“Trevor, Trevor Kingcade.”
“Trevor, I promise you’ll never have any trouble from me. All I want is out of here.”
“Okay.”
“And Trevor. Tolliver is right. You got sand, boy.”
I said nothing.
“Okay, here I come.”
I watched as the man in the jeans and green shirt stepped backwards onto the porch, his pistol pointed through the doorway. Barry of the green shirt slipped sideways off of the porch. Then he stuck his pistol in his belt and turned and saluted in my direction before running off down the street.
I watched him go. He didn’t stop running for three blocks.
“Guys, somebody help me,” Tolliver shouted.
“Fuck you Tolliver. We’re outta here. You’re on your own. That fucking Kid would kill us all.”
“You’re aren’t afraid of a kid are you?” Tolliver said.
“You should be. The little shit already put two arrows in you.”
“You fucking cowards…”
“Fuck you Tolliver.”
I heard the back door slam and soon saw two men run through a back yard toward the next street.
I quickly moved to another clump of bushes and waited. This was kinda like deer hunting. Get an arrow into your quarry and wait for them to die. Although, I wasn’t convinced either of my arrows would kill Tolliver, any lost blood would make him weaker.
Two hours later I still hadn’t heard anything from the house, so I yelled, “Tolliver, are you dead yet? I think you should know. I put a slow acting poison on the arrowheads. You only have an hour left to live.”
That wasn’t true. I wouldn’t even know how to do something like that, but Tolliver wouldn’t know that. Even if it didn’t flush him out so I could take another shot, it was likely to shake him up so he wouldn’t be able to think as straight. Shit, I’d take any advantage I could get.
“You son of a bitch,” Tolliver hollered. “I’m gonna kill you.”
Tolliver’s voice was weaker now. Maybe that meant he had lost a lot of blood?
“Tolliver, I’m just gonna wait here while you die from the poison.” I yelled back. “There’s nobody to save you. Your friends ran out on you like the bunch of cowards you all are.”
I heard a commotion in the house. Tolliver was doing something. I watched as a rifle barrel poked through the window. I lay flat on the ground as he triggered an entire magazine through the window in hopes he’d hit me. A couple of the bullets came close and one scraped against my bulletproof vest, but I was unhurt.
I said nothing. If he thought he hit me, he might come outside. Then it occurred to me that he might keep shooting blindly out of the window, so I crawled to another clump of bushes.
Before the lights went out, I hated bushes because Mom made me trim them every other week. The girls never helped because Mom said yard work was men’s work, but Dad never did any. Now I was growing fond of bushes, big untrimmed bushes.
Sure enough, Tolliver blasted another magazine through the window. This time none of the bullets even came close.
I thought about sneaking around to the back of the house and trying to creep up on Tolliver from behind, but I didn’t think even a bulletproof vest would help me against a barrage of bullets like Tolliver fired through the window. I could wait until his gun was empty, but it only took five seconds for him to insert another magazine. That wasn’t enough time for me to get into position inside the house and take a shot.
I could brave the tunnel again and try the hatch in the floor, but I was sure that was nailed shut by now, and I had no desire to crawl through a submerged tunnel ever again.
No, I had to wait.
I checked over my arrows and chose the next to best one. I’d save the best one for last. I made sure the little pistol in my pocket was accessible, although I was hoping not to need it. An arrow with a sharp broadhead does far more damage than a .22, if I could hit Tolliver where it counted. Anyway, I wasn’t sure I could hit Tolliver from thirty feet with the pistol, whereas my bow was good to about ninety feet.
Tolliver held off shooting for a while. Then suddenly he emptied an entire magazine through the window, and five seconds later the front door swung open and standing braced against the doorway on blood soaked legs, he emptied another magazine, doing a spray and pray. I was safe. He didn’t know where I was.
He dropped the rifle and picked up another one from just inside the door. As he raised it I loosed another arrow. As my arrow flew, I saw the gray duct tape fletching spinning slowly as the arrow approached its target. The arrow struck Tolliver in his right elbow. He screamed and dropped the rifle. I immediately loosed another arrow. This one struck him in the side of his neck. He screamed again. This time his scream was hoarser, raspier, as if the arrow interfered with his voice box. Tolliver staggered and fell to the floor half in and half out of the door. He dragged his rifle to him after he hit the floor and triggered off rounds in my general direction with his left hand. I went flat on the ground, but not before I was hit.
It was like somebody hit me in the chest with a hammer, a damn big hammer. It almost knocked the breath right out of me. I lay there, breathing with difficulty, until Tolliver stopped shooting. If I hadn’t been wearing the bulletproof vest, I’d be dead right now. I could see Tolliver’s head moving. He was still alive.
“You might as well blow your own brains out, Tolliver. I’m gonna kill you no matter what now. Make it easy on yourself.”
