Chapter 5
All hell breaks loose. One of the Land in the huddle is already falling from the gunshot, and one of the other Land is already raising a weapon she’s been hiding, because Burly is clearly so drunk on his superiority he didn’t bother to search them.
His mistake, because she’s already making a motion with her arm and letting it fly, bits of hard pellet shooting out at lightning speed.
I see a whole row of people in the front of the crowd hit with it, blood spouting from dozens of places almost immediately, arms and bodies and, worst of all, faces, with a few people probably blinded for life in an instant.
And then things get worse.
All the rifles start going off, more Land unleash weapons, and the sound of it all is deafening.
Tara and I both put our hands over our ears and fall to the floor, because there’s no way to stand up against such a thing.
The crowd starts scattering and fights begin and I see Burly and Margery Wingard firing their rifles, but for the most part, the humans are the ones screaming and running away, which makes sense since they’re outnumbered.
We. We’re outnumbered. By about a million and a half to ten thousand. So yeah, war here feels like a great idea.
I crawl over to Tara, who’s screaming at her mom to “Stop! Stop it!”
I grab her arm and point to a side exit.
“Not without my brother,” she says.
We both look for Taper in the crowd. There he is. He’s got his rifle up–
But he’s not shooting. I can see him thinking about it, aiming it . . .
Then lowering it.
“Taper!” Tara shouts. He looks over at us, his face full of fear, which isn’t at all what I would have expected.
I’d have expected him to be right in the thick of it, like he was when we arrived.
I guess it’s different when you’ve actually got to pull the trigger. That’s what Pop always says anyway.
Tara cocks her head toward the side exit, which Taper is closer to than us.
He looks over to his mom and Burly, both still shooting their guns, having taken cover behind one of the stall tables, the fruit one where Max always bought those melons I find too sour.
Taper gives us a quick nod and starts running for the exit.
Tara helps me up, and we’re running, too, ducking down from the weapons still going off.
Then a very strange thing happens.
A member of the Land tries to stop Taper from leaving, but she doesn’t attack him, just points to the exit door, trying to hold him back. She doesn’t even have a weapon, and he certainly does, though I don’t know if he’ll ever fire it. It’s like the Land is trying to stop him from going out–
Oh, shit.
She’s at an angle where she can see out the exit.
See what might be coming up the road.
I reach for my comm to type Taper’s name, but it’s not there.
Taper makes a frightened sound and spins himself to get out of the Land’s reach.
I wave my hands to try to get him to stop.
“What are you doing?” Tara says.
I grab her arm to keep her from running to him. She looks at me in shock, trying to shake me off, but my grip is tight, mostly out of fear.
“Let go of me!” she screams.
And I wish I could tell her.
I wish I could scream Taper’s goddamned name.
I wish I could scream anything.
Because as soon as Taper has stepped through the side exit and out into the road, the burning, screaming god reaches down and grabs him.