One Man's Island

by Thomas J. Wolfenden

  “That was the wrong answer, Jake,” Tim said calmly, and shot him in the lower shin.

  “Aaaaaaaaahhhhhh fuck!”

  “Tell you what, Jake. Way back in the 80s I was in El Salvador. We grabbed this Sandinista one night, right out of his bed. We asked him questions just like this, with a little .22 caliber persuasion. The little fuck took thirty-six rounds before he started to talk, up one leg and down the other. I had a lot of respect for the balls on that guy. But you, I just think you’re a piece of shit,” Tim said, taking the final drag off of his cigarette, flicking it away mindlessly.

  “I GOT FUCKING RIGHTS MAN!”

  “I’ll ask one more time, Jake. Where’d your friend take my kid?”

  “I got rights, man!” he said, beginning to hyperventilate.

  “Wrong answer again, Jake.” Tim shot him again, this time a little higher up on the shin.

  “Ahhhhhh! Fuck! I got rights!” he screeched and started to cry.

  “You know what, Jake, you’d better calm down. Your heart gets to racing like that, and you pump more blood, and it looks like you’re bleeding pretty well already. Where did your friend take my kid?”

  “I got—” Tim didn’t even give him a chance to finish and shot him in the kneecap. “Aaahhhhhhhh fuck!” he screamed and wailed like a little baby.

  “No you don’t have any rights. The only thing you have is me not getting really angry.”

  “Please! Please no more!” Jake begged.

  “Are you going to play my game now?”

  “Yes! Just don’t shoot me anymore!” he pleaded. “I’ll tell you anything you want!”

  “Where did your friend take my kid?”

  “He took her to the farmhouse,” Jake said breathlessly.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere. Where is this farmhouse?”

  Jake hesitated, and Tim raised the pistol up, pointing it at his lower thigh. Jake cringed and tried to move away. “No please! Don’t shoot me no more! He’ll kill me if I tell you!”

  “Let me ask you, Jake, is what I’m doing now even less pleasant?”

  “No! Oh fuck please!”

  “Believe me, Jake, if you don’t tell me what I want to know, you will wish you were dead. Tell me, Jake.”

  “I can’t!”

  Tim raised the pistol up and fired a round into his lower thigh and Jake screamed to raise the dead.

  “I’m losing my patience, Jake,” Tim said evenly.

  “He took her to our farmhouse, three miles from here! Go west a mile, turn right on the dirt road. Go another mile, and take the left fork. It’s right there on the right! Please don’t shoot me anymore! PLEASE!”

  “There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  “Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck!” Jake panted, again starting to hyperventilate.

  “Just one more question, Jake. It’s an important one.”

  “I’ll tell you anything, just don’t shoot me anymore!”

  “How many people are there at the farmhouse?”

  “It’s just David! It was just me and him!”

  “And who was the woman, Jake?”

  “Joyce I think her name was. David found her in Ottumwa. Please, no more PLEASE!”

  “You’re not lying to me, Jake, are you?”

  “Oh fuck no mister! I swear to fucking GOD I’m not.”

  “Because you know what will happen, Jake, if I follow your directions, and I don’t find any farmhouse? I’m going to come back here. And if I have to come back here, things will definitely start to be unpleasant for you.”

  “I swear to fucking god!” he bellowed and began to cry again. Tim packed everything up. He went around to the front of the truck, dragged the dead woman off to the side of the road and laid her down, right next to a whimpering Jake. Tim got into the truck and pulled away. He could hear Jake’s screams as he drove off into the night, begging him to help him. He ignored the screams, quickly found the dirt road, and made a right-hand turn. He could see fresh tracks in the loose soil. Jake hadn’t lied to him after all. Not like he’d lied to Jake about coming back to help him. He was bleeding like a stuck pig.

