Green Desert - Chapter 7.4.3 - Zhíno

“Get up, Zhudıro.” A shoeless foot nudged my ribs. “Get up or I shoot you now.”

I pushed my battered body to my hands and knees. I looked up. Shit. Gogzhuè’s flunkies. “I can get you the guns. I know where they are.”

Up above, the patrolmen had stopped shooting.

The sock-footed flunky cocked his gun, a slow clicking that echoed in the still woods. “Where?”

“In my trunk. My car’s in the Kılímo’s garage.”

“Guess again, bastard. Wrong on both.” He breathed hard. “Don’t fuck with me. Where are––”

Shots fired and the flunky grunted. His gun flashed bright in my face, exploding in my ears. I rolled to the ground in deafening silence, kept moving in the dark. The cops shot straight down at me, an easy target, my naked hide plain as day against the dark bushes and grass. I scrambled forward, changing direction, crashed into a tree, ducked behind it. Momentarily safe.

Shouting. Gunfire. My head throbbed. My elbows ached. My feet and knees cried in pain. Movement off to my right. The flunky hiding behind a boulder, shooting up at the patrolmen. Another body prone beside him, still out in the open, as good as dead. Shots rained down at all of us.

“Give me his gun!”

The living flunky glanced over at me. Other people were shouting, too.

“Give me his gun! You need all the help you can get.”