by Phil Wohl
running up and surprising?” Drew asked.
The group pondered the strategery dilemma and then Daniel mentally stepped forward, “I think it’s both.”
“What’s both?” Drew asked.
“The ambush is both the surprise run-up and the hitting with the baseball bats,” Daniel replied.
“So, it’s like a combo strategy,” Agent Blake said as the group extended the conversation because their collective fear precluded them from taking the first real step toward attacking their powerful foes.
Thad and Gary slowed their roll a little bit because they were interested in getting the blood flowing some before messing around with their ladies.
“I think we’re about to be ambushed,’ Gary said with a strong hint of sarcasm in this voice.
“They’re all carrying baseball bats. Do you think they’re headed over to the baseball field for a night game?” Thad countered.
Regrettably, Aaron was in front of the ambush and he would suffer the brunt of the push-back. He felt the breeze in his hair and forgot how fast he was running, while the other six members of the whack pack reduced their speed as the intended targets came into range. Thad turned around just as Aaron wound up and was about the strike him in the back of the head. Thad stopped the force of the bat with his bare left hand and then cocked his right fist as the euphoria in Aaron’s face was wiped away by the sheer horror of being wildly unsuccessful in all aspects of the ambush.
Thaddeus grabbed the bat out of Aaron’s hand as his fist impacted the left side of the big guy’s face, knuckles digging into his cheek bone and turning the lights out almost immediately upon impact. Thad flipped the bat to Gary as the other six men stopped in their tracks and attempted to high-tail it on it of the park and a certain beat-down.
Since Hartwell was the intended target of any and all battles, Garrison flung the bat at the back of his long legs causing him to trip and lose his balance. The disorienting act caused a sort of domino effect, whereas Hartwell leaned into Cal, who bumped into Daniel, who grazed Andrew, who skimmed into Agent Blake, who hip-checked Maxwell, who fell to the ground while his bat became lodged into the field turf on impact. Hartwell followed the swaying of the group to the left as his momentum carried him a good 20 feet from his original spot.
“No way…” Thad said.
“Way,” Gary replied confidently.
Hartwell tripped over his own feet and the collective momentum of the group sent him hurtling toward the ground. But his fall was stopped by a wood object that was fixed in the ground, and was apparently just as good at making contact with baseballs as it was with stopping the heart of a vampire.
“You are unbelievable!” Thaddeus exclaimed as he stuck out his fist.
Gary smiled and replied, “Let’s go get some,” as he bumped his buddy’s fist and they walked away.
Aaron awoke from his restful slumber about 20 minutes later and collected Hartwell, whose heart was still attached to the baseball bat, and carried him home. He said as he walked slowly out of the park, “An ambush is both parts… not bad on the run-up, but my swing could use a little work,” he said to an expired Hartwell, who would have surely rolled his eyes and walked away if he wasn’t skewered by a 34-inch piece of lumber.
THIRTEEN
The women spent the second night of the battle as disgruntled spectators, not fulfilling the active participant role they were more accustomed to. Although they were vehemently disputed the word “active” as they sat around and knitted together.
“Why is it that we never get to plan any of these fights?” Kayla innocently asked as she held a spool of yarn for Belinda.
The simple question effectively scrubbed most of the barnacles off the brains of these obedient women.
“Yeah, why is that?” Maggie asked.
Emily stood up and pounded her chest, “Because man tell us woman what to do!” she said as she jumped around like a prehistoric women might do if she was either excited about something, or was about to be trampled and then eaten by Tyrannosaurus Rex.
“Isn’t that always the way?” a very calm Belinda stated.
“Why does it have to be that way?” Carla questioned.
“What, that men tell us what strategy to use during the fights and we blindly follow their lead?” Sharon asked, looking for clarification.
“Yeah,” Carla replied.
“I think we should start listening to our own hearts, our own voices,” Nicole somewhat poetically stated.
“Ah, that was so nice!” former foe turned friend, turned foe, and now friend again Carla said as she hugged her friend in appreciation of her positive prose.
