by Scott Blade
Widow had stayed in the chimney through all of it. He was uncomfortable and afraid to fall asleep because of the position and the fear of smoke inhalation. But he was dog-tired and managed to get a few hours here and there throughout the night.
Now was the time to act. He didn't want to wait any longer. The flames and heat seemed to have died down. So, he shifted his weight and scooted back down the chimney. He shoved the bedcovers back out the hole he’d come in through and waddled his way back out. He stopped at the hole and saw that the entire house had collapsed. He had to step out onto the framing that remained. He got all the way out of the hole and stood upright and scanned the terrain below. He saw a few of the meth heads through the dark and fog, but none of them were looking up at him. They were occupied searching through the rubble for his dead body.
He cracked his joints and stretched all the way out. He had a crick in his back from being folded up inside the chimney for hours.
He crouched low to keep his profile small and climbed down to the rubble below, which was mostly shingles from the roof. He snuck down to the ground and scanned around him. No one was looking at him.
He saw a meth head twenty feet to his right, facing the other direction. The guy was lifting up rubble with the muzzle of a Mossberg shotgun. It was old and worn, with a brown stock and black frame.
First, Widow searched his waistband for Gray's Sig Sauer. It wasn't there. He had lost it somewhere. He needed a weapon, preferably something silent.
Widow slowly knelt to the ground and reached for a loose brick to use to club the guy over the head. He picked up a brick and stopped. Underneath, he saw the head of the sledgehammer. It was covered in dust and ash, but it was all there in one piece. He dropped the brick and lifted the sledgehammer out of the rubble and smiled at it.
He crept over the roof shingles and the rubble as quietly as he could. He had gotten five feet behind the meth head when the guy heard him.
The meth head said, "I can't find him, Flint. Where's that body?"
Widow reared the sledgehammer back all the way like a baseball bat.
He said, "Not Flint, asshole."
The meth head heard his voice and spun around fast with the shotgun ready to go, but it was too late. Widow crashed the hammer right into the guy's face. It crushed and caved in under the blow. And if that hadn't killed him, his neck wrenching too far too fast would have.
The meth head spun around with the blow like he had been hit in the face by a train going full speed.
He set the sledgehammer down and picked up the shotgun. He checked it. It was out of shells completely. He checked the meth head for ammunition and found nothing in his pockets but lint and a dollar and thirty-five cents in change.
Widow left the shotgun and took up the sledgehammer and looked for the next meth head. He saw him thirty feet north. He was also digging through rubble. He had no gun on him, just a big stick. Then Widow saw another meth head nearby. This one had a hunter's recurve bow and a quiver of arrows on his back.
Where the hell were all the guns? he wondered.
Widow started to sneak up on them, slowly, but the one with the stick heard him coming and looked up fast.
"Jeb!" he called out to the one with the bow and arrows.
Jeb turned and saw Widow as a smoky figure standing in the mist appearing from out of the fog like a ghost.
Jeb pivoted to one foot and got the bow up in his hand and reached for an arrow. He got his fingers on the tail of the arrow, and that was it. He never got any farther.
Widow pulled the sledgehammer over his head all the way back and aimed and threw it full force straight at Jeb. The sledgehammer spun through the air fast and hard like it had been slung by a catapult.
The sledgehammer flattened Jeb's skull in a fast, violent blow. Jeb came up off his feet and was flung backward, into the fog.
"Jeb? Jeb?" the other meth head cried out. There was a certain inflection in his voice like Jeb had been more than a friend.
None of that mattered much because the next thing that happened was he turned back to face Widow with his stick. He never got a chance to make a single move because Widow grabbed him by his tattered shirt collar and clamped down on the guy's chin. He grabbed his other shoulder for leverage and broke his neck. It was one quick wrenching, and the neck snapped like a twig. The sound was audible.
Widow dropped the dead meth head like tossing a garbage bag into the bin.
Widow turned and scanned the scene for anyone who might've heard the commotion. Someone did.
He heard two other meth heads rustling behind him. They were coming up on him fast. He heard their footsteps over shingles and broken boards.
Widow turned right and scrambled over to the dead one called Jeb. He didn't go for the sledgehammer, despite the fun he’d had with it. Instead, he scooped up the bow and grabbed two arrows. He stuck one into the dirt and set one into the bow and drew it back on the string all the way. He aimed and saw one of the meth heads coming into view through the fog.
The guy said, "Jeb? Mikey? You guys find something?"
Widow waited until he saw the whites in the guy's eyes, and then he released the arrow. It flew through the air about as fast as it could and covered the distance between them in seconds. It arced straight into the meth head's eye socket. He let out half a scream before the arrow split a gaping hole through his brain and he fell back, dead.
The next meth head was right behind him. He had a hunting rifle and raised it fast to aim at Widow. But Widow was faster. He scooped the second arrow out of the dirt and pulled it back on the string, aimed, and released it.
The arrow stabbed right through the guy's chest. The guy managed to jerk the trigger once, and the hunting rifle fired. The bullet went loose through the air and vanished into the woods behind Widow.
That was five meth heads down, leaving two more.