Tolliver tried to say something and choked before he could get the words out. I had one arrow left. I had to make the next shot good. Even damn near dead, Tolliver was still a dangerous man. Even a dead rattlesnake can kill you, and Tolliver was much worse than a rattlesnake.
Tolliver seemed to be getting weaker, so I waited.
Tolliver tried to say something again, but still couldn’t get any words out.
“Tolliver, I’m gonna shoot you in your other arm this time. I got plenty of arrows left. You’re gonna be a pin cushion before you die.”
Tolliver just gurgled something and slowly drew a pistol from his belt with his left hand.
“That’s it Tolliver,” I yelled. “Just put the barrel in your mouth and pull the trigger.” I didn’t think there was any way he’d do that, but harassment might stop him from thinking clearly. Besides, it was important that he believe I had more arrows.
I hollered, “Hey Tolliver. How about a change of pace? See how you like being shot at?”
I aimed the .22 pistol and fired three rounds. Shit, I was a better shot than I thought. All of the bullets missed, but they were close, the last one striking the porch floor not an inch from Tolliver’s head.
Tolliver raised his pistol and fired a shot in my direction. He damn near hit me. Instinctively I loosed my last arrow and it struck him in his left bicep. Tolliver made a sound that I think was supposed to be a scream but sounded like nothing I’d ever heard before.
Crap, now I was out of arrows. I was still thinking about what I should do next when Tolliver put the barrel of his pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger. After a few jerks he went still.
It was over. Well, it was over for Tolliver anyway. I wasn’t sure it would ever be over for me.
I sat there like a stone until Sackett showed up. He licked me in the face and I hugged his neck and cried like a little girl. Damn, I was glad there was no one around to see that. Sackett wouldn’t tell. I could trust him.
Chapter 30
I was back at camp and I wasn’t sure how I got there. Maybe Sackett led me there?
Without conscious thought I built a fire and squatted close to it. Two days later I realized I was starving.
I made a cone in cone fish trap and headed to the creek. There was no time to make any more arrows right now. Fish would be fine.
After a good meal of fish wrapped in leaves and baked buried in the ashes of a fire, I felt better. I should have. I think I ate three pounds of fish, and Sackett ate five.
Even so, I felt drained. What should I do now? Slowly it dawned on me. I could do anything I wanted. I decided I’d go back into the forest for the winter. Fall was approaching, but there was still time for me to get ready for winter. I wondered where I should spend the winter? Maybe the cabin where I found the rifle? I hoped the dead man from the trailer wouldn’t be upset if I didn’t visit him.
The more I thought about it, the better the cabin sounded. It was close to water and good fishing. There was plenty of firewood in the area, and it had a cast iron wood stove. Best of all, I doubted anyone even knew it existed. I broached the idea to Sackett and he liked it, or maybe he just wanted some more fish.
Me and Sackett spent a few days gathering gear that we had scattered about, and then headed for the cabin. The forest was quiet and I found myself smiling every now and then.
Once along the way, I spotted a plume of smoke. I crept up close and saw a man and woman standing by a fire talking. The man was tall, as tall as any man I’d ever seen. I instantly liked his smile.
But the woman, the woman was beautiful and had a kind face. I could tell she was older than my Mom, but her face was smooth and unblemished. When she smiled, my heart melted.
Naw, I wasn’t thinking about none of that romance shit. I just wished I had a mom with a smile like that.
I watched them for a while and learned the tall man’s name was Yeti. That was no local name for sure. I decided that, after I got my cabin fixed up, I’d come back and introduce myself.
It took me a few days to clean up the cabin and stow my stuff. I was in no rush. I laid in a good supply of wood and made deer jerky.
One night I sat by the wood stove, far enough away to not sweat too much, as I cooked venison in a frying pan. I thought about Tolliver and the men I’d killed. Was I a bad person because I’d killed men? My mom would have said so, but these were the same men who killed her.
There was no law anymore and probably only five percent of the people alive before the lights went out were still alive. It was sort of like the Old West now. I remembered a vid I watched once where some guy said in the Old West that men lived according to their own moral code and redressed wrongs as they saw fit, with no interference from laws or lawmen.
Was it in my moral code to kill? If I was attacked or someone close to me was hurt or killed, yes it was. With that thought all of my guilt, the guilt that my Bible-waving mom tried so hard to instill in me, vanished. I felt a weight lift off of my shoulders. Man that was weird. I’d heard people talk about that but I had no idea it felt like that.
After a good meal of fried deer meat, me and Sackett squeezed into the bunk. I was gonna have to build a larger one. I could tell that.
The next morning, Sackett and I would go visit the tall man and the beautiful woman. It might be fun.
Other Books by Mike Whitworth
Rather than clutter the back of this book with too many links, there is a list here.
EMP (Book 3): 12 Years Old and Alone Page 23