They were on the second floor, four of them, Clarence, two teens and a hockey mom. None of them had slept in forty-eight hours and they had gone through their last Timbits hours ago. Mom had dragged a plastic suitcase of cordless powertools up the stairs and now she sits with saws—Skil and reciprocating. One of the teenage boys has a pitchfork and the other has a baseball bat. Clarence has a javelin that he took from the high school. They are in strategic positions. There are two doors that open to this landing. Pitchfork boy sits by one and baseball bat by the other. When someone comes through a door, one of the boys brings him down by either driving the pitchfork or swinging the bat. The enemy goes down or at least stumbles and Clarence hurls the javelin at their torso. Then Mom descends with her blade spinning. She goes for the neck, pushing the blade as hard as she can, opening up a lethal wound. Her job is important because a man down with a broken leg and a hole in his gut can absolutely get back up, so when Mom opens the throat, he gives up. They want him to know right away that he is dying and then to lie down and do it. It takes time. The dying lie there spilling and gurgling until they stop.
They know that there is one guy left up in the tower top. They have two of his buddies rolled against the wall. Below them there could be hundreds. As long as he’s up there signaling his situation, enemy is gonna try to get up here. They have to make a move.
“He has a shotgun.”
Mom is pulling skin out from behind her blade. The blade only spins about fifteen seconds before it gets jammed. She manages to get through an artery or two in the throat before it clogs. The wound has to feel like a tap or the enemy keeps coming. If it isn’t quite there the boys hold him down while she pushes the Sawzall through the throat and right into the chest cavity. She snaps what looks like a red rubber band from the saw’s spindle, sets it down and looks at Clarence.
“Yes, he has a shotgun. And we don’t know where he is, do we?”
“He’s probably looking out on the street. Got his back to the door.”
“I dunno. That door’s more dangerous to him. He’s waiting for us.”
Clarence climbs out of his crossed legs and step over to the door. He puts an ear to it. The blood on the floor has pooled under the door. “He sees this,” he says, tapping the blood with his boot.
Pitchfork lifts his pitchfork. “Yeah, he knows we wanna get him.”
“So how do we?”
Mom has a battery charger and she grunts as she switches batteries on the floor. “We’re like a cat. These boys are the paws knockin him down, you’re the claws keeping him down and I’m the teeth that finish him off. We just gotta get through the door and do it all at once.”
“Cats explode.”
Baseball bat nods to pitchfork.
“We gotta get through that door and explode.”
“Kick the door in and the boys go low. As they pounce across the floor swinging and stabbin’, Mom, you leap high through the door. You’ll be dashing behind him and he’ll have to swerve ‘cause you’ll look like the biggest threat. Then as the boys crack at his feet and he’s wheelin’ that big old gun back down, I jump in straight and go right in the chest. You boys don’t stay there. You roll away fast, get behind him and pull him down. If you can. I’ll jump at the gun and try and get it while Mom, you come in and cut him real deep and fast. Hopefully I’ll have the gun by then and you boys just put everything at his head. Smash that head right in.”
Mom and the boys look at each other and squint.
“Has to be real fast.”
“We gotta explode.”
“Like a cat.”
“That’s right. A cat.”
“Okay.”
Clarence steps back from the door and places a hand on Mom’s shoulder as she drives a battery pack into the end of the Sawzall, then the Skil. She looks up at him without meeting his eyes. Her mouth pulls down in readiness. She crouches in front. The boys shimmy on their knees to the sides of the door. They hold their weapons in two hands. They look back at Clarence and he shakes his head once quickly to empty his expression. He takes two fast strides and lands a foot sideways. The door stays and he goes down. Biting pain in his hip. He lifts both legs to kick from where he lies and a hole explodes in the middle of the door. He kicks and the door goes in, sucking smoke over him. He sees the boys tumble across his legs and before he can roll to stand, Mom leaps diagonally through the air.
Up. Up. His thighs crunch painfully. A blast. The room is brighter than Clarence thought it would be and he sees only swirls for a moment. Then a man in a suit pitching forward. Clarence hurls the javelin and it just catches the man’s back. It looks like a hook in a fly as the man flails to the side, wriggling against his superficial but painful wounds.
The saw whines, then stops. There is someone else here. Mom is pulling the Skil off the throat of a young woman. Clarence hears the telltale sound. The woman falls from Mom’s knees and begins her death leak. The boys are whacking at the man’s head; the bat busts his hand open and the pitchfork enters his forehead. He’s gone.
Clarence sweeps down and gets the shotgun. The tower window is broken. He goes to it and leans the gun up, lowers it and watches the street. A group of heavy men burst out of the donut shop and make for the entrance. He shoots down, opening a tunnel on a man’s head. The boys heave the dying man and woman out the window and they fall to the sidewalk below. The sidewalk is empty. The enemy is on its way up.
They retreat to the room. Mom is touching her shoulder. The shotgun has taken a bite out of her. She says “Oh …” softly. Clarence hears footsteps as the boys close the door. The door is destroyed. They look around for something to block the way.
The boys stand on either side of the door. Mom has fainted or something. She’s down anyway. No help.
The first guy comes through. He looks at Clarence. He’s surprised. The boys have busted his shins right out of the flesh. He goes down and then there are two more. One falls over the first and Clarence poles him in the back of the skull. The other manages to fire something before the kids whip his teeth down his throat. Clarence got a bullet or something under his ribs and can feel his whole left side turning to water. He goes down, but manages to pry a gun out of somebody’s hand. He fires and gets a chubby boy’s throat to come out. The boys watch him aim. There’s a pile of bodies accumulating and now there’s big guys flying into the room. The kids’ sticks are breaking in the air. These big boys won’t be swatted down. They go for the kids, two on each, and hammer them very hard. The men straighten up and look around. They step over Clarence to the watchtower window. I must look dead or something, Clarence thinks. His eyes are open, though, so he’s a little confused. One man calls down that everyone is dead now. That means Clarence. They leave.
Clarence can see Mom’s hands to his left. Looks like they finished her off. The kids, too. They’re broken to pieces over there. He does hear someone groaning. A lean guy. Bald. He sits up, breathing hard. He has a bright pink hole in his cheek that he pats at, then winces.
He stares at Clarence for a while. There is an explosion below. The floor curls around Clarence’s legs, then pulls taut again.
The winter will be very long.
