“What on earth are we supposed to do now?” Fenny gasped, glancing around the parking lot and hoping no one had noticed their panicking.

“This is so not cool,” Gina declared, backing away from the car.

“Do you think this means Don knows where we are?” Fenny asked.

“How could he?” Paul asked.

“He could have, I dunno, surveillance cameras at his place or spies or magic powers,” Fenny suggested. “You think it’s a coincidence one of Don’s evil henchmen ended up dead in our car?”

“They probably would’ve recognized Troy,” Gina added.

“Well if they knew it was us, wouldn’t there be a trap set somewhere, a ransom note or something, bullet shots ringing through the air?” Paul pointed out.

“This could be their dramatic pause,” Fenny shrugged.

“Which means we need to get out of here.”

“I’m not driving a car with a cadaver in it,” Fenny gasped.

“He’s right,” Gina declared, regaining her composure. “We need to go somewhere to get rid of the body. Leaving it here just makes it look like we did it, and we’ve got enough problems without something like that.”

“Couldn’t we take it to the cops, explain things?” Fenny whined.

“Yeah Fen, ‘Sorry officer, we seem to have found a bloodied corpse in the back of our car’,” Paul sneered.

“So what, just leave him there to bleed on the back seat?” Fenny asked, incredulous.

“You want to help me dump him in the trunk?” Paul asked with raised eyebrows.

Fenny took a deep breath. “Right, and I drive where with Uncle Bernie here?”

“We could take him to one of our burial plots,” Gina pointed out. “That way he’s linked with Don’s other casualties. Better than us dumping him under a shrub somewhere for the local wildlife to draw attention to him.”

“Back to Don’s cemetery we go then,” Paul perked.

“I hate life,” Fenny sighed, gingerly opening the door and slipping into the car, trying as hard as she could to block off her peripheral vision and the bloodied corpse. Paul slid in next to her and Gina crawled in after him.

“What are you doing?” he demanded with a smile.

“I’m not sitting back there with the dead guy,” Gina said pointedly.

“What, no autopsy?” Paul teased.

“It’s pretty obvious he had his head blown open,” she declared, settling herself in Paul’s lap and pulling the door closed. “And his chest. Whoever did it really wanted to get the job done.”

“Can we not discuss this, please,” Fenny groaned as she started the car.

“Rescue Troy for me?” Paul asked with a pleading look on his face as he looked up at Gina. With a roll of her eyes she stuck her hand back and grabbed the stuffed mongoose and situated it on the dashboard.

“That looking at me may be worse than the body visible in my mirror,” Fenny grumbled, keeping her eyes stoically on the road.

The stunned silence passed and the five crammed into the car let out the breath they’d been collectively holding, waiting to die. When it became apparent they weren’t immediately going to die, they were able to take in their situation. “We’re taking on water,” Ritza announced, and the car began tipping forward.

“Shit, everyone out,” Danny yelped over the noise of everyone scrambling to get the doors open. Beven was the first to work a door open against the water pressure outside and stepped out into neck-high water, trying to hold the door open against the current of river water flowing in while Ritza and Brad scurried out. Danny managed to shove the door open just as water began pouring through the broken front windshield and Greg, panicking as he realized he wasn’t going to get his door open, climbed through the shattered window, yelping in pain as he sliced his arm on a shard of glass. He doggy paddled towards the others as Ritza struggled to tread water in her heels and Danny watched from the other side of the car, where the water was significantly lower. The car silently filled with water and tipped forward off the shelf into the deeper part of the river, rear end slowly sinking like a cheap remake of Titanic.

“We have a history of destroying rental cars,” Greg sighed as the last of the bubbles seemed to surface and they began coming out of their shocked daze, Ritza hanging on to him to keep from drowning, “but never one as nice as that.”

“What now?” Danny asked, looking pointedly at Beven.

“We get to shore and try to think of a plan,” he shrugged.

“Won’t they come looking for us?”

The other four shook their heads simultaneously. “No,” Ritza declared as she and Greg made their way up the slope onto the shelf where Danny stood. “People like Don’s men tend to think what they want to think. They heard the crunch, the splash and no screams for help, we’ve been left for dead.”

