Lawless

by Jai Williams

  “Okay men, head in the same direction he went. Me and some others are going to get into a truck and see if there’s a road in that direction that we can block him from,” said one of the men. These men with crazy looks in their faces split up into groups; some went into the forest and others drove off in a truck. It seemed like an unfair advantage, twenty men versus one man, but this one man had been through so much to survive in this world and he would keep doing what he needed to survive, even if he had to kill as many of these men to do so.

  Ronnie was deep into the forest now and as his first flare was losing its light, he lit up another one and dropped the old one on the ground and continued running. He had no idea where he was going; all he knew was he had to lure these guys away from town and what better way to do that than to drag them into a place where they would get lost. Ronnie could still hear the men; they seemed pretty close so they were only moments away from catching up to him but he kept pushing on with every breath he had. He ran through bushes and trees, little and big puddles of mud but none of these slowed him down; he just kept running and running until he saw a road in the distance. He thought that he couldn’t stay in this forest any longer nor could he hide. He didn’t think the men chasing him were that dumb, so he headed to the road. As he stopped, before he could put one foot on the road, he could hear a car coming from his left. He thought it was some of the men that were chasing him but he wasn’t going to stick around and find out, so Ronnie started running over the road so that he could get to the other side and continue running through the forest on that side of the road. The car got closer and closer but before Ronnie could get to the trees for cover, the car came speeding up to Ronnie. He thought that the car was going to hit him, but instead the car came to a complete stop. The car was a couple of feet away from him and Ronnie could hear a man’s voice coming from the car.

  “Hey mate. Get in here, they’re coming. Quick, hurry,” said the guy with a loud and clear voice. Ronnie quickly ran over and hopped in without even thinking that it could be a trap. The car took off. “Hi, I’m Dave Watts,” said the man driving, with a worried look on his face. This man looked a year older than Ronnie and seemed scared; he was probably escaping from somewhere. He was wearing a plain shirt, jeans and shoes, and had a scruffy look, like he had been in the wilderness for quite a long time.

  “I’m Ronnie Reed,” said Ronnie as he was trying to catch his breath from all the running. Dave put his foot to the pedal and they drove off. Dave kept looking in the car mirror on his side to see behind him. “Thank you for picking me up, but can I ask why? I mean, you don’t know me; for all you know I could be a psychopath,” said Ronnie as he was still catching his breath.

  “Well, you’re not, are you?” asked Dave while he was concentrating on the road.

  “No, I’m not, I’m just wondering why you picked me up,” asked Ronnie.

  “I assumed you were running away from people that were chasing you so, I picked you up,” replied Dave as he was still concentrating on the road.

  Ronnie finally caught his breath from all the running. “Well thanks, Dave. I was in fact being chased.” Dave kept looking at the car mirror to see behind him. “What are you looking at?” asked Ronnie with a curious look.

  “There was a truck back there and men were shooting at me. I guess they are after you?” asked Dave.

  “Yeah, they’re after me but why pick me up then? Because now you’re in the same situation I’m in,” replied Ronnie.

  “Yeah, well, I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t see someone that I could’ve saved. die,” said Dave as he constantly looked back and forth at the car mirror.

  “Well, thank you again. You have no idea how many more were in the forest chasing me,” said Ronnie with relief.

  “How many?” asked Dave.

  “Twenty or so,” replied Ronnie.

  Dave looked back at his mirror. “Shit,” he mumbled.

  “Did you say something?” asked Ronnie.

  Dave turned his head to Ronnie “I said shit,” he said with a panicky tone. Ronnie looked in his side view mirror and saw a truck that seemed to be getting closer and closer.

  “I’m guessing that’s the truck you saw?” asked Ronnie with a worried look on his face, so Dave put his foot all the way down on the pedal.

  “Yeah, that’s them,” he replied. It was a car chase between a truck full of armed men and a small car with one guy who was armed. This was going to end only one way. Ronnie grabbed an assault rifle from the duffle bag he had and put a mag in the gun. “What are you doing?” asked Dave

  “I’m going to shoot the sons of bitches,” replied Ronnie as he was winding down the window on his side. Ronnie started to open fire; he shot at the windows first but it seemed like they were bulletproof so he started shooting at the tires, but that failed because he realized that the wheels were protected by some kind of armour around them. Three men from the truck started firing back at Ronnie so Ronnie quickly pulled himself back in the car to avoid getting shot. “Shit,” Ronnie said with frustration.

  “What?” Dave asked, still with his eyes on the road.

  “I was trying to see if I could shoot out their tires but they’re protected by some kind of armour.” Ronnie climbed over the glove compartment to get into the back of the car. “Sorry, but I have to break this window,” said Ronnie as he used the butt of the gun to break the very back window of the car so that he could get a better shot at the men who were shooting back at him. Ronnie started shooting and after a few misses he finally shot one of the men and the top half of the guy’s body dangled out of the car for a second, until the driver pulled the guy back into the car. Ronnie aimed for another one of the men shooting but before he could get a shot in, the men pulled themselves back in the truck. The truck sped up and got closer and closer until bang, they hit the back of the car Ronnie and Dave were in. Ronnie fell onto the floor of the car as the crash made a dent in the car.

