The Storm Before the Storm

by Joe Russell

  “Can I help you?” he asked, sounding a little nervous and definitely not like he wanted to help Neil with anything, other than pointing him in the right direction to anywhere else.

  Neil struggled not to choke on his own words. “Um,” he stuttered nervously, “yes. Please.” A brief pause. “Well, my friend, the one who was here with me before. We, uh, got separated in the woods after we left here. He has the tent.” His mind raced for words to explain the simple story he was trying to peddle. “I, uh, I was wondering if I could stay here for the night.”

  The man eyed him with unconcealed suspicion. There was a long, awkward pause that made Neil want to squirm and run, and try to keep explaining himself, as if the extrapolation would somehow convince this man he was telling the truth. However, aware that his nervousness would only raise suspicion more, he forced himself as best he could to stand firm and act somewhat confident.

  Finally, Greg spoke again. “You got separated? How?”

  Neil didn’t know if the man was trying to catch him in a lie, or if he could believe it and was genuinely curious to know the details. Maybe this was just wishful thinking. “Um, well…” His mind raced to come up with an explanation, and he realized too late that he should have come up with a better story, or at least better details to support the one he had. “My flashlight died. So, we only had one.” He blurted this out without stopping to think of how this could possibly lead to them being separated in the silent forest where a shout could probably be heard for miles. He could feel his body begin to cave to the nervousness he was feeling. He knows, Neil thought. He knows I’m lying, and he knows why. I’m trying to distract him. Neil was trying so hard to remain calm that he was almost in a panic. The man was staring at him, or staring right through him, Neil thought. The silence was deafening, and Neil longed for him to respond either way, if for no other reason than to eliminate the suspense and get this over with.

  The silence was broken by neither of the responses Neil was anticipating. Both men flinched a little by the muffled, yet still loud crashing sound coming from the room directly above them. Neil froze, knowing Dave was probably involved, and whatever was happening was the end of their cover. He thought for a moment about turning and running, about reaching out and trying to fight, but his frantic planning was halted by the young man pulling a handgun out from behind his back with one hand, grabbing Neil’s shirt with the other, and pulling Neil in with the cold barrel of the pistol shoved into his neck. “Don’t fuckin’ move,” he hissed, and pulled Neil inside, slamming the front door shut with his foot.

  Greg dragged Neil back to the kitchen area at the same time that Scott, rudely awoken from his nap, stumbled in. “Watch him!” Greg barked, shoving Neil toward Scott. He checked the chamber of his pistol, a Sig Sauer .40, then turned toward the stairs.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  “Son of a bitch!” Mike muttered under his breath. He hadn’t heard the crash inside the cabin from the distance he was, but he clearly saw things change in an instant and witnessed Neil being dragged inside. He didn’t know what to do now. Dave had instructed him to stay back and give them cover with the rifle, but after what had just happened, he wondered if it was time to charge in and take the fight to them. The problem was he didn’t know where Dave was and what he was doing. More importantly, was he in trouble, or did he have the upper hand? Mike didn’t want to blow Dave’s cover by charging in and alerting them that something bigger was taking place. Part of him thought that after what had just happened to Neil, the cat was out of the bag and the gloves were off, but then again, he didn’t know what’d just happened and if they even suspected he was watching out here or that Dave was inside. He listened, and watched the lit windows through the scope of his rifle, debating on what to do next.

  Chapter 24

  Spruce Knob, West Virginia. Present Day.

  Dave was pretty sure he had never felt more emotion in his life. He wanted to embrace Sandra for the rest of night, and did for a moment, but knew the fight wasn’t over. Quickly wiping his knife and hand on his pant leg, he used it to unbind her, but forced himself to immediately free the other two before stopping. Sandra, trying not to cry, stood and squeezed him like she never had before. Dave returned the passionate embrace, but only for a moment.

  “Sandi, there’s still guys downstairs. We need to get out of here.” His voice was kind, but urgent.

  She was about to say something, but they both stopped at the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. “Don?!” a voice shouted from the stairwell, just out of sight.

