Inhuman - Book 1 Page 16

  She didn’t answer – she just tried to push herself farther into the corner. She was trembling violently, and the numerous bruises and cuts on her face told me they hit her quite a few times.

  I wanted to try calming her down, but I needed to leave, just in case anyone heard the shots or came looking for them… I’ve done enough. She’s probably so scared that it would better for me, a strange man who just brutally killed someone in front of her, to just leave.

  Before I did, I searched both the bodies… Half a pack of cigarettes, a lighter and the two revolvers. Four shots in one, two in the other.

  The truck… maybe they have rifles.

  Then I tried to reach her one more time, doing my best to speak softly. “Please, you need to go. Someone could have heard those shots… I risked my life for you – the least you could do is try to save yourself now.”

  She continued to silently stare like I had two heads and, after what had just happened, I couldn’t blame her.

  Could she tell that I enjoyed it? That I purposely made it a lot worse for him than it had to be?

  I sighed. “Please, you need to go now” I said one last time before I headed for the door.

  A shaky voice called out, “Wait!”

  I stopped and turned my head to the side, looking at her from the corner of my right eye.

  She kept her eyes to the ground and tightly held her knees to her chest as she said, “If you really want to help me… leave me one of those guns.” She then raised her head – her eyes gleaming with tears, yet intensely serious.

  My first thought was – Is this a trick?

  As I looked at her, all I could see was fear and anger. I couldn’t get a real read on her due to her emotional state, and I certainly couldn’t tell whether I should trust her or not.

  Just because she was getting raped doesn’t mean she hasn’t been going around killing and stealing from people.

  “I made a lot of noise, so I have to get the hell away from here. I’ve already stayed too long.” I pressed my lips together and shook my head. “If you want to talk – follow me and we’ll talk, but I can’t just hand you a gun. I don’t know you, lady.”

  I yelled at myself on the inside – Now that’s two rules you’ve broken since you got here!

  She wiped the blood from her nose, unknowingly smearing it all over the side of her face, and quickly stood up. “Let’s go.”

  How can she be so quick to shift from scared shitless to willing to leave with an armed stranger?

  Either she’s desperate, not very bright, or she’s up to something.

  I motioned for her to go ahead so I could keep the gun on her, and then pointed to the tree line that I originally came from. “Head to that patch of trees. We can see most of the town and easily stay out of sight. You first.”

  I wanted to wait and see if anyone showed up by nightfall – if not, I’d be going back to collect that food...

  She was forced to run a little on the slower side due to her injuries. Being out in the open for such a long period of time made my heart race – I was picturing someone with a rifle watching me, waiting for the perfect lead so they could fire.

  The moment we reached the woods, I said with a somewhat frantic voice, “Just go in and find a spot to sit down.”

  The harshness of my tone caused her to slide to a stop. Her stare returned to untrusting.

  I put my other hand up and said, “I’m not gonna hurt you. I just don’t trust you… And honestly, I’m pretty fucking scared too.”

  I sound like Jim…

  She took a step back – rapidly moving her eyes from mine and then to the gun several times.

  The stress in general made it so I quickly became aggravated. “Fine. I’m going in so I can safely wait and see if anyone comes around. I wanna try and go back for that food once it gets totally dark, so do what you want. I just wanted to help you and move on – that’s it.”

  She paused, bit her lip, thinned her eyes and then headed into the woods. I followed about ten feet behind with the gun pointed at her back and waited for her to sit down.

  I could tell she was a little older than I was – probably in her mid-thirties. Her hair was blonde, but obviously not her natural color. I soon noticed dark eyebrows framing her green eyes.

  Both sides of her face were starting to swell and bruise from where they repeatedly hit her. Her left eye was halfway swollen shut… She just sat against a tree and looked up at me, waiting to see what I had to say.

  Might as well question her.

  “Look… I understand why you want a gun but, before we talk about that, I want to know exactly what happened here and everything you know about what’s going on.”

  “What do you mean? You can’t see what happened here?”

  She was still slightly shaking and very upset. Her voice carried a lasting misery and hopelessness that I suspected had nothing to do with what just happened – but things that had happened over the past weeks.

  “Fair enough. What do you know about the earthquakes? And I’m going to assume no one here has power, right?”

  She nodded sullenly. “All I know is that I felt a few earthquakes and then the power went out. That’s it.”

  I figured as much… I also noticed that she didn’t have an accent like most of the people in the area.

  I folded my arms and leaned up against a tree – still keeping the Walther in my hand. I still couldn’t even begin to feel her out so I had to keep going. “You obviously aren’t a… native. What are you doing all the way out here?”

  “Why the hell does any of that matter? Why won’t you just give me one of those guns? You found two of them – and you have two more with you! You said you wanted to help me, right? Well help me.”

  I didn’t want to explain why I was questioning her… It could give away an emotional weakness for her to exploit... I was just going to do what Auron did to me. See if I could trip her up or catch her in a lie – try and get a sense of who she is.

