by Russ Watts
Javier smashed the butt of his gun across Dakota’s face, breaking her nose. She immediately screamed out in pain, and Javier pushed her over the table, forcing her arms out in front of her. He leant on her back, and then put the gun to the back of her head. Jonas rushed to help her but was stopped in his tracks.
“Try it, Hamsikker. One more step, and I’ll put a fucking bullet through your wife’s skull.”
“Okay, okay,” said Jonas backing off. He knew better than to test Javier. Jonas couldn’t see Dakota’s face, but he knew she was in pain. He had to find a way to get them both out of this mess. “What do you want? Why don’t you let Dakota go? You and I can sort this out. Whatever you want, Javier, we’ll work it out.”
“We’ll work it out? I’m through working things out. Get into the dining room before I run out of patience completely. When you’re back, we’ll talk more. I’m not going to do anything to Dakota. She’ll be fine as long as you behave. We’ll be in here when you’re done.”
Jonas turned around and faced the door. He wondered if Javier was going to shoot him in the back, but there was not much he could do about it if he was. As Jonas stepped through the doorway, he braced himself, but there was no movement behind him, no bullet tearing into his body. Jonas swung the door back cautiously, nervous about what he was about to find. Javier wanted him to go into this room, that much was certain. What he might find, though, was a mystery. Javier might have Janey tied up or locked up in one of the upstairs rooms. Maybe Javier was going to give Jonas a chance to save them, and then he’d kill them all together. Jonas knew he was going to have to be careful. He would keep an eye out for any weapon he could get his hands on.
Jonas entered the room and looked around. It was cold and gloomy. Soft rain cascaded down the large bay window at the end of the room, and long drapes partially obscured the faint light outside, leaving the room in near darkness. He looked around at the furniture. There were toys scattered about the floor and a large, dark television set in the corner with DVD boxes stacked up on a shelf. The room appeared to be empty, when suddenly Jonas heard a groan come from behind a lazy-boy in front of the TV. He looked closer and then saw a pair of feet sticking out. They were moving, drawing themselves back, and then all of a sudden someone was standing behind the chair looking at him.
Erik.
Jonas had hoped to find Janey, but this was the next best thing. “Erik, thank God, I didn’t know if I would see you again.” Jonas felt a rush of blood, and a surge of adrenalin as he suddenly realized he now held a numerical advantage over Javier. Together with Erik he could formulate a plan to overpower Javier. The man might have a gun, but he didn’t have the desire that Jonas did. When he looked at Erik a sense of relief that he wasn’t alone came over Jonas. Together again with his best friend, he could do something about this. “Erik, where’s Freya? Is she okay? Have you seen Janey?”
Erik groaned and lifted an arm to the lazy-boy to steady himself.
“Are you hurt?” Jonas stepped forward and saw blood on Erik’s head. The man was large, twice the size of Javier, but was still capable of being hurt. “Erik, let me see. I’m here now. I can help.”
Erik took a step out into the middle of the room and raised his arms. Jonas saw the familiar whiteness of the eyes, the tightness of the limbs, and a large slit across Erik’s neck.
“Oh no. Oh no, Erik, not you. Not…”
Erik lunged forward, and Jonas stepped back out of the way. Erik’s large cumbersome frame caught the edge of the sofa and fell to the ground.
Jonas wished things were different. He wished he could’ve been there for his friend. He wished he could turn back the clock and not drag him or his family into this whole sorry mess. Javier had let Jonas come into this room on purpose. He had killed Erik and was now making Jonas clear up the mess. The elation that Jonas felt was replaced instantly by a sense of loss. Erik couldn’t be dead. He had saved Jonas on countless occasions, and was such an integral part of Jonas’s thoughts, that it just didn’t seem real. How could he be dead? This was just a bad joke, a trick. It was as if he had wandered into an obscure play, and was waiting for everyone to jump out and yell surprise.
Jonas strode over to the fireplace where dry coals and damp wood lay collected in a large basket beside the fireplace. Jonas picked up a poker, the metal handle cold to touch, and he leant over Erik’s body. Erik was trying to get up, but Jonas held him down. He looked into his old friend’s dead eyes. There was no mistaking it. Javier had slit his throat and let him bleed to death. How could he do that? Was it out of spite? Was it to goad Jonas for fun, or just because he could?
