27: George – Friends & Family

The pistols were old, practically antiques, yet clean and oiled and well maintained. Holden didn’t doubt the damage the bullets would make of his heart, which was exactly where both the muzzles were pointed.

Nobody moved, nobody breathed, and when they did the intake was slow and on the quiet. Then Lenny cocked back the hammer and every breath stuck. So did Holden’s eyes. Everyone standing hit the deck. George leapt in front of Rhea and Wendy shoved Eddie in front of her as Lenny pulled the trigger. There was a click and a flash and the room was lit, and so was the cigar Lenny had placed in his lips.

“Am I dead?” Holden said.

“Just so you’re all aware.” Yvonne said, raising her gun for all to see. “My husband here has a penchant for theatrics. I, myself, prefer the real deal.”

When she pulled the trigger, there was a definite bang. A real flash of gunfire and a very real bullet punched a hole in the floorboards overhead. The echo rang for blocks.

“Don’t.” the Cheppard said. He tore himself from Rhea’s arms and staggered across the room. “Are you blind? Can you not seen what’s going on outside? The world is crashing into heaven. Do you actually think guns are what we need right now?”

“Always.” Alex said, stepping out between him and Holden. “Nothing more efficient to protect our interests.”

To his credit, Cheppard didn’t back down. He grabbed her wrist and aimed it at the floor. “This is not how we’re going to end it. If we have to choose our death, we have to take a leap of f—”

“Get off me, you freak!”

Alex ripped her arm free and in the same movement, backhanded him with the butt. Her gun was a modern piece compared to her parents’. Semi-automatic, lighter, but still a solid weight. The blow upside his head spun the Cheppard on the spot before he tilted over. His head bounced off the floor with an audible squirt of blood. When he stopped moving, a deep red oozed through the shreds of his bandage.

“Dad!” Rhea screamed. She scrambled over and cradled his head. “You bitch! What’s wrong with you?”

Alex gave her a wink and blew her a kiss. Rhea returned it with a disbelieving scowl and buried her face in her father’s neck and rocked him. Then alex noticed the spreading red and frowned at her gun.

“You know,” Otis said. “I pistol whipped a few guys in my time but I don’t remember any of them bleeding this much.”

Holden rolled his eyes. “Your sister reopened a head wound, genius. The pastor was hurt earlier.”

“Oh, that’s a bandage! I thought he was wearing a bandana. He was acting crazy. I thought maybe it was on too tight.”

Holden shrugged in his uncle’s grip. “He has been behaving erratically since the bang, I’ll give you that.”

Lenny elbowed him and when Holden wheezed over, grabbed him by the hair and sparked his lighter up again, this time an inch from Holden’s eye.

“You stole my money, boy. We had to fleece our punters extra since then. Y’know what that does for a service like ours? It put us on the radar, exactly where we didn’t wanna be.”

While Holden was getting the third degree, with potential matching burns, George edged away from Rhea and circled around his back. He mustered all his courage and stepped up behind the gangster and gingerly tapped him in the shoulder.

“Excuse me,” he said. “Hi, but you don’t want to do that. Not if you want to live.”

To his surprise, Lenny let go of Holden and stepped away. To give his kids better aim at George’s head.

“Try saying that without the tremble in your throat, boy.”

He ducked around George and kicked in the back of Holden’s knees, which hit the ground with a crunch and a gasp of pain. In response, George pulled Lenny off and stuck two digits up the man’s nose, then with a roar, or terrified scream, lifted him off the floor.

Lenny screamed. “Gnnggg! Snnttt hhmmm! Snnttt hhmmm!”

Alexis smirked. “Guy’s kinda gutsy. I like him.”

George hoisted Lenny between himself and the three real guns, shielding himself with Lenny’s body as all the while he kicked and flailed and both men wailed. Holden jumped up with a wince and rubbed his knees while everyone around them joined in with the two men’s shouting match, and Rhea paled and dragged her father back to the edge of the room while Wendy peeked out from behind her own, oblivious human shield. Lenny clung to George’s wrist and repeatedly kicked him in the stomach, but the force only worked George’s fingers further up his nose. Then Yvonne pulled back the hammer of her revolver and Alex moved sideways for a better shot and Holden saw her and grabbed Lenny’s lighter.

He flicked it thrice in Lenny’s face and made a show of singeing the crying man’s eyebrow.

“Drop the gun or we put your daddy in a world of hurt.” He said.

