by Misty Vixen
Honestly, I got a hard-on just thinking about it.
And this was what I was thinking about as we finally cleared the woods some fifteen minutes later and came to stand on a strip of land maybe twenty yards across. There was the highway again, though it was little more than a road in these parts, and part of the way down it, I could just make out a house sitting in an open space among the trees.
“Think we should check that out?” Delilah asked as we started walking towards it.
“It’s tempting,” I replied, “but I’m not sure if we have the time.”
She nodded in agreement and we kept on going. The next several minutes passed as we tromped our way through the snow, going foot by foot, yard by yard, the scenery passing with a painful slowness around us.
My mind started wandering off again as we walked through the snow. This journey was going to be more difficult with Elizabeth, not that I was going to leave her or make her feel guilty for that. It wasn’t her fault she was in this situation and there was never a question of whether or not I was going to help her. I think...even if Delilah or Megan had objected, I would have done it, even if it meant one or both of them walking away, as painful as that would have been. But not only had that not come to pass, it seemed almost impossible, given what I knew about them. Thank fucking God it hadn’t come to that.
What I wouldn’t give for my car!
Although, to be totally honest, it would’ve been fucked anyway thanks to that bridge. Not like you can fucking drive over a frozen river. Or, well, maybe some you can, but no way would I risk it. But that didn’t matter now. Whatever happened, I’d accepted responsibility for getting Elizabeth somewhere safe and sound, along with Delilah and, in some capacity, Megan. I was comfortable with that, but it meant I needed to take the situation as a whole more seriously than I had been already. Although what, precisely, that would look like I wasn’t sure-
A gunshot rang out and a puff of snow shot up right at my feet.
We all shouted in surprise, me mostly in anger.
“Go! Get in the house!” I snarled as I pulled out my pistol and looked to the right while taking off at a loping run.
No one on the highway.
No one in the immediate area beyond.
I thought I saw a flash of light, what had to be the dim sun reflecting off a scope, somewhere in the treeline maybe a hundred and fifty to two hundred yards away from us, and then there was a real flash of light as the rifle cracked again and I felt something tear at the back of my pants, over my right thigh and that got me moving. I didn’t bother firing as I ducked my head and ran for all I was worth. We were close to the house, thank fucking God, and Megan was already there, kicking the door in and shouting for Delilah and Elizabeth to get in.
I thought I was toast. That last shot had been way too close, I was sure this next one would be the one that knocked the life out of me.
Then I heard another shot, but this one was much closer, and I realized it was Megan who had fired.
“Move it!” she screamed.
I moved it and we stumbled into the house. She slammed the door shut right as a round came shrieking through it, right next to my head.
“Now what?!” Delilah cried.
“Just give me a second!” Megan snapped as she stormed through the house, moving to the right of the main entrance we’d just come in through. I followed her, not quite thinking clearly, and came into a kitchen. She walked up to a window, bashed it out with the butt of the rifle, then tucked the butt tightly into her shoulder and took aim.
“Megan,” I said.
She ignored me completely. I was about to yell for her to get down, because surely this motherfucker had her in his sights, when she fired. The shot was incredibly loud in the dusty, abandoned kitchen, but her laugh after was louder.
“Holy shit!” she cried, sounding genuinely shocked. “I got him!”
“You did?! Seriously?!” I replied.
“Yes! I saw that fucker’s face disappear! God-fucking-damn! Can’t believe-”
Something smashed loudly behind us and we both whirled around even as I heard thundering footsteps. Almost before I could even fully realize what the fuck was going on, a huge, burly figure came barreling through the open doorway at the back of the kitchen. Both Megan and I tried to get our weapons up at the same time to take him out, and it dawned on me abruptly that we had been funneled into this house, that this had to be some kind of a trap, because I recognized this motherfucker. He was one of Jack’s bodyguards.
And then the man smashed into me, fucking tackled me to the floor, and the wind was knocked right out of me. The world went sideways as I went sprawling and my gun went from my hand. I felt strong, really fucking strong, hands go around my neck and start strangling the life out of me. There was shouting, confusion, the rifle discharged and I heard someone else, a man’s voice, yelling. But right now my whole world consisted of this bearded giant who was presently trying to murder me with his bare hands.
My body was panicking thanks to the lack of oxygen and the no doubt primordial response to hands on the neck, given how long we’d all tried to kill each other this way, and my own hands went to work. I made a fist and smashed it into the side of the guy’s head. He seemed ready for it and only loosened his grip a little.
I did it again, harder.
And then I got my other fist into play and brought the two of them together as hard as I possibly fucking could with the guy’s big stupid fucking head in between.
That seemed to get my goddamned message through.
“Get the fuck off me!” I half-screamed, half-gasped as I bucked furiously. He wasn’t moving, though. He probably had a good eighty pounds on me, maybe more. A look of frustratingly mild annoyance came onto his face as he socked me in the eye so hard I immediately saw stars. So I was probably dealing with a fucking sociopath who committed violence as easily as he changed his socks, with the body weight to back it up.
Great.