  “Drive faster,” said Ronnie as he was getting up from the floor.

  “I’m driving as fast as I can,” replied Dave.

  The truck hit the car again, leaving a bigger dent on the back of the car and the truck came ramming into the car one more time. “SHIT!” yelled Ronnie and this time the truck hit the side of the car, making the car swerve.

  Dave tried to straighten the car but before he could attempt to do that, the truck hit them again, making the car fully lose control and swerve off the road into a tree. “Hold on, we’re about to smash into a tree,” said Dave in a panicky tone.

  As the car smashed into a tree Ronnie ended up knocking his head hard, leaving a cut, and something broke in the car and dug into Dave’s leg and he couldn’t free himself from it. Ronnie got up from the back of the car and looked over at Dave to check on him and to see if he was all right.

  “Dave, are you all right?” asked Ronnie as he was checking if Dave had a pulse.

  “Yeah, I’m alive but my leg’s stuck,” replied Dave in pain.

  Ronnie got out of the car and opened Dave’s door so he could help free Dave. Ronnie pulled something off Dave’s leg and freed Dave but it left a fairly large cut on his leg. “Can you walk?” Ronnie asked.

  “Yeah, probably,” replied Dave.

  “Good, because we need to get the hell out of here,” replied Ronnie. Ronnie helped Dave out of the car. He grabbed Dave’s arm and put it around the back of his neck so he could help Dave walk. Ronnie left the duffle bag and the gun behind only because they had to move as quickly as they could to avoid getting caught by the men who ran them off the road. The truck that ran them off the road pulled up just as Ronnie and Dave were entering the forest. They could hear the men exit their truck, reloading their guns as they were getting closer to the car smashed into the tree.

  “They’re not here,” said one of the men. One of the men slammed the car door.

  “Well, they couldn’t have gotten far. Check the woods,” said one of the men in anger. The men spread out to find the
m; however, this time Ronnie wasn’t going to be lucky because he left his gun behind, as he had to help Dave, who was hurt and couldn’t walk that fast. They kept moving as fast as they could to try and find somewhere to at least hide until these men got far away or until Ronnie could take them out. Eventually, Ronnie spotted a place for them to hide. There was an empty streambed which they climbed down and when they got to the bottom they turned around and saw a small cave, so Ronnie helped Dave over there and put him down in the cave gently. “Okay, I’m going to put you here while I hunt down those men because they’re not going to stop searching for us. I’ll be back,” said Ronnie. Ronnie pushed a broken bush to cover the entrance of the cave so that the guys hunting them wouldn’t be able to see Dave.

  Ronnie climbed up from the steam bed and went out to find the men hunting for him and Dave. He had a plan to take them out one by one as stealthily as he could. He saw one man that was coming towards him so Ronnie hid behind a bush and waited for the guy to walk by. As soon as the man walked by Ronnie, Ronnie went for a stealthy kill by grabbing the knife he had with him that he always carried and slitting the guy’s throat with it. It was brutal. Ronnie had never done this before but he knew he had to do it and it was the only thing he could think that would be effective; after all, he left his gun back in the car. He quickly hid the body so that it was out of sight and went on to find another one of the guys to kill. However the next guy he saw was in a more opened area so Ronnie had to think on his feet. He came up with something so he went for it. He pulled out his knife he used on the other guy and he aimed for this guy’s head and threw the knife praying to God that he wouldn’t miss and he didn’t. While the guy he just killed was falling to the ground he somehow pulled the trigger of his gun, which shot out a couple of bullets, alerting the other men.

  “DID YOU HEAR THAT!” yelled out one of the men.

  “Let’s go check it out,” replied the other guy, so they ran towards the noise and out of nowhere the two men showed up. “Shit, he’s dead,” said one of the men. They had looks on their faces that almost seemed like they didn’t even care that one of their own men was killed. One kneeled down to the body while the other looked around with his gun held high trying to find Ronnie. “God damn it, son of a bitch. Oh well, shit happens,” said the guy kneeling next to the dead body.

  “Let’s find that asshole,” replied the guy standing up, trying to search for Ronnie.

  The two men split up, one went to the left and the other went to the right trying to find Ronnie and at this moment Ronnie thought he was screwed because he had nothing to use as a weapon unless he could quickly but silently grab his knife from the guy he just killed. It was quite a risky move but he still went for it. Ronnie quietly walked over to the dead body and ripped the knife out of the guy’s head and before he could look up at one of the men that were looking for him, one of them had already spotted him. “THERE HE IS!” the guy yelled to get the other guy’s attention. Ronnie drew his arm back with the knife in his hand to try and kill one of them before they could get a shot in. “Drop it,” one of them said demandingly. They pointed their guns at Ronnie with their fingers ready to pull the triggers but Ronnie didn’t want to die tonight so he obeyed their demand and placed the knife on the ground. One of the men walked up to Ronnie and forcefully pulled him up and pushed him forward. “Move,” he said.

