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That was the truth of it.

Once Warren had come close to telling his father. During practice at the indoor target range they had at home. He actually did half tell him, hint around it several times, but each time his father changed the subject or put on a pair of those earphonelike target practicing protectors so he couldn't hear anything. It never occurred to Warren that his father already suspected. His father's maxim was that the truth wasn't true until he actually heard it.

The fifteen-hundred-dollar rifle. Now, in a way, Warren wished he'd never gotten it. His next wish was that he had it now. With the telescopic sight it would be a cinch at that distance to put one right between Spider's eyes. Easy as the bear. But better than the bear.

Warren's stomach growled and he was so thirsty he worked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and around his gums for saliva. His hunger argued in favor of joining the others; his thirst gave him hell for not accepting the 7UP from Brydon.

But no, he'd hold out. No matter what. Maybe later, when they all settled down again, he'd go on a raid. Cross over to steal eats and drinks from them and get back undetected. He was sure he could do it. They weren't as smart about such things as he was.

They were shitheads, did dumb things, got killed.

The scaffold, for instance. What a joke. He had watched them put it together, known all along it was ridiculous. Being apart from them, excluding them, he was superior. He was in control. He allowed each step of the scaffold's construction — simply because it amused him. And when it was completed and Dan was up on it, he merely had to concentrate to make it collapse. As though his eyes beamed some kind of demolition ray.

Now, thirstier than ever. His stomach was grabbing at itself. His head was swimming some. Hot spots the size of eyes were burning into or out of his skull, his scalp bristling. It seemed he could feel where every hair grew from his head. Strength was pouring like warm wax from his legs.

He had the urge to drop, fall in a heap, give up and cry. Part of him inside was already crying. Tears running from behind his eyes, down his inside hollowness, choking his passages.

He sniffed dryly, coughed to expel nothing from his throat.

Another part of him told him to guts up. It supplied him with rage to fight thirst and hunger, to plug the leak of his legs and pump in some reserve strength.

But his tongue was dry, his lips tight and papery.

Around his neck on a cowhide loop was a .45-caliber bullet that he wore like a jewel, kept polished. Not a fake or a chargeless cartridge but a live usable .45. A girl once had flicked at it with her finger and laughed at how much she thought it looked like a penis, a hard miniature penis with a brass shaft and a gray head. It had cross slits in the tip where it was dumdummed.

Warren put the bullet in his mouth. Bedouins sucked on pebbles when they were lost on the desert, he remembered. He sucked on the bullet and soon, as though excited, the glands in his mouth responded with wetness. He played the tip of his tongue on the tip of the bullet, felt its cross slits.

Several weeks before, with nothing better to do, he'd made a whole carton of .45 bullets more lethal. Using one of his hunting knives, he'd cut precisely deep enough slits one way and then the other on the tips of the bullets. Result was that all the bullets now in the Colt automatic and in the two spare clips he'd brought along were dumdums.

A slight, abrupt change of light. Warren spit out the bullet. He looked across the islands. For some reason they had both flashlights and all the candles on and now he could see them. There was Spider. Standing — how many islands away? Warren counted six. How far was that? He tried to figure the range by multiplying aisles and islands but was too impatient, his mind jumped around, offered several estimates and reassured him it was close enough.

Spider was stretching.

Lois was standing next to Spider.

Spider had his arms straight up over his head, as though surrendering.

What about Lois being hit?

Warren brought the pistol up, cocked the hammer. He put his arm straight out, stiff. The pistol weighed two and a half pounds. For steadiness, he held his right wrist. He sighted down the barrel, raised it a bit to get the little notch of the square rear sight in line with the fixed upright sight on the front, and then both in line with the center of Spider's chest.

Warren took up the trigger's slack. He breathed deeply, let it all out and held his breath.

Squeeze off.

Nothing happened.

The safety was on. He couldn't remember putting it on, was sure he hadn't. A dumb mistake. It made him angrier at everything. He released the safety and again, more quickly, went through the phases of taking aim.

