THE APOCALYPSE SYSTEM
I shut my eyes and didn't turn around, and the sound, when it came, was enormous and brief, and Nora made a noise I will never forget.
Tyler had his coat around her by then, her face pressed into his chest, and the second shot cracked out, and then the third, neat and fast, and after that there was only the wind and a baby crying somewhere and the soft sobbing of an old woman who had just lost the only person she had ever loved. For a long moment nobody moved, and then Frank said hoarsely, "It's done, all three of them, God forgive me," and Dad came up beside me, pale as wax, and without saying anything he took off his jacket and laid it gently over the old man's face.