"So, Miss Cleo," Julie said, turning to Benny, "where am I gonna be shot next?" She pointed to her left shoulder, and mouthed the words, 'my shoulder,' secretively. Benny was puzzled, but when Julie's fierce, expressive blue eyes deliberately darted around the surrounding desert and then focused back on Benny, he began to understand. Julie suspected the shooter could hear them, and he was placing his shots precisely where Benny predicted he would. It was a solid hypothesis, and Benny decided to play along.

"I'll say... your left shoulder."

"Ok, I'll still say my tummy," Julie answered with a wan smile.

"Ok, if I'm right, I want a kiss... On the mouth... With tongue."

Julie's eyes widened. "Ooh, raising the stakes, are you? Alright, you're on, but if I'm right I want a hundred buckeroos." They shook hands, and continued walking down the road.

"What about me?" Mark asked.

"You want a kiss too, or you still just want to see my tits?"

"I just want to see 'dem titties. I'm going to keep calling that right tit. Sooner or later he... or she is going to pop one in it. I can feel it."

Julie nodded grimly and shook hands with Mark, and Benny thought he could read her thoughts. She was wondering if the shooter might decide it was time to make Mark the winner instead of Benny. A shot in the tit might very well be the end of her. Her right hand was pressed firmly against the hole in her belly, which was bleeding more profusely than her other wounds, and her left held tight to the hole in her side. The streaks of blood stood out in bright red on her clean white outfit, and Benny was amazed by how much of it she had already spilled.

They walked for a bit in silence, and Benny continued to snap photos of Julie, no longer concerned that she might know what he was doing. She would occasionally look at him judgmentally, but she said nothing. He supposed her reasoning was the same as when Mark asked to see the pictures of her bare breasts - she might not have liked it, but she had to pick her battles at this point. It was interesting to watch her expressions vary from stoic determination to stark, unbridled terror, and he wanted to capture it all. It would be intriguing to go back through the pic's later and try to guess what she was thinking at each moment. Mark and Beth appeared to share in his curiosity, and they also could not take their eyes off the dying girl. Jeremy continued to scour the desert for the shooter, but Benny thought that was a lost cause.

After several minutes of awkward silence, Julie spit up a mouthful of blood. A bit of it clung to her soft lower lip and dribbled down her chin, and she noticed everybody staring at her. "I guess that bullet in my side ripped a hole in my stomach," she said with a wavering, high-pitched voice. "Don't worry, I'll be fine," she added. Then, looking at Benny, she smiled, showing off her blood-stained but otherwise perfect teeth. "Are you still gonna wanna kiss me?" When neither Benny or anyone else responded, she said, "Somebody fucking talk or something."

Benny no longer wanted to kiss her, although he still found her incredibly attractive, and he didn't know how to tell her this, so instead he asked, "What do you want to talk about?"

"Fucking anything, this silence is making me crazy."

"Alright, well, I've been wondering. What's going through your head right now? I mean, you've been shot seven times and you're basically just waiting to get shot again. How the fuck are you dealing with that?"

"It's nerve-wracking, to be honest. It's kind of why I wanted to talk. I need a distraction. Of course you chose to talk about the thing I want a distraction from, so..."

"Shit, my bad, but you did say 'anything'."

"No, my fault, you're right. I should have been more specific. Can we talk about something else, though? Anything else?"

"Who's your crush? Who do you flick your bean to?" Mark asked. "You didn't want to answer earlier."

Julie sighed. "Alright, fuck it. I like Kyle. Also, ironically, I'm into peril, so, like, this whole scenario, I might have found erotic as a fantasy, except instead of me being shot a bunch of times Kyle would save me. Then we'd fuck or something kinky." She looked around at her audience and grimaced. "So, who's next? Benny, what's your fantasy?"

Again, the fact that Julie was dying somehow made it much easier to share, so he did. "Well, I guess it's no secret that I like you."

"Duh," Julie said, with a pained smile.

