Hunted in the Keys

by Matthew Rief

  All four of them woke up and stared at me as I shut the door behind me. “Back upstairs, now,” I said, walking towards the kitchen while looking over at Cynthia and motioning towards the old staircase. Seeing the hard expression on my face, the three of them jumped to their feet and moved towards the stairs.

  “What’s going on?” Chris asked, trying to sit up in the recliner and wincing in pain. “Are they back?”

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to frighten the girls.

  Before reaching the bottom step, Cynthia stopped, turned around and stepped towards me in the kitchen. “Logan-”

  “Make sure you lock the bedroom door,” I said as I grabbed the chest I’d filled with weapons and slammed it onto the kitchen table.

  She nodded and said, “I know how to use a gun.” She had short, quick breaths in-between her words. “My dad was a hunter.”

  Opening the chest, I reached inside and pulled out the Beretta I’d found in one of the dead thug’s hands the previous day. Sliding out the mag to give it a quick check, I slid it back in, verified the safety was on and handed it to her.

  “Fifteen rounds,” I said while grabbing one of the frag grenades from inside the chest and clipping it onto my belt. “Make sure you both are ready. I’ll come back inside and call your names when the island’s clear.”

  She nodded and moved swiftly back to the base of the stairs, joining her two daughters as they helped Chris up the old, wooden steps.

  “I hope to hell that you don’t have to use it,” I said to myself when they were out of earshot.

  Digging inside the chest a few seconds more, I grabbed the extra magazine for my Sig that I’d filled with 9mm rounds from one of the MAC-10 Uzis. Then, knowing that I’d have to take out at least a few of them quietly, I grabbed my new spear gun along with the leather sleeve storing two sharpened, steel spears.

  I closed the chest when I was satisfied, set it back inside the pantry and shut the two folding doors. Moving for the front door, I knew that I didn’t have much time before they’d make it to the beach. I licked my thumb and index finger then pressed them together, extinguishing the candle before grabbing the doorknob. Once outside, I shut the door behind me and ran to the beach, keeping my footsteps light and listening for any sign of the thugs. As I reached the beach I heard the sound of their outboard and the distant splashing of their wake as they motored closer to the island. Grabbing my monocular, I watched as their fast, black, rigid hull inflatable boat cruised right alongside the island, moving Northeast, parallel with the shore.

  I was amazed at how calm the world around me had become. The sky was so clear I could see countless stars dotting the night sky, including the celestial formations Orion, Crux, and Centaurus. The winds had died down to nothing more than an occasional soft breeze against my face. Out on the water, the white-capped, roaring seas had been replaced with a dead calm, the surface as smooth as ice.

  I watched as the boat motored slowly along the island, just a few hundred feet from the beach. The guys onboard appeared to be scoping out the place, so I kept low and out of their line of sight. Clearly, they were more experienced than the guys I’d previously faced off against. They didn’t just rush in with their guns blazing and their brains switched off. They were formulizing a tactic to take me down, to take all of us down, as effectively as possible.

  A few steps from the sandy path, I saw a small pool of muddy water where the bushes met the white sand. Moving my way over to it, I dug my hands into the murky mess, cupped scoops of mud and covered my face with it. Then I moved on to my forearms and legs, making sure every inch of my tanned, Caucasian skin was covered. I threw a few splashes over my shirt and shorts as well to blend in better, then drew my attention back to the boat. A moment later, as their boat neared the Northern tip of the island, they turned on a brilliant spotlight, sending a streak of white light towards the dark island.

  Scanning the beam back and forth along the beach, they turned inland and beached their boat in the surf. I watched as four of the guys jumped out then pushed the boat back into the water. The boat continued down the beach as the four guys moved together up towards the shrub line. After grouping together for a moment, the four guys split up and moved slowly towards the center of the island, switching on their flashlights and scanning the area ahead of them thoroughly before pressing on. It was obvious that these guys were contract killers. Mercenaries like myself. Real warriors. I took in a deep breath and crawled a few feet closer to the sandy path, my body camouflaged by the shrubs surrounding me and the mud covering my body.