  Dave stepped backward silently from Sandra, and gave a stern look and the ‘be quiet’ signal to all three women, who were now watching him. Quickly but quietly, he returned his knife to its sheath, then drew his pistol. He drew a bead on the wall of the stairwell just outside the door, and waited while the steps got closer. His heart was thundering again. Well, it probably had been this whole time, and he was just now noticing. He held as still as he could, waiting.

  Dave saw the barrel of the Sig before he saw the man who carried it. When the man’s profile came into view, Dave fired two quick shots, cursing as he realized he’d missed both times. The man must have been suspecting something, and moved back out of the way in the split-second between Dave seeing the man and pulling the trigger. There were now two clean .38 caliber holes in the plywood wall where the man’s head had been a moment before, and Dave cursed at the botched opportunity. Now, the men knew he was up here, and he knew that they were armed.

  It was also at that time, Dave noticed the body of the man he had killed on the floor beside him. Actually, it was the unmistakable and abominable smell of charred flesh that got his attention. It appeared that the broken lamp had ignited the dead man’s clothes as they laid together on the ground, and had grown into a fire that was beginning to spread to the broken table and window curtains nearby, both dry as the dust that covered them. Great, he thought.

  Pistol ready, he inched closer to the door, trying to see down the stairwell to the man he’d just shot at. As he got closer, a shot rang out and the glass from a picture hanging on the wall a couple foot from his head exploded. He jumped backward, but kept his balance. The man was just out of sight and must have fired to keep him in the room, Dave thought. They were safe for now, but the standoff had to end somehow.

  As if in response to his inner pondering, another object collided with the wall at the top of the stairwell, but it wasn’t a bullet. It was another oil lamp from downstairs. This one didn’t ignite, but only shattered, spilling kerosene across the floor around it. Dave began to move closer when another lamp was hurled up, this one igniting the oil on the floor when the flaming wick landed on it after being freed from its glass encasement. It didn't flare up as quickly as the moonshine in the bonfire, but in a matter of seconds, the flames had grown enough to completely fill the small landing at the top of the stairs, blocking their escape from the room.

  It was then that a voice drifted up through the flames from downstairs. “Fine, stay up there!” the voice jeered, followed by laughter from at least one other person.

  Damn, Dave thought to himself. He knew that it wouldn’t take long for the old cabin, made almost entirely of wood that by now would be bone dry, to be completely engulfed in flame, and the smoke would probably kill them long before the fire itself would. He knew that they had to get out, but taking the stairs wasn’t exactly an option. He didn’t feel like getting burned and shot in the same three second period, and doubted that any of the girls would either. Looking around, he figured that escaping out the window, onto the front porch roof, and down to the ground below was probably their best, if not their only, option at this point. He moved to the window, the one whose curtains weren’t on fire, and peered out into the night. He couldn’t see much aside from the immediate surroundings of the driveway, the Jeep, and some trees beyond that were dimly illuminated by the remaining lamps in the house that hadn’t been used as molotov cocktails.

  “That�
�s our way out?” Jen said, moving close to him to look out as well. He grabbed Sandra’s hand, who was now at his side too, and squeezed it.

  “Yeah, I’d say so,” he responded flatly. He unlatched the ancient single pane window and slid the lower half up in the same way he had done downstairs.

  Sandra walked over to Rachel, who hadn’t said anything other than a whimper when the shots had been fired. Sandra knew the younger woman was terrified, probably never having been in a dangerous situation in her life. Not that Sandra herself had ever been kidnapped and intentionally burned alive, but it was obvious to her that Rachel was paralyzed with fear, and she and Jen weren’t. In fact, Sandra had been afraid that Jen was going to try and fight back against their captors, to the extent that they would all suffer more from it; the exact opposite of Rachel. Rachel looked at her desperately as if to ask if everything would be okay, and Sandra embraced her in a hug. “We’re going to be okay,” she said in a motherly type of way. Rachel began to sob.