"I've imagined saving your life too. You might be kidnapped by terrorists or drug dealers, and I rescue you and we kiss. I've imagined doing you in the ass before."

Amazingly, Julie didn't seem to mind. "Well, you know, it's not too late to save my life. I might even let you do me in the ass. Find this shooter before... uhhnnn." Her spectacularly blue eyes went wider than Benny had ever seen them as she was interrupted by a hole in the dead center of her right breast, followed promptly by the sound of a gunshot. Julie wobbled slightly and then fell on her perfect butt. A wheezing cough brought more blood to her lips, and she struggled to remain upright. After a few seconds of watching her squirm, Benny offered her his hand, and she took it and somehow managed to get back on her feet. "Goddammit Mark, I guess you called it this time," then to Beth she said, "How many is that now, eight?" Her voice was weak and raspy, and Benny knew she had a punctured lung. "Jeremy, I think I need another bump."

Jeremy handed her the bullet without a word, although Beth admonished him for it, "You're wasting your coke on a dead girl."

Julie ignored her and took two deep snorts, then offered the bullet back to Jeremy. Jeremy waved his hand and told her to, "Keep it," despite Beth's glaring look.

"Thanks," Julie muttered, stuffing it in the front pocket of her jeans. Then she wiggled her nose, sniffled a few times, and turned to Mark. "Alright, you bastard. Are you ready?"

"Hell yeah." Julie moved slowly, clearly weakened and in a tremendous amount of agony, but she managed to lift her vest and her bra, exposing her pert young bosom to Mark. "Damn," Mark yapped. "He shot you in the nipple. That's fucking crazy." Benny positioned himself so he could share in the view, and he even took his phone out to capture more video. He was filming when Julie caught her ninth bullet, less than a centimeter to the upper left of her navel.

"Ooof," Julie grunted, her vest still lifted up around her neck.

"Oh shit," Mark shouted excitedly. "Did you fucking see that shit? There's that second gut shot you kept expecting." He reached out and squeezed her still-in-tact left breast before Julie slapped his hand away.

"That's assault, you asshole," she cried.

"What do you care? You're dying," Mark argued as Julie lowered her vest and covered herself back up.

"Thank you," Beth said, "Finally. Can we all just acknowledge that she's dying now and move on? We need to distance ourselves from her before it's too late."

"Dude, she might be dying but she's a fucking bullet sponge. I think we're better off with her around," Mark disagreed.

"I can fucking hear you guys," Julie complained, just before she was shot in the left shoulder. The bullet tore clean through her, the only shot so far to do so, and a spurt of blood spattered her left cheek. "Jesus," she stammered, "Okay, so whoever's doing this can clearly hear us too. He just shot me in all three spots we predicted."

"Everybody be quiet," Jeremy ordered, his eyes fixed on something up ahead, his rifle raised.

"Do you see him?" Julie asked, her voice almost giddy with hope.

Jeremy shushed her, then lowered his rifle and shook his head. "Can you still walk?"

Julie nodded, and started down the road to prove it.

"As long as she's on her feet, we're not leaving her behind," Jeremy said sternly, and fell in behind Julie.

Julie looked at Beth and stuck out her tongue. "Ten now, right? I guess the question now is... how many shots can I take before I go down? Maybe he'll run out of ammo." Julie chuckled a little and spit up more blood. Then, in a much less cheery tone, she murmured, "Fuck, I really don't want to die."

"You are dying though. If you're too stubborn to accept it and stay behind, at least do us all a favor and pick up the pace," Beth said.

"Do you ever get tired of being a colossal cunt?" Julie asked. "Jeremy, seriously, what do you see in this bitch?"

"I love her," Jeremy answered plainly.

"I guess love is blind," Julie mumbled.

Beth rolled her eyes and started walking more quickly, taking the vanguard from Julie. As they went forward it was Beth leading them, with the trio of boys in the middle of the party, and Julie limping along bringing up the rear. Benny continued turning back, snapping more photos and making sure they didn't leave Julie too far in their wake. It made conversation impossible, so they did nothing but walk for nearly five minutes, until Beth had put around fifty yards between herself and the badly flagging Julie.

