by Cody Lennon
The grenade erupted in a violent flash. The light still found a way to temporary blind me with a flash of white light even with my head ducked. The concussion raked my head, momentarily blowing my eardrums and throwing me off balance. The effects dissipated after a few seconds.
I reached for my shotgun, knowing that after the breach comes the clearing. A man in blue spawned from the wall of white smoke. I fired a blast into him and sent him sprawling back into the fog before he had a chance to shoot. The cloud flashed yellow as more shots rang out across the hall.
When the smoke cleared, Mr. Redman appeared. A body lay at his feet.
“Is that it?” I asked. He looked about unsurely.
A quick exchange of gunfire echoed from upstairs, followed by screams.
“The kids.” Mr. Redman started up the stairs.
I grabbed him and said, “No. It’s you that they want. I’ll go.”
“They’re my kids,” he said.
“I know. What good will you be to them, if you’re dead? Let me do this.” He reluctantly agreed.
A body was lying face down at the top of the stairs. A pool of blood already spilling its way down the steps. I stepped around the mess quietly. There was a commotion coming from the master bedroom.
A quick peek inside showed two soldiers standing over Sam. They had him cuffed on the floor.
“Lieutenant, second floor is all clear,” one of the soldiers radioed, before I burst in planting two .45 caliber rounds into his chest. I shot the other three times, the last shot striking him between the eyes and paralyzing his body permanently.
I cut Sam free. “How many more?”
“I don’t know. I think three.”
“Head downstairs. Your brother and your dad are waiting,” I said to him, and to the radio, “Alex, I’m sending Sam down. Heading up to the third floor now.”
I cautiously mounted the steps to the third floor. I had my eyes trained down my sights, ready to put down anything that posed a threat. At the top of the stairs, I could hear whimpering coming from Alex’s room.
I crept forward and gingerly pushed the door open, ready to fight.
“Welcome to the party, Tennpenny.”
Teague. I should have known.
Teague and two of his masked raiders had the kids and Mrs. Redman on their knees with their hands handcuffed behind their backs. Their mouths were taped shut. A great rage bellowed up inside me like never before.
“You son of a bitch.”
“I told you you’d see me again. Put your gun down.”
He grabbed Lucas by the hair and pointed a pistol at his head. Even a little boys’ muffled screams didn’t faze Teague. It only served to anger him more. He shook him to make him quiet.
“Shut up,” Teague said. “Put it down, or I kill him.” I dropped my gun. Seeing the tears stream down Lucas’s face hurt me more than anything.
“Now, if you’d be so kind as to tell me the whereabouts of the General.”
“Go to hell.”
One of his masked cronies stepped forward and planted a fist into my gut. With an iron grip on my shoulder, he forced me down to my knees.
“I never understood you,” he said, scratching his head with the barrel of his pistol. “You are a walking enigma. You fight for a country that allowed the very existence of your slavery.”
“Just because I wear this uniform doesn’t mean I fight for the country it stands for. I may have at one time, but not anymore. I fight because I have to. I fight because I believe in something bigger than me, bigger than my imagination and bigger than anything you can comprehend.”
“So you’re willing to die for this family?”
“Yes.”
“You gave up on millions of other Confederate families, but you choose to save this one. Why?”
I looked over at Tess. She was crying. Even in the dark moonlight, I could tell she was scared. Scared for herself, but more scared for me and her siblings.
Teague caught note of my subtle gaze. “Oh, so its love that you fight for, is it?” He pulled Tess up by her hair. She let out a muffled shriek. “She’s pretty. You did well for yourself, for a slave boy.”
My heart wrenched in agony as he put his grubby hand on her chest. Tears flooded her eyes.
“Stop it, dammit.”
“Radio your buddy Alex and tell him I want him and his father in the front yard in two minutes. I kill one of his children for every minute after that, until he shows. Let’s see how honorable the People’s General really is, shall we?”
I clicked my radio alive, “Alex, Teague’s got the kids. He wants you and your dad out front in two minutes. If you don’t, he’ll kill them.”