  “Well, Jake. That’s the one good thing about bleeding. It stops, eventually,” Tim said to the windshield, lit a cigarette, and took the left fork when he got to it. The farmhouse was probably once really nice, but now was ramshackle and run down. He could see lantern light through the windows, and the beat up old Suburban was pulled up right in front. He stopped a few hundred yards away and thought about how he was going to do this. After coming to a decision, he went back to the camper, where he saw that Jake had been so thoughtful as to place his M4 and Robyn’s carbine on the sofa for safekeeping. He bent to pick up his M4, then changed his mind. He went back to his bedroom and retrieved the M3 grease gun and three magazines. Loading one, he put the other two in his pocket and put it on the seat of the truck. Climbing back in, he put it in gear, and started off again, pulling right into the driveway of the farmhouse with the nose of the truck almost directly onto the front steps. He left the engine running and the headlights on. He sat there for a moment, and saw the front door open, then he smiled. The other man, who he now knew as David, came out holding a bottle of Budweiser.

  “Hey, Jake, what took you so long? I was saving the party until you got back. She sure is a pretty one, not like that skank Joyce!” he yelled to the truck, shielding his eyes from the glare of the headlights. Tim opened the door and cocked the gun, pointing it at the man.

  “Jake’s a little tied up at the moment,” Tim said, letting loose a ten round burst that tore up the doorframe and balustrade in a rain of dust and splinters but miraculously missed David, who cartwheeled backwards into the house, bottle of Budwieser smashing on the porch where David dropped it. Tim bounded the steps and took cover behind the doorframe, amazed that he had actually missed the bastard at that close range. He heard a shotgun’s slide cock, and then a blast came out at him from inside, taking out a huge chunk of doorframe. Tim leaned in, and let loose another burst from the grease gun, ducking inside the house into a filthy living room, taking cover behind a couch that smelled of urine. He peered around the couch and didn’t see anyone, but could hear shuffling somewhere towards the rear of the house.

  “David!” he called out. “I just want my daughter.”

  “Fuck you! Who the fuck are you?” David yelled out from somewhere he couldn’t see.

  “I’m the man who has come to get his kid, David. You let the kid go, I let you live, simple as that,” Tim said, the rage boiling up inside. He was finding it harder and harder to keep his cool.

  “Well, I ain’t giving her up! She’s mine now!”

  Tim stood and started to walk slowly through the living room into a narrow hallway. He heard Robyn’s muffled cry, “Daddy!”

  “I’m here, sweetheart. Don’t you worry a bit!” he shouted.

  “You just get the fuck outta here man!” he heard David say.

  “Like I said before, David. You give me the kid and I’ll go.”

  “How the fuck do you know my name?” he asked, fear in his voice.

  “Oh, Jake and I had a little chat.”

  “You fuck!” David yelled, and Tim saw movement at the end of the hallway.

  He dodged sideways into a side room right before David let off another blast from the shotgun. Tim leaned out with the grease gun and let off another burst down the hall, chewing up cabinets in the kitchen and knocking over a lantern, which broke and started a fire along a back wall. Tim quickly changed magazines and holding the weapon out in front of him, stepped back into the hall, moving closer to the sound of David’s voice.

  He was almost at the kitchen when he saw Robyn, held by the neck by the man, who stood behind her with the shotgun in her back. “Get the fuck outta here or she dies, man!”

  “Daddy!” Robyn called to Tim, and her tear streaked face and the fear in her eyes only solidified his resolve. “It’s okay, honey, we’ll be leaving soon,” he said to her, n
ever taking his eyes off of David.

  “You think so?” David said, with an evil grin.

  “Oh, I don’t think so. I know so,” Tim said, slowly letting the gun drop and hang from his shoulder on its sling. As he did that, he slowly reached around and pulled out the .45, pointing it right at David’s astonished face.

  “What do you think you’re doing asshole? I got the girl. One more step and she’s dead!”

  The flames behind David in the kitchen were growing bigger, and had reached the high ceiling, lighting up Tim’s face wildly, and made his bruised face appear demonic in the yellow, flickering light.

  “You take one more step, I’ll kill her!” he shouted out again, almost in a panic, and Robyn started to whimper.

  “You and I both know you won’t do that.”

  “What makes you so sure? I kilt folks before!” he spat, fidgeting from one foot to the other nervously.

  “Oh, I’m sure you have. So have I. You know and I know, she dies, you die.”

  “Get the fuck outta here!”

