Райан Уэстфилд - Finding Shelter

But being strangled by a woman, by a mother? She’d never thought it would end this way.

The hands were getting tighter.

Sadie simply couldn’t breathe at all. She wouldn’t last long.

Images started to flash through her mind’s eye. Images of her younger years, not so long ago. Memories of times that had been lost, times from before the EMP.

“Don’t… kill…” It was Terry’s voice, croaking out a couple words. “Need… alive…”

Suddenly, the hands loosened. The grip relaxed.

Sadie gasped.

Air came rushing in.

“She’s done you in, Terry. Don’t you realize that?” There was anger in the woman’s voice. Intense anger. Anger and pain. She knew she was going to lose her husband. She knew that there was nothing she could do, that there was no way she could patch up the wound. No way to save him.

Sadie lay there on her back, weak, like a fish gasping for air, listening.

Terry spoke slowly, his words weak, his voice full of intense physical pain. Sadie remembered hearing that there was no more painful way to go out than being shot in the stomach. Maybe it was true and maybe it wasn’t. Either way, it probably didn’t feel good.

“We… need… her… alive… she’s… daughter…. group that… has… everything… group in the… woods… use her as… hostage… get what you… need for after… I’m gone.”

The woman was crying now. Audibly.

Sadie, still gasping for breath, was trying to get to her feet. She was scanning the ground, looking for the gun that she had lost. She needed to fight back. She wasn’t going to let this happen.

“So that was your plan, Terry? Use this girl as a hostage? That’s what was going to keep us alive? You coward…” The woman’s’ crying was louder now. Intense. “I guess I have no choice now. Now that you’ve gone and gotten yourself killed through your idiocy and cowardliness; you’ve left me in an awful position. The position of having to follow through on your plan since I have nothing else to do, no other way to protect myself and Lilly.”

Suddenly, the woman was on top of Sadie, pushing her against the ground. The woman’s strong hands pinned Sadie down as she used the rope that Terry had brought over.

Sadie tried to fight back. But the woman was too strong and easily overpowered her.

Soon, Sadie’s wrists and ankles were tightly bound with thick rope.

Sadie lay on her back, unable to move, except to wiggle, staring up at the sky. Completely useless Completely powerless.

Somewhere, unseen by Sadie, Terry groaned in pain.

“I don’t like this any more than you do,” said the woman. “But this is the situation my idiot husband put us in. So you’re my hostage. Don’t blame me. I’m just trying to survive. You’ll understand when you’re older. Now, who are your parents, and where are they? I don’t think my husband thought this through very well, but I’m going to have to let them know somehow that I have you hostage…”

The woman’s face suddenly appeared above Sadie’s, blocking out the sky.

The woman asked again. “Who are they?”

Sadie spat in the woman’s face. A huge glob of spit.

She’d never give up her family that easily.

But, unfortunately, Terry, if he didn’t die first, would be able to tell his wife exactly what to do, whatever his plan had been. And, in all likelihood, he’d live for a good number of hours before he finally bit the dust.

The blows rained down on Max. His body quivered in pain. His body was so full of pain that it became pain.

If he’d been able to think a single normal thought, it would have been that what he hated most of all was simply not being able to fight back. The pain wasn’t the hardest thing for him to deal with. It was the lack of agency. The lack of taking action.

Max’s mouth was somehow full of dry earth. It felt horrible in his mouth. Dry. Disgusting. It hit the back of his throat. His face was pressed into the dirt now. A boot pressed hard down on his back. He felt the pain in his spine radiating up towards his skull.

Another boot came down hard, right onto his shoulder blade.

Max couldn’t help it. He let out a scream of pain. Dry. As if the saliva was gone from his mouth.

For so long, Max had been searching for an answer. He’d been searching for someone or something to bring order out of chaos. From what he’d heard, the man who could do it was Grant.

Max had thought he’d needed to find Grant. To talk to him. To work for him.

And he’d finally found him.

He’d found Grant.

The same man who was kicking him. The same man who was inflicting so much psychical pain. The same man who was about to kill him.

Max had found what he’d thought he needed, only to discover that he’d needed something else entirely all along.

Max should have never left Mandy. Never left his unborn child. Never left the camp.

He should have never come.

And now he’d never get a second chance.

It was a hell of a way to go out. After everything that he’d avoided, all the danger he’d fought through, he’d finally dug his own grave by marching right into the lion’s den. Max only had himself to blame. He’d delivered himself right to Grant.

The boots were off Max’s back now. No pressure. No weight.

Max could move. He shifted his weight around, bending his knee, pushing with his hand against the ground. He was going to get up. He was going to fight. Maybe he wouldn’t live, but at least he’d go down fighting.

But before Max could get up, another boot smashed into his side, sending him collapsing back to the ground, letting out a grunt of pain.

“I thought you were the type of man who’d let me get up to fight,” said Max, laboriously, through gritted teeth. His breathing was heavy and labored. It was difficult to speak through the pain.

“I’m the type of man who knows not to give his enemies any chance,” growled Grant.

Another boot smashed into Max. This time into his face.

Max felt the pain. His lip burst open. More blood in his mouth. Pain in his cheek. Deep in it. A couple of teeth loose. Tumbling around his mouth. More blood. More pain.

“This’ll be better with… using my own two hands,” growled Grant.

Max was on his back, lying in the dirt. Struggling to get up.

In a flash, Grant sank to his knees. His knees, like sharp points, dug into Max’s belly and chest.

Max couldn’t breathe. Just a little bit. Just a little air coming through. Like trying to breathe through a plugged-up straw while on the bottom of the ocean.

Two rough strong hands were around Max’s neck. Squeezing. Hard. Very hard.

Now Max really couldn’t breathe.

This was it. This was really it.

Partial images flashed through Max’s mind.

Childhood memories. Images of Mandy. Strange, partial thoughts, neither coming nor going.

“Good riddance,” growled Grant.

Grant’s face was right up against Max’s, as if Grant wanted to see Max die in an up close and personal way.

Max stared right back, right into Grant’s eyes. Beads of sweat formed on Grant’s forehead and dripped down onto Max’s face.

Grant stank, a horrible stench that went right into Max’s nostrils. The smell of an animal, the smell of rot and the smell of the death that would come soon enough.

A noise behind Grant. Like a twig snapping.

Without releasing his hold on Max’s neck, Grant turned his head partway around.

But it wasn’t enough.

Max saw it. Up close and personal. He saw the huge hard stick swinging right towards Grant’s face. He saw Grant try to avoid it. He saw Grant try to duck.

Max saw the stick smack into Grant’s face.