“Holden,” Alex said. “We know you. You talk big, but you never—”

Lenny’s scream cut her off as Holden singed his other brow.

Alex and Otis looked to their mother. She glared, but Yvonne put her gun away. Alex huffed but took her cue. Otis, on the other hand, didn’t pick up on her body language.

“You and what army?” he said.

Holden stopped burning his uncle. “Did you actually just ask that? Otis, you’re literally surrounded by my army. You’re in the room with them. Surrounded. Aunt Yvonne, did you drop him on the head when he was born?”

Yvonne glowered at her nephew, but extended her arm out to lower her son’s.

Otis looked at the survivors crowded around him. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t know you guys were in the military. I thought you were just regular guys.”

On the side, Wendy took advantage of the rolling eyes his mother and sister gave him and tiptoed over to George. She pulled his arm down and eased his fingers out from Lenny’s nose.

“Plegaauughhhh!” Lenny said. Or something like that.

“Hey, numb-nuts, can we all just calm the fuck down?” she said. “I don’t know what history you guys have, but right now, your, your what, nephew? Your nephew’s the only chance you got of surviving this.”

She pointed at the upside-down world outside the window. A small buzzing device flew past.

“That’s a drone.” Otis said. “Is that what you’re running from?”

“What? No, I’m talking about that topsy-turvy world out there. Whoever’s flying that drone, pack it in.”

George wiped his fingers on Lenny’s shirt. “That’s what I was trying to tell you. If you want to live, you’ll need your nephew alive.”

“What we have,” Holden said, alternating the flame between his uncle’s eyes. “Is dear uncle Lenny here doesn’t know the full story. My daddy was desperate to prove he was the tougher of the two and ended up pushing his punters too far. They shot him and I escaped with the money. Call it a betrayal, but I just found a way out.”

“There ain’t no out for people like us.” Lenny said pinching his gushing nostrils. “I’m gonna tear you a new one for testifying against us. Do you have any idea what it was like for me, watching my wife and kids go to prison? I had to watch my son’s back every day for years. You owe me big time.”

Wendy stood in front of him. “And he’s about to pay you back, big time. Holden’s got a plan to help us survive this mess. Kill him, you hurt him in any way, you kill any chance of not dying yourself. And maybe I’m just talking about myself but that ain’t something I’m gonna look kindly on.”

With his sister and friend placating the gangster, George took the opportunity to get his pride back. He loomed over Lenny and let his stature do the talking. When Lenny looked back for support of his own, his wife and kids didn’t step forward. They waited at the sides for him to make the next move.

Holden nodded to the hallway door. “Leave your weapons and animosity here and you and I can come to an agreement.”

He tossed the lighter to Otis, who simply watched it sail overhead and clatter into a corner before he realized he was supposed to catch it. Holden then led his uncle out of the room. His army parted to let him out. Lenny got the okay to deal with a nod from his wife and followed Holden. The survivors didn’t stop him yet didn’t make way for him, either. He slunk after Holden to the room next door.

“I won’t be apologizing for your eyebrows,” Holden said at the door. “Given you sent my favorite cousin to kill me. Me and Alexis used to be close back in the day.”

“Until you turned on us.” Lenny said.

The room was a trashed lounge. Shelves and everything on them lay in a heap across one wall. Holden righted a La-Z Boy from the pile and offered it to his uncle. Lenny took the seat and Holden circled around him as they talked.

“I betrayed no-one. Dad did all that. He betrayed you, he betrayed our business, and he betrayed me. All that’s different between you and I is I got my revenge.”

“Still don’t change the fact you testified on us. We’re your family. We could’ve given you support my brother never did. You could have taken over from him, been my partner. You clearly got the acumen.”

“And I wouldn’t have testified if you’d had the sense to come to me for answers instead of with a gun. Besides I made more money legitimately than I ever would working with you. Face it, unc, you lack ambition.”

“Shut it. If I want that kind of feedback, I’d talk to my wife.”

“She isn’t wrong.”

“Yeah? Well how about this for ambition? The world’s ending. That girl says you got a way to survive it. Well I got the last gear and crops in the city. The last cookbook. We control ‘em, we could build an empire– forget a business empire, we could own our country, maybe even the world.”

Holden stopped mid pace. “I can see where Otis gets his vast intellect from. However, perhaps you ought to scoot a rung or two down the ambition ladder. Controlling the world’s narcotics is good enough.”

Lenny ignored the jab. “Fair enough. So how you keeping us alive?”