  She obviously doesn’t know anything about what’s going on with the rest of the country.

  I could easily leave one of the revolvers on the ground and walk away while making sure she didn’t try to kill me. I had a rifle and a state of the art handgun… so I was considering it.

  She couldn’t possibly be that stupid.

  Only problem is – she could be that desperate.

  Fuck.

  I was tired and I wanted to sit down, but that would make me vulnerable so I stayed leaned up against the tree. “If you want one of these guns – talk to me.”

  “Talk to you?” She sighed. “Fine… My sister and I moved here because I wasn’t doing too well financially and some family left me a house out here, along with a decent sum of money.”

  She tilted her head and sarcastically added, “Happy?”

  Her sister wasn’t with her, and I automatically assumed she was dead so I didn’t push the subject anymore. “What’s your name?”

  She grew even more annoyed. I could see her squeezing her lips together out of frustration. “… Olivia” she said through her teeth as she glared at me.

  I was beginning to see that she wasn’t trying to trick and rob me – that her focus was on something else entirely. She kept staring off to the side. Her mind was obviously racing. There was a reason why she needed that gun and it was for more than protection.

  Something to do with her sister?

  Just ask.

  “Alright, Olivia, why do you want this gun so badly that you’d follow a heavily armed stranger into the woods so close to dark?” I nearly added, “After you were just raped” but stopped myself at the last second.

  “Those two guys were chasing me because I escaped from them… They’ve been holding my sister and me captive for over a week.”

  So her sister’s still alive. “So, is she just waiting alone in an empty house, or?”

  She let out a derisive laugh, “Don’t you know where you are? People out here have a lot of kids
. Those were two of five brothers. They live with their father on a small property a few miles away. They have a sister too... She’s the craziest one.”

  Fuck, so basically, she’s gonna die if I don’t help her.

  And if I do it sounds like we’re both gonna get killed.

  As I studied her face, I knew – No way I’m talking her out of it.

  Not like anyone could talk me out of it.

  “I hate to tell you this, but these guns aren’t even close to fully loaded – one only has two rounds left.”

  She stood and took a few steps in my direction – I straightened up and motioned for her to stop with the gun.

  “Please, I’ll take the one that only has two left. If I go now they won’t expect it. Please!” She lowered her voice. “I’m not trying to trick you. I just want to try and save my sister and I’m running out of time.”

  For whatever reason, I believed her… but I still have to be careful. I believed in Jim too.

  “So you want two bullets for five people?”

  “Why do you even care?”

  Without warning, the night I watched those men shoot up the whole street while I stood aside like a coward came rushing back to me. I began thinking about how difficult it would be to take out five people by myself – or if I could even shoot a woman if I had to.

  She won’t be much help with that revolver.

  Even if I took one out by surprise – there would still be four more left… and apparently the sister is the worst one?

  I closed my eyes and listened to the trees. I knew that Jessica and Sophia would have wanted me to continue helping her. That was enough to convince me – even though it would probably get me killed. “I don’t know how you’ll be able to do this…even with my help… but you’ve got it.”

  She heavily frowned and just stared for a while, then sat back down and brought her knees up to her chin – slightly wincing, jerking her head back as she put pressure on the bruises. “Why?”

  I took a few steps forward, put my hand on my hip and looked off into the distance – Don’t tell her shit. “I don’t really know... You want my help or not?”

  Olivia got to her feet. Her face was getting more swollen as the minutes passed. Her left eye, the corner of her mouth and the whole right side of her face were badly bruised – worse than I originally thought.

  It only made me want to help them more…

  I tried to imagine what they’d been through, but I could only speculate (and I assumed it was far worse than I could ever picture). It was like one of those horrific things you seldom hear about on the news that we all liked to believe rarely ever happened.

  “Do you even know how to use a gun?”

  Olivia rolled her eyes and scoffed, “Of course I do. Do you see where I live?” as she motioned for me to look around.

  After everything that happened, it made me a little suspicious to see her so “collected” all of a sudden. I considered that maybe she was still kind of in shock, but that wasn’t it either.

  I wanted to believe it was because she was so driven to save her sister that getting beaten and raped didn’t matter at the moment. And when I thought of how I’d be if it were Jessica or Sophia stuck in that house with those men, I did believe her – though I wasn’t even close to trusting her. I planned to stay ready to put her down at a moment’s notice.

  “So you’re sure there’re only five people at the house? And those two weren’t very well armed. What’s the story with that?”

  She shook her head. “They have plenty of guns, believe me. They just left in a hurry because I got away – probably didn’t expect to run into anyone. As far as I know, from overhearing them, you’re the first person to show up in over a month.” She raised the left side of her brow in a suspicious nature. “What the hell would possibly make you come all the way out here?”

  It was minutes away from beginning to get dark, and I was also sure that the others were already questioning what was taking the two men I killed so long to return.

  If we’re going to do this – now is the time.

  “We can ask each other more questions later. I wanna do this now. It’ll be a lot easier before the others go on high alert and come looking for them. We need to surprise them.”

