A Dark Autumn by Kristopher Rufty

throat. Inside her throat something imploded.
    Then she couldn’t breathe.

Chapter Seventeen
    Michelle’s attention was focused on Helen when Ricky kicked Lucy, catching them all by surprise. She’d doubted he would have ever recovered from this, and definitely hadn’t expected him to fight back. He seemed like too timid of a guy, someone who avoided confrontations. She guessed anyone in his situation probably came to a split in the road where they could go in either direction, and Ricky chose to retaliate.
    Lucy took the brunt of the kick on her throat. She fell backwards, her legs shooting upward as she rolled onto her stomach. When she sat up, her hands were slapping at her throat, her eyes wide as golf balls.  
    Ricky shoved Helen. Her feet tangled together, locking her legs at the knees. There was nothing she could do to keep herself up, and down she went.  
    Amanda screamed, back-stepping as Ricky approached. She wasn’t fast enough, obviously from how sore she was. He backhanded her. The slap was louder than her screams. She landed on her knees and then was kicked.  
    Michelle had to do something. Had to stop him. She looked around. There weren’t any weapons, nothing that was powerful enough. And she definitely wasn’t strong enough to take him on by hand.  
    Hugging her stomach, Amanda groaned behind her sobs. Ricky planted another solid kick between her breasts. She made a horrible rasp as the air blasted from her lungs.  
    Michelle continued to look for something to stop him with. There was nothing. She considered running into the woods, breaking a branch from one of the trees, but she was naked and dreaded going out there without any clothes on. Her head whisked this way and that until her eyes spotted something.
    Rocks.
    There was a circle around the campfire of bludgeoning weapons. Why hadn’t she thought of them sooner?  
    She broke for them, dropped to her knees and curved her hands around the closest one while heavy slapping sounds and Amanda’s cries resonated from behind her. Michelle’s skin sizzled when it touched the rock. It burned. But she didn’t let it stop her. She heaved it up. Carrying the rock with both hands, she charged over to Ricky as he was raising his leg to what looked like stomp on Amanda’s head.
    Then she revved her arms back and brought it down.
    Ricky was a foot taller than Michelle, but the rock connected with the back of his skull making a wet cracking sound. His head knocked forward, then his body followed. He turned a half circle and fell. He landed on the campfire. Cherry red ashes sprayed out from under him as he quickly rolled off and onto ground, where he remained motionless. His clothes were patched with charred areas, fuming smoke from the black grunge.
    Michelle dropped the rock.  
    As she allowed her breath to steady, Helen’s screams faded through. Michelle forced herself to look away from Ricky’s cataleptic form. To the right of her, Helen was squatting beside Lucy who sat with her back against a tree. She was grabbing at Helen’s shoulders, making the most frantic and disturbing asthmatic gulps she’d ever heard.  
    Michelle quickly went to them, careful not to step on any of the hot ashes that had peppered the ground. She hoped another fire wouldn’t start, because they had no way of putting it out if one did. As she neared Lucy, she saw why she’d been making such horrible sounds.  
    The front of her throat was dented inward. Her neck was bruised in a booted footprint pattern, and her face was dark blue. The color of her eyes was drowning in the bulging whites.  
    Michelle gasped. She grabbed her own throat in response.  
    Helen’s eyes were raining. Fresh beads of tears clung to her jawbone. “She’s fucking suffocating!”
    “What should we do?” cried Michelle.
    Lucy tried to answer, but only produced wet shrieks that sounded as if they were coming through a distorted speaker. Her arms had lost their frenzied lilt, and when she