All of the other women chimed in words of encouragement and support as the momentum of feminine unity engulfed the knitting room.
Kayla started a new round of exploration, “We should do our own thing tomorrow night.”
“What do you mean? Separate from the guys?” Sharon asked.
“Yes, but I was talking about fighting them,” Kayla the former peacemaker stated.
“What a great idea!” Emily said.
“Do you think we’ll have time to knit before we go tomorrow night?” Belinda asked.
“Oh, yeah!” Carla exclaimed. “Those little fights don’t start until midnight.”
Nicole chuckled, “Do you think we’ll have time when we get back after the fight?”
The women all laughed and continued to knit blankets and sweaters and even baby booties in anticipation of their fellow sister in Portland, Valerie, giving birth to Ariel any day.
“How long do you think these baby booties will fit Ariel?” Maggie asked the group.
Kayla would have said something about Samuel, but Claire had virtually wiped the memory of her son from her mental database. Carla looked at Kayla and said, “Judging by this one, you’ll have anywhere from ten minutes to 24 hours of fit from the little girl.”
“At least her feet will be warm until I can make a bigger pair!” Maggie beamed.
The pink booties looked so comfortable that Emily was driven to ask the obvious question, “Hey, would those things be good as adult foot coverings, too?
“Yeah, we could start our own line of adult booties,” Sharon added.
“We could call them footies or bippers,” Carla chimed in.
“I like footies. Bippers sounds like a line of diaper bibs,” Kayla said.
“Then footies it is! We’ll start mass production tomorrow night and produce prototypes for each every one of us,” Maggie stated, as everyone smiled from the collective, enriching experience of knitting garments together that would keep their feet warm and looking fashionable throughout the cold East Coast winter. It was too bad that the brain blast would be a one-night phenomenon that would be forgotten as quickly as hated each other.
Hartwell awoke the next morning with the baseball bat still lodged in his chest. At first he was happy to be on line again, but when he looked down at the wood object that was still perilously close to his heart it didn’t sit well. Hartwell grabbed hold of the bat and pulled it slowly at first until it was clear of danger, and then he violently jerked it out of his chest and broke it over his knee once he was upright.
There was a strange feel to the morning in Hartwell‘s house, like someone had entered in the middle of the night and drawn an imaginary, but palpable line through the middle of the premises. On one half of the house were the men after being battered and mentally bruised by a couple of their own warriors, turned separatist bully tough guys. The fairer side of the house was populated by a group of confident, fulfilled women that appeared to have everything in their lives clearly in focus. And then there were the two bully tough guys, Thaddeus and Garrison, who spent the night with their lady friends and had no plans of returning during the day or in advance of the night four festivities.
The tone for the day was set shortly after Hartwell emerged from the sun room. The collective mood of the house ap
peared to be set each day by its leader, although neither he nor anyone else in the house realized that this trend was developing. Before the night one battle, Hartwell was obviously cultivating his long-standing dislike for the hunters and this came through in the fight. The second night must have been a dream flashback of times one by. On the third night, he had a dream about being bullied when he was a child and that’s why the bully scenario came to fruition.
Hartwell went all the way back to the late 1800s and his mistrust of women in the Bay area for the day four setup. There were at least three opportunistic women that robbed him after he came back with small claims from his gold mining expeditions. He thought there was the potential for love in two of the three situations, although the ‘relationships’ were of the overnight variety and the women all exited while Hartwell slept. Of course, everything worked out for Hartwell after he made his big gold find, but things got a bit crazy the few weeks prior when he tried to rob Maggie’s bank. But his thoughts on this morning were centered on the negative, not the wonderful life he initially built with Maggie and then rebuilt with her when she was reborn.
He sat alone in the kitchen drinking cup after cup of coffee for a few hours, which helped him slide further into depression and paranoia. The men were slow to get out of bed because they were all feeding off of Hartwell’s horrendous vibe, while the women slept peacefully and felt refreshed for the first time in a long time in a non-death situation.