Day One (Book 1): Alive (17 page)

The loud clicking noise propagated throughout the kitchen like a bomb going off. Everyone heard it, unable to deny what would follow.

The Blonde looked in the direction of the front door, no doubt she was trying to figure out in her head if she could make it to the door and escape if any shooting started. I followed her eyes and for the first time realized the large mistake I had made, once again.

Write me down,
again
, for the father of the year award. I had left Kember unattended and all alone in the SUV, although it wasn’t still running, while I came in to recover a few things we would need. I hadn’t foreseen this small hiccup in any of the scenarios I had envisioned in my head. My planning had left a major factor out of the equation and now my problems were worse. If they managed to get away, Kember would be no good for them and although they didn’t look like the type that could harm a child, there were other ways in which they could seek revenge upon me through her.

However, if they stayed there pure numbers could easily be enough to overpower me, in the event that I made a mistake or miscalculation. The only option I had that would ensure Kember and I made it out of the town once more, was to dispatch those in front of me whether my morals were for or against it.

“I guess survival just depends on who’s faster on the trigger, huh?” I said, unsure if those were the correct words to utter to complete strangers at this time. I wasn’t looking for a fight – would avoid one at all cost, yet I wouldn’t run from it either. I couldn’t.

The tension was so thick in the kitchen that if you swung a knife, the air would split and fall to the floor with a loud crash.

“Wait!” Lloyd said. “It doesn’t have to go down like this.” He lowered his shotgun. “I don’t know what happened to you in the past, with those guys you referred to earlier, but we aren’t looking for that kind of trouble. We just wanted a safe place to stay. That’s it!”

“Then why did you set those fires if you just wanted a safe place to stay?” I asked and not waiting for an answer, continued. “Did those poor folks not give you what you want, so you killed them and set their houses on fire to cover your tracks?”

Finally the Man in the rear spoke up. “A few of those crazies came in while we were setting up our make-shift camp. There were more of them then there were of us, so we decided to leave and in haste I knocked over a lantern and the whole place went up in a matter of seconds.”

“A lantern? In the middle of the day?” I questioned.

“If you board up the windows, or the ones you can anyway, and spray paint the remaining windows with black paint, it gets pretty dark inside, even in the middle of the day,” he said.

“If they can’t see you and don’t know you are nearby, they won’t come looking for you,” Lloyd added.

“They are attracted to the fire. I don’t know why, it’s kind of like watching a moth slam into a lightbulb over and over again until it dies. It makes no sense to anyone but the moth why they do it; even though they will die from it… they still slam into it,” Second Man said.

Their explanation of covering the windows with paint and boarding the others up was a tactic I knew all too well. I, myself, had done it in the SUV and it worked, which meant that they were either extremely good liars, or were telling the truth. “Then why stick around and endanger yourselves to set a second house fire if they were so close?”

“It was a diversion to pull them away from us as we fled, and it only took a few seconds to light. Curtains go up quickly when subjected to fire and help spread things out of control for you,” Lloyd stated.

At this point I didn’t know what to think, let alone believe. All of what they had told me fit together nicely and with them lowering their weapons, it showed me that maybe they really didn’t want any violence. Maybe all they were really looking for was a safe place to rest and recover. No matter what I decided, I couldn’t let them know that I was caught between a rock and a hard place. That could easily lead me down a road I didn’t want to go and label me weak and unpredictable. I could not let them see the doubt on my face, which I was feeling; as they could be lying… it was plausible. They would remain suspects to me until I could verify they were innocent.

“And how can I be certain you won’t stab me in the back, if I let you stay or shoot me in my sleep and then burn this place down as well?”

Lloyd looked at me with a genuine stare. “Unfortunately, there is nothing we can say to make you feel any better. After all, we are strangers to one another and with the way things have been the past week, trust is not a common commodity anymore. All we have is our word.” He moved away from the others and I trained the red dot sight on his chest as he approached. In the middle of the kitchen, with the shotgun pointed safely away from me, he lowered it to the floor and backed away, holding both hands in the air. “Put your weapons down guys.”

“Have you lost your fucking mind?” the Blonde asked.

The others were a bit hesitant to say the least to give up their only means of defense against me, but with a rattled glare from Lloyd, they did just that.

“I hope you feel better now. You just got all four of us killed.” The Blonde said as she removed the hidden weapon and dropped it to the floor.

I felt invigorated to have sensed that and kept my guard up. My senses were become sharp and I listened to them more often. Maybe I had a good chance of surviving after all.
Four of us?
My brain stated.

“Now you have all of the power.” Lloyd said. “Our lives are in your hands.”

“What do you mean the
four
of us?” I asked, feeling my stomach tighten, as if something bad was about to happen.

“Can we be friends now?” Lloyd ignored the question, as he had started speaking the moment I had, so our words crossed each other in mid-flight. Suddenly his demeanor changed, replaced now by fear and he opened his mouth. “No, Devin…”

Chapter Seven.

I spun briskly thinking that one of those things had somehow been in the house with us the whole time and was just now making its presence known. I only made it a quarter of the way around when a hundred lightning bolts cascaded into my body all at once. My body locked up, I couldn’t stand and saw the floor rushing up to meet me. The collision was not only brutal, but extremely painful as well. I thought every bone in my body cracked as I hit the hardwood floor. How I didn’t fire off a few rounds accidentally is beyond me. I was in a lot of trouble now… more trouble than I had been in so far. My luck had run out.