Widow scrambled to get the hunting rifle. He took the bow with him and stopped at both dead bodies and jerked the bloody arrows out of each. Then he went for the rifle, but he heard the two remaining meth heads coming at him. He stepped back into the fog and crouched.
He waited.
Seconds later, both of the other meth heads were back. One had the AR-15 and one had a revolver. They stopped cold over their dead friends. They looked at each other, completely confused.
Widow came out of the fog. The bow was slung over his shoulder. He held both arrows, crisscrossed in one hand. The bloody arrowheads came out of his fists like duster knuckles with spikes. He snuck up behind both meth heads.
Two feet back, he stood up tall, towering over their scrawny frames.
He said, "Hey."
They both turned around toward him. He slammed his fist, arrowheads and all, straight into the throat of the one with the AR-15. Blood splattered across his face. He jerked the arrows out, and the guy dropped to the ground. He choked and gurgled on the blood pooling in the holes in his throat.
The last meth head trembled in terror. Then he raised the hunting rifle to shoot Widow in the gut, but he was too slow. Widow clamped the front stock with his free hand and jerked it out of the guy's hand.
He took it away and flung it out into the fog. Then he grabbed a handful of the guy's shirt and bunched it up and pulled him in close. He raised the arrowheads with his fist and showed them to him.
The meth heads said, "Oh Jesus! Oh, no! Please! Don't kill me!"
Widow said, "That all depends."
"On what?"
"What do you know about Gaden?"
"Who?"
"Nick Gaden?"
"Never heard of him."
"I heard he's some kind of big shot in this state?"
"What state?"
Widow shook the guy once.
"THIS STATE!"
"Sorry. I need my fix. I haven’t had my fix. You holding, mister?"
Widow didn't answer that.
He asked, "Where's Daniels?"
"He took off with the woman."
Widow jerked the meth head in close, which he instantly regretted because the guy's breath stank.
Widow said, "What woman?"
"The cop. Your friend. The pretty one."
"Where did they go?"
"I don't know."
"WHERE DID THEY GO?"
"He put her in the trunk and then took off to hand her off to some guy."
"What guy? What's his name?"
"I don't know. I swear!"
Widow said, "Was it Gaden?"
"I done told ya. I don't know Gaden."
Widow paused a beat.
He said, "Was it Fallow?"
The meth head's eyes widened like he recognized the name.
"That could be it. That could be what he told us."
"Why are you helping him?"
"Sheriff made a deal to pay us with the police lock-ups entire batch of Yaba."
"Yaba?"
"Crank, man! You know? Chalk? Glass?"
Widow stared at him blankly.
The meth head said, "Meth, man!"
"Guess you're no more use to me."
The meth head stared at Widow. Fear consumed his eyes.
He said, "No! Wait! Don't kill me!"
"Better tell me something I don't know!"
"The sheriff. He'll be back."
"When?"
"He was just exchanging the girl with that Fallow guy. Then he was coming straight back."
Widow smiled at the meth head and lowered his fists with the arrowheads. The meth head smiled, showing off his three or four teeth.
Widow head-butted him straight on the face. Lights out.
Widow left the guy lying in the ash and dirt. The guy was still alive, just knocked out, probably for the rest of the morning.
Widow searched the rest of the bodies and the grounds and the compound. In all, he found nineteen dollars in ones and a handful of change. He found one old burner phone. Inside it, there was a string of text messages from the sheriff. He’d tried to call out, but the phone didn't work, like Gray's hadn't.
He continued searching and found two AR-15s, three hunting rifles, a shotgun, a revolver, and the bow and arrows. He left them all in a pile. Both AR-15s had empty magazines. The hunting rifles were so ancient he didn't want to mess with them. And the shotgun was empty. So, he took the quiver and gathered all the arrows and shouldered the bow.
He considered keeping the revolver, but he didn’t, although it still had five bullets. He left that as well because he found Gray's backup Sig Sauer. He pocketed it and faced the stone ruin left behind by a structure that was long gone. He sat on the stone remains of a wall and waited for Daniels to return.
Sixty-Two
Daniels took Gray about an hour south and waited behind a closed strip mall. He parked near a dumpster. Gray rocked and clawed at her restraints the whole time. She never quieted. He heard her banging around in the back.
Fallow had shown up with two other guys and they made the exchange.
Afterward, Daniels drove behind them on their way to Gaden’s. Once they got to the turnoff, Fallow continued on. Daniels turned off-road and followed the winding dirt track until he came to the abandoned meth head shantytown and finally back to the pile of rubble.
The sun was still down, and he yawned. He was ready to go home and crawl into bed.
At the house he had watched while Widow burned inside, he parked and left the engine running. He got out of the car and looked around. He couldn’t see any of his guys.
“Where the hell are y’all?” he called out.
Suddenly, a huge hand clamped down on his shoulder from behind and jerked him around. Daniels spun about-face and stared into Widow’s eyes.
Widow was covered in blood and ash and soot. But his eyes were ice blue and big and filled with anger.
Daniels trembled. His jaw dropped.
He said, “You?”
