After the Event

by T A Williams

  “Mom still loved you.” Alec didn’t bother wiping the tears anymore. “That is what made me so mad. You abandoned her when she needed you the most but she still loved you. I remember hating you and she told me I had to forgive you. The woman was lying in a hospital bed dying while you were out drinking or doing whatever in the hell you did, and she was lecturing me about how I had to forgive you.” Anger, pain, despair, grief, all these emotions wracked his body causing him to fight to say each word but he knew he had to keep going. “There is no reason I should ever forgive you. There is not a single reason that I should ever love you again.” Alec wiped the tears so he could see his father’s eyes. His father stood there and in his eyes he saw the same emotions he was feeling. “But I do forgive you dad. I remember being so mad at myself because even then I still loved you.”

  His father grabbed him and held him tight. Everything that Alec was feeling poured out of his body. In his father’s arms he felt that security that he had been missing. All the memories where his father had been there came rushing back into the forefront.

  “I love you son.”

  “I love you too.”

  Who knows how long they would have kept holding each other if they were given the chance. This moment of forgiveness and love was interrupted by the sound of gunfire.

  Chapter 6

  Alec

  “Anybody home?” The mocking voice floated up from in front of the house.

  Alec and Grant ran in through the back door. Grant grabbed the rifle and hid near one of the windows.

  Alec ran into one of the bed rooms and glanced out. During their confrontation two trucks had pulled into their driveway and in their front yard where over a dozen men all fully armed. The bandits had found them. Alec recognized one of the men due to the large scar running down his face.

  If there was ever a worse time for a threat to approach their house it was now. Jack had returned to his house when the weather cleared up and only came around during dinner, and Trent was out hunting. Between Alec and Grant the only weapon they had was the rifle currently in Grant’s hands.

  “Joseph, Alya, Ben, where the hell are you?” He heard his father whispering desperately from the other room.

  He would have joined in father in the search but he had already found Joseph and Alya. In the woods directly in front of their house he could see the two of them hiding in the bushes, no more than twenty yards from the bandits.

  The bandit with the scar walked forward a copy of steps. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.” The bandits let loose into their house.

  Alec ducked down as bullets tore into their house causing glass to shatter and debris to fly through the air. The sound was deafening. He rolled away from the window and stationed his self behind the bed.

  Joseph, Alya please don’t move.

  The gunfire stopped.

  “We know someone is in there. Come out now and we’ll let you live. Make us come in there and get you and I can promise you will regret it.”

  “Alec are you ok?” He heard his father whisper from the other room.

  “Joseph and Alya are out there.” He whispered back

  “Jesus.”

  Alec started to crawl towards the kitchen when he saw Ben hiding under the bed. “Ben are you ok?” The boy’s eyes were wide with terror and he nodded his head. “No matter what I want you to promise me you’ll stay right here ok? “ The boy nodded again.

  Before Alec could crawl into the kitchen he heard a gun cock.

  “Don’t fucking move.”

  From where Alec was at he could see a man standing over his father with a gun pointed at his head. Alec charged him. Everything seemed to go in slow motion as he headed towards the man. This person was threatening his father, these people were threatening his family, and he wasn’t going to allow that. The man noticed him but at the last second. Alec rammed into the man knocking him from his feet but also knocking the wind out of himself. He felt the air burst from his lungs in one painful impact which was followed by another as he fell onto the floor. The man he hit collapsed onto the ground and his gun went flying. Despite the pain, and lack of air, Alec pushed himself back onto his feet and charged the man again. As he hurled himself back towards the downed man he noticed movement from the side followed by blinding pain, and then the world went dark.

  Grant

  “Alec!” Grant screamed as one of the men slammed the butt of the rifle against his son’s head and he crumbled to the floor. Before Grant could react the men turned to him and pointed the rifle in his face.

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  Another of the bandits came inside, put him in a headlock and dragged him out. Grant was thrown down on his knees in his front yard in front of the bandit with the large scar. He looked up at the large man. The man looked down at him and a look of recognition appeared on his face. A small smile appeared on the man’s face showing a mouthful of yellow teeth. The man let out a long bellowing laugh.

  “Well, well, well, I remember you.” The man bent down and grabbed Grant’s chin roughly. Grant grabbed a whiff of unwashed body odor. “You’re the little fucker who caused me to run off the road and damage my favorite truck.”

  Grant didn’t meet the man’s eyes, the last thing he needed was to stir the man up anymore then he already was. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Alya on the verge of running to him and it took all he had not to yell at her to run. Even if he told her to she wouldn’t and then they would know she was there.

  “So what’s your name?” Grant said nothing. “If I have to ask again I’m taking it out of your buddy’s hide.”

  “Grant.”

  “Grant, huh?” The man pushed Grant’s head to the side and stood back up. After a moment of silence he let out another bellowing laugh. “Don’t you want to know my name?” Again Grant said nothing. “The name’s V and these are my friends. You see we run things out here. I understand you might not know that being all isolated out here, so this is just an introduction.”

  One of the other men came out of the house with a bag full of goods. “Some food, few bullets, not a whole lot.” He loaded the bag into the truck.