"Jeremy, we're losing her," Benny said, worried that he might soon have to choose between sticking with his healthy companions or his dying dream girl.

"Beth, slow down a little," Jeremy called.

"Why don't you tell her to speed up a little?" Beth asked, but she did relent just enough so the gap between them was no longer widening, and Benny slipped back to be alongside Julie.

"How are you doing?" he asked.

"Lovely," Julie whispered, severely winded. Her breath came in harsh, wheezing gasps, and her right leg was stiff and wooden. Her lower lip trembled and her chin quivered, and both were red with the blood that spilled from her mouth. "I don't suppose you could carry me?" She giggled faintly to show it was a joke.

"How much longer do you think you can keep this up?"

"Shit, I can do this all day. You aren't getting rid of me." She smiled at him, but her eyebrows arched and he could see the misery and torment in her eyes, and he knew not even she believed it. The shooter chose that moment to plug her for the eleventh time, targeting the right side of her lower back. The lead hit her with a dull thud as Julie grunted softly, "Ooof," and the sound of the rifle cascaded through the desert. She wavered ever so slightly, then continued resolutely forward. "I'm okay," she said, just before another shot hit home in the left side of her upper back. "Hmmmph," she squealed, and Benny heard those familiar sounds again - the thwak of the bullet against her nubile young flesh, and the boom of the gunshot.

This brought a jagged cough and a spray of blood from Julie's mouth, and she stumbled to her knees. Her perfect, lush lips formed a wide O, and Benny's warped mind couldn't help but wonder if those lips might have reacted similarly during an orgasm. After only a second or two, Julie was already fighting to get back on her feet. "Help me up," she panted, and Benny obeyed. He could not believe she was still able to stand, much less continue to walk, but she did just that. He noted that Jeremy had stopped and was looking back behind them, still searching relentlessly for Julie's killer. Julie, meanwhile, fished out the cocaine from her pocket and took a couple more snorts.

"I think he just got my other lung," she huffed. "I wonder how long I can breathe with two punctured lungs?"

"Probably not very long," Benny said tentatively.

"Yeah, you're probably right. Remind me never to go on another camping trip," she said, managing another burst of laughter that quickly tapered off into a coughing bout, bringing more blood to her lips. Once her fit was under control, she called ahead to their companions, "I'm coming, don't worry, I'm gonna make it," and she soldiered on, with wounds that should have left her down for the count, and Benny found an even greater admiration for her. She was not only the most beautiful, sexy, charming, witty girl alive, she was also beyond any doubt the toughest. Of course she wouldn't be alive very much longer, no matter how determined she was to fight it.

"So talk to me, Benny. How long have you had a crush on me?"

"Sixth grade, I guess."

"Yeah, I lost a lot of weight then. I was a bit of a porker before that. How come you never asked me out?"

"Come on. You're out of my league. You never would have said yes."

"How do you know I wouldn't have said yes?"

Benny laughed. "Because you're not blind?"

"You're too hard on yourself. We need to work on your self confidence when we get home." Julie paused, as if she was daring Benny to tell her she wasn't going to make it home. Perhaps she wanted him to, so she'd have one more reason to persevere, but Benny stayed his tongue. "Tell me about these fantasies. Tell me about how you saved me from terrorists."

"Well, sometimes I imagine that our school is taken hostage. Like a swarm of guys with guns come in and they're holding us all at gunpoint, and they start executing people."

"Do they execute Mark?" Julie smirked.

"Sure, maybe they do, I dunno."

"I like this story already."

"Yeah, well, anyway, I manage to catch one of the guys off guard and take his gun, and I blast everybody in my class."

"So you're a mass murderer in your fantasies?" Julie cocked an eyebrow.

"Not everybody. You know what I mean, all the terrorists." Julie sniggered at him, and again he was amazed at how buoyant her quick wit and good cheer still remained. "But you're not in my class."

