by Thomas Hall
“Keep back,” he said. Then he was moving again, before he could tell whether she understood what he’d asked her to do.
Once he got to the end of the street he turned and headed down the next one. The buildings he passed appeared to be empty, but he couldn’t rely on that. If someone got curious and came to investigate, there was no way of knowing which side they would come down on. He didn’t want anyone to get hurt, but likewise, he didn’t want anyone else to start shooting at him.
The guards were catching up.
The first shots missed him by metres.
He’d scoped the area out enough to know that there were a few safe places he could go to shoot from. He ducked around a corner and into a side street that ran alongside the main road. He dropped his bag and turned back to shoot at the men as they came towards him.
He was a better shot than them and the next burst of machine gun fire took down two more guards. After that the others slowed down and became more cautious about coming after him.
They disappeared around a corner and Kade took the opportunity to reload his gun.
“Who are you?” one of them shouted. It sounded as if they were across the street, hiding around the corner.
He turned his gun to aim in that direction and saw a flicker of movement which seemed to confirm it.
He squeezed the trigger but missed the moving target. A chunk of the wall exploded and he cursed under his breath. Not only had he missed, but he’d given away his own position. Not to mention the damage he’d done to the building. The people of Swift Creek were unlikely to be grateful if he destroyed their town.
He stepped out of the alleyway. He couldn’t afford to wait there all night while Travis recruited more shooters. If the guards weren’t going to engage in the gunfight, then he would leave them and get on with his job. Maybe they’d thought better of fighting him at all and were now on their way back to wherever they called home.
He started walking and no one shot at him.
He reached the end of the street without incident but, as soon as he turned the corner, he realised he’d made a mistake.
The men had been smarter than he’d given them credit for. They’d tricked him. The man who’d shouted hadn’t been trying to find out where he was, he had been trying to make Kade think he knew where they were. It had worked.
They opened fire on him as soon as he turned the corner. He felt the edges of his shirt rippling in the wind. A few of the bullets tore through the fabric and caught the edge of his skin. Kade came to his senses and jumped back out of the firing line.
Kade tried to reply with the machine gun, but it was empty. “Shit!”
He reached for his revolvers and they felt right in his hands in a way that another gun never could. He could tell by the weight of them that they were loaded.
When he turned the corner again he shot all four of the men who were waiting for him. He did it before they’d had a chance to fire a single shot at him. They fell to the ground.
Two of them were dead and a third died as Kade stood over him. The fourth lay clutching his arm with his eyes closed. He muttered curses under his breath.
“Just shoot me,” the man said.
“Already did that. You’re no good to me dead,” Kade said.
“Just do it you fuck. Don’t leave me here.”
“It’s a flesh wound. Get to the doctor, he’ll sort you out.”
“What, so Travis can do your dirty work? He’ll kill me, so you might as well.”
Kade considered it, but he wasn’t willing to put a man down like that.
He reached for the man’s good arm and pulled him to his feet. The man cried out in pain at the sudden movement.
Kade took the gun from the man’s belt and threw it to the ground. “Get to the doctor,” he said.
The man looked like he wanted to spit in Kade’s face. He shook his head. “You’re not going to get away with this,” he said.
“We’ll see,” Kade said. “Get out of here.”
The man started walking. He stopped next to his gun but then Kade raised his own weapon and the man thought better of it. He kept walking and Kade watched him until he was out of sight.
Kade walked back towards the brothel. He passed a few of the men that he’d killed but he spared them no more than a glance. They were no threat to him now and the weapons that they carried were inferior to anything he had in his bag. Not to mention the revolvers that he wore on his hips.
It was still quiet in the brothel. The lights were low and there was no one outside. Kade stood at the end of the street and waited for more people to come out.
Minutes passed and no one came.
He wondered if it was too easy, but maybe he was overthinking the situation. He’d killed eight men already, easy barely came into it.
He started walking towards the brothel.
Nobody tried to shoot him. He reached the door and nobody burst through with a gun, nor any other weapon. He realised he was holding his breath and let himself breath.
He pushed the door and leaned in. The first shot almost knocked him backwards and ended the whole thing. He felt it flying past his right ear. There might have been blood, but there was no time to check himself for injuries.
Kade fired into the darkness. They had switched off the lights to give themselves an advantage. They’ll need it, he thought as his first shot landed and he heard a man cry out in pain before hitting the ground.
More shots followed. They had the advantage of being able to see him, but they were such poor marksmen that they were unable to hit him. Kade fired three more shots and three more men died.
He moved inside and let the door close behind him. Now they were all in darkness and the odds were in his favour.
His eyes adjusted to the darkness and he could make out the shape and layout of the room. They had moved things around since his last visit. There were tables turned on their sides, surrounding the room. People could lean over to try and shoot him. The thin wooden boards wouldn’t do much to protect them, but it gave the illusion of safety and sometimes that was all a man needed.
