“Looks like two Harleys pulling up to the main house,” Lincoln says, peering back through the windshield. “Three now. Shit, four. Can’t you go any faster?”

“Not without hitting a tree.”

“Christ. If they shut off their engines, they’ll hear us from there.”

Progress is maddeningly slow, and I’m afraid of missing the river road in the dark. From curiosity, I risk one glance over the backseat. Snake is laid out on the floor like a sack of sticks, dead to the world.

“You’ve got to keep separation between us and them,” Lincoln says, “or we’ll never make it into the boat, even if we reach the river.”

“Is Snake alive?” I ask, my right hand riding the vibrating gearshift.

“Who gives a fuck? Watch where you’re going.”

“I think I see the road!”

“Good, because they’ve seen us—or heard us. Get ready. They’ll be coming fast on those bikes.”

I press harder on the gas pedal, and black tree trunks flash out of the night like darkness incarnate.

“Turn the headlights on!” Lincoln cries. “If you hit a tree now, we’re dead.”

A pale line of earth stretches westward through the trees to my left. As soon as I’m sure it’s the river road, I gun the Harvester, fishtail onto sandy mud, and hit the headlights. We pick up speed fast, at least by the standard of the previous two minutes, but the instant I feel encouraged, Lincoln smashes out part of the rear windshield with the butt of his pistol in preparation for a gun battle.

“They’re coming,” he says, his voiced edged with fear and anticipation. “Don’t stop for anything. Not even if you’re hit or blinded. Just keep your foot on the gas.”

Once I get the Harvester in fourth gear, I focus on keeping the big truck on the narrow dirt road. But at the edge of my vision I see that Wilma Deen has slid down the door with her hands limp in her lap.

“Goddamn it,” I mutter, reaching out and pressing hard against the laceration on her bloody throat. Her skin is so slick, it’s hard to keep my hand in place.

Lincoln’s first rifle shot hammers my eardrums so hard that I swerve on the road.

“That slowed ’em down!” he roars. “Gun this old bitch! Go! Go! Go!”

At sixty miles per hour, the truck begins launching itself into the air when we top random humps in the road. Every time we crash back to earth, the bone-rattling impact makes it seem the truck is about to fall to pieces.

“Here they come again! Gonna give ’em a few this time—”

Lincoln empties four rounds from my rifle, the noise shattering in the cab of the truck.

“You hit anything?” I ask, watching for sinkholes in the rutted dirt.