  V gave Grant a disapproving look. “You managed to survive the winter and all you have to offer is that?” He made a tsk sound. “You’re going to have to do better my man or you’re not going to make it through the next cold spell.”

  The man who loaded up the bag came over to V. “You think we should teach him a lesson?”

  V smiled, there wasn’t a trace of warmth in it. “Good idea. Go put a bullet in the head of his friend.”

  Grant charged at V. The man was expecting this and before Grant was fully on his feet a single kick to the face sent him sprawling back to the ground. His ears were ringing but he made out Alya’s scream as she rushed out from her hiding spot. He felt her grab a hold of him tightly.

  “Leave my daddy alone. Leave us alone.”

  The bellowing laugh returned again. “Well, well, Looks like you have yourself a family here. From the way you reacted that must be your son in the house, and let me guess this is your little girl?”

  “Please just leave us alone. We’ll have supplies for you when you come, but please leave me and my family alone.”

  “Now that’s more like it, we understand each other now.” None of the men moved. “Let me ask you something, how old is your daughter?”

  A cold fear crept into his stomach. “She’s just 7.”

  “Just 7? My man with a few more years of development she is going to be a prime piece of real estate.”

  Grant sat up and placed Alya behind him. Anger returned to his voice. “You’ve taken enough now go.”

  V pointed his gun right at Grant’s face. “I’ll be the one to decide when I’ve taken enough. Now hand her over.”

  Grant didn’t move. He was out of options. He prayed that Jack or Trent would appear out of nowhere and take out the men. He prayed that V would back off and leave with the things he had already
taken. Today his prayers were not answered.

  “Take the girl.”

  The men were on top of him before he could move. Punches and kicks rained down on him and he heard Alya scream as they tore her from his grasp. Grant started to let out a scream of anger but it was cut short by one of the men as the rammed the butt of a rifle into his head. The world spun around and started to go dark but he pulled himself back from the brink.

  “Riggs, watch out.” One of the men yelled, followed by a gun shot and then a scream of pain.

  As Grant fought to remain conscious he realized Trent must have returned, the man was going to save his daughter. As his eyes focused instead of Trent he saw Joseph standing over a man with a gun in his hand. The boy stood over him, tears in his eyes, pointing the gun at the man holding his sister. The pistol shook in the boy’s hand.

  “Let go of my sister.”

  One of the men backed up, “Little fucker took Rigg’s piece and shot him with it.”

  V’s face turned dark. He looked over at Grant. “I’m a firm believer in an eye for an eye.”

  V pulled a pistol from his side and in one quick motion he fired a shot that hit Grant’s son. The force of the impact knocked Joseph flat on his back. The boy didn’t move or make a sound.

  The world moved in slow motion.

  Grant crawled towards his son, he was only vaguely aware he was screaming at the top of his lungs. When he reached his boy he already knew.

  He denied the truth that was in front of him, he refused to accept it.

  This wasn’t supposed to happen.

  He had gotten clean. He did want he needed to do so he could be there for his family and now he had failed.

  He was brought back to reality by the sound of the trucks pulling out of his driveway. One of those trucks had his daughter. Grant tried to stand but the world was still spinning and fell back down to the cold hard ground. Joseph was gone and as he watched helplessly from the ground Alya was taken away from him.

  Ben

  His brother still hadn’t woken up. A large knot had formed on his forehead and it had turned a dark red color. Ben didn’t know if Alec was ever going to wake up. Ben wished that he was asleep, that all of this was just a bad dream that he would soon wake up from. It had to be a dream because he didn’t understand how something like this could happen. They took his sister. They hurt Joseph, Ben wasn’t sure how bad but he knew it had to be serious because his father refused to let Ben see him.

  He heard Jack’s voice somewhere behind him. He was aware the man was asking him a question, probably asking him if he was ok. The boy didn’t turn around, he refused to take his eyes off of Alec. This was his fault. While his father and Alec took on the men he hid underneath his bed. He knew that if he would have helped then they could have beaten them back. He was nothing more than a stupid child.

  He felt Jack’s hand on his shoulder. “He’s going to be ok.”

  Ben didn’t say anything; he didn’t think there was anything to say. Alec was lying in this bed because Ben had been too frightened to help him. His father had left with Trent to try and find help. His sister had been kidnapped, his youngest brother seriously injured, and he didn’t do anything to try and stop it. After a few minutes he heard Jack walk out of the room. Ben sat at Alec’s bedside and cried.

  Grant

  Grant couldn’t stop his hands from shaking. His entire world has crumbling all around him. He knew that Trent was driving as fast as he could but it wasn’t fast enough. The men who killed his son right in front of him now had his daughter, and he knew exactly what their intentions were. He was not going to allow them to hurt someone he loved again.

  Trent drove through the nearly abandoned town and parked near the civic center. Before the truck had come to a complete stop he was already out and walking towards the door. Whitford walked out of the building and met him. Whitford’s took one look at Grant’s face and knew something was wrong.

  “What happened?”