With his lips trembling, and tears threatening to roll from his eyes, Jonas plunged the poker into Erik’s temple. “I’m sorry, my friend. I’m so sorry.” He thrust the temple through Erik’s brain, and the man’s body shuddered before settling into a permanent, final stillness. Erik slumped to the floor, and Jonas carefully let him go. This wasn’t just a game anymore. Javier had to be stopped. Had he killed Freya too? Jonas retrieved the poker. There was no time to think, no time to search for Janey, no time to do anything but get Dakota out of harm’s way. The only way he could ensure Dakota would be safe was if Javier was dead. Christ, it had all gone so horribly wrong. Jonas ran his hands over his head, and looked at Erik. He looked peaceful now, and Jonas hoped he was with Pippa and Peter. Jonas desperately hoped that Erik wasn’t with Freya.
Jonas slipped the poker into a loop on the back of his pants, and then went back to the kitchen.
“Get the answers you were looking for?” asked Javier. He was still stood exactly where Jonas had left him, the gun still at Dakota’s head, still with the same inane, malicious grin on his face.
“Why the fuck did you kill Erik? What did he ever do to anyone?”
“Sit down, Hamsikker.”
Jonas pulled out a chair, but was reluctant to sit down. He pulled the poker out from his belt loop discreetly, and held it behind his back. He knew if he tried to attack Javier then Dakota was dead. Janey could be bleeding out right now, and there was no telling what Javier had done to her three kids. Jonas needed this to be over, and quickly.
“Sit.”
Jonas sat down opposite Javier, and slid the poker underneath the table, careful not to let Javier see it. He stretched out a hand to Dakota and caressed the back of one of her hands.
“Where’s the jolly green giant?” asked Javier. There was a glint in his eye as he asked. “Erik not joining us?”
“What’s it to you? You don’t care. You know full well Erik’s dead.”
“Erik had to be put out of his misery. After Quinn was gone, he was a real pain in the ass, and when I saw you coming, I had no use for him anymore. Just like this kid I met once, Noah. Letting him live would’ve just prolonged the agony. Sometimes you just have to get things done. Erik was past his sell by date, so I put him down.”
“So you killed him, just like you killed Quinn and everyone else you’ve met.”
Javier laughed. “Not quite everyone, but well, you’re mostly right. I’m going to assume you and Dakota are on your own? It would be reckless of you to think that I haven’t thought about some sort of surprise attack. I care very much about what happens to the beautiful Mrs. Hamsikker. If you have a friend perhaps working their way around this house trying to find a way in and shoot me in the back I would suggest you tell me now. I would hate to be startled. When I’m jumpy my fingers get sweaty, and then accidents can happen, you know?”
“We’re on our own,” said Dakota. “There’s no one else left.”
Jonas stared at Javier. “There were others, but they didn’t make it. Julie, and a young man named Lukas. They should be here, but thanks to you, they’re dead. Julie was ripped apart by your little game at the border. Lukas died back in Thunder Bay when we were trying to get here. They’re not coming back any more than Quinn, Erik, or anyone else you’ve murdered.”
Javier looked at Jonas. He was telling the truth. “I was
curious about that. I set it up very much on the spur of the moment. Those trenches at the road works just seemed like too good an opportunity to resist. I wish I could’ve been there to see the look on your face. So you and Dakota didn’t fall in?”
“I did. I got out thanks to Julie.”
“Then I guess she got what was coming to her.”
Jonas saw her being torn apart all over again and shuddered. “I knew it was you when I saw that message you left for me on the sign.”
“Clever, huh? I wasn’t sure you would pick up on it. I wasn’t sure you would even fall into my little trap, much less so, even get that far.”
“Why, Javier? You just said so yourself you didn’t even know we would be coming. You left us for dead, remember?”
“That’s true. It was more Quinn to be honest. She kept telling me that you would come; that somehow you would find a way. I guess on some level she got through to me. Besides, even if it hadn’t been you, it would’ve been someone else.”
