Chapter 5

Chapter 5

 

          Hunter stood there with the water cascading around him. The barrel of the gun had water streaming off of it as well; it looked like its own little shower. Hunter slowly turned around and faced Jake. Jake stood there silently, breathing heavily from the adrenaline which has changed from one type of fear to another.

            “Why?” Hunter asked once again. Jake couldn’t tell his tears from the water from the shower but Jake knew he was crying. He could hear it in his voice. “Why?” Hunter asked again.

            “Why what, bud?” Jake asked.

            Hunter took a step from under cascading water forward into the dryness, towards Jake. “Why do people die? The ones we love. Why do they die?” Hunter choked out.

            “Delia died because you shot her, Hun-“ Jake started to say in a very calm, un-criticizing voice.

            Hunter cut him off before he could finish, “NO!” he yelled. “NO! No I didn’t! That wasn’t me back there in that truck! That wasn’t me that called her those names! I wouldn’t have done that! I wouldn’t have done that…” Hunter fell to his knees in even more tears repeating through the sobs ‘That wasn’t me’ over and over. His right hand held the gun loosely on his thigh and the left palm up on his thigh. Jake did nothing but stand there, looking at this sad pathetic man on his knees with his head bowed in tragedy, his shoulders rising and falling occasionally in accordance to his sobs.

            Hunter eventually stopped saying those three words and his sobs became quieter.  Eventually he looked up at Jake and after a long second chuckled once to himself with sadness still streaked across his face. He turned twisted around and looked at the shower still running then back to himself. He let out short, small guffaw and said to Jake, “I left the water running.” Hunter ran his fingers back through his hair and looked at the gun in his right hand.

            “Where did you get the gun?” Jake asked.

            “Outta’ my waistband.” Hunter replied wiping his nose on his sleeve with the arm the gun was clutched in, holding Jake’s glare. Jake then realized that they forgot to dispose of the gun.

 “You hear that?” Hunter said.

            “Hear what?” Jake asked.

            “The sirens. Getting closer and closer and closer.”

            Jake left the doorway of the shower room and looked out one of the windows to the back entrance which he used. Nothing. The front windows of the warehouse however proved to show four police cruisers about three miles down the high way racing in Jake’s direction with their lights blazing and sirens breaking the morning air. Jake turned the volume up on the police radio which was clipped to his waistband on his jeans. Sure enough the police were telling the dispatchers that they were en route to the warehouse where Jake and Hunter were.

            The storm clouds were now directly over the city even darker than before. Jake rushed back into the shower room. Hunter was still on his knees, but now with no sobs. He was staring at the weapon in his hands. The cool silver barrel with the wood on the handgrip; the lever was cocked.

            “Hey come on man we gotta go.” Jake said, his adrenaline rising again.

Hunter looked up slowly. “Funny isn’t it? Life. There’s only one way out.” He said then in one fluid moment he put the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger. The echo in that small little room deafening.  Hunter’s lifeless body slumped to the left and backwards, the gun still in his hands but the blood rushed out of the four inch hole on the left side of his head mixing with the water to create a pink swirl which traveled to the drain then out of sight with a small, occasional gurgle.

Jake stood there looking at Hunter, saddened and surprised at what had just happened. He wasn’t expecting that. Suddenly his concentration of his lost friend was broken by the sound of sirens blaring loudly and tires breaking thousands of pounds in a matter of seconds on gravel. Jake knew that the all the doors on the front were locked, and then either padlocked or chained and padlocked. He had time. His truck was still idling at the end of black skid marks. Jake jumped into the beast then drove out of the back of the warehouse at a high speed. He traveled down the long wide dirt driveway to the highway and away from the city. He knew that in twenty miles there would be another highway that would loop another fifty miles back to the other side of the city.

            He checked his rear view mirror and noticed that there were no blue and red lights following him. In the rear view mirror he also saw the dark clouds looming even closer and darker to the city. It looked like an almost pitch black wall behind the few sky scrapers in the city. He slowed his speed to ten miles an hour above the speed limit. He was safe for now. He rolled down the window and turned on his music so loud the speakers were rattling at the point of blowing. It wasn’t loud enough. His only thought as he drove was that alone, he could work faster, but alone, he had no one to trust in. He glanced down at the gas gauge and realized he wasn’t going make it to the city.

