After The Virus by Meghan Ciana Doidge

momentum he couldn’t manage it, so he just hung off her like a tantruming toddler. Rhiannon raised her chain-wrapped arm over Wee Wee’s head; he was now chewing on her leg.
    “That’s enough braining for the day,” Asshole ordered, and then elaborated. “Plus he’s a, a, collaborator, yes, that’s the right word —”  
    “Yes, very Nazi of you,” Rhiannon interjected and he ignored.
    “Who do you think pointed us in your direction?”
    “It was the wrong direction.” A weak retort, sure, but she felt the need to say something.
    They stepped closer. Snickers clung to B.B.’s back with her hands acting as a muzzle. Buddy was dragging them both by the back of Snickers’ belt. Asshole and Buddy had guns trained on her, but then Buddy, perhaps the smarter of the two, pressed his gun to the back of Snickers’ head.  
    Wee Wee, now manic, started rolling and giggling. She wondered if she could knock him over the cliff edge before Asshole could stop her. She didn’t get to ponder for long.  
    A bullet bit the dirt inches in front of Asshole’s oncoming foot. They all dumbly stared at this patch of disturbed earth.
    Rhiannon wondered, in the chaos that ensued, how she found the focus to notice:
    The seeping — almost black — blood from Asshole’s bandaged hand.  
    Or that Buddy wore a happy face pin with fangs.
    Or that Snickers' eyes were flecked with gold.
    She saw all that — and more — in rapid-fire still images.
    “Close enough,” Will yelled from his cliff top vantage. He backed this proclamation with another shot, which hit slightly to Buddy’s left.  
    Everyone froze. But then realizing the bad guys weren’t out gunned yet, Rhiannon dove for her shotgun, only feet away in the dirt. It was the wrong choice, the wrong move, and she sure had been making more than her share of those lately.
    Snickers loosened her hold on B.B., who immediately went after Asshole. Buddy grabbed for Rhiannon, as Will half-ran, half-fell down the cliff.
    All this strategic adult movement left Snickers defenseless against Wee Wee.
    As Rhiannon grabbed and swung the shotgun on Buddy, she saw Snickers thrashing to get away from Wee Wee, who was dragging her off by one foot.
    She screamed, aimed again, but didn’t have time to get off a shot before Snickers had slammed her foot into Wee Wee’s crotch and he crumpled. In her desperation, Snickers spun away, spun to the edge of the cliff. So near the edge, which was dry and eroded and old, that it buckled.
    And Snickers fell. She twisted. The rocks underneath her feet crumbled. She fell, right off the cliff, off the cliff into the raging river below.  
    She didn’t make a sound as she fell, her arms around her ears like a dancer, no scream, nothing. Maybe it wasn’t psychological then, Snickers’ muteness; Rhiannon’s dull brain was still making meaningless observations.
    She heard someone scream, was fucking sure it was herself screaming, and someone, probably her again, blew the back of Wee Wee’s head off.
    She ran to the cliff edge.
    She dropped the gun.
    She dropped the pack off her back, Snickers’ backpack and, quite simply, dove off the cliff.
    Dove right off, right at the spot where Snickers had fallen. The cliff face streaked by until the water rose up to swallow, or perhaps welcome, her.  
    Then the hungry, vengeful, breathtakingly beautiful river pulled her down, down into its crashing white rapids and rocky outcrops.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
    WILL

    Will felt, rather than heard, himself scream. The second scream, “Rhiannon” — the first had been “Snickers” — felt like it shredded his throat. She had just dived off. Just ran and dived off. Like it was a sunny summer day and she needed a little cool down, a little dip in the pool.
    He recognized as he tried to run to the cliff edge that the two men, One Ear and his Buddy from that, that town, turned their guns on him. They didn’t shoot him, but they didn’t let him get to the edge of