“You’re insane, Javier. You’ve lost it. I’m not sure that you ever had it. People are dead because of you. Doesn’t that mean anything?”
“It never did, so why would it now? Nothing’s changed. I haven’t changed. And your problem is that you haven’t changed. You still think the world is a nice place; that one day the army is going to come marching over the hill to save the world. You still think the shops are going to re-open, and you can go for brunch while the kids watch cartoons. America is a very different place to the one little Jonas Hamsikker grew up in. The streets aren’t safe anymore. You can’t hide anywhere. They will find you eventually, Hamsikker. Why can’t you see that? Why don’t you give up? Accept the way it is now. The Wild West is back, and this time it’s a mean son of a bitch. You think I’m responsible for this. You want to blame me for Julie, and Quinn, and Pippa, and everyone else who died. But all I did was use the tools at my disposal to survive. That is what your America has taught me. You’ve finally lost, Hamsikker. You couldn’t protect them because you were too wrapped up with your own lies. You couldn’t see the truth even when it was standing in front of you with a semi-automatic about to blow you and yours away. That’s on you, Hamsikker.”
“On me? Maybe a little. I’m not perfect, I have my own demons, and maybe sometimes I lose sight of the bigger picture. But I try. I try to be a man, and that’s more than you will ever be. A man doesn’t think of other people as things he can use for his own end. A man doesn’t leave his woman behind in the dirt full of bullets. A man doesn’t hold a gun to another man’s wife. That’s what a coward does, and I refuse to accept that there is nothing left to believe in. I still believe that there are people out there on the right side, who still think that America can grow again.”
Jonas looked at Dakota. Her nose had stopped bleeding, but she looked like she was giving up. She couldn’t fight back, and she knew that no matter what Jonas said, Javier was the one with the gun. He still had control. Jonas was supposed to protect her, but it was Javier that was forcing them into this position.
“I don’t have the faith that my wife does. She’s stronger than you think. I do know one thing, Javier. You’re going to rot in Hell for what you’ve done.”
“Oh yes, Hell. I’m fairly certain that we’re there already, so it doesn’t quite have the same threat as it used to. As for your America, well, what a tragedy. You still talk to me as if I have no feelings, as if I didn’t care about anything. Let me remind you, I’m here to find my brother. He’s here somewhere. I just wanted to get some local information about the area, and about where he could be holed up. I’m not the one in the way here, you are. You’re interfering in my plans, Hamsikker. I’m here for my brother. I’m not a robot.”
“Not a robot? What about that psycho, Rose? Don’t make me laugh. You didn’t give a fuck about her. You left her on the ground to be eaten.”
Jonas could see Javier bristle when he brought up Rose’s name. Jonas wanted to push the man’s buttons. He needed to get a reaction, to get this over with. He had to get Javier out of the way so he could free Dakota and find Janey and her children. “I heard them dismantling her body, you know,” said Jonas, lying. “They pulled her head off her shoulders first. Scooped out her brains before they began on the rest of her.”
Javier clenched his teeth and then sighed, annoyed. “All right, Hamsikker, let’s just—”
“They ripped open her stomach and stuck their greedy mouths right into her. By the end there was nothing left of her. I watched them devour Rose, and I was glad. I enjoyed it. I wish you had been there to see it, Javier. I’ve never seen them enjoy a meal as much as they did Rose.”
“Enough!” shouted Javier. “I know what you’re doing, but it’s not going to work. You think I’m going to crack? You think that you can get me to cry like a little girl? Telling me about Rose doesn’t change a thing. You can dream of revenge, Hamsikker, but you’re a long way off.”
“I’m past revenge, Javier. I just want to see you dead,” said Jonas. It was his time to smile. “I’m sure that’s not too far away now.”
Javier tapped the gun on the wooden table three times, recomposed himself, and then pointed the gun across the table, all the while keeping one hand firmly on Dakota’s back. “I could just shoot you, you realize? Then you’ll never know what happened to Freya, or Janey, or those three precious nephews of yours. How about I put one between your eyes right now, Hamsikker?”
