Keep Me Safe

Chapter Nineteen

She came to a few seconds later. Her head was throbbing and she could feel someone dragging her by the legs. A loud ringing sound filled her ears. 

Once her eyes adjusted to the dark, she realized it was Papa who was pulling her. He had blood dripping down his forehead.

"What's going on?" she mumbled as he deposited her behind the wreckage of the car.

"These sons of bitches are trying to kill us!" Floyd came into sight, crouched down and using the sideways car as coverage. He was gripping two pistols in his hands and every few seconds he would hold one of them in the air and fire it into the distance.

With a start, Agnes realized that the ringing sound was gunfire. She whipped her head around wildly and tried to make sense of the chaos surrounding her.

The night sky was illuminated by the flashing of gun barrels, and the chirping cicadas were drowned out by the endless gunpowder explosions. Even in the occasional few seconds of silence when there was reloading, she could not escape the noise. The ringing that filled her ears was so painful it made her want to curl into a ball and scream.

But she refused to give up so easily. Wiping off her forehead and ignoring the blood that smeared across her palm, she dug her elbows into the soft soil and pushed herself up. She grunted and screamed, but managed to get to her knees.

Lottie, back pressed to the exposed belly of the car, gestured frantically for Agnes to come to her. Her wild eyes, partially hidden behind her disheveled hair, were filled with fear.

Agnes crawled to her and time seemed to slow down. She could hear almost every individual gun shot, hear the whistling the bullets made as they whizzed right past her head. She felt like she was crawling through syrup, and every second she was terrified she would feel a bullet rip through her skin.

Then, in the blink of an eye, she had much bigger concerns. The screeching of brakes overtook the gunfire, and she looked up just in time to see a car barreling towards her.

Using all of her remaining strength, she rolled out of the way a mere second before the out of control vehicle rolled over the spot she had just been in. It, like the doctor's car, collided with a tree.

Before anyone had time to react, Sheriff Williams kicked open his crushed driver's side door and stumbled out of the remains of his police car. His face was covered in scratches, and blood was staining his once-white shirt. In his hand, he held the butt of his shotgun. The tip of the barrel was carelessly shoved into the dirt. He was missing his left shoe.

Agnes had forgotten he was chasing them as soon as she had seen the blockade across the road. Looking at him now, she worried that he was so angry he might shoot the first person he saw.

He stood next to the wreckage of his car for a brief moment, his face a mixture of rage and disbelief. It wasn't until bullet pierced a hole in the battered car door two inches from his stomach, that he snapped out of his trance and dropped to the ground.

He scrambled over to the battered group, all hunkered down behind the car. "Why in God's name," he grunted to Papa, "is it your family that always causes trouble?"

Floyd stuck his pistol over the top of the car and blindly fired off a few shots. "We're trying our best," he grunted, bringing the gun down and reloading. "It's just that nothing ever seems to go our way."

William's sighed and began loading his own weapon. "Care to tell me why you're being shot at?"

"Now's not a good time." Papa winced as a shot struck the dirt next to his foot and began frantically patting his pants' pockets. "Smith, you know where I put my extra ammo?"