Again, squeeze off.

Don't move, you stinking fried monkey, Warren mentally ordered Spider.

Explosion.

Louder than Warren had expected. And the recoil of the pistol almost jumped it out of his grip. It seemed he had blown the lights out because now there was total darkness. No way for him to know whether or not he had scored a hit. He didn't believe he could have missed Spider, had had him dead on. It had been as easy as the bear, same as the bear, he told himself.

Except this time he couldn't see for sure. Maybe he'd missed. Oh, sweet Jesus, if he'd missed, Spider would be coming on, charging right at him that moment.

Warren fired blindly, rapidly, six shots. He ejected the empty clip, took a full one from his pocket, shoved it home and snapped back the housing to get the first bullet in the chamber. Ready again.

Black in the black. Where was that fucking black in the black? Probably sneaking forward, getting nearer. Warren could feel him, believed he could smell him getting nearer.

He fired the entire clip, seven shots, scattered them from left to right to better his chance of a hit. No squeezing off now. Too desperate for that. During the volley, he thought he'd heard someone cry out, but maybe it was only what he wanted to hear. He listened, kept perfectly still.

Silence. As accompaniment to the pitch black it was loud, a penetrating needle of noise that Warren's imagination soon increased to a thick, covering roar.

Used clip out.

Full clip in.

Seven more wild shots at anything in the dark.

Then, no more ammo. But perhaps he didn't need any. He listened again for any sound of life. Nothing. Maybe he'd killed Spider and all of them. Including Lois? He'd tell his father that Lois had jumped into the line of fire, was doped up when she sacrificed herself trying to protect her nigger lover. Warren believed his father would believe. Father cared for him more than he did Lois, lots more, for sure, and, although Lois's death would put a temporary crimp in things, it wouldn't stop father from eventually again boasting, hugging him a single arm-around masculine hug from the side and saying in front of people, “This is a boy to be proud of.”

Warren remained alert, kept listening for what seemed a long while before he breathed easier. He was about to sit down when he heard a movement off to his left. And another to his right.

They were coming.

More sounds of movement, more distinct, closer.

They were coming to get him.

Oh, sweet Jesus.

He remembered the bullet he was wearing on the leather loop around his neck. He dug at the knot that held it, regretted he'd soaked the knot in water to shrink it tight and harden it. He tore at the knot with his teeth and finally it came loose. The bullet fell out, escaped Warren's fingers. He got down on his knees, felt for it. They were coming. He had to find it. But maybe it had rolled off the edge. He swept all around with both hands. His right hand came on it.

Thank God.

Quickly, he jerked open the chamber of the automatic, inserted the bullet, snapped the chamber shut and cocked the hammer.

Wait, he told himself, wait until they were so close he couldn't possibly miss. That was what a smart hunter would do.

They
, his mind repeated. That was it — the trouble. He was only one, had only one bullet.
They
, the bastards, weren't giving him a fair chance.

His panic spiraled, became terror that pressed from all sides, confusing. There was nowhere to run. He had to face it.

From the right a beam of light cut the darkness, sought, found Warren and stayed on him. And immediately another from the left. To Warren, the converging shafts of light were bright, solid arms of his enemy's reaching for him, holding him. He was helpless, immobilized for a long moment.

He brought the pistol up. Pressed the muzzle of it against the socket of his right eye and did not have even a final, rational thought before he pulled the trigger.…

Twenty-one shots before, the first Warren had fired had come so close Spider felt the brush of it on his cheek as it went by. The third shot of the second clip hit Kemp. He had tried to keep down flat, but the money bags prevented that. The bag in front was a large hump beneath his upper chest, causing his head to be up at an angle. The .45-caliber bullet exploded out of the barrel of the pistol at the velocity of 850 feet a second, so it took less than an eighth of a second for it to reach Kemp. It entered his neck one inch to the right of his Adam's apple. Because the bullet was dumdummed, as soon as it hit it spread open from its center, like a four-petaled flower blossoming. It tore through Kemp's windpipe to get to his left carotid artery. The artery was about as large around as his forefinger. The bullet ripped through, severed the artery and continued on through various sorts of tissue to make a hole the size of a silver dollar where it came out at the back of his neck.