  I brought out the two revolvers, took the remaining two shells out of one and put them in the other. I stepped within less than a foot from her and we locked eyes. “Don’t make me regret this.”

  She shook her head. “I won’t.”

  “And if we actually don’t die, we part ways after. Understand?”

  “Yeah.”

  Yes, there was a good chance that she would kill me the moment I turned my back. But I’d decided to take the chance and do the right thing. That’s all that mattered – not being like those other people – like Jim.

  I have no life, no one to care about… or that I’m responsible for.

  The least I could do is try to help someone who truly needs it.

  It has to be what they’d want me to do.

  As I looked at her disheveled hair, dirty hands, overly thin arms and face – covered in bruises, I knew that if anyone did need help it was her. “The faster we move the better chance we have to catch them off guard, so come on.”

  I handed her the revolver. When she reached out I didn’t let go for a few seconds – I just continued to stare. “Lead the way, but don’t do anything until I tell you to. Understand?”

  She nodded and started toward the town. After about ten steps she turned back and I barely heard her say, “Thank you.”

  I didn’t know how to respond, or want to, so I just quietly followed about ten feet behind her.

  …

  As we made our way down the strip, I glanced around and thought to myself – This place would be fuckin’ scary even if you take away all the dead bodies and shot up cars.

  It was getting close to the point where we’d barely be able to see. The only thing helping was the moonlight reflecting off some of the lightly colored cars and the few windows that were still left unbroken.

  Olivia began focusing to her left and then came to a stop. I could see her breath as she said, “I need a jacket.”

  I gave an approving nod, so she went over to one of the dead men near the shot up food truck and kneeled down, turning her head as she slipped his arms out of each sleeve and then rolled him over.

  “So everyone who didn’t get killed just left?” I asked.

  As she shook the jacket off and put it on, she grimaced. I quickly gathered that it was because it smelled terrible. “Either they left, got killed, or they’re hiding in their homes. Most of the properties here are really spread out. I never see many people – even before all this.”

  “Why didn’t you and your sister leave?”

  She bugged her eyes in total disbelief. “You don’t know about the military?”

  “Oh, I know. One of those assholes shot at me. Just wanted to see if you knew.” I motioned for her to get going with the rifle. “Keep moving and stay ahead of me.”

  Olivia sighed, whipped around and continued to lead the way. She mumbled, “The house is about a mile past town on the right.”

  I didn’t say anything else as we walked. I was trying to think of a good plan of attack. I definitely wanted to take out one of the brothers from afar first. I just didn’t know what to do after that, and nervousness was rapidly setting in.

  Are you fucking stupid? What are you doing?

  This isn’t a god damn movie, Chris. You’re gonna end up getting killed and taking her with you.

  But she won’t leave her sister behind.

  Why do I even care?

  She still might just kill me and take all of my shit after I help her…

  A few minutes after we passed the main strip, she said, “We’re getting pretty close. Should be less than a mile now.”

  I still hadn’t come up with anything – except that I had a feeling I was going to regret helping her. Or not even be a
ble to feel regret because I’d be dead…

  I must have been looking at the ground – deep in thought and not paying attention like I should have been… as usual.

  Olivia yelled out, “Headlights!”

  When I jerked my head up, I could see a vehicle leaving one of the properties and turning onto the road. I asked, “Is that them?”

  “Yeah! They must be coming to look for the others! What do we do?”

  I spun around, quickly taking in my surroundings – only one option. “Go hide in the woods. Now!”

  I have a really stupid idea that probably won’t work… but if it does…

  I stayed in the middle of the road and brought up my rifle. They were still at least a half mile away, so I readied myself by putting the crosshairs on the driver’s side headlight and then slowly moving them up to where the driver would be sitting.

  I began using the little time I had left to steady my breathing.

  If I miss they’ll start swerving around and I probably won’t get another chance.

  I can’t miss…

  Olivia called out from the trees in a loud whisper, “What the hell are you doing?”

  I just waved her off and went back to concentrating on taking the shot. “Stay quiet and hidden!” I needed to wait just a little longer, and couldn’t afford any distractions. It was basically a blind shot. I could only judge by the glare of the headlight, though I still didn’t see why it couldn’t work.

  It’s not that crazy… It just seems like it.

  Olivia yelled out to me again and I quickly snapped back, “Shut up!” hoping she’d get the hint.

  It was getting to the point where they’d be able to see me soon, which could ruin everything.

  I need to take the shot within the next five seconds.

  I was just so scared that I’d miss.

  As I stood there, miserably failing to steady my breathing, I recalled a technique I learned about from a martial arts documentary I once watched. Deep inhale through the nose and then exhale through the mouth – apparently, it allowed more oxygen into your lungs and greatly aided in meditation or recovery during a fight.

  I gave it a genuine try because my heart was racing and I clearly wasn’t keeping my arms steady. I could see the crosshairs swaying back and forth – constantly moving away from where I needed them to be.