“Oh shit, oh fuck, oh god, oh no,” Anne muttered, fleeing from the house.
In reality, she shouldn’t have bothered with the muttering, since it was just making her run out of breath quicker. Even without the profanity, everyone in this situation knew that something bad was going on.
“Hey!” Wild Whip bellowed, not so far behind, “Why are you throwing rocks at my window?”
“Science project!” Anne yelled back.
“Bullshit!”
Each time Anne’s foot hit the ground, it would spring right back up. For half a second, she thought about the mechanics of it — the beauty of it. She wanted to crack her own skin and bones to see what’s on the inside.
That’s weird, she thought. Wanting to crack my own legs open is weird. I should apologize. But to who? Wait, these are just my thoughts. There’s no one to apologize to. Fuck the thought police. I should really be focused on the running thing right now.
She darted into the road, completely oblivious of the eighty-six year old driver careening her way. He really had no business driving — his age wouldn’t have been a problem, if it weren’t for the cataracts — but Anne just narrowly avoided the car.
Whip wasn’t so lucky.
While trying to avoid Anne, the shadow of whom he thought he might be able to discern, the old man turned the car so that it flew towards Whip.
“SON of a BITCH!” Whip yelled, jumping so that her legs didn’t get crushed. Her shoulder took most of the impact of the windshield. Glass shattered and she rolled into the car, which then hit the mango tree she had in her front yard.
One of the perfectly ripe mangoes fell off the tree and splattered on the car.
“Go go go go go go go!” Anne yelled, jumping into Shade’s car. Once again, the words were extremely unnecessary. What was Shade gonna do, sit there and wait for the cops?
No. Shade floored it, speeding the fuck out of that neighborhood while Anne struggled to get the rest of the body in the car.
MEGAPULP 