"Good thing, 'cuz you just blasted everybody in your class."

"Shut the fuck up," Benny said, laughing. "Anyway, I run into the hallway, like, 'I have to find Julie,' you know, and I know what class you're in, because it's a fantasy or whatever, not because I'm a stalker or anything."

"You're totally a stalker. You've been taking pictures of me almost non-stop for the past half hour." Benny froze for just a moment before Julie laughed and coughed up more blood. "Relax, I'm fucking with you. Keep going. I'm digging this."

"You doing okay?" Benny asked.

"I'm doing great."

"I can delete the pictures if you want."

"Dude, I'm over it. Self confidence, remember."

"Do you mind if I take some more?"

"Sure, whatever. It's a little weird, but whatever." Benny took out his phone and snapped a few shots, and Julie raised her eyebrows inquisitively. "No time like the present, huh?" She bit her lower lip, and Benny memorialized it, then she licked the blood off her teeth and Benny memorialized that too. "You think you can continue this story now?"

"Yeah, sure, sorry." Benny put his phone away. "So I run into your classroom and they've got you up against the wall. Your hands are behind your head and you're wearing something like what you have on now, so I can see your belly. I think you have the sexiest belly."

"Thanks. It's gonna have some nasty scars on it now, though."

"I still think it's sexy." Benny realized a little slowly that for her belly to scar, first it would have to heal. "You really think you're going to make it out of this?"

"I have to. Death isn't an option, is it? Dying? Can you even imagine?" Another wheezing cough left her spitting up more blood, and her pearly white teeth were stained red again. "Life is too much fun."

"Julie."

"I'm good. I'm fine. I'm gonna make it."

"Julie, we're falling behind. Can you walk any faster?"

"I'm just giving them a little bit of a head start before I show off my closing speed." Julie winked and grinned and caught her thirteenth bullet of the day. It slammed into her gut, erasing her smirk and replacing it with a stunned, horrified expression, and a new hole opened in her denim vest a couple inches below her ribs and to the left of her middle. Julie pressed her palm against the latest wound, then looked at Benny. "Another scar for my sexy belly," she told him, her voice small and full of trepidation. As was the case with the last few rounds, the shooter followed one shot up with another in quick succession, catching Julie in her left thigh.

The poor teen sunk to her knees, both her legs now wounded, and she looked up at Benny with desperate, pleading eyes. "I can still walk," she blabbed. "Help me up." Benny reached down with both hands and again helped her rise to her feet. It was much more of a struggle this time, and in the end Julie draped her right arm around Benny's shoulders, leaning on him for support. "I can walk," she called ahead to Jeremy, who was now more than thirty yards away, and Beth was perhaps another forty yards beyond him. "I can walk," she repeated to Benny, her gorgeous face a mask of dread. "Don't leave me behind, I can walk."

"Can you?" Benny asked, taking Julie's arm off his shoulder and stepping away. He still did not trust the marksmanship of Julie's shooter enough to walk with her arm around him, but Julie surprised him yet again. She took one shaky step forward, then another, and she smiled nervously.

"I'm okay," she called ahead to Jeremy, her voice little more than a whisper, but Benny could see that Jeremy was no longer able to corral Beth. She was moving forward at too brisk a pace, now nearly a hundred yards ahead, and Jeremy would choose his fiancé over his newly acquired acquaintances, and Mark would follow. They were already fifty yards from Jeremy's position; certainly out of earshot of Julie's assertion that she was okay.

Julie pretended not to notice, however. She took another sniff off Jeremy's coke bullet and kept taking her shaky steps forward. "You come in and I'm up against the wall and you can see my belly. What happens next?"

"Well, you're about to be killed. They've got their guns pointed at you and they're just about to shoot you when I come in, and everybody turns towards me. They open fire and I dive to the side like an action star, dodging bullets like a badass and returning fire. I take out three of them like nothing, bam bam bam."