  “I’m not leaving without the girl,” Tim said with an icy calm.

  “Fuck you!” David spat. “Drop your gun!”

  “This isn’t Hollywood, David. I’m not dropping my gun. You let me take my daughter out of here, I let you live.”

  “Drop your fucking gun!” David yelled again, pushing the barrel of the shotgun harder into Robyn’s back, making her cry harder.

  “Not happening, David. Give me the girl,” Tim said, the pistol in his hand pointed straight at David’s head, his arm steady as a rock. Smoke was starting to fill up the hallway as the fire behind David and Robyn grew. “I’ll give you to the count of three, David. One…”

  “You’ll let me go if I do?” David asked hopefully.

  “Two…”

  “Answer me!” he shouted.

  “Yes,” Tim said.

  “You swear you’ll let me go?”

  “Yes. I will let you live.”

  “Okay! Okay!” he said, pushing Robyn towards Tim, lowering the shotgun. She ran towards Tim and wrapped her arms around his waist, burying her face into his chest, sobbing uncontrollably. Tim looked behind David and saw the fire growing bigger, threatening to engulf the whole kitchen. He hadn’t lowered his pistol and still had it pointed at David’s face.

  “Well? You got your kid. You promised. Get the fuck outta here!”

  “Yeah, I promised, didn’t I?” Tim said, and started to lower his pistol, the smile on his face growing bigger. When he got it halfway down, at about stomach level to David, he squeezed the trigger and the pistol shot was deafening in the narrow hallway. David screamed and dropped the shotgun, doubled over in pain, holding on to his stomach with both hands as if trying to keep his guts from falling out.

  He looked up at Tim and with a pained expression. “Why? You fucking promised!”

  Letting go of Robyn, Tim walked over to him and kicked him in the face, knocking him down and picked up the shotgun. “Oh, I kept my promise. I said I was going to let you live right then. I never said anything about when I got my kid back. Now you can just burn.”

  Tim turned and took Robyn’s hand. “Come on, honey. Let’s get out of here.”

  “What about him?” she asked, looking at the man on the floor.

  “Fuck him,” he said flatly, and they walked out of the house, down the steps, and got into the truck. Tim started the truck and made a wide turn with the trailer over the overgrown lawn. They could hear David’s screams as the fire apparently reached him. They ignored it and drove away. By the time they reached the two-lane blacktop they could see the house was fully engulfed with flames, the old dried wood burning rapidly. They sat in the truck for a while watching the fire in the distance until Tim finally put the truck into gear and headed west into the night. They drove in silence for some time, passing through Centerville, finally stopping in Corydon for the night. Setting up the camper, they busied themselves cleaning up the mess inside, stowing everything back where it belonged. When they were done, Tim gave Robyn a look over, and beside a few bruises, she looked fine. He on the other hand, looked a mess, and Robyn let him know.

  “You look horrible, Daddy,” she said with a sad look.

  “I’m fine, baby. It’s just a few cuts and bruises.”

  “You got one hell of a shiner,” she said, coming up to him and rubbing his cheek, tearing up again. “I knew you’d come back for me. I just knew it!”

  “I promised I’d always protect you, and besides, you never, ever leave a comrade behind,” he said.

  “Let me clean you up some,” Robyn said, looking at his head. “That looks nasty.”

  Tim pulled off his t-shirt while she got the first aid kit, and when she came back and saw his shoulder wound she gasped. “Daddy, that looks really bad!”

  “Eh, it’s okay. Went all the way through and didn’t hit bone or anything important,” he said. Robyn didn’t buy into his bravado, and set to cleaning it out with hydrogen peroxide, which made him wince. She took gauze and wrapped his head and shoulder up, and when she was done said, “There, good as new!”

  “You’re a regular Florence Nightingale,” he said. “Here, hand me the kit.”

  She handed it over to him and he rummaged around until he found what he was looking for. He took out a small vial and a paper wrapped syringe.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Give myself a shot of antibiotics, unless you want to do the honors?” he said, offering her the vial and syringe.

  “No way!” she laughed. “Are you really going to give yourself a shot?”