  Back in the cave Dave thought that Ronnie had been gone for quite a while now and that he could be in trouble, so he decided to get up and to push through the pain he felt from the deep cut in his leg because he thought, Ronnie helped me, it’s only fair I do the same. He slowly pushed away the bush covering the cave and walked out of the cave. Dave slowly got out of the streambed and headed in the same direction Ronnie did. Dave saw a blood trail that led to a body hidden in a bush, so he pulled the body out to make sure it wasn’t Ronnie. He was hoping it wasn’t Ronnie and it wasn’t. Dave had a shocked and scared look on his face he saw that the guy’s throat was cut. Dave saw a gun next to him he thought that Ronnie forgot to grab so Dave picked it up and followed Ronnie’s footsteps, which led him to the second dead guy Ronnie killed. Dave saw a knife near the dead guy’s body, so he assumed it was Ronnie’s knife. Dave looked up and saw multiple footsteps. Dave assumed that the other men must have taken Ronnie so he followed the footsteps. Dave heard a man’s voice. “Keep moving,” the guy said. Dave got closer to the two men that were taking Ronnie. Dave decided to take cover behind a tree. He aimed down the sight of the gun he was carrying, took a deep breath in and out, and tried to stop himself from shaking, and he finally pulled the trigger. The bullet went into the back of one of the men, hurting them but not killing them, and the man fell to the ground.

  The other man who was pushing Ronnie forward with a gun to Ronnie’s back turned around to see what happened and at that moment Ronnie quickly picked a large rock up from the ground and with all of his force he slammed into the back of the guy’s head, which made the guy fall straight to the ground. Ronnie slammed the rock to the same guy’s forehead, again and again, until he could see the guy’s skull split open. Ronnie was covered in this guy’s blood and he got up, leaving the rock in the guy’s skull, and walked over to the second guy, who was already in pain after being shot by Dave. Ronnie picked up the guy’s gun from the ground. “It sucks, doesn’t it, that you’ve messed with the wrong guy? Got any last words?” Ronnie said with hate and fury in his eyes, and before the guy could say anything Ronnie shot him right in the head. Ronnie heard a noise coming from the bushes so he aimed the gun he had, towards the noise. “Come out, whoever you are,” he said, so from the bushes Dave walked out with his hands in the air.

  “Don’t shoot, it’s just me,” he said, so Ronnie lowered his gun. “Sorry Dave. Thank you, I had no idea what those guys had planned for me,” replied Ronnie.

  “Well, you saved me first, so I guess we’re even,” replied Dave. Ronnie walked up to Dave, grabbed his arm and placed it around the back of his neck and helped Dave walk back to the car. When they got back to the car, they realized that the car was all smashed up so Ronnie helped Dave into the truck that was parked on the road and Ronnie grabbed his duffle bag and gun he left in the car and anything Dave needed, and put them in the back of the truck. Ronnie hopped into the driver’s seat and looked at Dave. “Look, I know you’re in pain but I need to get back to where I was running from because there are people that I was with back there, and some of them are US soldiers, so one of them could help you. So what do you say?” asked Ronnie with a serious look.

  “Yeah sure, if someone can fix me up then let’s go back. I have nowhere else to go,” replied Dave. So, Ronnie did a U-turn and they drove off towards the town that Ronnie just came from, thinking that everything was going to be ok, but they had no idea what they were heading into.

  Chapter Six: Less

  A few minutes earlier

  The door of the motel room shut, leaving the soldiers, Finn and Alice behind while Ronnie went on to lure the men outside away from town. They had a moment of silence for the bravery and courage Ronnie had just shown by walking out the door.

  “That is one brave man,” said Captain Harris.

  Jay, one of the soldiers, walked back over to Finn. “Okay Finn, now there are only two of us, so I need you to prepare yourself for out there, because as soon as all those men outside are out of sight, we’re heading off into our section of the town we have to clear. Got it?” said Jay.

  “Yes,” replied Finn. It only took a minute or so for all the men outside to leave.

  Alice, who was the closest person in the motel to the window, was told to look out the window to see if all the men outside were gone, “Looks like everyone is gone. Ronnie did it; his plan worked,” she said.

  As soon as Alice told the soldiers that, they all – apart from Hank, who was to stay back and to respond on the radios when given to him – got ready. They geared up with armour, ammunition and guns. Finn put on a bulletproof vest and attached a gun
holder to his leg and was given a handgun to put in it. Jay showed Finn how to reload and use the assault rifle he gave him. “Okay men, we’re going to head out in one minute so make sure you’re geared up and are ready to go,” said Captain Harris as he was still gearing up.

  Jay looked at Finn. “Okay, you got your bulletproof vest on, you’ve got your guns, you’ve got ammo and yeah, that’s all. You’re all ready to go,” he said.

  “There’s one more thing I have to do, actually,” replied Finn. Finn walked over to Alice with a smile on his face and put his hands on her shoulders. “Listen Alice, I’m about to head out but don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. You just make sure to watch out for yourself and those kids, ok?” he said.

  “I’m always going to worry about you, you know that,” replied Alice with a worried look on her face.

  “I know,” replied Finn.

  “You do what you have to do out there, because remember…” replied Alice.