We made our way toward the huge building, and I felt my chest getting tighter. Something wasn’t right about this place. The condition it was in had no affect on my concern; a majority of buildings were left this way from the Intruders. Maybe it was residual tension from seeing the gun on Blaine’s hip, but my anxiety was growing with every step we took through the parking area.
Crossing the threshold, covered in shattered glass, and into the store, the feeling of unease became stronger. Blaine sensed my hesitation and gave my hand a gentle squeeze, as if reassuring me that it was safe. It didn’t help.
Once in the lobby area, we got a better look at the layout of the store. It was huge, broken up into two warehouse sized sections, divided in the middle by a lobby. In the lobby, directly across from the entrance, was a grand staircase leading up to a museum. There was a huge tarp at the top of the stairs and a sign informing that it was closed due to construction. Although the entire store was a mess, it was easy to see that the décor was based on a cabin in the woods. Taxidermy animals hung in various positions throughout the building.
The warehouse section to our right was for boating and fishing supplies. The floor was covered with rows and rows of fishing pole displays, in complete disarray, and other fishing supplies. Just past that area was a huge showroom full of fishing and speed boats. The showroom walls were basically made of glass, and I found it odd that this was the only area that had windows untouched by the Intruders. Very much like the shop I had stolen the motor bike from.
The warehouse area to the left had outdoor clothing items, weapons, and camping gear. This was the direction Blaine and Jared were headed. We stopped at the camping gear first, watching our step as the contents of every shelf were strewn across the floor of the isles. Jared knew exactly what he was looking for and grabbed an overturned shopping cart, turning it upright, and loading it with items off of the floor.
Blaine took my hand and led me to the weapon area. “We’ll get the ammo,” he said to Jared without so much as turning his head in Jared’s direction.
“Sure,” I heard Jared reply from behind a shelving unit.
When we got to the weapons area, I noticed it was in better shape than the rest of the store. Every glass case on the gun displays were shattered, and a few guns were missing, but the ammunition shelves only seemed partially disjointed.
I watched Blaine, his back turned toward me, busy pulling boxes of bullets off of the shelves and placing them in a half broken shopping cart. He moved so gracefully, running his finger along a row searching for the right caliber of ammunition and slipping several boxes out at one time. He then looked up, above his head to the weapons hanging from the rafters by display line. Realizing it was too high for him to reach alone, he boosted himself up on the shelving in front of him and snatched a crossbow down. It was as smooth as if he was plucking a feather from the air. I continued to watch as he searched the row of corresponding arrows for the bow, reading each box carefully.
He continued this for at least the next five minutes, his back always to me. At that moment I felt something come up behind me and a hand clamp down onto my mouth, dragging me backward around the corner and out of sight from Blaine. Taking in a breath, I was about to scream, knowing any sound would get Blaine’s attention. Then a man’s whisper exploded in my left ear, “Make one sound and I will slit your throat.” I could see the knife as he raised it to my throat. I noticed the prison orange sleeve of his shirt and felt the coarseness of his hands. His breath reeked of cigarettes and booze, only getting worse when his breathing became heavier from exertion.
Blaine must have turned around and realized I wasn’t there anymore because I could hear him calling my name two rows over, his tone turning to panic every second. The foul smelling man pulled me farther away from Blaine into the ammunition counter’s storage room. I continued to think of ways to get out of his grasp, but nothing came to mind. Still covering my mouth, he used the hand grasping the knife to smooth back my hair from the side of my face. I felt a shiver run up my spine as he breathed in my scent deeply. “My, my. You are a pretty little thing aren’t you?”
Now I could hear the muffled sounds of both Blaine and Jared, calling out to me throughout the store. I wanted so desperately to reply with a scream, but the knife was back at my throat again.
“I bet you have pretty lips too,” he said, sniffling. “It’s been a long time since I have seen pretty lips.”
Oh my God! I thought. What does he want with me?