  “Sure. I’ve done it a time or two before. No big deal,” he said, dropping his trousers enough to expose his upper thigh.

  “Doesn’t it hurt?”

  “It stings a little, a lot less than being shot though.” He stuck the needle into the rubber top of the vial and drew off what he supposed was a proper dose. Lifting up the syringe, he pushed the plunger and tapped it to get the air bubbles out, and quickly poked himself in the thigh, injecting the fluid. Pulling it out, he recapped the needle, stood and pulled his pants back up.

  “There, all done,” he said, buckling his belt.

  “What was that for again?”

  “It was antibiotics, just in case. Don’t want this thing to get infected,” he said, pointing to his shoulder.

  Robyn shuddered. “I could never give myself a shot like that.”

  “You might have to someday.”

  “I don’t want to think about that.”

  “I’m very proud of you, Robyn,” Tim said. “What did you do to make that guy scream when they first took you?”

  “I saw you lying there bleeding and I sort of panicked. I thought you were dead. He had his arm around me and he smelled like pee, but I bit him as hard as I could anyway. That’s when he hit me really hard, and threw me in his truck. I was a little dizzy after that.”

  “You did the right thing, and I’m proud of you. Always fight back, no matter how high the odds are stacked against you.”

  “Like a Ranger?”

  “Yep, just like a Ranger!”

  “He took me to that house and threw me in a closet. It was really dark and stank of pee and poop. I was really scared, and then I heard the truck pull up, and I knew you’d come back for me. I heard your voice, and then the machine gun. Wow! Where did you get that?” she asked, as Tim picked it up and unloaded it.

  “That is a long story for another time,” he said. “But it’s just as old as your carbine.”

  “What happened to the other guy, the one that stayed with you?”

  “I… persuaded him to tell me where he’d taken you.”

  “How?”

  “You don’t need to know that. Let’s just say his threshold to pain is a lot lower than mine. He won’t be hurting anyone else.” He thought briefly about Jake still tied to that fencepost, slowly bleeding to death. With any luck, he’d last throughout the night and into tomorrow, where
the sun would beat down on him all day, slowly baking him. That was five now. Three back in Pennsylvania, and two here in Iowa. How many more assholes like that were out there? Had the world changed that much? Had simple human decency completely disappeared? Was it now just down to survival of the fittest?

  If that was the case, he had to make sure he and Robyn stayed on top of the food chain and never let what happened tonight happen again.

  “Okay, sweetie, time for a shower and bed,” he said, yawning. He was bone tired, and could feel the adrenaline crash happening. Robyn grabbed a towel and headed for the shower. He heard the water go on, and he finished his beer and stubbed out his smoke in his Presidential ashtray. When she came out wearing one of his t-shirts, he noticed it wasn’t as big on her as before. She was growing fast now. He helped her up into the bed, and she yawned widely. He kissed her, and drew her covers up, making sure Bad Bear was firmly in her grasp.

  “Good night, sweetheart,” he said, turning off the light over the dinette.

  “Good night, Daddy. I love you.”

  “I love you too, baby. Now get some sleep.”

  “Daddy?”

  “Yes?”

  “Could you hand me my rifle?”

  He took it and handed it to her, and she checked to make sure the magazine was full before tucking it under her blanket. “Thanks, Daddy.”

  “Good night, Pumpkin.”

  For a minute he was angry. Sad fucking thing when a fourteen year old girl has to sleep with a loaded rifle. Fucking bastards. He was glad they were dead. He went in and carefully showered, trying his best to keep his bandages dry, and when he stepped out, he had a good look in the mirror. The right side of his face under his eye was swelling up and turning an angry purple, and he could actually see the tread pattern left by Jake’s boot. He got angry all over again. Never again. Before climbing into bed he did the same thing as Robyn, took his M4 and laid it beside him on his bed. Turning off his light, he quickly fell asleep, but the sleep wasn’t an easy one. The dreams had come back, with a vengeance.

  The next morning when they awoke, both Tim and Robyn were feeling sore and achy. Robyn put on the coffee. She brought cups of coffee for both of them to the table, where they ate and drank in silence.