  “The men that have been hitting this town found where we lived. They kidnapped my daughter.”

  “Jesus Christ. I’m so sorr-“

  “Where are they?”

  “Take a breath Grant right no-“

  “They killed my youngest son.” Whitford’s face dropped. He turned from Grant and walked a couple of steps. “They shot him right in front of me, because he was trying to stop them from taking his sister.”

  There were a couple of people standing near the civic center door, Whitford nodded toward them and they went back inside.

  “Grant I have a pretty good idea where their base is but you’ve got to understand there are dozens of them.”

  “Then help us take them out.” Trent said. Trent had found them first. He heard the gunshots and came over as quickly as he could but he had been too late. They never had a discussion about what Grant intended to do, but he followed him regardless.

  “We don’t have the manpower or the guns to stand up to them.”

  “I don’t need your people to fight for me. I didn’t come here for that. I came here to find out where they took my daughter so I can get to her before they do something.”

  Whitford let out a long sigh. “Freddie.” He called out to the building. After a few seconds a man walked out.

  He was middle aged and looked like he hadn’t had a good meal in a couple of months. He must have been listening in as his face reflected the mood of the conversation. A rifle, Trent’s old rifle to be exact, was slung over his shoulder. “I’ll go.”

  Whitford nodded.

  “I’m not asking for your people to put their lives on the lin-“

  “I’m not asking either,” Whitford interrupted. “But Freddie is the only one that has been to their base. Truth is if we don’t do something then things are just going to get worse.”

  Grant eyed Freddie. “You’ve been there.”

  Freddie gave Whitford a reluctant look. “I…..I used to be with them.” He saw the look on Grant’s face. “That was before winter. Way before they started doing some of the shit they have been doing. I left when things started to go bad.”

  “How bad?”

  “The shit you already know. They started hitting other places, stealing food, hurting people.”

  Whitford stepped forward. “Freddie has been with us for a while and has contributed, he’s a good man.”

  “I’m not questioning his character,” Grant said as calmly as possible. “What do you know about the man called V?”

  Freddie shook his head sadly. “His name is Virgil. Don’t know a whole lot about how he was before but I can tell you he is directly responsible for the shit they do now. He showed up with some of his friends and they started raiding houses for food and supplies. The more supplies they got the more comfortable everyone else started to get. Before we knew it he had enough supporters to do whatever the hell he wanted.”

  “Where are they?”

  “A handful of miles out of town in some old veterinary clinic.”

  “The people here mostly used it for livestock, before that is” Whitford said. “A couple of old buildings and some livestock pins.”

  “I know you want to go now,” Freddie started. “But if we try and hit them in daylight they’ll tear us apart. We’ll wait until it gets dark and then we’ll get your little girl back.”

  Grant looked at Trent and the man didn’t disagree. They didn’t exactly have a lot of choice.

  Alec

  Alec didn’t feel anything. He knew there was a large knot on his forehead that should be throbbing with pain, but he also knew what had happened to Joseph. This simple fact somehow kept the pain at bay. The problem was that now Alec didn’t feel anything. He should feel anger. He should want to hunt down and kill every single person that was responsible. He should feel sad. Joseph was the one that Alec always had to look after the most. Not just because of how small he was but because if he took his eye off of him for more than a few minutes Alya would hunt him down and t
errorize him. Instead of pain, instead of anger, instead of sadness, Alec felt numb. He felt like he was outside of himself watching from above.

  His father had come back for him. By the time he had arrived Alec had already woken up and been told what had happened from Ben. He remembered his father trying to talk to him, trying to elicit some kind of emotion from him but he had failed. Alec was driven forward by their objective, to save his sister from the people who murdered his brother.

  They had parked their car a few miles back on a gravel road and walked the rest of the way. The night was dark and windy; they walked in silence, the only sound were the surrounding trees rustling steadily and melodiously, their limbs creaking slightly in the wind. Occasionally Freddie would pipe in with information, he knew the area and advised them of what to expect.

  They approached the compound from the tall grass. Ahead Alec could see a small trailer on the west-most edge of the clearing, Freddie said they used the trailer for storing supplies. In the middle of the compound was the main building with a few vehicles scattered about in front of it. While large it was only one floor, and Alec imagined it wouldn’t hold more than the 2 dozen people Freddie had warned them about.

  The last structure in the clearing was 50 yards away from the main building. It was a concrete building that was longer then the main building but considerably less wide, Freddie said this is where the livestock were held.

  Grant looked to Whitford. “You ready?” Whitford merely nodded. “Please be careful and thank you, all of you.”

  Nothing else was said as they broke apart. Alec went with this father towards the livestock building, while Trent, Whitford, and Freddie went towards the trailer. They knew what they had to do.

  Alec followed behind his father. They ran crouched down as close to the ground as humanly possible. Alec felt the pistol in his pocket rub up against his side. He had fired a gun before, he had even fired in the general direction of some of these bandits, but never close enough to actually hit someone. Despite all that he knew he wouldn’t hesitate. When he thought of the people in those buildings Joseph’s face flashed before him. He was ready.