“Do you have pretty lips?” he asked, as if wanting an answer. I needed to find a way to get out of his grasp and doing that would require him to let go of me so I could run. But I could tell he had no intentions of letting go, not when I posed a threat to escape. The only way I was going to make him believe I was no threat was to get on his good side. I nodded “yes” in reply.
His body went stiff in surprise to my answer. I took a deep breath to calm myself. I had to make this more believable. I nodded again. He lowered the knife slowly, cautiously. I began to turn my body around, hoping that he would loosen his grip. When he felt me moving, he tightened his grip on my mouth and pulled my back harder into his side. “Tut, tut. You wouldn’t be trying something stupid, now would you? You don’t strike me as a stupid girl. Are you a stupid girl?” he asked, now gritting his teeth, breathing becoming shallower. I shook my head “no” in response.
“Well then, that would mean you are a smart girl, a good girl. And a good girl wouldn’t try to pull a fast one on Rocky, would she?”
I shook my head. He loosened his grip on me and said, “If I let go of your pretty mouth, you will be a good girl and keep quiet. Isn’t that right, sweetie?” I am not your SWEETIE! This guy was seriously pissing me off. I nodded my head. He had my back pressed against him while his back leaned on the wall to the left of the door. He slowly lowered his hand from my mouth and, when he saw that I wasn’t going to put up a fight, he turned me around to face him.
“There’s a good girl. Now, that wasn’t so hard.” His condescending tone was like nails on a chalkboard. He kept the knife in his left hand, blocking the door with his arm. With his now free hand, he began to stroke my cheek with the tips of his fingers. I could feel the little bit I had for breakfast rise to my throat. I was dangerously close to puking, but blowing chunks in his face would most likely get me killed. I worked my hardest to hold it down. I had to get him to put down the knife if I was going to get a chance to run. I could hear Jared and Blaine calling out to me. It was getting louder, meaning they were closer to the storage room.
I knew what this “Rocky” wanted, and he wasn’t going to get it. But I had to make him believe the opposite to keep myself alive.
“Rocky, is it?” I whispered, now face to face with the man. His breath smelled like a brewery, and the sound of my voice saying his name made him grin just enough for me to see that his teeth were half rotten. This was going to be harder than I anticipated.
“Yes,” he answered his breath hot on my face. I swallowed down the urge to vomit.
As calmly as I could muster, I asked, “What is it you want from me?”
His breathing became faster, and his only reply was a half smile and slightly raised eyebrows. Ew!
I forced a smile in return, and leaned into him, my mouth only a half inch from his crusty ear. “I would feel way more comfortable if you would put the knife away.”
His hand caught my throat, and I felt my chest tighten, closing off as quickly as my throat was about to. Through a choked reply, I forced out, “pretty please.” He loosened his grip on my throat, his fingers trailing to my collarbone. His eyes were full of a horrible fire. In that moment I felt as if I were lucky to have lived this long. His gaze traveled my body from my toes to my forehead, and the sick pain in my stomach worsened. He began to pull back the collar to my shirt. “Rocky?”
“Hmm,” was his gravelly reply.
“The knife?”
He carefully placed the knife on a wai
st level shelf to his left of the door. Grasping a handful of the shoulder of my shirt with his right hand, and a handful of my hair in his left, he yanked me into him at full force placing his mouth to my ear, and whispered, “Let’s just see how much of a good girl you really are.”
Chapter 28
That was my opportunity. Every girl dreads encounters like this, they haunt our nightmares after fears are placed inside our heads by our overprotective parents. And just like every girl is afraid of a situation like this, we are also trained…well. Shifting my weight back, leading him to believe I was enthusiastic for the moment, I reared up and rammed my knee into his groin with a force that could have wedged my thigh into the wall behind him. He immediately let go of me to grab this sensitive area and fell to the floor of the storage closet. As soon as he hit the floor I screamed, “Blaine!”
