Read PANIC for Free Online Page A

this human zoo will degenerate into slaves and beasts of burden again; hew up the dead earth and push it into mounds to honor the future resting place of the last man standing.
    He cries out, weakly, breath rattling in his chest as he lays on his back.
    “You don’t deserve her,” he wheezed.
    “What’d you say, motherfucker?”
    “Tell him. Tell him I’m not sorry for looking.”
    The boy laughed, long and loud, and she covered her mouth, like they shared a private joke. Her eerie presence made it like a dream, she was a princess, a priestess; watching a heart-cutting ceremony. He lay altared on the earth, exalting the boy with his sacrifice.
    He wished he hadn’t. He wished he died choking on hope.
    “Her, you little bastard. Your girl. Let her go free.”
    The raging fire cast warm, flickering light on her face and he thought he saw her brown skin flush. It ought to have been a candle bathing her features.
    He fought to get his second wind, to get his hope back. He’d bury them all and take her off with him and give her a life she deserved.
    It had been ten years since he held a woman close to himself, that he felt that sweet feeling. He lay there, choking on smoke, watching his whole life fed into flames and he knew his heart burned brighter than that.
    All he had to do was get to his feet.
    The boy had to relish it again.
    “My girl? You stupid motherfucker, she’s my sister. You think I give a fuck who she wants to screw? She’s bad, man, she’s a killer. She can take care of herself.”
    Luis tried to right himself, to leap to his feet and tackle the boy and beat his fists into his face until he lay still. His body convulsed instead and ash shook from him.
    “Shoulda asked her to fuck, man. Her business.”
    “Shoulda asked,” she echoed, and her wide smile made him die. The kid with the throat injury rasped out a laugh, too.
    “Nah, that wasn’t it at all,” he said, kneeling down. “Look at that. You see that?”
    He could see the glossy white shoe with a nice, muddy smudge on it and it didn’t look like it would buff out. Luis’ arms were too stiff to shoot up for the boy’s throat and take him to hell, so he crouched there, taunting.
    “You stepped on my shoe and didn’t have the common fuckin’ courtesy to say excuse me.”
    The veteran laughed, too, rattling his body into shivers. It hurt to move his exhausted body, hurt doubly to laugh.
    “-this over nothing,” he rasped.
    “Yeah, I know. It’s a bitch, right? People these days got no respect for their neighbors.”
    He removed the gun from his belt and toyed with it for a bit before aiming at Luis, helpless like a turtle on his back. The shock left his body frozen in torturous pain.
    “Nah, you know what? She can do you. C’mere, Dani.”
    Daniela , he fantasized. Danica . His laughter came in insane peals, the only response was that dog in the distance again and the keening sound of the fire, like a rushing river. Their dirty faces looked down on him, rubbed with soot, solemnly watching.
    She did that piggyback thing again, just like a damn kid sister. He still was wheezing with laughter at himself, so stupid, blind, lonely, old, slow, poor, worthless.
    She fired by mistake and it slammed through his jaw and ripped open the artery in his neck, spurting blood like a garden mister. The red particles spritzed them, his hot blood a refreshing digestif following their destruction and carnage. He whined and gurgled, holding the note because his stiff hands couldn’t plug the wound and show he had fight left in him.
    “Finger off the trigger until you’re ready to fire,” said the boy, thoughtfully. She nodded, taking his instruction.
    “Relax,” he said to her, and she balanced herself on his shoulders, steadying the gun. Luis could see her cute nostrils flaring as she aimed the gun between his eyes, banking on the perfect shot.
    “Breathe in,” he said.
    His blood was smeared all over her lips and on her tongue, the bright