I returned the favor with a solid punch to his throat as he tried to get his hands back around my own neck and that got his eyes bulging as he gagged and his hands reflexively left my neck and went to his own. I twisted and bucked again and this time he came off of me. There was more struggling and shouting elsewhere in the kitchen and I saw Megan was wrestling around on the floor with someone wearing a familiar fancy coat.
Motherfucker!
They had fucking followed us!
With a scream of rage I leaped onto the burly bastard and started pummeling his face with my fists. My anger that I worked so hard to keep in check was out and this time I wasn’t checking it. I let it be fuel on the motherfucking fire. Something cracked as one of my fists landed and the guy screamed. Good. As I prepared to finish the job, something I knew I had to do fucking real soon or I might lose my nerve, (killing people with your bare hands is not easy work, mentally or physically, I don’t give a shit what the movies or video games might have to say about it), I heard another scream, one that froze my blood.
Megan.
I looked up and saw her going down. She hit the floor and didn’t move. Jack was on his knees, staggering to his feet, his hand going for a pistol on his belt.
“Jack! Stop!” Elizabeth screamed at the top of her lungs from somewhere behind me.
He did stop, turning to look at her, and that’s when the big fucker’s hands found my throat again. I gagged and it suddenly occurred to me that I had a fucking knife in a sheath on my own belt. I reached down, fumbling with it, struggling, and got the clasp undone. Out came the knife as my fingers wrapped around the hilt. I raised it up and brought it down directly into the burly guy’s wide eye, plunging it straight through into his brain.
His hands fell away and he began to do an awful jerking dance beneath me.
I fell off of him and heard Elizabeth scream again, this time sounding incoherent with rage and terror. I looked up as I got onto my hands and knees.
Looked up directly into the barrel of a
gun.
Jack was on the other end of it, his face a mask of anger, teeth gritted, eyes wide.
Well, I found myself thinking, I guess this is how I die. That sucks.
Then a bloody hole opened up on his forehead as a loud pop sounded and his head snapped back and the gun jerked away.
He collapsed into a heap.
For a few seconds, I was aware only of my own heavy breathing and my heart thundering uproariously in my ears.
Then I became aware of other things.
The winds shrieking.
Someone panting.
Someone crying.
Megan still hadn’t moved. I crawled hurriedly across the dusty kitchen floor towards her and began to check her over.
“Is she okay?” I heard Delilah ask in a distant voice that sounded nothing at all like her.
“Yes,” I said after checking her pulse. “I think. She’s still alive and breathing, at least.” I thought Jack had decked her in the temple and knocked her cold during their struggle. Slowly, I got to my knees, grimacing at the pain that flowed through my body. I scooped her carefully up in my arms and then got to my feet.
Turning, I looked at the other two women.
They both looked the same: stricken, ashen, staring at Jack’s corpse. Both for a different reason, I suddenly realized when I saw Delilah’s little twenty-two six shooter. Fuck. Was this the first time she’d had to kill someone?
And now Elizabeth was looking at her dead husband. Ex or no, that was going to seriously fuck with her, I had no doubt.
Shit.
Talk about aftermath.
“Come with me,” I said, and walked between them, deeper into the house. We hadn’t even secured it yet.
I walked into the living room, across it, and to a door at the back that led into a hallway that ran the length of the house left to right, dividing it. The first door led to a bathroom, the second led to a bedroom that thankfully had a queen size bed in it.
“Delilah, help me,” I said.
“What do you need?” she asked numbly.
“Pull the blanket back.”
She did so wordlessly and I laid Megan out, rearranged her a little, then covered her up and turned back to Delilah.
“Delilah.” She was staring down at Megan with a slight frown and glazed eyes. I put my hands on her shoulders. “Delilah.”
She shook a little and looked up at me. “What?”
“I know you’re messed up right now, but Megan’s hurt. I need you to watch over her, okay?” I asked. “This is important,” I added slowly.
That seemed to break through a little bit, and the glassy look seemed to fade a little from her eyes. “Okay,” she said, nodding slightly, and she sat down on the bed beside Megan.
I looked around. Elizabeth had drifted after us, but come to a halt in the doorway. She was staring in at us, but not really seeing us. She looked in shock, too, paler than before, her eyes a little vacant. Shit. I walked over to her.
“Elizabeth,” I said, gently taking one hand, “why don’t you sit down?”
“Yeah,” she murmured, then she paused and looked up into my face. “Oh wow, your eye…”
“I’ll be fine, come here,” I said. I knew I was bleeding at least a little, but I continued ignoring it and led her across the room. I sat her down at the foot of the bed, not far from Megan’s feet, and looked at her for a long moment. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Yeah,” she murmured, but I thought it was an automatic reply.
I got a bandage out of my pocket (I kept a few there for quick cuts) and put it on the cut over my eye. Not perfect, but it’d do the job for now.
She and Delilah were largely running on autopilot. I’d seen it before. Shit, I’d been there before. Violence had a way of doing that to some, even most, people. For a moment, I just stood there and looked over the three of them. This wasn’t exactly an emergency, but it wasn’t a great situation to find ourselves in. I had things that needed doing, the sooner the better, because it was obvious that we weren’t leaving this house for the rest of the day. They all needed a break, and so did I. And with the assholes dead and not chasing us any longer, then there wasn’t really a reason to keep pressing on. Plus, I doubted a long walk was in the cards for any of us.