One of the masked men yanked away my radio before I could hear Alex’s response.
“Thanks, Tennpenny. I don’t need you anymore.” Teague raised his gun. I flinched a split second before a bullet sent me sprawling backwards into the hallway. My quick reaction saved me from a direct headshot, but the bullet still tore into the flesh on the side of my head. The pain was incredible.
“Let’s go. Bring the kids,” I heard Teague say, as I laid motionless on the floor. “Hey, stop!”
Lucas made a break for it. With his little hands tied behind his back, he shirked his captor, jumped over me and ran from the room. One of the soldiers ran after him.
Springing from the depths of the grave, I grabbed the soldier’s ankle, pulled him to the ground and buried the blade of my knife into his skull in one quick fluid motion.
I went for his rifle, but Teague pistol-whipped the back of my head before I could get to it. The blow nearly knocked me unconscious.
He lifted me up by the front of my vest.
“I told you I’d kill you one day.” Teague placed the muzzle of his pistol against my chest and pulled the trigger.
I was gone. I drifted off aimlessly in a world of blackness, my head spinning. A whole world of nothingness. A thousand and one thoughts flashing, but not a one I could focus on. I felt pain, greater than I had ever felt before. It was a great burning, searing pain that cut through my chest. And then a voice in the darkness, deep and familiar, almost like it was coming from beside me. It said two words: Not yet.
I awoke gasping for air. I clawed at my vest, ripping at the straps until I freed myself of its restriction. It provided only momentary relief. The great burning pain flowed and ebbed with every wheezing breath.
I had only been out for a few seconds. Through the gaps in the balusters I caught a glimpse of Teague descending the second floor. He can’t get away.
I forced myself to get up on my hands and knees, struggling to right my balance. Reaching up to feel my head wound, my hand came down smothered in blood. A wide gash was torn into the side of my head. Half of my ear was a gnarled fleshy mess. The gunshot wound in my chest was no better.
I stole the sidearm out of the dead soldiers holster and staggered to my feet. The pain inside me was excruciatingly constant, but there was something else I sensed. My vision was clear, but the house felt foggy, as if I was in some sort of dream.
I held myself upright by holding on to the railing. The world around me twisted and swirled. Shake out of it, Colton.
It felt like I had lead in my boots as I stumbled down the stairs. The blood from my head wound blinded my left eye and the sucking chest wound soaked me with warm blood with every laboring breath. It was a wonder I was alive at all.
No time for pain, just move. Quickly now.
Teague and his man were leading the kids out the front door. Mrs. Redman was the last to exit.
Teague grabbed her arm and said, “Your husband better give himself up, or you’re going to watch your children die one by one.”
Mrs. Redman was horrified. I know she would have a lot of choice words for him, but the tape over her mouth restrained her verbal thrashing. Teague forced her out the door, pushing her ahead of him.
Now was my chance. I aimed as best I could and fired. The first shot hit Teague in
the shoulder. The rest went wild. I was too weak and too blind to make the shots count.
Teague bounded up those steps in three giant strides. He knocked the gun from my hand and pummeled me several times in the face. I fought back as best I could, but Teague was still stronger than me. He always was.
Teague brandished his knife with a slick metallic hum and stabbed forward with astounding speed. I countered quickly, with one hand latched on his throat and the other on his wrist. I forced with all my might to push him away.
“Learn when to give up,” he said, before my strength gave out and the cold blade pierced my abdomen. Like a windshield wiper on a car, the sudden jolt of pain instantly cleared my foggy head. Everything went suddenly vibrant. So indescribably infinite.
I stared straight into the wickedness of his soul as he slowly retracted the blade from my stomach. His eyes burned with hate as he tossed my weak and battered body down the stairs.
I rolled to a stop.
Not yet. The voice in my head reminded me again.
“Not yet,” I said out loud.
I got my hands underneath me and pushed myself up to my knees. Against all possibility, I managed to stand up on my own two feet. Teague froze in bewilderment.
“How? How are you still standing?”
