Shanny got in and fumbled the keys into the ignition.
Ethan was getting in just as the woman backed out of her car, not carrying a baby but a shotgun.
“She has a gun!” He yelled as he dove into the front seat and pulled his head down.
Shanny pulled hers down as well.
Just as she hit the gas, the woman fired, taking out the back and front windows in a hail of noise, glass, and debris.
The Fiat bucked forward, slamming into a wall.
Shanny reversed it and slammed into a parked car.
The gun went off again, peppering the side of the Fiat.
Shanny put the car in drive and peeked above the dashboard just far enough so she could see, then steered the once pristine vehicle out of the parking lot and onto the street. She turned right, putting the building between them and the woman but taking them nearer the Six-Fingered Man.
As they roared up the street, Ethan looked over at where the man had been standing.
The space was now empty.
SUPPOSITION: Advanced being intervention theory, or ABIT, postulates that there was an intervention early in the human timeline by beings who were physically and technologically advanced far beyond human abilities. The nature of these stories falls into the character of folklore, which is often metaphorical to allow for easier memorization. These metaphors normally rhymed in the origination language, which once translated across many languages, tends to lose its original meanings. —Paul
FIVE
They drove to the Twenty Ninth Street mall and parked the car in a covered lot. Once she turned off the engine, Shanny stared hard through the windshield.
Ethan felt his own body trembling and folded his arms around his chest to make them stop. He began to hyperventilate. Had they really just been shot at?
She turned and put her right arm around him. “It’s going to be fine, Ethan. We’re going to survive this.” Her jaw hardened. “And I fucking hate it when people shoot at me. Look at my car. My beautiful pink car.”
He felt a sob bubbling forth. He tried to keep it in, but it exploded out.
She hugged him tighter.
He leaned into it, and it was about two minutes before he said, “Shouldn’t I be the one consoling you? Shouldn’t you be the one blubbering?”
“First of all,” she said as her eyes softened, “you weren’t blubbering. And second of all, you never saw me after the first time I was fired on in Iraq.”
“You’ve been shot at before?”
“Shot at? I’ve been wounded, Ethan. It’s why I only spent six years of my commitment instead of the eight I should have stayed. I was medically discharged.”
“I—I never knew.”
“We haven’t exactly had time to catch each other up.” Noticing him staring at her, she asked, “What are you staring at?”
“Just remembering college. I haven’t heard your voice in so long. I’ve thought of you every day, though. We had so much fun back then. So different from—”
She leaned up and kissed him.
His mouth opened partly out of shock but also in automatic response to her probing tongue. He found himself returning it, closing his eyes as she was doing, breathing into her as she breathed into him. It lasted forever or five seconds, then she pulled back.
“As much fun as that?”
He didn’t have a single thing to say, his mouth still open.
She kissed him again. He returned it, but only for a few seconds. This time he pulled away. “What are you doing?”
“I thought it was obvious.”
She got out of the car and went to the back, where she reached through the space where the back window had been and selected a few items of clothes.
He grabbed his pack and got out, shaking broken glass from it. He noticed the multiple holes in the side of the Fiat where the shotgun blast had impacted. The area was only a foot behind his door. The shot had clearly been meant for him. It had been so close.
She was shaking glass out of a blouse when he approached.
“Shannon Witherspoon, God, but I’ve missed you.”
“Your idea for a reunion date needs some work, but I’ve missed you, too.” She turned and studied him, then shook her head and shoved the remaining clothes she’d chosen into her pack. “Look at us. We’ve been chased by police, shot at by a soccer mom, and threatened by a six-fingered man. Somewhere out there are giants and the Council of David and we are totally on our own. I don’t know who to trust. We don’t have any phones, and I have to ditch my once beautiful car…” She inhaled deeply. “And all I’m concerned with at this moment is that I’m happy we’re together again.”
“Like Butch and Sundance,” he said.
“Like Rocky and Bullwinkle,” she said.
“Like Ren and Stimpy,” he added.
“Like Beavis and—”
He kissed her, cutting her short.
When they parted, he gazed at her, all the love he’d felt for her before tumbling back into him.
“So, what now, Captain Witherspoon?” he asked.
She straightened a little. “Haven’t been addressed like that in a few months. Come on.”
They headed into the REI across the street first. Ethan had been in one of the stores once and thought the prices were too high. He said as much to Shanny.
“They’re high because they’re the real thing. The quality is unmatched, and we might need to depend on this stuff.”
He stopped. “What stuff? What are you getting?”
She grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him over to the side. A clerk began to approach, and she waved him away. “We’ve got to go off the grid, which means we need survival gear.”
He made a sour face. “Like tents and backpacks and sleeping bags?”
“Yes, like tents and backpacks and sleeping bags. I have a ten-thousand-dollar limit on my credit card. I intend on maxing it out.”
“Sure that’s a good thing?”
“Why am I going to care about it if I’m dead? They know I’m involved so I’m already burned. They’ll doubly know when I use the credit card because it will probably set off alarms if they’re already tracking it. Let’s keep back your pre-paid card as an ace in the hole. They don’t know about it and they’ll be looking for me using mine. I say we spend the hell out of it and get out of here as fast as we can.”
Ethan had to admire her quick thinking. It did make a certain amount of sense. They needed good equipment, and they needed wheels. “What about transportation?”
“I have an idea about that.”
He was about to open his mouth when she put a finger over it and said, “Trust me.”
What followed was forty-five minutes of a clerk’s dream. They grabbed new shirts, ripstop pants, socks, underwear, and several pair of Merrell shoes. Each of them got two packs, a large one to carry everything, and a smaller bug-out bag to use if they had to leave everything behind. They also got survival gear, including knives, a hatchet, a compass, cooking equipment, and so forth. They picked up a two-man tent, watching as the clerk demonstrated how easy it was to put it up and take it down. Although it took the strapping young REI employee less than a minute, Ethan imagined him taking at least ten minutes, maybe even half an hour if it was dark. Then came flashlights, extra batteries, and an odd assortment of other things. Shanny kept adding to the total, waiting until it got closer to ten thousand including tax. Once their pile of loot was at $9,500.92, she had them wait.