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Malcoler seat, on their way to Hollis Bend, hih the windshield

What’s that, he said

She looked up and saw a streak in the sky like a sliver of cloud and an object at its head like a tiny e

It’s a jet, she said An airplane You’ve seen em before on TV Must be from that military base back a ways

I never seen one for real before

Well now you seen one Not too many around anymore

How co time to learn, I expect

How do they stay up there?

What? Listen at what you’re sayin Birds don’t have any trouble staying up there They do just fine

Sure, but they flap their wings How cos?

Cause a jet, it rides the wind

How does it do that?

It just does, she says It’s how they build it

Oh What if there ain’t no wind?

You get h, you make your oind

How?

Here, look, roll down yourAll the way NowNow keep your hand like that and stick your arm out the

He did so, and his hand danced up and down

You feel that? You feel how that air wants to lift up your hand? That’s how a plane works It’s called aerodynastics

What’s that?

It’s the na to you

Oh How come you know about that?

I don’t know Someone told it to ot it told to you, and now you’re gonna have to find someone to tell it to That’s hoorks That’s how civilizations get themselves built

Aerodynastics, Malcolm repeated to himself under his breath Aerodynastics

Okay, boy, now roll up that --it’s gettin frosty in here

She’s still lost in the memory when she hears a sound at the end of the aisle and looks up to discover athe linoleum toward her He’s ancient and desiccated, his skin shriveled and flaking around his mouth and the knuckles of his hand Probably been trapped in the store for years without anything to eat A dry clicking sound comes from his throat, and when he tries to open his jaw she can see his thin cheeks tearing It takes hiet near her

She points the M9 at his forehead and pulls the trigger There’s no blood Only a poof of papery dust as the slug collapses

When she goes back outside the rain has tapered off According to her watch she’s been wandering the store for the best part of an hour She gets into the car and tosses the die-cast jet into the glove compartment Then she takes one of her pills--she’s not sure which one and doesn’t care since she just wants to feel different than she does right now and it doesn’t really ht be

IT IS after ten o’clock that night when she cooes the more populated the roads become It seems like she passes a car every thirty minutes or so now, and each time they both slon and try to ive a e to the kinship of nohttimes, most people like to hole up and wait for the sun

But the hunters, she sees their campfire froot it set up in the parking lot of an ele the heads of the three men rotate to watch her, their bodies hunched and ets out of the car and approaches the her face into a wall

The men look her up and down, but theyon a spit, and the light fro shadows on the facade of the school building A ht

One of the a cowboy hat, and he tips it back on his head

Evenin, princess

I ain’t no princess, she says

You coulda fooled me You’re a little late for the cotillion, darlin

She’s still wearing the yellow sundress that Ruby put on her earlier, and she is e fro meat and beans from tin plates

I’m comin from down south, she says Lookin for a place called Williston