  “Hey, I know you’ve all had a rough day, and I hate to be like this, but we need to go. Now.” Dave said, firmly. He knew all the girls would probably be permanently scarred from this experience to some extent, but now wasn’t the time to start the counseling. The air in the room was beginning to get thick with smoke as the fire was starting to consume more and more of the house by the minute, and they would be dead if they didn’t get out very soon. With the window open, he began to swing his leg out over the sill when he caught movement from below. The man who had fired at him was now in the driveway, and was aiming to shoot again. Out of pure instinct, Dave let the leg he was standing on inside the room buckle, and his body dropped and rolled backward out of the window and back into the room as the man let loose a round that shattered the glass of the window above him where his face had been just a moment earlier. Dave heard the man curse from outside, but there were no more shots. He could probably shoot through this plywood wall, Dave thought to himself, but didn’t feel inclined to share that tidbit with the man outside.

  Dave rolled to his feet and shouted for the girls to get down on the floor. His eyes were starting to burn from the smoke. They were trapped in here, and didn’t have much time left. He had to fight their way out. He crawled over to the other window, which was on the same wall and faced out the same direction to the outside. Standing back in the room, he rose slowly and tried to look through the smoke and burning curtains, which were almost gone at this point. He was barely able to make out the man in the driveway, who it appeared, was still training his eyes on the other window. Dave raised the muzzle of his pistol and took aim at the man’s center of mass. As he was still aiming, however, the man apparently noticed him in the other window, and turned to fire. Between the smoke affecting his eyes and at this point, possibly his mind too, and with no cover, Dave had nowhere to go and nothing to do but try and shoot first. A shot rang out from outside before Dave could line up his sights and fire out, and in the fraction of a second his hazy mind had to process what was happening, he braced himself for the impact of the bullet.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Shit, shit, shit! Mike thought to himself when he realized that the steadily growing glow from the windows upstairs was not another lamp being lit. He could see Dave moving around and other people, presumably the girls. It was somewhat a relief, at first anyway, because he could tell by the way Dave was moving that it seemed things were okay. Then, he heard the shots from inside and although he could still see Dave, and it didn’t appear Dave was injured, it was difficult to relax knowing that they were shooting at each other inside. Now, with the fire consuming the cabin both upstairs and downstairs, he knew he had to move.

  He broke cover from his hiding place cautiously, not wanting to give up his position if the guys decided to exit out the front of the house. As nervous as he was, he kind of hoped that they did, because it would give him a clear shot to take them out and allow Dave to get the girls out of the inferno safely. Plus, he didn’t know where Neil was or what his status was, and the bad guys exposing themselves might be his only chance to allow Neil his opportunity to escape. He moved up the edge of the driveway, crouching low to avoid being seen by the ambient light of the fire. However, when he was less than fifty yards from the front porch, the door opened and one of the men, the man Neil had been talking to moments earlier emerged, gun in hand. Mike quickly ducked to the side of the drive and found cover behind another large tree trunk, then peeked out to see what was happening, hoping that between the fire and the gunfight with Dave, he hadn’t been noticed in the dark. Mike’s heart sank when he saw that Dave had opened one of the upstairs windows and was about to crawl through when the other man exited the house, apparently to intercept Dave’s escape. They want him to burn alive, Mike thought, feeling his temper flare. Not that he needed any convincing that these men were not friendlies, but this particularly struck him. Without any remaining hesitation, Mike raised the rifle, did his best to center the crosshairs of the scope between the man’s shoulder blades, and pulled the trigger. This wasn’t the first man he’d killed today, and it surely wasn’t the time to hesitate.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  After a second of realizing that he actually hadn’t been shot, Dave snapped out of his frozen state and moved quickly out of view of the shattered window. He hadn’t been shot and in fact, he hadn’t heard or felt a round pass anywhere near him. He risked a look outside and to his relief, saw the man who’d been about to shoot him was on the ground, flopping around awkwardly and holding the back of one of his legs. Mike! Dave thought to himself, realizing that his companion must have taken the shot, and not a moment too soon. In his anguish, the man seemed to see Dave, and reached for the pistol he must have dropped when Mike dropped him. Dave was ready, however, and put two shots from his Ruger into the man’s chest before he could even lift the pistol from the ground. The man’s body instantly went limp, and he collapsed belly up on the gravel driveway; dead.

