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"David This is crazy"

"I’onna see today"

The bathroo out The left half of her body had been shaved aly as before John e hair off his clothes

John said, "Well, that’s done"

Before I could stop her, Amy asked, "Why did you--"

"It was Molly’s idea She wants to look like two different dogs when she’s co She thinks it will make it easier for her to steal food"

He turned to , Dave Have you started on the bomb?"

"The what?"

SOCIETY IS DOOMED for one very si months with , but only one dued the house for bo materials Neither of us kne totheon a fiery soreness, cooking like an engine run too long and too hard I wondered, not for the first ti the soy sauce would shave years off my life and I realized that it probably didn’ta packet of Jell- O and the innards of two s cards and the refrigerant froredients, we fashioned a sticky explosive clay, reen in color We poured it into a tinfoilbone and stuck it in the freezer to solidify The idea was to disguise it as so owner’s front pocket, should we get caught and searched

I sat at the kitchen table, snapping brass bullets into the one spare ht for the Smith

"Here’s what I think," said John "That facility, they’ve got to have some kind of intercom system We sneak our way to the office where the ht for the fucking jugular: ‘November Rain,’ on a loop While they’re all holdin’ their ears and begging for forgiveness, we go find this Korrok fucker and shove this boet hi"

I nodded and stood The real plan, the unspoken one that hid between John’s words, was that ould die But, ould die in the leincident in their history We would be their Guy Fawkes They would create a holiday about us If ere going to wind up in the belly of Korrok, ht as well see if we could make him choke on the way down

Me and John, Ibreath and put on azine John threw on his Army jacket and leaned over, unzipped the backpack and pulled out a chainsaw He had tied a length of bungee strap to it so he could carry it slung over his shoulder He then picked up the ho for a hter and a delicate tongue of flame licked out in front of the barrel He nodded in approval and blew it out, then grabbed the battle- ax off the floor and handed it to Aed to hold it aloft in her one hand for exactly two seconds before she let the head clang to the floor She let go of the handle, then dug some Chap-Stick fro up the Bronco when John re bone I ran inside, pulled it out of the aluminum- foil mold and walked into the yard with it inMolly ran over, half shaved and half shaggy, and snatched the bone froers

At John’s request I’ll skip over this next part, which involved us chasing the dog around the yard for a very long ti open her jaws and finding no rean to walk away froust when a snow- covered John, still on the ground with Molly, said, "Look!"

He was holding up Molly’s front paw I saw nothing unusual about it, but then realized the pi- like sy fro’s paw Molly licked her nose and sneezed John stood up; Molly flipped onto her feet and trotted away

I said, "What do you think it means?"

"Hell, I don’t know We need the bone bo"

Aht was a farto flush the bone fro out two convenience- store burritos from my freezer and heated the both burritos to Molly and seeing no ionna be late for our certain death"

WHITEOUT THERE WAS more snow than air in the ath town, the whole place shut down under the storht, an actual blizzard I had never seen one About halfway there, John squinted into his rearview hts swept across the frosted rearWe all glanced at each other, figuring we could either pull over or plow through the snowstorm for the slowest police chase since OJ I pulled over, two tires raure strode up to the driver’s-side door I rolled down theand felt freezing bits of snow land on my cheek A face leaned down I saw it and felt ht to the butt of the Smith