"Oooo, Benny the badass." Julie giggled, which again resulted in her coughing up blood, but she didn't seem to care. "I like it."

Benny wondered about her sanity, but continued his tale. "So now there's three of them left, and they scatter. I'm behind a desk, taking cover, bullets flying at me from all directions. I pop out and take out another of them, then another. There's one left, and he grabs you. He's holding you out in front of him, a gun in your back. He yells at me to drop my weapon. What can I do?"

"What can you do?" Julie agreed, watching him with wide-eyed attentiveness, still taking her wobbly steps down the road.

"I can't risk losing you, so I lower my weapon. I put the gun on the floor, and this asshole smiles at me. He pushes you aside and shoots at me, but I drop, pick up my gun and roll under his shot, then pop him right between the eyes. Bam."

"Nice."

"Yeah, it's nice. Then I take you in my arms. You're so grateful that I saved your life, and we kiss."

"So when do you do me in the ass?"

"That's a different fantasy."

"Yeah, I bet it is."

Benny looked ahead and saw Mark and Jeremy were almost around a bend, out of sight, and Beth was nowhere to be seen. "I think our friends have left us."

"Fuck 'em. It's you and moooooof." A bullet smacked her squarely in the midsection, two inches below her sternum and just right of center. "Uuuhhnnn, that fucking hurts. Fifteen. I think that's fif-fucking-teen." Shot number sixteen clipped her in the left hip, and Julie dropped to her knees again. "Aaakk! Suh. Sixteen?" Julie was trying to get back to her feet when she was shot for the seventeenth time. The bullet drilled her beneath her right collar bone, and she rocked back on her haunches, steadying herself by planting her right arm on the ground. Seconds later a shot punched through her right bicep, and Julie collapsed in the dirt. "Oh. Oh my God. Help me up. I've gotta get up."

"I think the shooter is becoming less cautious now that our firepower left us," Benny told her, watching her squirm on the ground.

"You're not gonna leave me too, are you?" She was trying her best to sound indifferent, but Benny could hear the panic in her voice.

He knew he should run away. It was madness to hang behind. She was lost, and sticking with her only put a target on his back, but he couldn't bring himself to ditch her. “No, Julie.” He squatted next to her and put her right arm around his shoulder. “I’m not.” Julie looked almost ecstatic with relief even as she grunted and grimaced trying to rise off the ground.

This time Benny let her keep her arm around him after he helped her up. “Thank you, Benny. You’re the best.”

“I think I love you, Julie,” Benny said, shocking himself with his own words.

“You picked a hell of a time to spring that on me, Romeo.” Julie chuckled. “But I’ll tell you what, when we get home, and I make my recovery, we’ll go on a date. I promise.”

“It’s a deal,” Benny agreed, knowing it was bullshit.

“So... Eighteen bullet holes in me now. Do you think he’s running out of lead yet?”

"I wouldn't count on it. You running out of steam yet?"

"I told you. I can do this all day." Julie puckered her lips and blew Benny a kiss, and he felt his head swim.

"You're amazing, Julie." He took a step forward and she matched it, and with that they continued down the road, this time with Julie leaning on him for support.

It felt good to have her depending on him, needing him, and who knew - she was turning out to be so astoundingly strong, maybe she would survive after all. If she somehow pulled that off, she would be forever in his debt, which was a very appealing concept.

"I'm almost afraid to ask this, but..." Julie paused, and Benny looked at her quizzically. "Well, aren't you afraid this fucker will shoot at you for helping me?"

"I mean, a little, yeah." He was worried what would happen if Julie went down for good, but he no longer doubted the shooter's marksmanship. The next bullet would surely find its way into her remarkably resilient body, and as long as she remained standing he expected that would continue to be the case.

"But you're helping me anyway. You're so brave, Benny. I guess it was true. What you said back in the van, about giving your life for others."

That made Benny feel ten feet tall. "I did mean it," he told her, still not sure he really did. "But it's easier to do it for you. I mean, you're incredible. I really hope you don't die."