  For a brief moment, I thought about Rainsford from Richard Connell’s The Most Dangerous Game. How he, too, had the odds stacked against him while being hunted on an island much like I was. It had always been a favorite story of mine, and at that moment I knew exactly what it felt like.

  I watched as the guy closest to me shined his flashlight back and forth with each step. Like the others, he was wearing a full set of body armor which included a bulletproof vest and helmet. He held an M4A1 assault rifle in his hands, a flashlight mounted to the end of it. Slowly, I reached for one of the spears and loaded it into my spear gun quietly, drawing back the bands which had a combined draw strength of over eighty pounds. Though designed to be shot underwater, I was confident that it would do the trick of taking him out quietly if I got my aim right. When the guy was within fifty feet of my location, he spoke momentarily into the radio built into his helmet, letting the others know that his area was all clear. He still hadn’t seen me when I took aim and pulled the trigger, launching the steel spear through the air at over one hundred and fifty feet per second. The sharp tip struck through the guy’s neck, right between his helmet and body armor, piercing through to the other side and spraying out blood. He gagged for a second before collapsing onto the sand at his feet.

  I crawled quickly through the thick railroad vines and grass, shuffling past the dead body and towards the second guy. They were spaced out a few hundred feet apart and it was only a matter of time before they’d notice he was down or tried to radio him to hear only silence. Hiding on the other side of a small sandbank, I waited for the second guy to trek over it, keeping perfectly still. As he stood over me, he shined his flashlight towards his dead comrade and froze for a moment before reaching for his earpiece. Before he could speak a word, I shifted my body around and snapped my right foot forcefully into his legs, hinging his body and slamming his head into the sand. As he reached for his weapon, I grabbed my dive knife and launched myself on top of him, stabbing the blade through his heart as I kept my hand over his mouth to keep him from making a sound.

  Just as his body was going lifeless, a third guy appeared over the sandbank. He shined his flashlight right into my face and fired off a few rounds as I dislodged my bloody dive knife, reared it back and threw it straight at him. His bullets rattled around me, shooting up piles of sand as my knife stabbed into the center of his face. Blood sprayed out as he groaned, his body jerking backward and his M4 exploding rounds straight into the night sky. I sprang to my feet and sprinted towards him as his body collapsed onto the sand.

  Using the sandbank as cover, I grabbed my AK and held it tightly pressed against my shoulder. As I looked over the sand, I saw the fourth guy shining his light my direction. Just as he spotted me he sent a stream of bullets my way, forcing me to drop down onto my stomach to take cover. As the rounds buzzed just over my head, I rolled to my right, tumbling my body through the sand as fast as I could. During a brief ceasefire, I popped two, took aim at the guy as he kneeled beside a small majesty palm to reload, and held the AK’s trigger. A line of 7.62x32mm bullets tore through the quiet, dark sky, making contact first with his lower half then tearing through his upper body, penetrating his body armor and shaking his body violently. Once I’d put about ten rounds into him I let go of the trigger and his body fell backward onto a large prickly pear plant.

  There was no need to run over and verify that he was dead. Even the stronge
st Kevlar bulletproof vests were usually only designed to withstand lower caliber ammunition, and a 7.62x32mm bullet, though its momentum would be slowed, would still have little trouble penetrating to flesh.

  With the four guys down, I did a quick scan of the island and the ocean surrounding it, looking for the other half of the attack party. My heart sank into my chest as I spotted them near the center of the island, moving together in a tactical formation towards the house.

  CHAPTER

  FOURTEEN

  Reaching down, I wrapped my hands around the dead guy’s M4A1 at my feet. The M4 had been my go-to assault weapon during my time in the Navy and it had grown over the years to feel more natural than a pencil in my hands. Glancing over at the four guys zeroing in on the house, I raised the M4, pressed it against my shoulder and then turned off the flashlight. I moved quickly in their direction, trying to cut the distance of about three hundred feet that stood between us.