“Oh. Well that’s good,” Danny nodded with a scowl. “Right?”

“Depends on how much ‘dead’ there is in relation to ‘left’,” Greg sighed.

“Don’s gotta be mightily pissed off,” Beven declared as he made his way to the shelf and helped Ritza then Greg up and Danny pulled up Brad as they struggled through the soft silt of the river floor. “He’s been betrayed, shot twice now, and outran. Once he can get around again he’s probably going to be wanting proof that we’re all dead, and even then he’ll probably want to decimate our corpses.”

“Well there’s a happy little morale boosting thought,” Brad huffed, wading through the waist-high water for the shore. The others followed suit and they gathered under the tree they’d hit, still warm from the impact. They dripped at each other for a minute or two, all still trembling and a bit numb from their narrow escape from death and their dip into an icy body of water. It was Ritza who first remembered the other three.

“Oh, Fen and Paul and Gina are at Don’s place right?” she asked suddenly.

“Yeah, why?” Brad asked.

“That’s where Don was headed. I don’t know if he’s still really interested in that now that he’s bleeding from the groin, but it might be a good idea to give them a heads up.”

“Shit,” Brad hissed.

Beven pulled out his cell phone from his pocket and shook his head. “Short circuited, all wet,” he grumbled, shaking a bit of water from it.

“Mine’s still working,” Danny declared proudly and quickly dialed.

“Have I mentioned lately that I hate my life?” Fenny grunted as she pulled a cold arm with all her might.

“I hate your life too Fen,” Paul sighed. He gave one more push and the body rolled onto the ground at Gina and Fenny’s feet.

“What does that mean?” Fenny demanded as Paul clambered up the rocks, out of the ravine and up to where the other three were waiting.

“I mean that if your life wasn’t working the way it was, we wouldn’t be dragging a dead body through the woods to bury it in a patch of dirt meant for one of us.”

“How does that logic pan out?”

“Technically if it weren’t for you and Greg, we never would’ve met,” Gina pointed out as she swung the shovel in the air a bit. “Never would’ve been in Edinburgh with you, never would’ve had to deal with Don.”

“Which means I never would’ve gone to Australia with you and I would’ve never inadvertently reunited you with Pauly here,” Fenny pointed out as they continued dragging the rather heavy heavy through the woods feet first.

“I didn’t say your life was all bad,” Gina shrugged.

“Just the running for our lives and dragging fucking corpses through the Scottish wilderness parts,” Paul groused.

“But hey, you’ve made some new friends,” Fenny perked.

“I miss Troy,” Paul pouted.

“We should’ve brought him with us,” Gina sighed, “could’ve buried him with our friend here.”

“No,” Paul shrieked as Fenny’s phone rang. The sound startled her and she jumped, then dropped the shoe she’d grabbed hold of to drag. She quickly dug her phone out of her pocket and answered, heaving a sigh of relief at the sound of Danny’s voice.

“How you doing, Fen?”

“Oh, that is so not a question you want an answer to.”

“Try me, I bet we’ve got you beat.”

“Gina, Paul and I are dragging a dead friend of Don’s we found in our car through the woods to dump him in a burial plot meant for one of us,” Fenny declared dryly as she marched behind Gina, Paul and the body, trying not to notice the glaring wound in the man’s head.

“Beven was caught as a traitor, our scheme was found out, Ritza shot Don, we made a getaway and were bumped off the road into a river where our car sank.”

“Right. You win,” Fenny breathed. “Are you guys okay?”

“Yeah, I think we’re fine. Shook up, but fine.”

“I’m not fucking fine,” she heard Greg snap.

“What happened to him?” Fenny asked.

“Oh, cut himself on some broken glass. Ritza’s fixing him up as best she can, he’ll be all right.”

“Good.”

“You guys doing okay?”

“Comparatively speaking, fabulous.”

“Don might be heading for home again, you might want to stay away.”

“Alright. We’re done there anyway, we were going to try to find you actually. Is there somewhere we can get to you, pick you guys up maybe?”