  “All right, let’s get out of here!” Dave shouted through the thickening smoke to the women in the room with him. They were still on the floor, coughing and holding articles of clothing over their faces to try and filter out the smoke from the breathable air that was quickly being consumed by the fire. They all were able to crawl to the window, and Dave helped them out and onto the porch roof one at a time. When the last one, Jen, had cleared the sill, Dave extracted himself from the burning cabin and into the night air outside. It was sweet and cold, and he gasped deeply to replace the smoke in his lungs. The girls were, too. It was only then that he realized how close they all must have come to dying from smoke inhalation. Thank you, God, for getting us out of there, he whispered.

  Out of the corner of his eye he caught movement in the night, and turned toward it, pistol ready. However, he saw it was Mike, who was running toward the cabin, rifle in hand.

  “We gotta get down from here!” Dave yelled to him over the noise of the cabin burning. Pretty much the entire structure was ignited by this point, and Dave had a sudden fear that it would collapse with them still standing on it. Mike looked around at the cabin, then to the Jeep. It was a good twelve feet from the porch roof to the ground, and although a broken ankle beat death by fire, Mike didn’t want the girls to have to make that jump. Then, he had an idea. He tried the door on the Jeep, but it was locked, then went to the body of the man in the driveway. After just a few seconds of searching, and with the first stroke of luck Mike believed he’d had all day, he recovered the keys to the vehicle. Unlike most modern vehicles, it still had a physical key, which was fortunate, given the electronics were dead. He unlocked the door and hopped in. Even without it being able to start, he was able to turn the ignition and put the dead vehicle into neutral. He got back out, dropped the rifle on the ground, and began pushing with all his might. Come on, come on, Dave thought. He knew he could make the jump and probably not hurt himself, but twelve feet into tall grass that hid a potentially uneven ground surface could be dangerous, and they all needed to be
able to hike out of this forest. Mike was making progress, however. The big young man was able to set the Jeep rolling, despite the gravel driveway, and it seemed to roll just fine once he got it moving. In less than a minute, the front bumper was kissing one of the porch posts, and Dave was able to drop half of the previous distance down to the Jeep’s hard top. From there, he was able to help all three women down, and Mike caught them as they jumped the other half of the distance to the relative safety of the ground. However, only ten or so feet from the burning cabin, the heat was almost completely unbearable, and they immediately fled to the edge of the woods where they were once again comforted by the clean, cool, night air. Now, they had time to stop and catch their breath. All but Mike were hacking and coughing, their bodies violently rejecting the acrid smoke now that there was actual breathable air to ingest. After a minute or two, the coughing died down, and the only sound was the hissing and crackling of the cabin, which was liable to collapse upon itself at any second. Now, there was hugging and kissing, and a little crying between the members of the group, finally in a safe enough position to feel and release the emotions that had been forced down all day. Dave and Sandra hugged and kissed passionately, and Mike, a little sheepish, held Jen as well. The two couples were so lost in each other that they barely heard the voice, timid and soft in the night.

  “Where’s my Dad?”

  Chapter 25

  Spruce Knob, West Virginia. Present Day.

  The group approached the cabin again cautiously, back the way they had come. Dave checked Greg’s body carefully, then recovered the Sig pistol he had dropped, along with two spare magazines from his jeans pocket. No point in leaving it here on the ground, he thought. He handed it to Mike, knowing that Mike probably didn’t fully know how to operate it, but hoping they were done fighting for the night. A little foolish, he knew, but with the adrenaline of the waning battle receding and the emotional and physical intensity of the last twelve hours starting to wear on him, he was just too tired to care. They had their companions back. Well, all but Neil.