  Having heard the gunfire, they were all on high alert and looking over my direction as I tried my best to keep behind the cover of patches of tall bushes. When it was clear that they’d spotted me, I dropped down to one knee and fired off as many rounds as I could in their direction before dropping to my chest, removing myself from their line of sight. I’d thought I’d hit at least one of them but couldn’t tell as I was pinned down by a barrage of bullets buzzing just inches over the top of my head.

  While taking cover, I set my M4 on the sand and reached for the frag grenade clipped to my belt. Taking a deep breath, I pulled the pin and threw a Hail Mary towards where the four guys had been clustered near the house. It exploded a second later with a loud boom, sending shards of shrapnel in all directions. The automatic gunfire stopped momentarily, and I propped myself up to get a better view. One of the guys was lying face first on the ground, motionless. But my eyes grew big as the three other guys opened the front door of the house and moved inside, going for Chris and his family.

  My blood boiling, I jumped to my feet, threw my M4 to the ground and sprinted as fast as I could towards the house. Through the partially shattered side window, I could see the beams of their flashlights as they searched the first floor. Cutting the distance between us in a matter of seconds, I grabbed my Sig, holding it tightly in my right hand as I took one final step and pressed into the ground as hard as I could, launching my body through the patched-up glass window. The remaining glass shattered as I crashed into the house, colliding into one of the thugs and tackling him onto the hardwood floor. His head jerked back, knocking him unconscious as he dropped his AK47 from the blow.

  Raising my Sig, I put two shots into the face of one of the other thugs, causing his body to collapse to the floor in a bloody mess. Before I could shift my aim, the third guy came storming around the corner guns blazing, his Uzi firing a stream of bullets my direction. As he shifted his aim towards me, I dove behind the kitchen counter, taking cover as bullets splintered the wooden cabinets and shattered the glass. Pieces of broken wood, cracked glasses, and cracked ceramic plates fell around me as the hail of gunfire continued. He moved in close and as the bullets stopped, I heard his magazine fall to the ground right on the other side of the counter, signaling that he was reloading.

  Jumping from my position, I fired off two shots into his bulletproof vest before he ran into me, tackling me hard into the refrigerator. Grabbing my right wrist, he slammed my hand into the counter, forcing my Sig from my grasp. As it rattled to the floor, I shoved my palm into his nose, feeling it crack to pieces, then wrapped my hand around his neck and slammed his head into the corner of the counter beside me. Blood flowed from his nose and he grunted in pain as I grabbed him by his vest and threw him to the floor. As I moved down to finish the job, he hit me with a hard kick to my abdomen, forcing me backward. He jumped to his feet as I regained my balance. Tearing open a nearby drawer, he grabbed a large knife and eyed me with hatred in his eyes and gritted bloody teeth.

  Whoever this guy was, he was strong, very strong. And he clearly had extensive hand-to-hand combat training. It also didn’t help that he probably had three inches and fifty pounds of muscle on me.

  Pulling open the nearest drawer to me, I glanced inside. Shit, I thought as I gazed upon a bunch of folded up table clothes. An instant later, the guy lunged at me and, gambling, I searched under the cloth and found a lighter and a corkscrew. Grabbing the corkscrew, I gripped it in my right hand like a pair of brass knuckles, the spiral metal point sticking between my middle and ring fingers. Looking up, I saw the large steel blade stabbing towards me and took a quick jump back. The blade struck hard into the cabinet and as he ripped it loose, I kicked his face in and stabbed him twice along his right arm with the corkscrew.

  The big guy yelled out in pain as he gripped the knife and swung it at my chest, blood dripping down his arm. As it sliced the air just inches away from me, I slid to the side, grabbed hold of his arm and, using his momentum against him, swung him over my body and slammed him onto the floor. I heard his arm crack as I slammed him and reached for the loose knife on the ground as he wailed in pain. He looked me in the eyes, his face covered in blood, as I stabbed the tip of the knife down into his chest, using my body weight to cut the blade through his bulletproof vest and penetrate through his heart. He gagged for a few seconds, then his eyes shut and his head dropped back against the hardwood floor.