“Go ahead. I know you better than that, Javier. You’re not going to shoot me.”
“Maybe not.” Javier exhaled slowly and stepped back into the shadows. “But I can shoot her.”
With Javier off her back, Dakota felt the weight lift, and she looked up into Jonas’s eyes. She reached out her hands, and Jonas took them in his. A cold shiver rippled through her, and the hairs on her arms stood up on end. “Jonas?”
The gunshot echoed loudly around the small kitchen, and Dakota’s body convulsed. Fresh warm blood splattered Jonas’s face, and he watched as Dakota’s face disintegrated. The bullet entered the back of her head and buried itself in the table beneath, sending sharp splinters flying through the air. Dakota’s body slumped forward onto the table, and Jonas jumped up, his chair scraping against the floor as it flew backwards. He leant over the table, frantically pulling Dakota toward him. Jonas turned her head over. The back of her skull had been blown wide open, and as he looked at her face, he saw where the bullet had left through her forehead. Her eyes were still wide open, a mixture of confusion, fear, and love. Javier had finally killed the last thing Jonas loved. His child was dead. His wife was dead.
“No.” Jonas felt his eyes stinging, and he buried his face into Dakota’s neck. There was still warmth there, but no movement, no pulse. He couldn’t believe she was gone.
Dakota was dead.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Jonas kissed his wife’s cold cheek, and then rocked back in his chair. This sort of thing happened to other people. Dakota wasn’t supposed to die like this. She was going to raise their child with him, and death was not on the agenda, not for a long time. They had a future. Despite everything, they still had a future to plan, to live together; was it all supposed to end so suddenly, so violently?
“Are you going to listen to me now, Hamsikker? Can you still not see it?”
Jonas stood up, and grabbed the poker. He calmly began to walk around the table to Javier.
“Step back, Hamsikker,” said Javier pointing the gun at him. “Take a moment, and…”
Jonas ignored Javier. It was easy now. The rantings of a madman paled into insignificance now that Dakota was dead. It was as if he couldn’t feel anything, couldn’t hear anything. All Jonas thought about was Dakota, how her future had been so crudely ripped away from her. Javier may as well have been waving a comic in front of him instead of a gun. He raised the poker to strike, when Javier suddenly shoved the gun into a back pocket, and rushed him.
Jonas was knocked back as Javier crashed into him
, and the two men scuffled around the table. The poker went rolling away under the table, and Javier shoved Jonas to the floor. He was much stronger, and Jonas was weak. He tried to throw punches at Javier, but there was no power behind them, and Javier easily repelled him. Jonas tried kicking out at him from the floor, but Javier just dodged his kicks like a boxer dancing around the ring. Soon Javier was able to retaliate, and began kicking Jonas. He booted Jonas all over, wherever he could, striking Jonas’s head, sides, arms, and legs.
As he lay on the floor taking a beating from Javier again, Jonas felt no pain. All he could think about was Dakota. He still pictured her full of life, still laughing and smiling as she used to do before the world changed irrevocably. His body was so used to being beaten that it had stopped bothering sending messages to his brain that he was suffering. No amount of pain could top the anguish he felt when he thought about a future without Dakota. The tears he shed were not from pain, but the realization he had lost his child and the woman he loved.
As he accepted his suffering, the cold hard floor offered up a chance. Beneath the table lay the poker, silent and unassuming. Jonas stretched out a hand, and wrapped his fingers around it. With his right hand he brought it swiftly out from underneath the table, and jammed it horizontally through Javier’s standing leg, just above the ankle. Javier roared with pain, and Jonas pulled it back out, this time stabbing it downward through Javier’s foot, embedding it into the floor beneath. Blood spurted from Javier’s boot, and Jonas scrambled to his feet. He hoped to bundle Javier over, to pulverize him out of existence, but as Jonas got up, he found himself staring down the barrel of a gun.
“You’d better move real slow, Hamsikker,” said Javier through gritted teeth, “or you’re going to be joining Dakota sooner than you think. Maybe you should start to think about your sister and your nephews before you make any more rash moves.”