Kade crouched down and moved along the length of the room while they shot at him. He didn’t want to have to kill all these people, but it didn’t seem as if he had any choice.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he called out.
A bullet landed harmlessly in the wall behind him.
“Let the girls go and I’ll leave.”
Kade reloaded his revolver while he spoke and waited for the answer that he knew he was going to receive. They were still under the impression that their numbers gave them the advantage. Mathematically they were correct. All they needed was one lucky shot and that would be the end of him. But they weren’t the marksmen he was, they hadn’t been through this a hundred times the way he had.
“We don’t have to kill each other,” he said. He clicked the chambers of his guns closed and waited.
“This isn’t a negotiation,” someone said. He didn’t sound like Travis, but his voice held authority. “We’re going to kill you, you little shit.”
“Let the girls go and I’ll go,” Kade said. He hoped that they would agree to the offer, but experience had taught him that they never did. He had already come to terms with the fact that he was going to have to kill a lot of people.
“Not a chance,” the man said.
A barrage of machine gun fire came from the direction of the voice and Kade threw himself to the floor. He’d made it halfway across the room but there was nothing to shelter behind. Unlike the men he was fighting, he knew that a cheap wooden table wouldn’t protect him from bullets anyway. Best case scenario was that he would get killed by pieces of wood, rather than bullets.
The shooting stopped as the machine gun ran empty. The air was full of smoke and smelled of ash. Kade looked up and wondered whether they thought they’d killed him.
He stood up.
They started shooting at him again.
Kade fired back and emptied bot
h revolvers. Twelve more people were dead and he didn’t have anything worse than a flesh wound.
“Let the girls go,” Kade said again.
No one replied and he wondered whether they were all dead. He didn’t know how many there had been to begin with, all he did know was that his hands were covered in blood. If Madeline and Jareth were planning to start a revolution, there couldn’t be a better time for it.
A door opened and he turned towards it, gun aimed high. Someone walked through but he couldn’t tell whether it was a man or a woman, a friend or an enemy.
“Bravo!” a man’s voice said. Not Travis, but similar. “You really are everything they say.”
“Who are you?” Kade said.
“Name’s Brady,” the man said. “I know who you are.”
“Everyone seems to,” Kade said.
“You’ve had your fun, now it’s time to leave,” Brady said.
“Not without the girls.”
“They’re not here,” Brady said.
It occurred to Kade what had happened. It wasn’t a trap, but it had been a distraction. The men he’d killed had been cannon fodder, put there for that exact purpose. Why had they been willing to die for Travis?
“You didn’t think we were going to let you take them, did you?” Brady said.
Other doors opened and more men came out. Kade knew that these men would be more difficult to kill, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be able to.
“Where are they?” Kade said.
Brady smiled. Then he started to laugh.
“Where are they?” Kade said again.
“Don’t worry, we’re looking after them. You won’t find them.”
Something grabbed him from behind. Two hands that felt strong enough to bend steel. Kade didn’t wait to see what damage they would do to him.
He twisted and turned and managed to avoid the giant’s hands. Brady reached out to grab him but before he got a chance Kade squeezed the trigger and put a hole in his head.
Kade rolled onto the floor, twisting and turning as hands reached down to try and grab him. He rolled onto his back and managed to get a shot at the giant. The big man was quick and managed to avoid it.
“Brady!”
He recognised Travis’ voice and saw the dark shape of a man running across the room.
“Brady!” Travis cried. He fell beside the dead man and for a moment there was silence.
Kade tried to work out what was going on, but he didn’t spend too long on it. These men meant business. As the girls were no longer there, he decided that the best thing he could do was get out.
Travis got to his feet at the same time as Kade.
“You killed him,” Travis said.
Kade spat on the floor and backed towards the door.
“You killed my brother.”
Kade stopped. For a moment, he felt sympathy for the man. He knew what it was like to lose someone you loved. But it didn’t change the situation, if anything it made it more dangerous. He started moving again.
“Get him!” Travis shouted.
Nobody moved.
“Get that mother fucker!” Travis screamed.
Men came towards him from around the room. The only good Kade could find in the situation was that they hadn’t yet managed to get behind him and block the door.
CHAPTER 9
KADE REACHED THE DOOR AND FUMBLED FOR THE handle, not wanting to turn away from the room and look at what he was doing.
Travis’ men were getting closer but they weren’t shooting. They wanted to catch him and let their boss watch him pay for what he’d done.
Travis wasn’t with them. Kade could still see his dark shape on the other side of the room, cradling his brothers dead body in his arms. It was a sad sight, but it didn’t change the fact that Travis was a monster. He’d made his living exploiting others.
He managed to get the door open and went through. He pulled it closed behind him but didn’t expect that to cause more than a moment of inconvenience to the men following him.
It was light now and he could see the buildings around him. There was no one on the street except the few dead bodies that he had left there. He could hear the men at the door and started to move. He ran across the street to the nearest alleyway.