 

***

Evan had finished his presentation with applause. He knew that no doubt that they would use his idea and give him a raise. With a smile from ear to ear he sat down next to his best friend, Tyler Hendrickson, who he had known since he started working here.

            “Nailed it to the nose, man. That was awesome!” Tyler whispered in Evan’s ear.

            Tyler was 6’6” and intimidated most of his co-workers. Evan was only 6’2” but because of Tyler’s long, skinny build, he still towered over everyone. Tyler had jet black hair and bright blue eyes that all the ladies swooned over. He was very gentle and caring man, but Evan had never seen him back down from a fight. He was scrawny and wasn’t very strong, but that never stopped him from protecting what he thought was right.

***

            Emily woke to the sound of something hitting the floor in the room next to her. The thud the object made sounded much like the sound of a small body falling to the floor; the sound of her son’s body hitting the floor. As she was climbing out of her bed to go check on him, she heard a small, annoyed voice call out, “Mooooooommy!”

            Emily put on her bath robe and as she was tying the belt she rushed into her son’s room only to find him naked standing at his dresser trying to put on a pair of underwear backwards and inside out. The ones he was wearing the day before were on the floor next to his laundry hamper. So close, she thought as she picked them up and put them in the hamper.

            “What happened, baby?” Emily asked her son, assisting him with his clothes.

            “I had a scary dream.” He replied.

            “Did you fall out of your bed?” she asked as she retrieved a shirt out of his dresser.

            “Yeah, and I fell on my truck.” He pointed at the toy truck next to his bed and the wheels had been bent up on it.

            "I'm sorry, baby." Emily said pulling a shirt over his head.

            Mike shrugged and finished putting his pants on then ran out of the room. Emily smiled and shook her head at his backwards pants then followed him downstairs. Mike had turned the TV on and was watching cartoons and Emily went to the kitchen to make some breakfast. While she was making breakfast the phone rang which was in the other room so Emily went to answer it. She picked it up and in the friendliest voice she could muster with sleep still saturating her voice she said ‘Hello?’.

Silence responded.

“Hello?” she asked again.

This time she heard a click and then a dial tone. She looked at the handset confused and put it back on the receiver. With her nerves now on end she then went to the front door and locked it. She then went to the garage door and back sliding glass doors and locked those too.

From behind her in the kitchen she heard the clatter of little legs hitting the kitchen drawers and went into the kitchen to find Mike climbing up on the counter. Successful, he looked out the window over the sink and made a gun on his hand with his index finger and his thumb sticking out and proceeded to make shooting sounds while pointing his pretend gun out of the window.

“Who are you shooting, Baby?” Emily asked her son.

“That misterous bad guy!” he replied, shooting him again.

Emily assumed he meant ‘mysterious’ and went to the window over the sink to see what he was pointing at. Outside on the side walk was man standing, staring in at them. She sat there and stared back, the hairs on her arms and back of her neck stood up and she felt a chill run through her skin. She darted towards the front door, unlocked it and threw the door open. That caught the man’s attention and he turned quickly like he had been caught and looked at her. Emily folded her arms across her chest as she was still in her bathrobe then called out to him,

“Can I help you?”

The man just stared at her. He opened his mouth a few times about to say something, but he couldn’t seem to find the right words for whatever it was he was going to say. After a long moment he turned and walked briskly off in the other direction. Emily watched him walk off for a minute then she went back inside. After shutting the door behind her she locked it again and went back to the kitchen. Mike was no longer on the kitchen counter but he was standing on the couch.

“Hey! Do we stand on the couch?” she asked him.

“Fine.” He said in an annoyed voice then plopped down on the couch, his gaze never leaving the television. Emily returned to her breakfast which was on the stove which she was sure she had burned by now. She flipped the pancake over on the skillet to find it a dark brown color. She had saved it in time so it wasn’t quite burned. She then went over to the sink to finish washing a few dishes and stared out the window again, wonder who that man was, and what he wanted.

