"No use to me dead," says the shorthair. "You're such a pervert you'd plank a fuckin' corpse."
"Speaking of which, your turn first. Get the pump primed. I hate a dry fuck."
"It was me first yesterday."
"So, we arm-wrestle?"
Then suddenly there's a fourth person in the clearing -- a naked man, but not one of the green-eyed beautiful ones. This one is emaciated and scabby. He has a long scraggly beard, and he looks very crazy. But I know him. Or I think I know him. Is it Jimmy?
He's carrying a spraygun, and he has it aimed it at the two men. He's going to shoot them. He has that kind of maniac focus.
But he'll shoot Amanda too, because the dark-bearded guy sees him and scrambles up onto his knees and pulls Amanda in front of him, one arm around her neck. The shorthair ducks in behind them. Jimmy hesitates, but he doesn't lower the spraygun.
"Jimmy!" I scream from inside the shrubbery. "Don't! That's Amanda!"
He must think the bushes are talking to him. His face turns. I come out from behind the leaves.
"Great! The other bimbo," says the bearded one. "Now we'll have one each!" He's grinning. The shorthair crouches forward, reaches for their spraygun.
Toby steps into the clearing. She has the rifle up and aimed. "Don't touch that," she says to the shorthair. Her voice is strong and clear but dead flat even. She must sound scary to him, and look it too -- skinny, tattered, teeth bared. Like a TV banshee, like a walking skeleton; like someone with nothing to lose.
The shorthair freezes. The one holding Amanda doesn't know which way to turn: Jimmy's in front of him, but Toby's off to the side. "Back off! I'll break her neck," he says to all of us. His voice is very loud: that means he's afraid.
"I might care about that, but he doesn't," Toby says, meaning Jimmy. To me: "Get that spraygun. Don't let him grab you." To the shorthair: "Lie down." To me: "Watch your ankles." To the bearded one: "Let go of her."
This is very fast, but at the same time slowed down. The voices are coming from far away; the sun's so bright it hurts me; the light crackles on our faces; we glare and sparkle, as if electricity's running all over us like water. I can almost see into the bodies -- everyone's bodies. The veins, the tendons, the blood flowing. I can hear their hearts, like thunder coming nearer.
I think I might faint. But I can't, because I need to help Toby. I don't know how, but I run over. So close I can smell them. Rancid sweat, oily hair. Snatch up their spraygun.
"Around behind him," Toby tells me. To the Painballer: "Hands behind your head." To me: "Shoot him in the back if you don't see those hands quick." She's talking as if I know how to work this thing. To Jimmy, she says, "Easy now," as if he's a big frightened animal.
All this time Amanda has kept still, but when the dark-bearded one lets go of her she moves like a snake. She pulls the rope noose up and over her head and whips the guy across the face with it. Then she kicks him in the nuts. I can tell she doesn't have a lot of strength left, but she uses all she has, and when he doubles over on the ground she kicks the other one. Then she grabs a stone and whacks each of them over the head, and there's blood. Then she drops the stone and hobbles over to me. She's crying, big gulping sobs, and I know it must have been very terrible, those days when I wasn't there, because it takes more than a lot to make Amanda cry.
"Oh, Amanda," I say to her. "I'm so sorry."
Jimmy's swaying on his feet. "Are you real?" he says to Toby. He looks so bewildered. He rubs his eyes.
"As real as you," says Toby. "You'd better tie them up," she says to me. "Do a good job. When they come out of it they're going to be very angry."
Amanda wipes her face on her sleeve. Then we start knotting the two of them together, the hands behind the backs, a loop around each neck. We could use more rope, but it will do for now.
"Is it you?" says Jimmy. "I think I've seen you before."
I walk towards him, slowly and carefully because he still has his gun. "Jimmy," I say. "It's Ren. Remember me? You can put that down. It's okay now." It's how you'd say it to a child.
He lowers the spraygun and I wrap my arms around him and give him a long hug. He's shivering, but his skin's burning hot.
"Ren?" he says. "Are you dead?"
"No, Jimmy. I'm alive, and so are you." I smooth back his hair.
"I'm such a mess," he says. "Sometimes I think everyone's dead."
SAINT JULIAN AND ALL SOULS
SAINT JULIAN AND ALL SOULS
YEAR TWENTY-FIVE.