Holden arched his head in the direction of the bridge. “You saw how we got here, didn’t you? We’re heading to the station. Tight tunnels. Round, strong. They’ll survive anything and so would anybody with the sense to take refuge in them. Of course, it helps to have people with the right set of skills to get you there. So if I do get you there in one piece, I expect to remain that way myself. Do we have a deal?”

. . .

In Holden and Lenny’s absence, Yvonne hadn’t let anyone move. Alex and Otis kept their guns trained on the crowd until they returned. When they did, Holden got Wendy and Rhea to take the unconscious Cheppard to the La-Z Boy. George was tasked with deconstructing the bridge and everyone else was sent out to delve deeper into minimalism therapy.

Otis took to the job with enthusiasm, shooting two pillows before they fell out of range, while Alexis and her mother stayed out of the way in an apartment next door. They stood guard over a large, ornate trunk. Yvonne enthroned herself on it, while draped around her were her four most dedicated customers. They framed her in a tableau of hazed semi-consciousness, oblivious to the work going on beyond the walls while Alex picked her nails with a stiletto knife at the door, shooting warning glares at anyone passing by. Meanwhile, Lenny tailed Holden wherever he went.

The tension raised by the family was taken out on the building’s possessions. The survivors smashed the furniture and threw all they didn’t steal to the sky. They ripped light fixtures out and kicked everything off the building’s edge, and when bodies were found, they were desecrated. Mummified statues, some no more than effigies in their beds, flew skyward through gaping holes where walls once stood.

In one apartment, Jamie found a room for his cats to play in. Cynthia followed him and lodged herself on a recliner by the door to keep Rover from jumping the lintel again. When he waved to the window, she saw what Otis had commented on earlier was indeed a drone. It flew off before she could ask who was flying it. Then Zeke stumbled in on their retreat while meandering through the hallways. However, since the stumble was due to an elevated blood alcohol level, he fell over Cynthia’s knees. The fall dislodged a cupboard, which fell open, and out rolled a dented tin of tuna fish.

“Nice, mister.” Jamie said  “Do you have anything to open this?”

Zeke, still on the floor, offered him his bottle opener.

“That’s a naked lady.” Jamie said.

“Slip the bladey bit under the tab, then lift.”

Jamie did as instructed and was rewarded with a hiss of the metal unsealing. As soon as the lid came off, the scent of fish hit the air and his cats bounced over. He poured the tuna out and divided the pile with his finger.

Zeke crawled to the cupboard to find nothing but bottled water and instant ramen. He took them and searched around for more, yanking a backpack out from the debris. There was nothing edible inside it. It held a camera and enough film to add noticeable weight to the bag.

“Hey, kid, catch.” Zeke said, and tossed the camera.

“Wow, an antique camera.”

Zeke rifled through the bag. “Whadya mean antique? The film has this year on it.”

Jamie clicked the button and a flash filled the room. A second later, a square of paper ejected from its side.

“It’s black.” Jamie said.

“Give it a few seconds. Wave it a bit.”

Jamie did and sure enough, a crisp picture formed. Zeke appeared in the square, shielding his eyes. A bemused Cynthia looked on from her seat behind him.

“There’s loads of film in here.” Zeke said, passing the bag. “You should take photos of what’s going on. It ain’t every day the world ends. Might be worth something one day.”

He brushed a scatter of carpet tiles, clearing a space in the corner of the room, then dropped everything he’d nabbed. With a lighter and the carpet tiles, he boiled a bottle of water in an intact frying pan to make the ramen. Cynthia watched without a word, from her chair, while Jamie kept his inquisitive kittens away from the flames. Zeke poured them a chipped mug each.

“That’s quite a skill you got there, mister.” Cynthia said. “Didn’t think you were anything but a drunk.”

Zeke pulled a whisky from his case and splashed a dash into his mouth. “Tha’s stupid. Nobody’s ‘but’ anything. Like we don’t have layers.”

“I think the young man appreciates the toy you gave him.” She nodded at Jamie, who grinned back as he snapped a picture of his cats rolling down some broken wood. “Whoever lived here should find peace knowing their legacy lives on through a child.”

“You sound like that crazy preacher.”

A soft pattering drew their attention to the window. Several items sailed past, junk and memories, followed by a whole bed. The drone flew past, dodging the rain, almost crushed by mattress. A rolled rug unfurled and sailed out to the horizon like a magic carpet. When a rain of books followed, Cynthia welled up. When she cleared her eyes, a second shadow fell across her lap. This time, it wasn’t followed by the thud of a stumbling drunk, but the controlled head of his daughter peeking in through the door.

