I moved to follow.
Addy grabbed my arm. “Give him a minute.”
I was at an age where having a girl put a hand on me in any way was enough to get my full attention, so I stopped and didn’t argue. “You say when.”
A cheer rose up from the degenerates watching the fires. They were dancing as though trying to conjure a demon from the flames. Addy and I both looked.
More sirens were wailing through the pandemonium.
Addy said, “They’re going to burn down the whole neighborhood.”
Nodding as I watched, I said, “You don’t seem frightened.”
“Neither do you.”
“My shrink says I’m unusually calm.”
Addy looked at me in a strange way.
“You know,” I added, “when most people get panicky, I don’t. What about you?”
“You have a shrink?”
I nodded. “I got in trouble at school.”
“You still go to school?” She didn’t believe me.
“The shrink was court-ordered, before they shut the schools down.”
“You must have done something pretty bad.”
A man shouted from inside the house below. Addy tensed.
A woman and other men added their voices to the ruckus.
I looked at Addy to see if she understood the same thing I did. Trouble.
She shook her head to tell me not to go in.
That was bad advice. I positioned myself over the hole in the roof and started to lower my feet. Addy grabbed my arm again with worry straining her face. “He can handle them. He’d want us to wait.”
A gun fired and I paused. The voices ceased.
Two more shots followed as my feet came down on a beam.
I listened, stuck in place with waning bravery, not knowing how to proceed.
“Come back out,” Addy whispered.
I looked at her. I wanted to do what she was asking, but only because she was asking it. Jim had been kind to me. I felt an obligation to help him if he needed it, but guns were at play again. The world had escalated to a level of violence I’d not fully understood from the relative safety of my backwater neighborhood.
With my feet planted, I squatted and looked around the gloomy attic.
Addy gave in and shined her flashlight into the darkness.
A trail through the layer of dingy insulation between the joists led to the far end of the house. Cockroaches ran over stacks of dusty, misshapen boxes that surrounded an open access panel.
With the sound of the riot outside somewhat muffled, I heard people moving around in the house. A door opened. Clomping footsteps ran. Bodies bumped walls and furniture.
Having come to a decision on what I was doing, all hesitation disappeared. I crouched and all but ran from joist to joist to get to the other end of the attic.
A car’s starter screeched as it cranked a cold engine.
The Bronco!
I squeezed between boxes, brushing them and sending up plumes of attic dust. It got into my throat, and I clenched my teeth to suppress a cough.
The starter cranked again.
Inside the house, a man gasped, trying to catch his breath.
I braced myself at the edge of the attic access hole and looked. A kitchen chair sat on the floor below.
I leaned through the hole and swiveled my head but saw nothing but an empty hall and part of a living room. No Jim. No degenerates.
The starter cranked again, and the engine fired. It revved loudly through a rusty old muffler.
I turned quickly, dropped my legs through the hole, and let myself down. The wooden chair creaked as it took my weight.
The house vibrated, accompanied by a chorus of squeaks. The garage was opening. The sound of the mob and the sound of what must have been a hundred sirens poured into the house.
I hopped to the floor and raised the pistol.
A car door slammed shut.
I ran out of the hall, through the living room, and into the kitchen, where I saw an open door. Through it lay the garage, where a big brown Bronco was just starting to roll.
Face down on the floor in the kitchen lay Jim, bleeding from three holes in his back.