 

***

 

Jake’s truck started to sputter and he pulled off the road and let it die. He was out of gas and thirty miles from the city. He slid out of the truck and went around to the other side and proceeded to urinate on the tire. After he was done he went back around to the driver’s side of the truck and opened the door. He started to gather his things, ready to abandon the truck and walk to the city, or as close to it as he could before it became dark. He was pissed off at the fact that his plan would be put behind another few days. Before he could gather all of his things he heard a car off in the distance headed his way. He came up with a plan quick and took his knife and put a hole in the rear tire on the left side of the truck. As the air whooshed out, he folded the knife back up then put it back in his pocket. He then shut the door to his truck and went over by the bed of the truck and looked for something heavy he could use as a club. For his plan to work he needed that car to only have one person in it. Hopefully it would. He found a crowbar and clutched it in his hands. Yes, this would do nicely, he thought.

He left his the crow bar clutched in his right hand which he hand bent behind him in the bed of the truck out of view, his left arm resting on the edge of the truck’s bed and he tried to calm, bored, though he wasn’t. His heart raced and pumped adrenaline through his body, excited at the possibility of what could happen in a matter of moments.

As the car came closer it slowed and Jake could only see no one in the car besides the driver. His heart beat faster. Perfect. The car parked behind Jake’s pickup truck and he waved at the driver with his left hand, his arm never leaving the edge of the truck’s bed and the driver of the car waved back. The man who drove the car stepped out of the car and headed towards Jake. The man was in his late 50’s or early 60’s. He was wearing slacks and a sweater pulled over a polo shirt. His white and gray hair was slicked back to one side. He looked like one of the retired men who live in adults only condominiums with his wife. He had most likely made a lot of money before he retired and now living happily. He had a slender, fairly fit build and Jake figured that he most likely still physically active, him and his wife both and they probably played tennis every Tuesday and Thursday with their friends Chuck and Bernice.

The man walked towards Jake with a smile and Jake waved at him again. The man noticed the flat tire, to which he said,

“Tire go flat there, pal?”

“Yep.”

            “What a shame. Well hey if you want I can take you into-“ By this time the man was standing right in front of Jake. Jake cut him off by striking the man in the throat with his left fist. The man put his hands around his throat and gasped for air but was unable to suck any into his lungs. The man’s eyes were filled with fear and confusion. In his mind he was wondering what he had done to deserve this. He was only trying to help. Jake swung his right hand out of the bed of the truck with the crow bar down onto the man’s skull. Crack. The man fell to the ground, either unconscious or dead, but Jake didn’t know.

            With the first swing of the crowbar Jake’s anxiety of the attack left and now all of his anger he had a few minutes before rose and filled him. He swung again down on the man’s head.

Crack.

Stupid Truck. He swung again.

Crack.

Why did Hunter kill Delia? With the skull now mostly pulverized in the spot where he had hit the man twice, Jake swung again.

Squish.

Why did Hunter kill himself?

Crack.

Nowhere to hide.

Crack.

No one to help.

Squish.

He’s now behind schedule.

Squish.

Why did Evan betray him?

Squish. Squish. Squish.

Jake stopped swinging and looked at the bloody mess at his feet. He was breathing heavily mostly out of rage. The man’s head was now completely crushed and unrecognizable. Jake dropped the crowbar next to the man and went to his truck and retrieved his things and went back to the man’s car. The man had driven some type of expensive new Cadillac luxury sedan but that didn’t matte to Jake. Thanks, he thought with a smirk as he threw his things on the passenger seat then drove off, leaving the dead man and Jake’s truck behind. He looked at how much gas the man had, nodded, pleased and headed to the city. Now, he was only a couple of hours behind schedule. He might be able to finish tonight. He looked at the clock on the dashboard which read 11:24. He’d be in town in time for lunch which was good because he was hungry. He turned the radio on to a local rock station, turned the volume almost all the way up, and then smiled to himself.

Reviews

[KennaLovesJake]

This story was great! It really caught my attention and kept me wondering what was going to happen next, and I thought it was amazing! I really liked it, and I thought it was great. :) This also had a really good pace. It didn't seem to move to fast, but it didn't move too slow either. :)

[Walker Andreasen]

Thanks! you know i'm not done yet though right? :]

[KennaLovesJake]

Yeah, I know. This is just what I like about it so far!

[Walker Andreasen]

Ok just making sure :]

[Coyote Poetry]

The story is getting more interesting. A lot of unanswered questions. I like the meeting between the wife and Jake. A strange ending for Hunter. I like the escape and his desire for answers. A good ending to a excellent chapter.
Coyote