“I can’t believe they threw the books out.” she said. She sighed deep, then shook off the malaise. “Dad, you seen George? Rhea’s dad started gibbering some scary shit in his sleep and she wants him.”

“Haven’t seen him.” Zeke said.

“Pastor Cheppard’s been one of my neighbors for almost fifteen years.” Cynthia said. “Other end of the street. Mine was the last home we passed through before it fell. I managed to get my bag of cookies before you all started throwing everything I own out the window. Saw my husband’s ashes scattered into the sky.”

Wendy recoiled, her hand shot to her mouth. “Ashes? Fuck. I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“No worries, girl. He was a pilot. He’d have loved it. You tell that brother of yours he did no wrong. And you give him this for saving the pastor. You take one, too. He’s making a new bridge down that way.”

She handed Wendy a stale cookie and a half and pointed down the corridor to the source of faint clanging. She then shared the last two between herself and Jamie and gave Zeke the other half.

“You got two good children here, mister. Polite, saved a holy man’s life. Good kids.”

Zeke shook his head and offered no words. He fished a bottle from his suitcase and took a long swig, ignoring Cynthia’s gaze, and tossed the empty bottle into the fire.

“You’ll never get him to admit he likes us.” Wendy said. She swallowed her cookie. “But I’ll let George know what you said. Kid, keep those cats safe. They need to repopulate the earth. Don’t tell them they’re related.”

She retreated from the door and found George with Otis and Eddie. Holden’s team had built the next bridge one floor below, and with Lenny, was halfway through guiding it across the street. George, Otis and Eddie pulled on the cables, supporting its weight while the others steered it. Wendy grabbed a fourth with a “Hey, I need you after this” and stayed until the bridge extended over the chasm. It inserted itself into the window of the next building with fluid ease. The team below cheered and George gave his guys a slap on the back.

“See?” he said. “It’s like your cousin says. All you need to understand is the laws of physics. Everything else slots into place.”

“I don’t trust anything Holden says.” Otis said. “The last promise he made me was to get me the next Pokemon for my birthday. Instead he ran away with all our money and I had to wait until Christmas.”

“Aww, you lead such a hard life, don’t you, kid?”

Wendy tugged George’s sleeve. “Cheppard’s being really, really weird. Rhea needs you. Now.”

“Kind of in the middle of something.”

“I’ll hold the line. She’s in the last apartment on the floor above. Below. That direction.”

George groaned but handed her the cable, pointing to his eyes, then to his workers before leaving to find his wife. It was easy enough once he finished clambering up the underside of a large, spiral staircase. She was in the lounge of the furthest apartment, assuring her dad everything would be okay. When George peered over her shoulder, doubts about her words took hold.

“Shit.” He hissed. The Cheppard’s pillow was soaked in red. Blood pooled around his wound, congealed into jelly. The man was barely conscious, mumbling through barely opened lips. George squatted next to Rhea, and she practically collapsed into his arms. “Fuckin’ Holden’s family.”

“You have first aid training, don’t you?” She said. “What am I supposed to do?”

George waved his palms. “Call an ambulance. I’ve only ever patched up grazes and cuts.”

“You gave me the Heimlich once.”

“You don’t chew your food.”

“George, please, there must be something?”

He peeled the pillow from the pastor’s head, freeing enough space for a squirt of blood to splash his arm.

“Okay, okay, lemme think. Um, do be cautious until we you are sure there is a head injury. Are we sure… we’re sure there’s a head injury. Don’t move the casualty unless they are in direct danger.”

“We did that bit.”

“Stabilize the head and neck. Do not put pressure on the wound.”

Rhea pulled her hands away from her dad. “I thought we were supposed to put pressure on wounds?”

George looked blank. “I swear the poster said not to.”

“Are you sure you’re remembering this right?”

“Sweetie, I read those poster twenty times a day, five days a week. So did you.”

“What poster?”

“The one in the medical RV.”

Rhea returned his blank look.

“The Medical RV? The office vehicle you counselled us in for a year when you were the firm’s councilor? We always had sex there during lunch? We met there.”

“The bus? Yes, it had medical posters!”

“That said not to put pressure on the wound.”

A wrinkled hand tapped George on the chin.

“You two really are made for each other.” Cheppard said. “You bicker just like me and my wife did.”

Rhea pulled her father’s eyelid open. “Dad? Dad, are you with us?”

