Ridge asked, “You carrying?”
The walker lied, shaking his head. “Don’t believe in guns. I’m a liberal.”
Ridge flashed his badge and said, “Something tells me you’re lying. I saw a gun at your back. What do you think of that?”
Then the walker took off, running.
* * * *
Damian construed within his mind that the walker would pull out the weapon from the nape of his spine and blast them away, nailing Ridge in the forehead with one bullet and himself in the heart. That didn’t transpire, though. Instead, Kal Cromby took off running to his right, past a duplex, over a narrow yard of plush green grass, and dove for the thick woods, taking cover.
Ridge stood at Damian’s right side and yelled at the top of his voice, “Cromby, give it up! It’s over for you!” Ridge removed a Springfield .45 from his left hip, immediately took the sleek tool off safety, and fired off a warning shot into the treetops.