“I can’t kill you, you’re a lunatic,” Mr. Stewart said. He put the gun down “You’re a lunatic!” A sheriff’s car pulled up the street and stopped in front of the shop. Quentin got out of the car holding the M-16 by its handle. He had his bulletproof vest on. There was a dead body of a Howler, a woman, on the hood of the car; he’d hit her as he’d left Main Street and turned up the lane.

“The vest is a waste of time,” Dillon said. “They can’t shoot back.”

“Mike, I need all the ammo you got for this thing. And you’ll have to leave. You and Rebecca. You can come with me. You’ll have to leave the store, right now.”

“God damn, Sheriff, I’m glad to see you. This lunatic just killed three boys in cold blood. Out there in the street.”

Dillon turned and looked at the bodies in the snowy lane.

“What’s your name?” Quentin said.

“Dillon.”

“Is that the money you stole from the bank?”

“Sure is.”

“Thanks—I mean, for saving my ass back there. You could have let him kill me.”

“Didn’t see any point to it,” Dillon said. “I was in Nevada when they overran Elko. I hate ’em. Worse than the law.”

“Sheriff, have I gone crazy, or didn’t you hear me? This lunatic—”

“Shut up, Mike. It’s not what you think. Those weren’t boys, not anymore. They were something else. I know. They’re down on Main Street right now, hundreds of them. They killed everybody in the K-Mart an hour ago. Everyone in the Copper Penny. They’re all over the state and there’s no law to help us. All we got is each other. You understand? Him included,” Quentin said, nodding at Dillon.

“You better stop the chin wag. They’re coming now.” Fifty or sixty Howlers were trooping up the street, looking for their brothers. “They’re changing,” Dillon said. “Changing from the way they were in Elko. Their arms and faces are different, maybe.”

  “Holy shit!” Stewart said.

“You got anything fully automatic?” Dillon asked. “Anything in there like what he’s got?”

“Well? Do you, Mike? For God’s sake, man, get it, if you do!” Quentin said.

Stewart looked at Quentin, then went back into the store.

“It’s better if we fight them from inside,” Dillon said. “If they get behind us we won’t have a chance. You won’t be able to kill them fast enough.”

“Look, I got to go get my daughter,” Quentin said, looking at Dillon, then at the troop of Howlers coming at them. “Can you help me? I can’t do it alone. Some assholes have her in a house down on the other side of town. I need back-up. I’ll help you get that money out of town if you come with me. If you help me get my daughters back.”

“What about the old man in there? We can’t leave him,” Dillon said. “He won’t stand a chance.”

The Howlers had stopped at the beauty parlor and were swarming it. One of the old ladies was passed out of the parlor and torn apart as if she were made of paper instead of flesh.

“Can’t let that happen to him,” Dillon said, watching.

They’d been making out in the semi-dark, just a candle lit, when Rebecca noticed the light from the top of the stairs. Very stoned, she heard her father calling to her. She got off the couch and faced the narrow gun range they’d built into the store’s basement. She reached over and snapped on the range lights. Piles of old National Geographic magazines were stacked up on either side of the couch where Summers was lying, a shocked look on his face.

“Rebecca! God damn it! Get up here!” Something about the tone of her father’s voice froze her blood.

Gary looked up at her. A post blocked his view of her father. Terrified her father had caught them, Summers jumped up off the couch.

Rebecca turned, smiled, and held out her hand in an “it’s-cool” signal, a calm-down-no-problem-look on her pretty flushed face.

“Yeah? What’s up, Dad?” she said, hooking up her bra quickly, and finally stepping out of the dark to the bottom of the stairs.

“You better come up, honey. And bring the Thompsons, all of them,” her father said.

“Okay, but—”

“Rebecca, just do it, please.”

“Okay, Dad. Okay.” They heard the door close. Gary was putting on his bike shoes.

“God damn, that was close!” Gary said.

“Sure was. God, you’d think there was a war going on,” Rebecca said.

“What’s he want? What are Thompsons?”

“Machine guns,” Rebecca said.

“Excuse me?”

“Dad collects older machine guns. He wants me to bring up the Thompsons. Must have a collector up there or something. Probably the goddamn ATF agents again. He’s got one of the biggest collections in the state. It’s illegal, though, I guess. You don’t work for the ATF or anything, do you?” She smiled at Gary. “Somehow I don’t think so. Help me move these boxes out of the way.”

Gary turned around and looked at the couch they’d been making love on. Great stacks of National Geographic magazines stood on either side of the couch and ran down the walls of the shooting range. Rebecca went to the first stack and pulled down several bundles of magazines they used to hide the collection of automatic weapons. She reached into the space, opened a box and pulled out a Thompson. Gary recognized the thing from old black and white gangster movies he’d watched on TV.

“Holy shit!” he said.

“Pretty cool, huh? Here, take this one upstairs, and this one too.” She handed two of them to him. Summers stopped at the top of the stairs and turned around. Rebecca was taking out two more Thompson submachine guns from their original wooden packing cases.

“I never met anyone like you before,” Gary said, and went through the door into the store.

“Boy, give them guns,” Mr. Stewart said. Gary stepped out of the doorway. The sheriff he’d seen around town was at the counter. His face was hurt, one eye almost closed shut. The sheriff was taking boxes of ammunition and throwing them in a canvas bag he’d gotten from a rack. Another man, tall and muscular, was standing near the shop’s entrance—he looked a lot like a white version of the movie actor the Rock, Summers thought. The man had a shock of black hair, was about forty, and had crude tribal-style tattoos on his arms. The man stuck his head out the doorway and looked both ways.

Gary walked to the sheriff and handed him one of the guns. Quentin looked up from what he was doing.

“Kid can you use one of these?” Quentin asked. He nodded to the M-16 he was holding. From the look on the men’s faces, something was seriously wrong. Gary glanced at the man standing in the open doorway, who’d turned around.

“No time, they’re on the way,” Dillon said. He walked toward the gun counter. “Give me that thing!” Gary handed him one of the Thompsons.

“Where’s Rebecca?” Quentin said.

“Here I am, Sheriff.” Rebecca kicked the door to the basement shut with her foot.

Quentin looked up at the girl. He put his hands on the counter in a formal way, like a preacher at his pulpit.

“I want you to listen to me, girl, because what I’m going to tell you is the truth, but it’s going to sound pretty strange. There’s a bunch of things out in the street. They look human but aren’t. They’re going to try to kill us as soon as they get here. I don’t have time to explain. Lacy and Sharon need me. I have to go back outside. There’s no more law in town. I guess it’s everyone for themselves.”

Dillon yanked off the canister clip on the Thompson and was filling it with ammunition that Mr. Stewart had thrown to him from behind the counter.

Dillon looked at the girl. “How do you use it? It’s a fucking antique!” Stewart grabbed the Thompson and showed Dillon how to change canisters and where the safety was.

While they were doing that, a few Howlers rushed the door. Gary had wandered to the front of the store, not sure what was going on. He looked at the people outside and thought they were trying to escape from what the sheriff was talking about. He went to the door and opened it for them. The three armed people behind him watched in disbelief, not able to shoot because Gary was in the way.