He descended the steps slowly, his footfalls reverberating like slaps of thunder. The air smelled like sweet, stale smoke and cordite. Outside, a perpetual humming approached the house. Through the front door, I could see two godlike searchlights that bathed the front lawn in daylight. Helicopters. Gammon did send help.
A light gun fight broke out outside.
Teague lost this battle. He knew it and I knew it. He barely acknowledged the ruckus outside before he returned his gaze on me, his black heart dead set on redemption. I had no way to defend myself. The only thing I could do was distract him and buy time for Alex and the others.
He was close now. He held a vice-like grip on his knife, ready to plunge it into my skull. There was no way he’d let me get through this alive this time. He’d cut me to pieces to make sure I was dead.
Teague’s footfalls echoed slowly in my progressively dizzying world.
Think, Colton.
There’s always another way.
Think.
The shotgun in the library.
I mustered whatever strength I had and started to the library.
“This is the last time you make a fool out of me,” Teague said, stalking me, and drooling a murderous lust.
Weak and tired, I tripped over myself and fell.
I crawled, my fingernails digging into the wood for traction, and my body streaking the floor with my gore.
Almost there.
Come on, Colton. You can do it. Just a little further.
He was on me now.
I stretched around the corner for the little compact shotgun I had placed there earlier.
“Time to fulfill your wish,” he said, pulling his knife hand back to strike me down once and for all.
Got it.
I grabbed the shotgun, rolled over and fired. Teague’s headless body vaulted backwards, his face and brains plastering the ceiling like some gruesome, crimson mural.
It was over.
I dropped the smoking gun and crawled to the dining room table, climbing my way into my chair at the head of the table. My body was beaten, exhausted, and withered.
The pain was intense at first, but like the world around me it started to wane.
A black fog enveloped me, plunging my world into darkness. My hearing dissipated, until all that I heard is the slow, pulsating beating of my own heart. Each thump getting louder and slower than the last. My eyes slowly, but heavily closed shut.
Yellow sunlight pours through the windows, casting beautiful patterns on the floor. Mr. Redman is busy loading the table with delicious looking food, a whole chicken, biscuits, corn bread, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, green beans. Benjamin and Lucas, smiling and laughing, storm down the stairs and make for their habitual seats as Mrs. Redman brings in a pitcher of sweet tea. Alex and Tess come in from outside, looking every bit the twin siblings they are. Alex looks at me and says something, but his voice sounds hollow, like it’s coming from down the hall.
“Colton! Colton, answer me.”
I opened my eyes. Alex was there at my side, struggling to stop the bleeding from my wounds.
“I’m here,” I said weakly.
“Colton.” Alex had tears in his eyes. “You’re going to be fine, okay? I’m going to patch you up and you’re going to walk away from this.”
“Not this time.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Your family?” I asked, barely able to hold my own head up now.
“Our family,” he said, “They’re all safe, thanks to you. Gammon’s men are outside. Now, save your breath. I’m going to get you out of here.”
I choked on a cough. Blood spittle drizzled from my mouth. “I wish…I could have…done more.”
“No, no. You’ve done more than enough.”
The debilitating fog returned, taking over my body and numbing all of my senses. I could do nothing, not even raise a finger. Yet, somehow, it was refreshing, like a great unburdening. I felt weightless and free.
My head hung low and tilted to one side. My eyes began to close again.
The table is full once more. My plate is piled high and I look out across the table at my family and smile. Tess looks over at me. Her dimples widening as she smiles and reaches out to place her hand on mine. The softness of her touch is intoxicating. Her beauty mesmerizing. I am home.
A lone tear, small and bead-like, formed in the corner of my eye. In that mere second it took for that tiny teardrop to unlatch from my cheek and fall to the floor, my life as I lived it flashed before me. Everything that was worth remembering. It was all what I have just recounted. My life spanned a mere eighteen years, but it was only in the last six months when I truly lived.
And in that final moment as the world shriveled around me, I finally realized who I was. I had found the answer to the colossal question that had been haunting me for so many years.
I was a fighter, I was a lover and I was a friend, but most importantly, I was me, every step of the way.