Gabe

After lurching down a bumpy dirt road for several minutes, the car comes to an abrupt halt. Gabe is thrown forward into the back of the driver’s seat, and barely enough time has passed for him to fall to the floor before he feels his collar tighten as he’s yanked roughly out of the car and to the ground. He is only distantly aware now of the pain in his shoulder, which, though his arm hangs wrong from its socket, has ceased to matter. All he wants is to live. He lies on his back in field grass, looking up at Pope Crowley’s face above him, which appears upside down, the man’s features casting shadows across his face in the light coming from within the car. Pope is breathing heavily. The other men have climbed out of the car, too, and gather around them.

“Drag him in the field,” Gabe hears a voice say, and Pope’s face gets closer, bigger, as the man bends down to grab Gabe’s collar again.

Gabe lets his body go limp as Pope drags him through the grasses, the hard nodes of their stems sharp against his back. The fabric of his collar rips, and his upper body hits the ground only for a moment before Pope grabs his wrist and begins to drag him by the arm instead. The other men follow, dark silhouettes against the fading light from the car. Gabe shuts his eyes, and then there is no pain, no sight, just the tromping noise of footsteps and the rustling of the grass. He feels tired, so tired; all his body wants is to give in to sleep, but he wills himself to listen to the footsteps, to listen to the grass, to focus on the now as if doing so will make it impossible to die.

After several minutes, he feels himself being released into the grass. He can hear the men circle around him, can hear their breathing. He opens his eyes, sees their dark faces around him, feels a drop of Pope’s sweat hit his face. And then a boot to his side takes his breath away. He shuts his eyes again and curls into a ball, his arms around his head, and waits for more, which comes. Boot after boot batters his body, and he accepts the pain, focuses only on life, on life, on life. If he can stay awake, he will not die. This is what he tells himself. He must stay awake.

And he does. After some time, he is vaguely aware that the boots have ceased. He does not move. He does not open his eyes. He lies like a rag doll in the grass, on his back, uncurled in the beating. Someone clears his throat and spits. Someone else coughs. All of the men pant heavily. And then they walk away: fading footsteps through the grass. Only when Gabe hears the car engine in the distance does he open his eyes—or the eye that is not swollen shut. He tries to lift his hand to the swollen eye, but his arm won’t move. Nothing will move; his body is broken in the grass. Around him, the tall blades rise against the sky, and Gabe has never seen so many stars, dense, glowing clusters of them, more than he’d ever think imaginable, which, to his amazement, start to fall toward him, a shower of stars so beautiful it makes Gabe want to cry.