Untangling the escapee from my legs, I leaped out the opening of the door. After about five running strides toward Blaine, something snagged my hair. The force sent my legs upward and I fell hard on my ass. Rocky was pulling me across the carpeted cement floor by a fist full of hair. Kicking and punching at his hand, I managed to get to my feet. Blaine was running toward us, Jared a few feet behind him. He pulled the gun from his waistband as Rocky wrapped his arm around my neck from behind. He was fumbling with something else I couldn’t see, while using me as a human shield.
“Let her go!” Blaine shouted. His hand was surprisingly steady with the weapon.
Still busy with something behind me, Rocky replied, “No, fancy pants. I’m not done with these pretty lips yet.”
“I mean it. I will shoot you if you don’t let her go now!”
And then I heard it, what he was messing with out of my line of sight. There was a loud click and then the end of a shotgun barrel out of the corner of my eye. He was pointing it right at Blaine.
“BLAINE, don’t!” I screamed. I was terrified now, for myself, for Blaine. I don’t know what I would do if anything happened to him.
Rocky began to laugh maniacally. “Ho, ho! Fancy pants has a fancy name too! Blaine. Ha!”
Just then, I could see Jared coming up from our left side. Rocky saw him too and aimed the shotgun in his direction. At that moment I slammed my eyes shut and used all the force I could to drop my weight on his right side and fell to his feet.
BANG! BANG!
I had once heard a car backfire in our neighborhood last year and, although it was loud enough to wake the next county, this was louder. Crawling away from Rocky, I couldn’t will my eyes to open. Two gunshots and one of them from the shotgun. When I finally opened my eyes, I saw Blaine a few yards away from me. He wasn’t shot and neither was Jared. Relief washed over me, I turned to look at the escapee. His body lay limp on the floor, blood pooling around his head. He had a bullet hole to his right temple. Blaine had killed him in one shot.
Blaine stood off in the distance, motionless, a look of horror on his face. It was evident that he was distraught. His hands were shaky, he had beads of sweat forming on his forehead, and he didn’t speak. Jared let out a cheer of accomplishment for Blaine and headed back toward the camping gear department while shouting over his shoulder, “Nice job, buddy! Now let’s grab what we can before we find out he had a friend with him.”
Blaine didn’t acknowledge the comment. He stayed standing there, unblinking, staring at the lifeless lump of orange on the floor. He had lowered the handgun to his side, but moved nothing else. I couldn’t remember a time that I had seen him like that. Vulnerable, terrified, and human. I walked up to his side carefully placing my hand on his free arm. “Blaine?” I whispered. He finally took his eyes off of the body to meet my gaze. I carefully took my other hand and placed it on his other arm. His breathing began to quicken as I slid my hand down his arm to the wrist of the hand holding the gun. I gently pried his fingers from around the hilt to loosen his strangled grip. Just as I took the gun from him, his body folded onto me, and he held me so tight I could hardly breathe. I had no idea what to say. Besides a fist fight in the ninth grade, Blaine had never hurt anyone before. And he had most certainly never killed a person either. And now, there he sat, in my arms after saving my life and the life of his best friend, resulting in a lifeless body lying only a few feet away from him. All I could do was rub my hand along his back and say, “You had to do it. You had no choice.”
He just sat there, shaking, breathing heavy, his head buried in my neck. He didn’t cry, although I wouldn’t have blamed him if he did. All he could do was hold me tight as I felt his heartbeat slowdown.
When Blaine gathered his composure, we met Jared in the camping department, ammunition cart filled. Walking out onto the pavement of the parking area, a strange sensation washed over me. The world was different to me somehow.
“Race you to the truck!” Jared shouted, cart bouncing around from the gravel-like glass shards on the walk.
“Oh, you’re on!” replied Blaine as he pushed his cart faster, barreling toward the bright green pickup.
Watching them play around was calming. I felt better knowing that Blaine was able to smile after all we had been through in the warehouse store.
My legs were still weak from the event, so I sauntered, rather than ran, toward the guys. By the time I got to the truck, they had loaded half of the supplies into the back. Helping them with the rest, I asked, “So, where to next?”
