Someone gives the signal. I close my eyes to avoid being blinded by the headlights. They pass me and slow to a stop. I open my eyes and take aim. Four bullets for two men. A sound like firecrackers. I reload and jump down to the bottom of the rock. Two girls, undoubtedly the drivers’ girlfriends, are screaming and crying. One is trying to call for help, but the blood makes her fingers slip. I take aim again. Four rounds for her.

They’ve turned down the music at the other side of the drag strip. People are running around, screaming. Phones are ringing but no one answers. I’ll come back for those later. I reload again and run toward the light and noise along the routes I’ve memorized, a few metres off the path. Six people are walking toward the racers. Four bullets in the magazine. I let them pass, then come back behind them. I plant my feet firmly on the pavement to get a better shot. I press the trigger, four times.

Two men are down and no longer moving, another is jumping around, and a woman is staring confusedly at the blood on her hand. A man and a woman watch me as I reload, then something clicks and they start running. Wrong way: they’re headed for the swamp. They’re no more than twenty metres in and already in up to their thighs. I pick them off like clay pigeons.

I load two more bullets and listen. The two survivors are moaning and crying out to their friends for help. I leave them there. I’ll finish them off in a few minutes.

I set off in pursuit of the other five. They’re on the way, sitting in two cars driving slowly toward the midpoint in the strip. I use the same technique: let them pass, then come up behind them. They jump out of the vehicles and rush over to the bodies splayed out in the middle of the road. The cellular network must be weak; none of them have managed to call the authorities.

Everyone is looking frantically all around, blinded by the headlamps. I shoot three of the men, and let the two survivors flee northward. They’re fast but loud. I finish off the wounded with my knife. Slit their throats, and their silence helps direct me to the fugitives. I leave my gun by the road and start running along, guided by the sound of their bushwhacking.