The tables were now turned and I wasn’t the guy controlling the room anymore. I was now the submissive about to be eaten by the raging pack. My eyes, the only thing I could move, caught the narrow slit of sunlight still on its endless trek across the kitchen floor. I focused on it with all of my might, hoping that it would counter the effects of the pain I was about to endure at the hands of those that wanted me dead. Tears welled in my eyes, not for me though, but for my Daughter who would never see the age of two. When they were finished with me, she would be next.

I felt my body began to move, although I wasn’t trying to move. I heard voices all around me, yet their words were muffled and I couldn’t understand them. What frightened me the most though, was I could feel the SBR being pried from my hands. The weapon I had grown accustomed too was now going to be the instrument of my death and probably countless others in the near future.

I tried to speak. Nothing came out. Aftershocks of the lightning bolts still fired through my entire body; however, I was no longer in pain. Whatever had been done to me, the method of takedown was killing the pain from washing over me and sending me into unconsciousness. Kember, on the other hand, would not be as fortunate as I had been. They would most likely torture her as long as possible because I had not screamed out when they killed me. That fact alone would infuriate them and send them far over the edge of humanity. The things they would do to her were unspeakable and I dared not even think about them. I closed my eyes tightly and prayed for a swift death.

NO!
My mind shouted. I was not going to let that happen to her. I had to put forth an effort that I never had before. I had to summit the peak against unsurmountable odds and I had to be victorious for her sake.

I felt my right hand wiggle a bit and shoved it toward my unseen holster where the Beretta sat waiting, jerked it free as my vision, which had been blurry up until this point, slowly began to return. I could see the blonde looking down at me; she was no more than a foot from my face, looking into my eyes mumbling something. I couldn’t get my finger inside of the trigger guard, so I did the next best thing. With a single quick thrust, I slammed the barrel of the .9mm into the side of her face. She howled like a frightened dog and fell out of my sight as I rose up into a sitting position, under my own power and took the best aim I could at the Man standing almost over me. He froze and threw both hands into the air.

“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!” he yelled. “I thought you were going to hurt my friends… I swear to you!”

I wanted to shoot him out of sheer frustration when I saw the tazer in his left hand. That’s why I thought a hundred lightning bolts had hit me, although it was partially true. Fifty thousand volts has a tendency to open your eyes immediately. I pushed back against the wall where I could see the three strangers I had talked with and the new threat that stood a foot from me. Already I could feel the sensation of my body coming back from the brink, so all I had to do was hold them off for a few more minutes and the tables would be back in my favor.

“Get your ass over there with them! MOVE!” I shouted. He complied quicker than my words had left my mouth. “All of you stay put or I’ll shoot every damn one of you!”

“Okay, man. We are complying with you, just go easy,” Lloyd said trying his best to defuse the situation.

“You thought you had me, didn’t you?” I asked them, now realizing that they were no different than the two assholes in the gas station. All they cared about was themselves and would do whatever was necessary to ensure they made it another day. They didn’t care who they hurt or killed to achieve this goal either, but I would be the one to stop them. I would be the one to bring their unjustly deeds to an end.

“I tried to stop him,” Lloyd said.

“Shut up!” I shouted back. “I was about to give in and let you stay, that is until you tried to catch me off guard and take me down.”

“No! It’s not what it looks like,” Lloyd added.

“What does it look like to you?” I asked. “I got bum rushed by an asshole with a tazer, but it isn’t supposed to look bad?” It took everything I had to speak, as breathing was difficult because of the anger I was subjected too. I wanted to stand fearing that in my sitting position, if they attacked me I wouldn’t be able to shoot them all and at least one of them would make it to me. Coupled with having to reload at that time, I would be in a world of hurt in seconds, although there numbers would be greatly diminished as well. Was that a fair trade I thought? But trying to stand would throw me off balance, which would invite an attack almost certainly.

“He was trying to protect us from you, that’s all. He thought you were a bad guy,” Lloyd stated with Devin standing beside him, hands still in the air, fear plastered all over his face.

“Bullshit!” I yelled. “He could hear us talking and knew that I wasn’t a bad guy. You’re even more stupid than me for believing I would fall for that.”

“I was trying to be quiet as I approached you from behind. I wasn’t listening to your words; I was trying not to make a sound,” Devine explained. “All I heard was your comment about shooting everyone and saving yourself as I got closer.”

Slowly I was regaining full movement and control of my body. I’d soon be able to stand and adequately defend myself if need be, but until then I kept the pistol pointed at them and the anger holding my finger to the trigger. If any of them moved, I would shoot without hesitation. “All of you stay
exactly
where you are!”

The Blonde sat up holding the right side of her head. A small gash bled freely and she stared down the barrel of my pistol. I didn’t have to issue any commands to her, as she quickly began scooting across the floor towards her friends, never taking her eyes off of me. I could see the hate within her stare and returned the favor.

A loud thump at the front door called all of our attention simultaneously. Another thump followed and then one at the side door, just off of the living room. I pushed through the dying sensation of electrical current still arching through my body and stood. “More of your friends come to help you out?”

Lloyd shook his head.

“Then who is it?” I asked.

“The Second man in a terrified voice responded. “It’s those crazies. They know we’re in here, probably heard all of the shouting.”

There was a valid and unanimous look of fear upon their faces, which I could not deny.

More words from the Second Man. “We have to get out of here before more of them show up and surround us.”

Lloyd looked at me for a moment. “He’s right, ya know. If we stay here much longer we’ll never get out of this place alive. They can’t move very fast, but if enough of them get around you… it’s game over.”