ONE THING IS CERTAIN, and that is that everyone who was standing when she let loose the bolts was no longer standing when they disappeared—including, to our surprise, the girl-thing herself, who collapsed even as we collapsed, as the Benson Gang collapsed, their bodies shriveled like prunes and their faces sucked in, as though they’d simply imploded when their life-force had been extracted, which, I suppose, they had.
Then it was over and we had climbed to our feet, shaking ourselves off, grateful to be alive, but aghast at the destruction and loss of life all around us. For the Benson Gang was dead, each and every one, and their nude bodies had become husks— their clothes having burned away in the incident, I supposed—which rattled in the sand as they were buffeted by the breeze and even
