she would have to shoot him if she hoped to stop him from killing her. Her right index finger began to depress the trigger, but before she did, she heard a rumble like a car backfiring. For a moment Sloan believed that she had fired the gun, but she felt no recoil. Her back, however, began to vibrate as the fence post driver roared to life. She saw Ellis look up at the big machine just as the driver shot a fence post down onto his head. The weight of the post, and the power of the driving machine, sent the post into his skull and through his chest. The machine echoed in the redundant clinking that had woken her that morning, and then went silent. It took Sloan a moment to understand the physics of what had happened, but as she looked at Ellis Margolis standing stiff and upright, she realized that the ten-foot fence post had been driven through his body and into the ground, killing him instantly and riveting him into place.

Sloan lowered the gun and slowly turned. When she looked up into the big machine she saw Lester Strange sitting in the operator’s seat, his hands on the controls.