“What do they teach you youngsters these days? I could be dying here and not one of you knows what to do.”

“Yes we do.” George said. “We had a very informative poster about just this.”

Cheppard harrumphed at him. “Did you check my eyes aren’t unevenly dilated?”

George and Rhea looked at each other.

“Not yet?”

“Did you ask if my vision’s blurred?”

“Is it?”

“No. And did you make sure there was no blood or fluids leaking from my eyes, ears or mouth?”

“I was actually the last one to get here.” George said. “But I’m sure Rhea did, didn’t you, darling? She’s been watching over you all day.”

Cheppard rolled his eyes. “It’s only been twenty minutes, son. Feels longer.”

Rhea stroked her father’s face. “You bled a lot.”

“Head wounds always do.”

“I’d still feel safer getting you checked out.” George said. “Wait. No. Crap, All the doctors left.”

“George,” Cheppard said. “Please fetch me Mr. Crayson. I’d like to have a word with him.”

“I think he’s securing the bridge.”

“Please, just tell him I need to speak to him. It’s urgent.”

George turned to Rhea. “You’ll be okay?”

“We’ll be fine.” She said.

He left to find Holden. Cheppard cleaned himself up and re-bandaged his head with Rhea’s help. The outer layer was soaked a deep red, and the tails of the know flopped across his back like a fish. By the time they returned, he was sitting upright and clean.

“Forgive me for not rising.” He said to Holden. “But I need to understand your family, Mr. Crayson.”

“Holden.” Holden said. “Mr. Crayson is my uncle.”

“Holden, then.”

“And exactly why would I be divulging the history or natures of my kin to you, pastor?”

“I took an oath, young man, to keep my flock safe from harm. Among their number is my own daughter. And my unborn grandchild.”

“Your concern’s a bit of switch for a man whose sole goal in the last twenty-four hours has been to convince us to join his suicide pact.”

Cheppard winced and rubbed the back of his head. “Yes, Rhea told me everything I said since the accident. I don’t recall any of It. Are we still upside-down or did I dream that?”

“Still upturned, and you were getting weird. Maybe getting a firearm backhand really was the treatment you needed.”

A smear of blood stuck to Cheppard’s finger. “In that case, I won’t hold it against your cousin. It’s certainly a great pressure off my mind. Must be the blood loss. But answer me. Are they a danger. More than pushing their weight around, I need to know what lengths they’ll go to.”

“There hasn’t been a Crayson born who wouldn’t do anything to further their agenda.” He said. “Insofar as you yourself have witnessed, I come from a clan of petty minded twits who like to play gangster. Back in the day, the Crayson family ran this city. By the time I was born, your Foundation had taken all but a few miserable streets from us. If you’ll pardon the cliché, I knew we’d never beat you, so I joined you instead.”

“So I’ll have work cut out for me,” Cheppard said. “If I want to convince them to change their ways.”

Holden let out a sharp “Ha!” and leaned out the exterior of the room. He spat at the clouds below. “If they survive, they’ll cripple any chance we have before we’ve even started again. They have the last of every drug in the city, and a crew of their own who know how to make more. By the time we’re rescued, half of us will addicts and completely dependant on them, the other half will be peddling the stuff. People like that ruin everything for the rest of us.”

Cheppard wagged his finger. “Not all drugs are bad.”

Both Holden and George tipped their head his way. Rhea checked his bandage again.

“Did you seriously just say that?” George said. “You. The priest?”

“Pastor, not priest. And you forget, one who worked in rehabilitating rebellious youths, like yourself, from juvie hall. I know the various addictions and how they affect people. I’ve seen it closer than most of their parents have and frankly some just don’t debilitate at all. Mr. Crayson? Holden, if you’d call your family, I’d like to negotiate with them.”

Holden regarded Cheppard, saying nothing straight away. His eyes focused and unfocused, darting up and sideways as he processed whatever decision he was coming to.

He frowned at the Cheppard. “You’re a completely different man than you were half an hour ago.”

“I am who I was. Rhea told me we were coming to blows during my little episode. She told me what I did. What I was trying to convince everyone to do. I won’t take responsibility for that, seeing as I wasn’t in a coherent state of mind, but I will attempt to make up for it. I hope it hasn’t ruined our former friendship.”

“No,” George said. “It was punching us, then kicking us down a flight of stairs that did that.”

