Abbey leveled the scattergun and fired both barrels at the two men standing halfway between the jeep and the store. One of them went down, but the other threw himself flat. Producing a machine pistol from his belt, he opened fire at the store.
Kyle pushed past Sly, Carrie at his heels, both of them catching the heavy smell of gasoline. There was already a small pool of the dark liquid near the back door, and more was trickling around the shutters.
Carrie was frozen in the doorway, her analytical mind racing over the possibilities, coming inexorably to the only conclusion. “Too late,” she said flatly.
“Stinky, stinky,” said Sly, wrinkling his nose at the pungent fumes.
Abbey turned to face them, reloading his shotgun, eyes wide. “Best get outside. Only chance if they fire it. Out the front, now.”
As he was fumbling with the iron bolts, they all heard the crashing of glass breaking, followed immediately by the sullen roar of flames.
Kyle swung round. “Sly. We’re getting out. Run straight for our truck. Got it? Don’t stop no matter what you see and hear. Understand me?”
“Sure.” Sly was trembling, but he summoned up a brave attempt at a smile.
“Here we go,” said Abbey, pulling the heavy door open and stepping out onto the front porch, shotgun at his hip.
Carrie was at his heels, Sly close behind her, Kyle ready to bring up the rear.
The high-velocity round struck Ted Abbey through the bridge of the nose, ripping into the center of his skull. It demolished the back of his left eye, shredding the frontal lobe of his brain. Sight and smell and hearing all disappeared into the darkness.
He dropped the scattergun as the signals went down, taking a halting, clumsy step to his right.
“Shit!” exclaimed Carrie, not sure what had happened, but realizing from Abbey’s reaction that he’d been bit hard.
As the bearded man fell, he rolled onto his back. She saw blood seeping from mouth and nose and ears and sightless eyes.
Flames were licking across the polished boards of the floor, racing from the back to the front, making Sly Romero squeal in dismay, pulling at Kyle.
“Two men out front,” yelled Carrie. “One near their jeep and one to the right. Too far for my gun.”
Kyle jerked himself away from the boy’s clutching fingers, bringing his rifle to his shoulder. He centered the cross hairs on the kneeling figure with the machine pistol and squeezed the trigger, then whistled in delight as he saw the man throw up his arms and slide forward on his face as though he was trying to crawl under an invisible fence.
Carrie pointed to the second of the attackers, even as another bullet sliced through the doorway, ricocheted off an oil lamp and buried itself in a sack of dried peas that began to fall to the floor in an endless whisper.
At a range of less than eighty yards, it was an easy shot at the exposed man with the Mannlicher, and Kyle chilled him with a single round through the middle of the chest.
Flames were pouring off the roof as the tar melted, splashing and setting fire to the porch. It wasn’t a time for hesitating.
Kyle took the lead, while Carrie tagged at Sly’s sleeve, encouraging the terrified teenager to run out into the open. “Come on!” she shouted.
None of them had any idea of what kind of force was attacking the store. The two at the front, both dead, had obviously been decoys while others crept to the rear to start the fire. One of those was also down and done for.
As he emerged into the open, Kyle was conscious of the intensity of the heat from the burning roof. He half turned, seeing out of the corner of his eye that the raiders had also fired their pickup truck, presumably to stop them chancing an escape.
“Kyle!”
Carrie’s scream made him spin the other way. A tall man in dark glasses was rounding the corner of Caff’s Groceries, holding a chromed handgun. Kyle noticed in that fraction of frozen time that the man wore a blue shirt with the familiar sun-and-arrow badge of the Hunters of the Sun pinned to it.