Jeff Brackett - Half Past Midnight

I grinned. Debra and the kids were gone by now, even if she’d waited longer than the six forty deadline, and I imagined she would have, hoping that I was just running a little late. Fifteen minutes was long enough, though, that she would know something had happened. She wouldn’t like it, but she had agreed to take the kids to safety. Now I could concentrate on getting myself free.

Larry, watching my face intently, knew he’d lost a round. Though he didn’t know what the stakes had been, he was obviously not a man used to losing. I could tell my expression infuriated him. Perversely, that made me grin even more.

“Han, make him talk,” Larry ordered. “Now!”

Eerily quiet, Han stepped toward me. I barely had time to think “Oh, shit!” before he went to work. About my height, Han was gifted with a Herculean physique, not someone I would ordinarily go out of my way to antagonize. He hammered away at my gut for the next ten or fifteen seconds, though it seemed considerably longer. When he finished, I hung limp in Michael’s and Edgar’s grips.

A martial artist who couldn’t take a few punches to the abdomen wasn’t much of a martial artist. It was a simple matter of keeping your abs in good condition and knowing when to tense and when to relax. Learning to ignore or rechannel surface pain helped, also. Though Han tested my abilities, I wasn’t in nearly as much pain as I pretended.

Any savvy street fighter knew you could often snatch victory from the jaws of defeat if you could just gain the element of surprise. So I hung there, arms tied behind me, gasping for air I didn’t really need and pretending to gag, waiting for fate to intervene on my behalf.

“Now, Leeland.” Larry reverted to his original cocky attitude. “Do you understand the predicament that you’re in? I ask a question, and you answer it. It’s actually quite simple.” He went back to his campstool and sat, looking up at me. “You know, I already know quite a bit about you. I can see that you are a man of some intelligence. No, I’m not trying to flatter you.”

He nodded toward my weapons. “You obviously understand the world is in the midst of a major upheaval, and the old rules of society no longer apply. You have prepared accordingly. You evidently have some skill in the martial arts, since many of the weapons you carry require considerable training and practice to use properly, especially the manriki gusari .”

My surprise must have shown. Not many people, other than martial artists, could identify the Japanese fighting chain by name. For that matter, not many martial artists could, either.

He smiled at my expression. “Oh, yes, I have some small knowledge of the arts, myself. Among other things, Han is my Sifu. We have a symbiotic relationship, each helping the other.” Larry waved his hand at the pile of my weapons. “I must admit, though, most of these items are beyond my modest skills.” He patted my Bowie knife stuck through his belt. “However, I do appreciate a well-made blade.

“So let us speculate here for a moment. You are an intelligent man who recognized the mortal wounds our society has received for what they are, and you have prepared yourself with weapons that were, by the old rules of that society, quite illegal to carry, especially concealed.

“Yet you carry no food. No water. No tools or medical supplies. Not even the most basic camping gear. Why is that? You don’t strike me as the type of person who would prepare so thoroughly for a fight that might or might not occur, and yet not prepare at all for the nuclear devastation that has already begun.

“So answer a question for me, Leeland. Who were you scouting for back there? And I do emphasize the word scouting .”

Again, I told the truth, in a manner of speaking. I changed only my destination and the existence of my family. “I was riding my motorcycle from Houston to my parents’ place in Louisiana. I had it made until that idiot in the Rabbit ran me off the road. And don’t start beating the crap out of me again! I’m not lying. I may have been off on the distance or the time, but I’m not used to traveling long distances on foot. And as far as my scouting goes, what would you do if you were walking down the road and topped a hill overlooking a mess like the one you’ve got back there? You’d stick to the trees and try to sneak by as quickly and as quietly as possible.”

He appeared to think it over for a moment. I’d covered all the angles I could think of. Now all I could do was sweat it out and hope it was good enough.

He looked up at me again. “Very well, Leeland. Assuming this is true, it still doesn’t explain your lack of provisions.”

“My folks have got all the supplies we’ll need. They have a twenty acre spread with a freshwater spring.”

“What about the time? Frank said you were keeping close track of the time.”

“I wanted to get to the next town before dark. Like you said, I don’t even have basic camping supplies. Before the wreck, I could probably have made it all the way to my folks’ house. After the wreck, I figured I’d be lucky to make it to the next town.”

Larry stood and began to pace back and forth in front of me. He considered my story for a moment, probably weighing what I had told him against what he already knew about me.

“Well, Leeland, perhaps I was wrong about you. Let’s see now, you were riding your motorcycle from Houston to Louisiana. Where, exactly, in Louisiana?”

What a time for a geography quiz. Wasn’t Shreveport nearby? I didn’t have time to think about it, or he’d get suspicious again. I gambled. “Shreveport.”

He never batted an eye. “Very well, then, Shreveport. You wrecked the motorcycle and were forced to continue afoot from there. Then you came across our little hollow and decided that you would rather be safe than sorry, so you took to the woods in an attempt to quietly sneak by and reach Shreveport as quickly as possible. Is that correct?”

“Exactly.”

Larry whirled and backhanded me across the face hard enough to bring tears to my eyes. He had a serious flair for melodrama, probably from watching too many war movies.

“Now what?” I yelled.

He reached down and grabbed my beard, jerking my head up viciously. When I saw his malicious sneer, I knew I was in trouble. “Why were you heading west when Frank discovered you? Shreveport is east !”

Oops. I was busted. The only chance I had now was to infuriate him enough to where he might make a mistake. “You know, a good mouthwash would clear that liver and onion smell right up, Larry.”

His eyes glinted coldly. “I thought you were smarter than this.” He let go of my beard and turned away. “Han! Don’t hold back this time.”

Han stepped forward. His fist flew, and it felt like I’d been hit with a sledge hammer. I wasn’t going to be able to take very much of this new assault. The second blow exploded in my belly, and I screamed-partly in pain, partly to help tighten my abs… mostly in pain.

I glimpsed the next punch as it flew toward my nose and tilted my head forward. Han’s knuckles collided with my skull instead, making my vision swim. I had a sudden, piercing headache, but also the satisfaction of hearing Han yelp in pain. When my sight cleared, I saw that he had split his knuckles on my skull. Mom always said I was hardheaded. I just hoped that my skull was in better shape than his knuckles.

“Stop!” Larry yelled. He walked over and examined Han’s hand, then pulled a tube from a small kit on his belt. “Put some ointment on that, Sifu. I’ll finish this.”

Han nodded once and stepped back as Larry turned to me. “Well, Leeland? Last chance. Will you cooperate, or do I finish what Han began?” Han stood silently rubbing the white cream onto his knuckles.