Megan and I needed physical rest, and we probably all needed emotional rest.
“I have to go take care of some things. Will you be okay?” I asked finally.
They both gave somewhat vague but affirmative answers. I still didn’t like leaving them, but I thought there wasn’t anything I could actually do for them right now, and something I’d been taught by this new world was: you only get so much time, spend it wisely.
So I got to work.
SEVENTEEN
The first order of business was securing the house.
Wasn’t it always?
I took the time to check out the room, looking under the bed and in the closet, just in case someone might be hiding there, because it wasn’t impossible. But the room was clear. And so was the rest of the house, I was glad to learn. No one in the closets, the bathroom, the living room or kitchen or the laundry room I found near the back where Jack and his asshole minion had stormed the place. They’d kicked the door in apparently. I closed it as best I could, same with the front door, and then moved back to the kitchen.
Looking at the two corpses, I suddenly wondered why they hadn’t used their guns to begin with. Then, abruptly, it hit me.
They didn’t want to hit Elizabeth.
And, I reluctantly decided, they wanted to save Megan and Delilah if at all possible. I could easily see them either wanting to ‘make use’ of the two women for themselves personally, or for sale later, or very likely both.
Fucking Christ.
Resisting the urge to kick the corpses, I started patting them down. First, I yanked my knife from the big guy’s head and went about wiping it off on his pants. That guy had really given me ‘get off on killing people’ vibes and I was glad he was dead. How many people had he killed? Well, no one else now, at least.
Once I was done with my knife, I pulled everything I could off of him. First I went through his pockets, and he had some goodies on him. The pistol, first of all. It was a big, giant three-fifty-seven revolver and it was fully loaded. I found a box of bullets that was half full in his pants, which were heavy work pants with lots of pockets, and set it and the gun aside on the kitchen table. I found a big combat knife with a sheath, a box of matches, a switchblade, a battered, old cigarette pack with a dozen hand-rolled cigarettes in it, and some dried out meat wrapped in wax paper. I put the meat back, (didn’t trust it), but tossed everything else onto the table.
I was surprised that the guy didn’t have more on him. The pants were pretty filthy and I didn’t feel like fucking with them, but I got his coat and his boots though. They were in good shape, if a little dirty. Most of the blood had missed his coat, thankfully. With an effort, I hauled his heavy ass out of the house, through the back, and into the yard. I didn’t know what exactly I wanted to do with him, beyond wanting him out of the house, so I just left him there for now and went back inside, then repeated my search with Jack.
It felt weird, searching him.
Really only just because I had banged his wife, well ex-wife, and she was pregnant with his kid, and I knew this was likely going to be a whole thing. Emotions and relationships were rarely cut and dry. He was a piece of shit, sure, and probably he’d been a dick to some degree the whole time he’d known her, but she had obviously loved him, and still kind of did, I thought. It wasn’t easy to just walk away from someone, even if it made perfect sense, even if it was crucial, for most people. And the man she’d spent over a decade with, depended on, married and shared a bed with for years, was now laying dead on this dirty floor.
I just hated him more, because it was completely his fault that she felt so shitty.
Her and Delilah.
If I remembered right, (had it come up? I c
ouldn’t remember for sure right now), Delilah had never had to kill someone before.
That fucked you up.
I knew.
There wasn’t much on Jack, either, which bugged me. A nine millimeter with just a single magazine of ammo loaded into it and none to spare, the gun he’d intended to kill me with. A little flask of something strong that was half-full. A little book of matches. And a handful of jewelry, mostly rings, a necklace, a pair of nice earrings.
Were they Elizabeth’s?
I thought he’d brought them along for quick trading items.
Nothing else. Shit. What was wrong with this picture? Where was all their shit? I knew they hadn’t come tramping for days through the wilderness with just this. Where was their food? Their backpacks?
As I was getting Jack’s coat and boots and pants off (his weren’t filthy and they were nice), it occurred to me that this was an assault. A planned one. So they wouldn’t want to be weighed down. So they would have left them somewhere.
Where?
I began to feel a little disheartened as I finished my search and began pulling Jack out after the other guy. He was easier to manage, at least. But as I finished the job and tossed him down next to his buddy and looked out over the forest behind the house, feeling that disheartened despair getting worse because they could’ve put it anywhere, it abruptly occurred to me where it was: their asshole sniper friend.
And I knew where he was.
Or, at the very least, I was pretty sure I could find him.
I walked back inside, securing the door behind me, and headed back into the bedroom. As I walked into the room, I saw Megan’s eyes were open.
“Chris...you’re okay, thank God,” Megan muttered. She sat up, then groaned and laid back down. “Fuck, I’ve got a ringing goddamned headache...is everyone okay? I mean really?”
“Physically,” I replied.
“Phy-oh,” she murmured, glancing at Elizabeth, who was in the exact same place I’d left her. She’d seemed not to have heard any of this, she was just staring at the floor between her feet, both hands on her belly.