Julie smirked. "Yeah, I really hope I don't die too. So you wanna keep things interesting? Where do you think he'll shoot me next?"

Benny gave it some thought. “You think he’s still listening to us?”

Julie shrugged. “Maybe he is, but I don’t think it matters much either way. If we both predict he’ll wing me, I’m not sure he’ll do it. I think he was just having a laugh earlier.”

“Well, I’m not comfortable with that assumption, so I think I’ll say he’ll graze your left arm.”

“That’s sweet of you. I'm gonna go with the more practical choice, and say my belly again.” Julie coughed up some more blood. “It seems to be his favorite target.”

“If I’m right, you have to let me stick it in your ass when we get back home,” Benny said, amazed at his boldness.

Julie’s jaw dropped, but she didn’t appear averse to the proposal. On the contrary, she agreed and shook his hand. “It’s a bet. But if I win, you have to eat my fish taco until I say you’re done.”

“Your... fish taco?” Benny thought he knew what she meant, but he wanted to be sure.

“My coochie, doofus. You have to eat my snatch.”

Benny grinned like an idiot. “Deal,” he said, more eagerly than he’d have liked.

"So what do we talk about now?"

Benny couldn't believe it. He was alone with his dream girl, and they were joking and conversing like lovers. "What are your dreams? What do you want to be when you grow up?"

Julie smiled sadly, and he wondered again how convinced she was that she would live through the evening. "I'm gonna study business." She made a strange slurping sound and licked some of the blood from her lips. "One day I'm gonna be the CEO of a fortune five hundred company."

"That sounds nice."

"Fuck yeah. I'm gonna be the most kick ass boss. Inspire thousands of people." She laughed and coughed and spit up blood. "Just wait'l they hear about the time I got shot all to hell while stranded in the middle of nowhere."

"True. That will be an inspiring story to tell. Everyone will know you're the toughest chick around."

"Goddam right. What about you? What are you gonna do with your life?"

"I'm going to marry you," Benny answered coolly.

"Woah, slow down, lover boy. You save my life and you'll earn yourself a date or two, and we can fool around a bit, but I'm not promising my hand in marriage just yet."

Benny only smiled, not at all discouraged. "You will though. One day. Then you can be my sugar mama."

Julie laughed at that until a gunshot ended her giggles with a soft grunt.

"Where did he get you?" Benny asked.

"Left side of my stomach. Oooh, it really fucking burns. I think that might've got my liver. That's kinda in mmmaaaaahhh!" She squealed mid sentence as another shot rang out. Benny had been leaning over to join Julie in inspecting her latest wound, and they both saw the twentieth bullet rip a hole in her. It slipped between the seventh and eighth ribs on the left side of her body. Another shot quickly followed, wounding Julie's left knee.

Julie stumbled, bringing Benny down with her, and she screamed obscenities, blood flying from her lips. "Fucking fuck! Fuck, that fucking hurts!"

Benny stayed low for a minute, waiting to see if anymore shots would be fired, but aside from Julie’s pained grunting it was quiet. “Can you walk?” he asked her.

“Of course I can.” Julie gritted her teeth as they both struggled to find their footing. There was some whimpering and whining as they took their first few steps, but she gradually fell back into a rhythm.

“How are you even able to bend your knee?”

“Hurts like a motherfucker, but you know, word on the street is I’m the toughest chick around.”

“God damn, Julie. What’s that now, twenty-one?”

Before Julie could answer she was shot in the belly again, this time several inches to the right of her navel. “Twenty-two,” she corrected him, her blue eyes narrowed with grim determination. Benny glanced down and spied the latest hole in her bare flesh - having her arm around him created the unintended benefit of raising her vest high on her breasts and exposing some extra skin on her midriff.

They had paused for only the briefest of moments as Julie absorbed this most recent gut shot, and it was her that took the next step to get them started down the road again.

“So I guess you won the bet,” Benny conceded.

