It takes a moment to realize, but, we’ve survived, somehow, in spite of having been ejected and scattered like sides of beef, like floppy-limbed test dummies, so that Beth and I lay in the fountain while Will lay in the avenue—as broken and bloodied as we are. As for Benny; well. I can’t. I just can’t.
Nor, for that matter, have the great predators left us but have in fact regrouped and reconnoitered—scanning the area like cameras, like Martian Death Machines, identifying everyone’s exact whereabouts.
At which I help Beth up and look at Will; see that he has crawled to a long g*n amidst the wreckage and is even now gesturing with it, barking something I can’t read, indicating we should go. At which he stands and begins to stumble off, distracting the allos away from us, away from the rui