  I ripped the knife free and cleaned the bloody blade on the big guy’s vest. Taking a deep breath, I wiped the sweat from my brow and stood up. Glancing in front of me, I saw a figure standing in the shadows. As he took a step towards me, I realized that it was the guy I’d tackled when I dove through the window. He looked dazed and had a hard time keeping his balance as he stood ten feet away from me. He held my Sig in his left hand and, snarling at me, he raised it so that the barrel was pointed right at my head.

  Shooting me an evil smile he said, “Any last words, asshole?”

  The silence in the living room was suddenly shattered by a loud crack. My eyes didn’t blink. They stayed open and staring at the guy as a bullet exploded into his forehead and blood sprayed out the back of his skull. His body collapsed and I smelled gunpowder smoke wafting from the stairs. Turning around, I saw Cynthia standing with both feet on the third step, her arms straight out in front of her and her hands wrapped around the Beretta which I’d given her earlier.

  As I moved towards her, she kept the gun aimed at the dead guy and started to shake.

  “Cynthia,” I said, speaking as calmly as I could. My entire body was still covered in mud, so I knew that I probably looked scary as hell. “It’s okay.” I reached for the gun and her eyes darted, staring into mine with a fierce gaze. “They’re all dead. The island is clear for now.”

  She nodded softly and let out a deep sigh as she closed her eyes and loosened her grip on the Beretta enough for me to take control of it.

  “I… I’ve never killed anybody before,” she said, taking short breaths.

  I wrapped my arm around her and ushered her over to the couch. After she was sitting, I told her to take deep breaths as I grabbed one of the few glasses that remained un-shattered in the kitchen and filled it with water. Walking back over to her, I handed her the glass and as she took a few sips I moved beside her.

  “Of all the people your husband could’ve pissed off,” I said, shaking my head as I sunk into the couch to catch my breath for a moment.

  After a short moment of silence, I looked over at her, watching as her hands continued to shake. “Hey,” I said softly, “are you alright?”

  When she didn’t reply, I sighed and said, “I know. I get it. Just remember you only defended yourself and your family. That guy would’ve killed all of us if given the chance.”

  She shook her head back and forth a few times. “I’m not trying to justify it. I know I did the right thing.” Taking a deep breath, she let it all out and continued, “I just can’t get the image of his face out of my head.”

  I sighed and rose to my feet, my back
aching from being thrown into the refrigerator. I was still a little dizzy from being kicked in the face as I walked back into the kitchen, turned on the faucet and dipped my head under the water. The cold water felt good over my body and, once I’d washed my face, I took a few swigs to quench my thirst. A layer of dirt had rinsed off from my face and pooled in the sink.

  Upstairs, I heard the shuffling of feet and then the voice of one of Cynthia’s daughters calling down to make sure that we were okay. Cynthia didn’t move or even make a sound, so I walked over to her, placed my hand on her shoulder and stared sternly into her eyes.

  “Your girls need you,” I said. “You have to be strong for them.”

  Just as I said the words, Alex appeared on the wooden stairway. Taking one look at the two of us and the dead guys sprawled out on the floor, she ran her tiny frame over to the recliner and jumped into her mother’s lap. Burying her little face into her mother's chest, she cried, her brown hair shaking and covering her entire head. Cynthia snapped out of it and wrapped her arms around her crying daughter.

  With watery eyes, she looked up at me and said, “Tell me everything’s going to be okay. Tell me that you can protect us from all of them.”

  My gaze narrowed as I stared into her sparkling brown eyes. “Everything’s going to be okay.” Then placing a hand on her daughter’s head and glancing over at the dead bodies, I added, “I can protect you from all of them.”

  CHAPTER

  FIFTEEN

  I went to work hauling the bodies over to another pile under a patch of bushes, trying my best to hide them as best as I could. As I worked, my body aching as I dragged each thug one by one, I thought about what I’d said to Cynthia. Deep down I knew that there was no way of knowing whether or not I’d be able to keep my promise. For all I knew, there were fifty more guys armed just as heavily as the eight I’d just faced, waiting for the order to come and take me out. But one thing was certain - I wouldn’t go down without one hell of a fight.