Was death ever instantaneous?

It should have been for Kemp but he felt it. The searing smash of the bullet, its sudden crowding penetration. He was aware of choking as some of the blood from the artery flowed into his ruptured windpipe. Beat after beat, under pressure, his body pumped the life out of him. In under a minute.

The impact of the bullet was so great it had snapped Kemp up and flipped him. The money bags went flying. He ended in an ugly position, hanging half over the edge of the island.

When Warren killed himself, Brydon and Peter immediately changed the aim of their flashlights, so as not to keep such a grisly sight in view.

Next thought: was anyone hurt?

Judith Ward didn't realize she was. Her fright had her pressed so tightly to the hard surface of Island Five, she thought that was the cause of the pain along the upper, outer part of her right thigh. A sharp ache. Soon after the danger of Warren, the pain changed, her thigh felt as though it had been scraped raw. She touched there and, although surprised, calmly told Marion, “I'm bleeding.” Her skirt was already soaked.

She lay with her head resting in Marion's lap. Marion stroked her forehead, comforted her while Gloria Rand and Brydon tended the wound. A nasty graze, bleeding badly. The bullet had plowed flesh for eight inches, starting three inches below the hipbone. The location of the wound prevented using a tourniquet. The only possible way to stop the bleeding was to apply direct pressure.

Marion took off her white cotton blouse, tore it into strips. That didn't provide enough bandages, so Gloria also contributed her blouse. Gloria did the bandaging. Not too tight, Brydon reminded her. Circulation had to be slowed but not cut off.

“Can you feel your toes?” Brydon asked Judith.

“Yes.”

From the way Judith said that single word Brydon knew she was in extreme pain. He told her, “If your toes start to tingle or get numb let us know right away.”

Spider came over. He whispered something to Brydon. He had found Kemp. Brydon and Spider kept it to themselves, made nothing of it as they went alone to Kemp's body on Island Six. Brydon checked to be absolutely sure Kemp was dead. He decided it would be better for everyone to keep death out of sight. They shoved the body over the edge, lowered it head first into the mud that seemed hungry for it.

Brydon aimed his flashlight down to where Kemp's body had gone under. The light hit upon something on the surface of the mud, off a ways to the side.

The money bags.

They were flat and floating on the surface. Spider quickly pulled them up. They were heavier than he thought, weighed, he guessed, at least twenty pounds apiece. He unbuckled the flaps of the bags and looked in. Rubber-banded thicknesses of tens, twenties, fifties, hundreds.

Spider was awed.

It was enough to kill for.

Brydon read Spider's expression. He wondered if it were enough to want to live for. “I wouldn't keep the bags if I were you,” he told Spider.

“Why the fuck not?”

“Without the bags it's only money — anybody's money.”

“Anybody's?”

“Yours.”

“You won't feel that way later, if we get out of here. You'll say I stole it.”

“I won't.”

Spider wanted to believe him. “You want a cut?”

“No.”

“You're jiving me, man.”

“I've already got enough to last the rest of my life.”

The two men were eye to eye for a long moment, Spider looking for trust, Brydon trying to convey it.

Spider broke into a grin.

He removed the money from the bags, disposed of the bags by poking them under the mud with a plank. The rubber bands around the money were a quarter-inch wide, doubled around. Strong enough for Spider to use around the bottoms of his trousers, converting each trouser leg into a sack. He unzipped his fly and dropped the sheafs of bills to the left and right in equal quantities. As much as his trousers would allow before becoming too bulky, obvious. The rest of the money he placed inside the waistline of his trousers, distributing it evenly all around. He had to unbutton the front button and let his belt out two holes to accommodate it.

24

At nine o'clock that Saturday night, as though perversely celebrating the first twenty-four-hour anniversary of its destruction, the supermarket writhed again. More sharply this time, followed by violent buffeting.