"What the fuck?" she asks. "C'mon!"

"I know," he barks back at her. His foot taps the gas pedal.

Guh-guh-guh-grrrrr-guh.

The bar doors – a hundred feet away, maybe less – explode open.

Fat Dude tumbles out. Even in the ruined-liver light of the parking lot, Miriam can see the white ring of spit spackling his rage-howl mouth, the mucus swinging from his nostrils and eye corners like he's some frothing bull.

She can also see the shotgun in his hand. She has no idea where it came from – behind the bar? – but it doesn't matter, because it exists, and he has it, and he's pissed.

"Go, go, go!" Miriam screams. "Gun!"

The car heeds her panic and rumbles to life. The engine pops and shudders, but it's up-and-at-'em-time. Ashley throws it into reverse, and guns it backward – unfortunately, toward the angry mountain with the pump-action shotgun.

The gun goes off.

The back windshield explodes against the seats. A rattle and patter of glass bits.

The Mustang, like the wild horse for which it is named, bucks when Ashley slams it into drive. The car kicks back a cloud of stone and exhaust. It gallops forward like someone's trying to stick a riding crop up its ass. Another booming roar from the shotgun, and Miriam hears pellets punch little holes in the back end of the car, but it's too late for Fat Dude.

The car busts out of the parking lot, tires squealing. Ashley laughs.

SEVEN

Little Death

Night.

A small house sits on a curvy back road. Wisteria – beautiful in its own way, but listed as a weed species by the great state of North Carolina – chokes one half of the house, binding it in thick vines like strangling fingers and purple flowers like clusters of pale grapes.

Somewhere, a dog barks. Crickets chirrup.

The sky is black, and host to a million visible stars.

A white Mustang sits in the driveway, a big hole in the back window and a starburst of little holes perforating the trunk.

Inside the house, a deeper darkness. Everything is still. Shapes and the shadows of shapes merge seamlessly to maintain calm immobility.

Then: sound.

Outside the front door, keys jiggle in the lock. Then someone drops them. Someone giggles, and someone says, "Shit." The keys are back in the lock now. More jingling. More fumbling.

The door flies open, nearly rocked off its hinges. The shadows of two shapes circle each other, reaching, then withdrawing, then reaching again. They have a mad gravity, crashing together. The two bodies slam into each other, a supernova; they pivot, pirouette, hips into a side table, mail knocked on the floor, a piece of framed art sent there soon after. Glass shatters.

A palm slams against the wall, searches blindly for a light switch.

Click.

"Fuck," Miriam says, "that's bright."

"Shut up," Ashley says, and pins Miriam against the arm of a pale microfiber sofa, his hands on her hips, holding her fast.