“Me,” Widow said, and he head-butted Daniels square in the face. Not enough to kill him, but enough to break his nose for the second time in one night. Blood splattered out of it and all over Widow’s already blood-covered face.
He held onto Daniels and pulled him back up to him. Daniels went for his gun, but Widow grabbed it first. He ripped it out of his holster and let go of Daniels. He backed away and pointed the gun at him.
Daniels raised both hands up and out, palms open. His nose gushed blood from a new crack in his skin. He stood completely still and stared at Widow.
He said, “Okay! I know where the girl is.”
“Good. Take me there.”
“Let me call them. They’ll bring her to us,” Daniels started to reach for his satellite phone.
Widow shot him through his gun hand. Daniels hunched over and grabbed his hand. He squealed once. He held the hand up quickly to inspect it. His ring and pinkie fingers were gone. Widow saw them on the ground in a small pool of blood splatter.
“You son of a bitch!” Daniels shouted.
Widow said, “Make another move. Do one thing wrong. Do one thing I don’t tell you to do, and I’ll put the next bullet in your head. Understand?”
Daniels looked up at him.
“Yes!”
“Good! Now, get in the car. Let’s go.”
They got in the car—Daniels behind the wheel and Widow in the passenger seat. Widow put on his seatbelt. Daniels tried to put his on, but Widow slapped it off him and told him to drive.
Ten minutes later, they were back on Route Three headed to Gaden’s estate in Anguta, Alaska.
Sixty-Three
Widow and Sheriff Daniels pulled up to a large metal gate with a guard hut and one guard in the hut. He wore a baseball cap and a brown button shirt.
The guard saw their lights as they drove up and stepped out of the hut.
The Gaden estate was out in the middle of nowhere, on its own private drive. They were far enough from the town to shoot guns all day and have no complaints because no one would hear the sound, which was exactly what Widow was thinking about.
The gate was a large iron thing with bars and pointed tips on the top. The estate was surrounded by a ten-foot stone wall: thick and intimidating.
The guard stepped past the bright headlamps and over to the driver's side window. He stopped and stared as he got closer to the missing windshield and the broken windows.
He leaned down and stared at Daniels, who gave him a big smile. Daniels wore a strand of duct tape across his face, covering his double broken nose, a courtesy from Widow. The guard moved his eyes over to the passenger seat to see Widow looking back at him. No smile. He looked back at Daniels.
The guard said, "Sheriff? Everything okay?"
"Yeah. I need to pass through," Daniels said.
"Is Mr. Gaden expecting you?"
"Yes. Now, open up!"
The guard looked at Widow and then back at Daniels.
"Let me call it in then and check."
Daniels said, "No! Wait! I meant he's not expecting me, but he's going to want to hear what I have to tell him."
"I still have to call it in."
Daniels nodded along.
The guard turned back and walked back to the guard hut. He picked up a wall phone and started to dial.
Widow looked out the hole where the windshield used to be and saw a security camera. He exploded into movement and elbowed Daniels square in the face, breaking his nose a third time. Plus reopening the old chasms in his bones, which filled the duct tape with blood. Some of it was old and dry, and some of it new and fresh.
Daniels' head crashed back into the headrest from the blow. Then he toppled over forward. Widow reached over and turned off the engine and took out the keys. He reached down into the footwell and came up with the bow and some arrows. He got out of the car and strung up an arrow, pulled it back, and launched it at the security camera. The arrow fired right through the lens and the camera sparked once and went dead.
The guard in the hut saw it and heard it and dropped the phone. He came out of the hut
with a Glock drawn from a hip holster. He aimed it at the cruiser where Widow had been standing, but Widow was gone.
He looked left, looked right, traced the outline of the cruiser, searching for him.
He walked around to the passenger side, around the nose, and saw nothing but an opened passenger door and the spot where Widow had been. Then from behind the tail, Widow popped up and over to one side. He was in a crouch around the rear of the car. He shot an arrow straight through the guy's wrist, and he dropped the gun and clamped down on the arrow.
He cried out in pain. Blood squirted out around the edges of the wound.
Before he realized that he should grab his gun with his other hand, Widow was on him. Widow kicked the guard right in the groin, and he toppled over onto his knees and puked.
Widow grabbed the guy by a tuft of his hair and punched him with a full fist in the back of the head, square in the base of the brain, where all the circuits are kept. It wasn't a fatal blow. It could've been, but why kill the guard for doing his job? Widow couldn't pin him as some kind of accomplice. He might just be some local working for a paycheck.
He didn't kill the guy, but he did switch the guy's lights out.
Widow dragged the guy back to the guard hut and laid him against the wall in a seated position. Then he grabbed the wall phone's cables below the machine and ripped them out. He went to a computer and clicked on a button to open the gate.
The gate cranked to life and started opening inward.
Widow went back to the passenger side of the cruiser and scooped up the guard's dropped gun. It was a Glock. He checked it. It was in good working order. He chambered a bullet and tucked the Glock into his coat pocket. He now had a Glock and Gray's Sig Sauer. Both great weapons.
He returned to the passenger seat of the cruiser and closed his door.
"Drive," he said, as he tossed the keys at Daniels' face. They bounced off and landed in his lap.