by Jay Nichols
* * *
"You heard him, we’re turning around."
Ronny began complaining instantly. "He ain’t even sheriff anymore. He can’t be tellin’ us what to do."
"I know, I know—this is crazy, and we’ll probably get fired for it, but I think we should go back and get the kid. If Price says—"
"’If Price says, if Price says,’" Ronny mocked. "They need us here."
Ernie snorted. "There ain’t nothin’ we can do to help and you know it. You see that fire? Shit, at this point it’s every man for himself."
"That’s a great thing for a cop to say. Maybe you can tell the captain that while you’re begging for your job tomorrow. ‘It was mass chaos, sir. There was nothing we coulda done.’"
"Blow it out yer hole, Ronny. I’m getting that kid. If you don’t want to come, you’re more than welcome to get out and walk."
Ernie slowed the squad car, turned to his partner and said, "You gotta take off your seatbelt to get out of the car, Ron."
Owens looked out his window at a panicked pedestrian running in their direction. When the bald, shirtless man reached the cruiser and slammed his palm against the windshield, Ronny, in response, could only shrug and make wild shooing away gestures with his hands.
Ronny said to Ernie, after successfully ditching the man, "Go! Before they wise up and start evacuating. In twenty minutes, this whole town’s gonna be one gigantic traffic snarl. Go. Go!"
"That’s what I thought," Ernie said, eyeballing his partner sourly. He brought the car around and plunged it down a lamplit street, the orange glow in the rearview mirror receding like a desert sunset.