Page 135 of The Bright Lands

When they got the third board up he said faintly, “There must have been so much blood.”

Clark bent down to examine the space they’d created. No wonder the floor had come up so easily: the crossbeams that undergirded the trailer were blackened with rot. Whoever had laid these cheap new synthetic boards—and the fact they were cheap and fire-retardant, Clark thought, was no doubt the only reason she and Joel weren’t dead already—had nailed them into gummy wood that should have been ripped out years ago.

Clark drove the sharp end of the crowbar down into the beam that crossed the hole they’d made. Again.

The beam broke at the same moment the roof finally collapsed into the kitchen. Clark shielded her eyes from the scalding dust that billowed up with it. She kicked out the crossbeam. She shouted for Jamal to be ready. She prayed he heard her.

“It’s just a few feet to the wall,” Clark said, gripping Joel by the armpits and lowering him into the hole. “Just drag with your legs—”

She couldn’t say more. Her throat had finally closed. She watched Joel disappear down into the hole and she turned her head to give the roof above her a dubious look. It would fall at any moment.

Clark looked back down. Joel was already gone.

No time like the present.

She braced her arms on either side of the hole and lowered herself into the dirt. She slipped at the last moment and landed hard on her ass. She stretched herself backward and crabwalked toward the front wall on her elbows and heard the roof collapse onto the hole she’d made. A dizzying wave of heat struck her face.

A pair of strong hands grabbed her ankles. A moment later Clark was sliding forward, forward until she saw the stars.

Jamal helped her to stand. The ring of trailers was ablaze. The crackle of it was almost comforting, like the logs she had always hoped would burn at her house at Christmas. Blank-eyed boys had poured into the night, hunching their naked shoulders. They looked sullen and humiliated—caught out—and terrified to within an inch of their sanity. They all looked so young. Something was raining down from the sky that Clark at first mistook for leaves until one landed at her feet and she saw that it was a singed Polaroid, the naked boy in its frame staring back at her with much the same expression as these shivering young men.

With Joel’s good arm over her shoulder, Clark and Jamal made their way into the circle away from the flames. The little sea of boys parted and she saw Mitchell Malacek, his hands on his head, stepping toward her in the orange firelight. When he reached the dead center of the circle he stopped, a few yards from Clark, and sank to his knees and studied her feet.

Bethany Tanner, naked but for a bra and panties, strode behind Mitchell with a rifle braced against her hip. Clark recalled the two rifle cracks she had heard earlier—“Don’t worry, that’s just Bethany”—and fought the urge to smile at this girl’s dedication.

Whiskey Brazos joined Bethany from the blue trailer and rubbed at a swollen lip. Clark saw with some relief he still held Mr. Boone’s custom Glock.

Clark forced her bruised throat to swallow. She allowed herself to breathe.

Four fast pops tore through the crackling fire. Semiautomatic fast.

“Everyone on the fucking ground!”

Clark turned in time to see Garrett Mason, his pads and his Bison helmet covered in soot, step from the burning green trailer, the AR-15 braced against his shoulder.

“That means you, Officer.”

Clark tried to ease Joel gently to the ground—oh Christ, think, Star,think—but gave up when Garrett sent a bullet whistling over her head. She dropped Joel in a heap and threw herself down beside him. Jamal, stretched out on her other side, whispered, “Piece of shit,” into the dirt.

The Bright Lands boys fell on their faces without a second’s hesitation.

Bethany Tanner hadn’t moved fast enough: her rifle was still frozen, aimed at the back of Mitchell’s head. Clark prayed the girl wouldn’t try to be a hero.

Bethany clearly considered it, but when Garrett turned the AR-15 in her direction she settled for giving the boy a long, baleful scowl. She tossed the rifle into the dirt. When the gun landed, Clark felt the strangest ripple pass through the earth and reverberate in her fingers, like the rifle had landed on the tight skin of a hollow drum.

“You too, Brazos,” Garrett said, and Whiskey threw the custom Glock down by Bethany’s rifle. Garrett growled. His voice was growing deeper.Older.“I see what you got tucked in your belt.”

Whiskey sighed. He withdrew a matching Glock from the back of his jeans and tossed it into the dirt with its mate.

The earth began to shake and this time it didn’t stop. It sounded so close now: the screeching stone, the thuds of a massive body moving—climbing—just a few yards beneath her.

When Clark turned again to Garrett she saw that there was no face behind the grill of his helmet. There was only darkness.

“Malacek,” Garrett said. “Grab a gun.”

But Mitchell, still on his knees, shook his head. “No.”

“The fuck did you say?”