Free To Make Death Love Us by Sovereign Falconer Page B

one.
    To escape the final
black oblivion of death.
    Such glory they had
in this loving, this shared dream.
    The Strong Man
moved, his elbow smashing heavily into the door panel, forgetting for the moment his great
strength. The truck shook with the sound of metal strain­ing against metal. The truck quivered
like some great wounded beast in its death throes. The dream deserted them like a light going
out.
    Pepino, the dark
sentimentalist, stared in agony at the floor. "We must ... I feel a new life within our grasp. We
..." The import of the great dream still overwhelmed him.
    They were all other
than they had been. Serena's pale hand sought and found Colonel John's shoulder. She touched him gently. Her unseeing eyes were on
the midget, who was tense, almost in a benumbed state, a kind of awe at the awful power he now
felt thrust upon him.
    Serena met Colonel
John's eyes. "I'm sure, if we wish it, we can all go to a new life, we can find a way out of
here."
    The midget licked
his lips. He shrugged his shoulders, as if dropping a burden. "I'm sure of it," he told her,
telling all of them. "Now that I know the way. We will go!"
    The colonel squared
his shoulders.
    "Touch the window
again, Serena," he said, his voice booming authoritatively in the darkened van.
    She did so, tapping
lightly on the pane.
    Will cried out,
"Don't! Be Still! Don't you dare move back there."
    Colonel John
laughed. "If that's the strategy of it, we might as well say the Requiem Mass right now because
the rain will soon wash us away."
    "Wait!" Will Carney
was close to panic.
    "What are you
planning to do?" asked Pepino.
    "We've got to break
through the window," said Colonel John.
    "No!" That was
Will.
    "Nevertheless,"
said Colonel John. "Will, find me some­thing to hammer at the window with, something Marco can
use to batter at the glass with."
    Will, never strong,
gave in. He looked at the opened glove compartment. He reached over and tapped Marco on the
shoulder. Marco opened his eyes, sighing with pain. Will gestured toward the screwdriver, then
panto­mimed a smashing action with his hand toward the win­dow behind his head. Marco nodded that
he understood and then reached forward. The screwdriver was hardly suitable. Still, it was the
nearest thing to a bludgeon they had. His arms were getting stiff. He tried to raise his
arm, to swing the screwdriver back at
the window, but he was unable to move. The pain was terrible.
    He handed the
screwdriver over to Will.
    "Can Marco smash
out the window?"
    Will held the
screwdriver tightly in his hand, his sweat making the wooden grip clammy. "Marco can't lift his
arms. He's been shot."
    The group in the
back of the truck was stunned. They had not known, except for Serena. Serena had felt the gunshot
wound as deeply as if she herself had been shot.
    "How bad is it?"
cried Colonel John.
    "It's bad," said
Will.
    "Is it . . . ? Does
he ... ?"
    "You ask me, I
think he's dying," said Will. "There's a lot of blood. The poor devil's had it, I'm
afraid."
    Colonel John's head
sank on his chest, his eyes closing and unclosing, a single tear edging his eye. Paulette, still
weeping softly in the dark, wept anew, a little this time for friend Marco. Only Pepino seemed
unmoved but that was only an appearance.
    "Can you do it,
then, Will?" asked Colonel John, and his voice cracked with sudden emotion.
    Settling himself
for the effort, Will tried to turn in the seat. The axle beneath them set up a slender rasp, as
if shifting, and Will froze in place.
    He was paralyzed,
unable to think how to move or act. Serena felt this in Will and quickly, in a swiftly thought
dream, tried to image for him what he himself was too frightened to see.
    His fear was so
great, and his mind, as always, so hard to reach, behind that ever-shifting mask of lies and
illusion, that little of what she thought at him seeped through to him. But a little did, enough
at any rate, that he lifted his