“I guess I did, although I really wish you had won." Benny let himself pretend she said that because she wanted his dick in her ass, and not because she would rather have just been grazed in the arm. "How many bullets do you think he has?”

“Who knows? Thirty? Fifty? A hundred?”

Julie made a pouty face, her eyebrows raised adorably. “A hundred?!”

“You planning on taking them all?”

“If that’s what it takes. I’m not dying out here, Benny. I need you to understand that. You are gonna eat my pussy when we get home.” She said it with such dogged determination that again Benny found himself wondering if she might somehow be right, and the notion gave him flutters in his stomach. Could she really will herself to live, even when there was no reason she should be alive? “You don’t believe me.” It wasn’t a question.

“Sure I do.”

“Bullshit. I’ve seen it all over your face for the past forty-five minutes or whatever. You think I’m dying.”

“I mean... you’ve lost a ton of blood, you have holes in both your lungs, your stomach, your liver, your intestines, maybe a kidney or who knows how many other vital organs, we’re miles from the highway,” he saw the devastation on Julie’s lovely face and decided to change course, "but you’re a bad ass. If anybody can pull this off, you can.”

Julie gave him the most forlorn smile he’d ever seen. “You're fucking terrible at trying to comfort someone, Benito.” Benny had a second or two to feel guilty before Julie was shot again, this time in the lower curve of her left breast. She gurgled on a mouthful of blood, then croaked, "Twenty... three. What’s the... the most times a person’s been shot and still lived?”

“I’m not sure of that either, but I think you’re probably going for a world record here.”

“You think they’ll put me in the Guinness Book of World Records?” Julie smiled and tried to chuckle, but spit up blood instead.

“Yeah, I think they will,” Benny lied. “I did hear a story about a guy who got shot like fifteen times or something and then he walked next door to ask his neighbor for a ride to the hospital.”

“And he lived?” Julie looked desperate for something to cling to.

“Yeah, he did.”

"There you go. You're getting better at the... the whole comforting thing."

Benny didn't exactly see the correlation between a man being shot fifteen times and immediately taken to the hospital and Julie's situation, but he kept that to himself. “Glad I could help.”

“Here’s that bend in the road. Maybe we’ll see Jeremy on the other side.” Benny felt a pang of jealousy, and Julie evidently picked up on it. “Not for his company - you’re doing just fine there,” she smiled encouragingly, then choked and spit red, “but we could use a gun. To keep this fucker at bay.”

“If you want I could run up ahead and ask Mark for his pistol.”

“How do I know you’ll come back?” Julie looked ready to panic.

“Julie, come on.”

“Okay, you’re right. You’ll come back. Let’s just see what we see first. Don’t run off on me yet.”

“You got it.” They rounded the bend and the road straightened out, but Jeremy, Mark, and Beth were nowhere in sight. "Looks like they're moving pretty quickly."

"Maybe they'll have the van ready by the time we get back," Julie tried to look hopeful.

"What if they're gone by the time we get back?"

"Then I'll shake my ass and we'll hitch another ride." She winked at him cutely, then caught another bullet. "Mmmph." Her right arm tightened around Benny's shoulder, and her left hand clutched at her lower left side. They both looked to the desert, searching for the shooter, knowing another shot would likely follow, and while neither of them could spot the fucker, the next shot rang out.

Benny felt the bulk of Julie's weight shift onto his back and shoulder as she struggled to find her balance, but he didn't see where she was struck. "Fucker shot me in the ass again," Julie said breathily, taking away the mystery. It didn't take long for her to regain her footing and relieve the strain on Benny's back.

"So twenty-five now," Benny noted. His sentence was punctuated by yet another gunshot, and Julie gave him a look of consternation.

"Twenty-six."

"Where'd he get you this time?"

"Left side of my ribs, towards the back." Benny stretched his neck to see the new hole amid dozens of other holes, and he felt certain that bullet had damaged some vital internal organs. A kidney maybe, or pancreas. "I'm okay, Benny," Julie assured him. "Let's just keep going."