“I don’t think we really know where we are at the moment,” he said, glancing around. “Besides, they think Don’s people might be coming back here to make sure we’re dead.”

“Great,” she sighed.

“We’ll call you when we get somewhere, get something figured out. We just wanted to call and make sure you guys are doing okay and warn you about Don.”

“Yeah, thanks. You guys take care of yourselves.”

“Yeah, you guys be careful too. Good luck with, y’know, whatever it is you’re doing. Look, I think Brad wants to talk to you.”

“Sure,” Fenny agreed. She listened to the muffled sound of the phone being passed on and smiled at the sound of Brad’s marginally frantic voice.

“Fen, are you okay?”

“Yeah, we’re fine,” she assured him. “Paul’s adopted a pet, Gina and I have effectively screwed Don over, and we found a map pointing out where they plan to bury us. Which has come in handy seeing as how someone dropped one of Don’s heavies into our car after shooting him a few times and we need to get rid of the body.”

“One of Don’s heavies?” Brad gasped. “Longish brown hair, ugly guy with an orange tie?”

“Um, yeah actually. Why, friend of yours?”

“I think that’s the guy that squealed on Beven.”

“Oh. Terrific.” Fenny took in a ragged breath and wiped some dirt from her forehead as Gina and Paul began bickering about “You said this would be the easiest one to get to” and “How was I supposed to know there wouldn’t be a bridge over the dry creek.” “Look Brad, are you guys okay, really?” Fenny asked.

“Yeah, really. Dan and I were winning at poker before Don tried to kill me and Beven. So far the biggest mess we’ve gotten ourselves in is when Dan and I tried to beat the crap out of each other. Well, apart from the whole being shot at and the car sinking, and Ritza being groped by Don for a while.”

“I’m betting Danny won the fight,” Fenny smirked in spite of herself.

“I got in a few good swings,” Brad mumbled.

“Are you behaving yourselves now, at least? I knew you two shouldn’t be left alone without adult supervision,” she teased.

“Yeah, we’re doing alright,” he said despondently.

“Something wrong?” she asked concernedly. “I mean apart from the disturbingly obvious?”

Brad paused for a moment. “I love you Fen. You know that, right?”

“Of course I do,” she smiled into the phone. “And I love you. We’re gonna finish—” She stopped at the sound of Gina moaning. “Hey, if you can put your tongue down Paul’s throat, I can coo at my husband,” Fenny countered with a laugh. “Sorry Brad. Look, soon as we get rid of this guy, we’ll head in your direction. Still near Newcastle?”

“Yeah, we didn’t get very far before they caught up to us. Remind me not to let Proops drive the getaway car next time.”

“It’s all he’s good for,” Fenny giggled. “Would you rather have had Greg playing poker with you?”

“Good point,” Brad smiled. “Look, we gotta go, the battery’s running low, we’ll call later, alright?”

“Yeah. Tell the guys hi for us, and good luck to you all.”

“I say hi to everyone but Proops,” Paul declared. “Just because I can.”

“Just for that send Greg a hug from me,” Gina piped up.

Fenny sighed and relayed their greetings to Brad, who laughed. “I don’t know if I can relay the hug without getting smacked, but yeah. See you guys later.”

“Bye, love you.”

“Love you too,” Brad chimed and hung up the phone.

After Brad relayed the news he’d gotten from Fenny, Beven decided it would be best if they started moving away from the scene of the accident just in case anyone came by looking for them, and they marched a bit soggily along the river. “So why did they kill Al?” Danny asked after a few minutes. “I mean, I thought they’d give him a medal or something for being a stool pigeon.”

“They’re probably trying to frame me,” Beven sighed. “Probably thought they picked a random car where someone would call the police, they’d figure out who he was, trace him to Don, he’d tell them about the fight I had with him, he probably planted the gun at my place by now, and then I’d be in deep shit. They just happened to pick the wrong car.”

“Or the right car, depending on how you want to look at things,” Ritza pointed out. “One thing I’ve learned is that, when it comes to trying to save your life, these guys are luckier than they should be.” She put an arm around Greg’s and Brad’s waist. “It must be rubbing off.”

