Page 130 of Last Light

I cover his bullet wound with both my hands. It’s not really in his chest. It’s closer to his shoulder. But there’s so much blood. All over. “Travis. Please, Travis.”

He doesn’t answer. His eyes close. He’s not moving at all.

I hear voices approaching. Calling out for us. Folks at the hotel must have heard the gunshots and are coming to help.

It’s too late now. It doesn’t matter.

I’m not sure anything can matter after this.

Travis isn’t moving.

Nothing that’s ever happened to me has hurt as bad as this does. I thought I couldn’t cry over people anymore. I thought the worst had already happened to me, but I’ve only now reached the thud at the end of the fall.

This is it for me. At last. The end of the world.

I keep trying to hold back Travis’s bleeding with my hands.

And I cry.

Twelve

IT’S AFTERWARD THATtime speeds up. That events blur. That I can barely process what’s occurring.

Mack and some others from the caravan show up. A couple of them stay to deal with the two dead bodies and the wounded man while the rest get Travis back to the hotel.

There’s a doctor there they summon. He was an ob-gyn in his former life, but he’s all we have right now.

Travis isn’t dead, but he’s also not conscious.

They won’t let me stay in the room as they tend to him. I don’t want to leave, so they actually push me out.

I sit with the dog on the concrete floor outside the hotel room, and I wait.

I don’t know what’s happening in the room. People try to talk to me—Anna, Mack, even Cheryl—but I’m not capable of having a real conversation.

I have no idea how long I sit there, hugging the dog and praying, until Mack steps out of the room and says, “You better come on in.”

---