Free The End Games by T. Michael Martin

gained .
    “Michael, I want Mommy. I w-w-want her a l-l-l-little.”
    No, Bub, you want her a lot, and you want her now. And guess what? I do, too. And
     now you’re going to start screaming, and I can’t give you a pill to calm you down
     right now, so this is what is called The End—
    Michael, desperate, blurted: “Let’s go talk to the soldiers!”
    Patrick blinked: What the?!
    “Yeah, Bub, we’ll tell on the cheaters—I saw soldiers last night, I wanted to surprise
     you—they’re with the Game Master— maybe we’ll even get enough extra points and finish tonight .”
    And how are you going to do that? Michael thought. How are you going to “meet the Game Master”?
    Shut up! I’ll figure it out. I. Will. Eventually. Soon. Figure. That. Shit. Out.
    “Are they close?” Patrick said, voice shaky.
    “They’re super close, next door basically, it’ll just take a couple minutes, okay?”
    Nothing. Quiet.
    “Oka—?”
    “. . . Is that a good-guy sign . . . ?” Patrick whispered.
    Michael turned his head just in time to see the sign zip past: a sign shaped like
     a badge, attached to a metal pole.
    That, he thought, is an interstate sign .
    His entire brain exploded.
    Three weeks.
    Three weeks.
    Three weeks.
    Three weeks they’d traveled on the pitted back roads, searching for an interstate
     entrance. Three weeks in the gray nether-zones of his useless map. Three weeks in
     the mountains, and they’d only seen one entrance, and that on-ramp had been clustered
     with empty cars, with razor wire strung across the road.
    The only thing on this on-ramp was moon-bright snow.
     
    Breathe.
     
    He turned onto the ramp.
     
    Uuuuuuupppp , it felt like; uuuupppppp the incline of the ramp, the spectacular fantastic incredible on-ramp, yes-yes , zooming as if for a takeoff, gliding with it now .
    Snow cometed into the car, but that was nothing, because he could look out and see
     the whole night in between those white streaks. He fit into the moment. The world
     slid into clarity around him. He struck a patch of black ice and instantly corrected
     the car’s shimmy with a flick of the wheel.
    The maniacs chasing him didn’t understand: Michael was used to being chased. He’d
     been outmaneuvering danger a lot longer than just since October 31.
    “Bub,” he said, smiling, “I need your help. I need you to be a shooter. I need you
     to be, basically, Buzz Lightyear.”
    “Huh?” said Patrick.
    Michael passed the flashlight and the orange toy gun he’d gotten from the office over
     his shoulder, just something to occupy Patrick until they got away.
    “It’s your weapon, buddy. If you see any Bellows, zap ’em with the light.”
    Patrick took his hand away from his mouth, hesitating. He gulped. “Can I be Woody
     instead?”
    And Patrick, yes-yes , took the light and gun. And satisfaction and relief blossomed in Michael as Patrick
     stepped back, at least for a second, from the ledge inside himself that wanted to
     swallow him whole.
    They reached the interstate’s even plain. Cars and big rigs clogged the two-lane,
     cast ascatter like spilled toys.
    Creatures within the big rigs’ cargo hulls screamed.
    Cargo hulls’ doors roared open to the new nightfall.
    Michael did not breathe and his blood soared through him, and he seamlessly slalomed
     the Volvo through the just-wide-enough gaps between wrecks.
    But you can’t outrun Rulon’s maniacs here, Michael saw—not thought, but imaged. Gun to heart or pedal to floor: that was how it always worked. A plan, fully formed,
     flashbulbed in his mind, and its brilliant light seemed to transform the world around
     him into something like a high-definition video-game screen shot, an impromptu tutorial,
     with arrows and highlights and clues indicating what path to take.
    Too many cars, Michael saw.
    So, you stop your car.
    And hide from the maniacs, in the woods past the interstate guardrail. Climb up a
     tree and wait it out. Then come back to the