Blaine threw some of the camping gear into the bed of the truck and stood up straight, making himself seem taller as he looked down to me and replied, “The woods.”
Chapter 29
As Blaine steered the truck down one dirt road after the next, Jared explained that we were headed to a location they had scoped out before the flare. He described it as the perfect place to camp, making it sound like a luxury spa. This made me laugh because I had never heard Jared talk so passionately about anything in all the time I had known him. Well, except for video games.
Blaine pulled the truck off of the road, and we disappeared into the tree line. Seeing the confusion on my face, Jared said “This perfect spot is sort of off the beaten path.” I replied with a look of understanding.
In the distance, the sun began to threaten to touch the horizon. Just as I noticed this fact, we pulled up to the side of a sparkling creek. I was overwhelmed by a feeling of éjà vu but quickly shook it off.
“Crap!” Blaine hissed as he pulled the truck near a large stump of a dead forest tree.
As we came to a stop, I saw what he was upset about. Off to the left, about twenty yards, was a campfire. A tent stood a few feet away from it, and there was a man dropping a pile of sticks near the fire. Two medium-sized dogs shuffled around his feet, giving the impression that they thought the sticks were for the longest lasting game of fetch, ever.
“What the hell?!” cursed Jared, “I thought for sure nobody would come here. It is miles off the road!”
He quickly jumped out of the truck, slamming the door before I had a chance to slide toward it.
“Stay here,” Blaine warned, as he opened his door. I watched as the guys approached the man by the fire. From what I could see he was older, probably in his late thirties to early forties. He had blond hair, and his skin was dark, like he had spent most of his life in the sun. They engaged in conversation, seeming harmless enough. I saw the man shake first Jared’s hand, then Blaine’s. He smiled and waved a hand toward the tent, calling out to it. From the tent emerged a woman, around the same age as the man, with fiery red hair, braided all the way down her back. She smiled at the two and shook their hands as well. Finally, Blaine turned his head toward me in the truck and motioned for me to come join them.
When I met them at the fire, I put on a pleasant face. “Hi.” I shyly waved, assuming they wanted an introduction. “I’m Kara.” Standing next to Blaine, he put his arm around me, a protective gesture as well as a possessive one, and I let the dogs sniff carefully at my ankles.
“Kara, this is Matt and his wife, Saundra,” he said, bring
ing me up to speed.
I graciously shook their hands and shared pleasantries as Blaine and Jared stood by my side, almost as if they were sizing up the strangers. Blaine was cautious, and after today’s events, I had no reason to think he would act otherwise. He questioned the two about their intentions and where they were planning to travel. As dusk approached, Matt and Saundra offered to share the camp site with us in return for keeping watch at night so everyone could get some sleep. Although Blaine was leery, he agreed to the arrangement.
We set up our tent across the fire from theirs and settled in for the first shift.
Jared roasted a can of beans on the fire while Blaine and I parked at the opening of our tent. The nights could get cold there, and I felt myself shivering. Blaine leaned back into the opening of the tent and grabbed a blanket, wrapping it around me. Rubbing my shoulders to create more heat, he said, “Sorry about earlier, at the outdoor warehouse.”
I looked up at him, searching his face. His expression was slightly that of shame, as if he had let me down somehow. “Why are you apologizing? You saved me from that creep. And he was going to shoot Jared.”
He flinched at the last few words, his breath catching. I heard him swallow hard as I put my hand in his.
He breathed, “I know, but it doesn’t seem right to take the life of another person.”
He had a point, to which I didn’t know how to respond. We just sat there, staring at the fire, speechless.
Leaning my head on his shoulder, my eyelids felt as though they were made of lead. My head became heavy, and the events of the day took their toll on my body. I was exhausted. As my head bobbed up and down twice from dozing off, Blaine pulled himself to his feet. He bent down, scooped me up, and said, “Let’s get you to bed, sleepy head.” I felt like protesting, but my body was just too weak from exhaustion. As he walked me into the tent and set me on the cot, I fell into the darkness of a deep, dreamless sleep.
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