“Look,” I told him. “It’s my family. I don’t know why you’re here or what you want.”
“Are you kidding me? I was pounding on the door for help. If you would have answered, my friend would still be alive.”
“I did answer. You have to understand, I’m being cautious. I have to be.”
“Because you can’t take care of yourself,” he said. “That’s obvious. I’m surprised you still have stuff. And you’re being awful nervous.”
“Wouldn’t you be?”
He laughed and tried to get past me.
“Where are you going?”
“Think I want to meet the family.”
“Leave them be. You can go or stay. Take the supplies you want, but just don’t worry about them. I don’t understand why this is important to you?”
“Because I want to know who I’m tossing out in the middle of the night to die. I’m like that, you know.”
“What? You’re insane. We’re going nowhere.”
He laughed. “You think you’re gonna stop me from throwing you out? You would have already. Look at you, you’re in no condition to… throw me out. You haven’t a clue how to survive in this hell world or else you would have had that gun in your hand when you opened the door.”
I just stared.
“By the way, where is that gun? The one that was on the living room floor? Man, we should have grabbed that. But I thought, who the hell would be coming here? My mistake. Or maybe it’s still there under the sheets.” He tipped his chin arrogantly as he stepped to me. “Yeah, we were here first. This morning actually. Left for more supplies. That can of stew… was probably mine.” He winked then shoved easily by me and headed to the hallway.
“Hey!” I shouted.
“I am going to be nice. Let you leave on your own. That way no one gets hurt by me and I have a clean conscious.” He whistled short and loud. “Calvin’s family? Time to go.” At the end of the narrow hall, Curt opened the door to this right, then after looking inside, he opened the next door exposing Hannah sitting on the bed. Edward was covered completely in her arms with a blanket. Curt burst into laughter. “Well, well, well. What do we have? You certainly have your hands full, Calvin. A baby and a little girl. Tell you what, I’ll help you out. You take the baby, leave the girl. Kinda gets lonely at night around…”
Fueled with disgust and anger, I charged at Curt slamming my body into him, we hit against the doorframe and I slugged my fist into his gut.
He grunted once, grabbed me, spun me around, and slammed me into the wall.
“Well look who has balls after all.” He held me firmly by the scruff of my shirt. The next thing I knew I had a gun under my chin. “I was going to let you go. Now I’m not.”
“Leave her be. She’s just a kid.”
“Why you think I got kicked out of Sanctuary? Huh?”
A single gunshot rang out and Curt’s eyes widened, his grip on me loosened. His face had a look of shock just before he dropped sideways to the floor
He had been shot in the hip. Groaning he rolled to his back and tried to reach for his weapon which fell from his hand.
Hannah, with a cold expression stepped out of the bedroom, gun extended and focused on Curt.
“Hannah! No!” I shouted. Hannah didn’t heed my warning. She fired a single shot to his chest.
He wasn’t dead.
I was in shock at what I saw, how Hannah could have done what she did, so calm and without hesitation. She lowered her aim and stared.
“Hannah, are you okay?”
She spoke dazed. “I couldn’t let him take me or hurt you. I couldn’t.” She nudged him with her foot and Curt coughed, grabbing his chest wound. “What do we do with him, Cal?”
Curt coughed. “Help.”
I literally scoffed, maybe even laughed at the absurdity of his request.
After thinking about it, I raced into the living room and peeked out the shutter.
I could only see two Vee and they were hovered over a body. I returned to the hall. “Okay they’re busy out there. We can do this. Grab an arm and help me move him.”
The task wasn’t quite as simple as I hoped it would be. A battered guy and a twelve-year-old girl, dragging a man across the small home. He wasn’t big, but he gave his all in struggling as we pulled his arms.
He coughed and choked, blood shot from his mouth. He even pleaded for his life. As if we would change our minds and suddenly have a change of heart. He may have been bleeding and breathing, but in a sense, he was already dead. I was just making sure he got what he deserved. If he came after us, threatened me, made sick suggestions about Hannah, and did all that with ease, then he had done it before.
That was my justification for opening the door and rolling him out.
He screamed for a while, longer than his friend. He must have felt every fingernail dig into him, every bite as it tore flesh from him.
I stood there for a little while listening, processing all that happened. Fighting the guilt that tried to creep up. Eventually, he went silent and I walked away from the door. I still don’t know what happened first, if he stopped screaming or I simply stopped listening and caring.
17
DANGLE
September 6
It would be a late start to the day, but I was fine with that. Both Hannah and I were well rested. I slept so soundly on the reclining chair with Edward on my chest, I was afraid I rolled over on him. I hadn’t moved. My body was stiff and sore, but I had a clear head.
Daniel and Jennifer had coffee and the propane tank was still full. I was able to light the stove and boil water, run it through the filter and make a pot. It tasted good and I found a huge thermos, filling that for the road trip. That was my prize find. Hannah’s was a hair brush and hair bands. She brushed her hair for a good fifteen minutes, then struggled with the ponytail.
I had just finished packing everything to leave when she came into the kitchen pretty frustrated. “You don’t by chance know how to do a braid, do you? Guess not.” She turned.
“I do.”
She stopped. “Really? You ain’t fooling me are you?”
“Nope.” I pulled out a chair. “Sit.”
“How do you know how? You’re a man.”
“I was a married man and I had a sister. I know braids. Don’t tell anyone.”
“Seems silly you would say that. Who am I gonna tell?”
“You never know.” After she sat down, I started braiding her hair.
“Is your sister alive?”
“I like to think so. She lived in Germany with her husband. In fact, I’ll believe she is.”
“How old are you, Calvin?”
“Thirty-seven.”
“Thirty-seven and you haven’t fired a gun?”
“Not everyone shoots guns, Hannah.” I worked the braid. “I wasn’t much of an outdoor kind of guy. My job had me sitting behind a desk.”
“That sounds boring.”
“Not really. I liked math.”
“Oh, now I know you’re strange.”
I laughed and added the band to the end of her braided ponytail. “There. Done.”
“That was fast.” She reached back and felt. “It feels nice.”
“I’m good. Now, are you ready to leave? It’s almost noon.”
“You look to see if there were any out there?” she asked.
“Last I looked, I didn’t see any. Let’s go before they come.”
“I’m ready. Let me run and pee and steal that toilet paper so we have it for the road.”
“You do that.”
She started to leave the kitchen and paused. “You look better today.”
“Thanks, I feel better.”
Hannah darted off and I gathered the remaining items, placing and securing them in the wagon. Edward was on the chair and I put him in the carrier and then moved the wagon near the door. I dreaded pulling it down the four steps.