He heard the men coming after him. They shot at his back, like cowards, but didn’t come close to hitting him.
Kade didn’t waste time returning fire.
A moment later he heard the drumbeat of horse hooves and realised why the men hadn’t been able to shoot him. They hadn’t been trying to. It had been a distraction to get him moving, while they climbed on their horses.
He realised that there was a strong possibility that he was going to die in Swift Creek. It wasn’t where he had expected it all to end. But, he supposed one town was much like any other, and what had he expected to find out there anyway? The world was a wasteland now. The dead were the lucky ones and soon he was going to join them.
He didn’t stop running, he didn’t give up. However unlikely the odds seemed, he knew that there had to be a way of winning. He wasn’t going to let them have him without a fight.
Kade got lost among narrow streets between abandoned buildings. They weren’t old world structures - few of those survived outside the cities - but they had been empty for years.
The men got closer. They slowed down amongst the buildings but they were still on horseback and he was still on foot. Kade looked for a place to hide, but slowing down enough to check the doors was too much of a risk.
A bullet struck the back of his arm and he cried out. The force of it made him stumble. He wondered if this was how he would die, falling over his own feet as they rained bullets down on him. He didn’t want to die there.
He kept moving and the men kept getting closer. Kade thought that he could count the rest of his life in minutes, if not seconds. He wondered whether he would know when the end came, or if the darkness would engulf him before he realised what was happening.
Kade ran into a dead end street.
“It’s over Drifter,” one of the men shouted.
The street ended twenty metres in front of him at the back of a building. The men thought he was trapped and all they had to do now was wait for him to come out with his hands up.
He walked towards the dead end and a smile spread across his face. She was standing there, watching him.
Heck didn’t seem to have a care in the world.
“Girl, I’ve never been so glad to see you,” Kade said. He put a hand on her nose and rubbed.
“Throw your weapons down,” the man said. “Come out with your hands up and we’ll go easy on you.”
Kade climbed onto Heck and settled himself in the saddle.
“You’re only making it worse,” the man shouted.
How long could he wait there before they started to wonder what was going on? Kade could imagine that some of them were already wondering if he had gotten away. How confident were they that there wasn’t another way through the closed street? He didn’t want to wait for them to come looking for him.
“You ready girl?” he whispered into Heck’s ear.
She didn’t make a sound.
“Let’s get out of here then.”
Heck burst into a run and they flew out the end of the street. The men barely had a chance to register their surprise.
It felt like weeks since Kade had ridden, but it came back to him like the instinct to hold a gun.
The men started to chase them but quickly fell away. Heck was the fastest horse Kade had ever known.
There was little need to direct Heck. She seemed to know where he wanted her to go and took the turnings as if she’d lived in the town all her life. Kade took a few shots at the men behind them, but none of them hit and as they got further ahead, he stopped trying.
Less than a minute later the desert loomed ahead of them. The final few buildings fell away and there was nothing to see except dust.
“Slow down,
” Kade said and Heck did as he told her.
He turned back and saw the men had stopped. It was as if there was an invisible line in the sand.
Kade wanted to shout at them. He wanted to call them weak and scared because they wouldn’t follow him into the desert. But they still had guns and even if they weren’t as good a shot as him, they still might get lucky.
He said nothing.
Heck started moving away and he didn’t call her off. Maybe the horse had more sense than he did. She had no interest in staying to fight.
The morning was warm and getting warmer. Every so often Kade looked back. The men watched him leave and then either gave up and went home, or were so far away that it made no difference.
CHAPTER 10
AS NIGHT BEGAN TO FALL HE ATE STRIPS of jerky in the saddle. In the distance, he saw a rocky outcropping and directed Heck towards it.
When they arrived, he saw that it was the rusted remains of a train car, stuck head first in the dust. There was no sign of tracks and he wasn’t sure that a railways line had ever run this far out of a city.
“Take a break,” he said, jumping off Heck’s back and patting her on the side. “I’m going to look inside.”
She snorted something and took a few steps away. Before he left he took a feed bag from the saddle and hooked it over her nose.
Inside the carriage was empty. The seats had fallen to the bottom during the years since the old ones had walked the earth. It was dark but he could see that there were no skeletal remains, no sign that there had ever been anyone inside at all.
Kade ran his hand along the plastic carriage. He didn’t understand how a machine could be built from something so light. He supposed some things always would always remain a mystery to him.
He crouched on the floor. In faded ink, someone had written “Liberty and Freedom” on the wall.
It was warm and he thought that exhaustion would make it possible for him to rest there. It was better than a night spent exposed to the desert winds.
He could hear Heck outside. He moved towards one of the dirty windows and wiped away the dust that had gotten inside. She was standing with her back to him, facing away from Swift Creek, staring into the desert. He couldn’t see anything there and guessed that it was her horse senses making her anxious.