Cheppard nodded. “And since then I’ve humiliated myself, and taken into account it was Holden’s cousin who split my head open while holding my daughter hostage, along with everyone else in your charge, and that they were held hostage for the very reason I told you both to stay away from us, thus proving everything I said correct, why don’t I not hold that against you and we start afresh?”

“That’s actually a good point. Alright. You did marry us, after all.”

“I what?”

Holden snorted. “You’ll never get them to deal, my friend, but just for the comedic value, I’ll ask them.”

Holden took George and Rhea to find his family. They’d stayed in their apartment, the last people on the block, not trusting Holden enough to cross without him. He explained their situation, that his side was willing to compromise. The Crayson business could continue with only a few restrictions they could negotiate with Cheppard. The bemused family agreed, and instructed George and Rhea to help their goons carry their trunk across the bridge. A cloud was rolling in, blanketing the chasm in deepening fog. Someone sober needed to keep them in line.

Keeping them on the line was easy enough. The bridge was nothing if not a straight path. Getting them to take the steps to it was the hard part. By the time they’d crossed a third of the bridge, the cloud’s thickness made seeing more than an arm’s length impossible, and its swirling shifted focus off the glimpses of their feet when they became visible. The trunk didn’t help matters. Whatever was in it weighed it down, even in the low gravity, and it was wider than triangle they had to crawl through. After some thought, George risked organizing the goons to stand on the outside of the bridge, outside where there were no holdings. One guy and one girl took each side of the case, and they shouldered it a step at a time across the drop.

“So,” George called from inside the tunnel. “You guys have names or do I simply call you under the umbrella title of goon?”

“Yes.” One of the goons said.

“Yes, you have names, or yes, you’re all called Goon?”

“We have names.”

They shuffled forward a further six steps before George realized there was no part two to the answer.

“What are they?” he said.

“Are you talking to us?” another goon said.

“Yeah.”

“Are you asking our names?”

“Yes. What are your names?”

“I’m Derek.” Apparently Derek said. “This is Barry. She’s Laura. That one’s Cazz.”

George looked into the glowing fog and tried to work out which silhouette the disembodied voice had come from.

“Thanks,” he said. “That was very helpful.”

“You’re welcome.”

It took a further half hour to get them across. The goons took the trunk to the nearest empty room and fell across it. Rhea took George’s hand as soon as he crawled out and they reflected on the eddying cloud.

“It’s beautiful.” She said. “So silent.”

The drone broke it with a buzz as it flew past. Then the muffled bang of a gun, followed by a half dozen shouts and another shot. A bullet ricocheted off the wall above them.

“Aww, shit. Get down.” George said. He dragged Rhea away from the edge and smacked face first into a wall. She collided with him and ducked low, squeezing themselves into a corner. “Fuck, why are we always hiding from gunfire lately?”

Rhea stuck her head up. “Can you see my dad?”

“I can’t see shit!”

The vibrations of feet scrambling down the bridge jolted it forward and the base sparked across the ceiling with a screech. From the tunnel, a shadow fell out with a groan.

“Dad?” Rhea said.

The shadow looked up, though kept low and ran in their direction. It identified itself when it ran into the same patch of wall George had.

“Holden?” he said. “What happened?”

“The Cheppard happened.” Holden said, rubbing his nose. “One minute, uncle Lenny was losing negotiations, the next, Alex pulled out her gun.”

“How’s that my dad’s fault?” Rhea said.

“He took it off her and shot her in the leg. Told her he wouldn’t stand them corrupting our future. Exactly how has he never been to prison?”

“Well, he has. That’s where he joined the prison pastoral service.”

“And the final puzzle piece falls into place. Is our bridge supposed to be sparking?”

Another screech and another shot rang through the cloud, followed by the rend of metal and an echoing snap. As if to reveal the unfolding drama, the cloud parted to show Cheppard lying inside the bridge, taking pot shots at Holden’s family, who clambered across its exterior. Each step they took shook the structure, and it lurched forwards a few more inches, with more sparks.

“You haven’t unsecured the lines on the other side yet, have you?” Holden said.

“No,” George said. “I think.”

Another snap echoed and the bridge jerked forward a final time. Then it shuddered. With a deceptively slow awning, it tipped up. Cheppard, Holden’s family and Rhea screamed as it reversed direction, cracking the already weakened structure on which they stood, and fell backwards into the sky.

“Daddy!”

Rhea screamed and hid her eyes in George’s chest. George and Holden didn’t avert their gaze.

The bridge fell, with both the Crayson family and Cheppard still on it.