“It’s the little things like personal happiness and social skills we’re not so lucky with,” Greg chuckled.

“Yeah, that rubs off too,” Danny smirked.

“So what do we do now, Beven?” Brad asked.

“I think we should all hop the first plane to Switzerland and check ourselves into a nice psychiatric facility,” Greg suggested. “We could do basket weaving and bead stringing all day and get all the antidepressants, antipsychotics and chocolate the world has to offer. It’d be nice.”

“And cheese and cuckoo clocks,” Danny added.

“And little knives with can openers and that thing no one knows what it’s for,” Brad smiled, “and the guards that wear pajamas.”

Ritza looked up at him strangely and he shrugged. “You have any ideas yet Beven, ‘cause I don’t,” she admitted.

“We get out of here and hide until we come up with something better,” Beven declared resolutely.

“There’s a fool-proof plan if I ever heard one,” Greg grumbled.

“Got a better plan?” Beven snapped. Greg shrugged, smoothed a hand over the bandage on his arm that Ritza had constructed out of Beven’s handkerchief and continued trudging.

“You know, I’ve dug myself into a lot of holes,” Fenny declared, “but never quite so literally. I told you artists don’t dig.”

“Well if I had to take a turn with the shovel, so did you,” Gina declared as she helped Fenny out of the hole the three of them had dug. “We’re working as a team here.”

“Only after I became too exhausted to dig anymore,” Paul grumbled from the ground where he was rifling through the heavy’s wallet. “You would’ve been happy to let me do all the work.”

“Well you are the man of the group. Sort of,” Gina teased, wiping the dirt from her hands as Fenny brushed herself off. “Find anything useful?”

“Nah, mint flavored condom that expired a year ago, couple forged IDs, business cards, a little bit of cash.” Paul took the money from the wallet and shoved it into his pocket before roughly working the wallet back into the heavy’s pocket.

“Should you really take the money?” Fenny asked. Gina and Paul looked at her incredulously. “It could be, I dunno, dirty money or whatever they call it. Couldn’t we get in trouble?”

“Fen, let me explain something to you,” Gina sighed. “These people have beaten us, threatened us, tortured us, and tried to kill us on several separate occasions. The least they could do is forfeit a hundred pounds or so. Besides, they’re not gonna be carrying around money that’s going to get them into trouble, are they?”

“Right,” Fenny breathed. “Can we please just finish this and get going, I’m getting sick of looking at this guy and I want to find Brad and the others.”

“We really should be going,” Gina agreed. “Get to them before Greg manages to do something stupid.”

“Or Danny and Brad go after each other again,” Fenny nodded.

“Like the presence of you two is going to keep those guys from acting like idiots,” Paul scoffed. “Help me here, would you?”

Gina and Fenny kneeled next to the heavy’s body and together they began rolling the body towards the makeshift grave. Halfway there they paused for breath.

“Hey Paul,” Gina perked suddenly, “you’re always talking about the glories of necrophilia, you sure you don’t want me and Fen to leave you alone with our new friend here for a few minutes?”

Paul paused, regarding the face down figure, smiling to himself as if considering the possibilities. “Nah, not my type,” he declared as he nodded towards the hole and they started rolling the body again.

“Well what kind of dead people are your type then?” Gina asked. “Or maybe that’s why you’re attached to Troy, necrophiliac bestiality, maybe?”

“Hey there’s an idea,” Paul chirped.

“You two are so not normal,” Fenny muttered with a smile as Gina and Paul giggled to themselves. They quickly got the body to the grave, where it rolled in with a sickening thud. They picked themselves up, dusted themselves off, and briefly looked down at the body before averting their eyes to the oddly serene surroundings. Fenny moved to retrieve the shovel and handed it to Paul.

“Should we say something, or what?” he asked.

“You’re the Catholic,” Gina declared.

He looked hurriedly at Fenny for a reprieve. “Don’t look at me, I stopped believing in funerals when I was fifteen,” she shrugged.

“He did turn us in,” Gina mused.

“Good luck, mate,” Paul sighed and dumped the first shovel full of dirt over his chest.