G Hopf - Sanctuary

“Haley, give me the gun, hurry!”

Haley was shaking, her eyes wide. She held the pistol with a white-knuckled grip.

“Haley, give me the gun, now!” Samantha yelled.

The man’s heavy footsteps were coming down the hall toward them.

The door was still open and the man was coming down the hall fast. She turned and slammed and locked the door.

Haley still stood frozen in fear with the pistol in her hand.

Samantha snatched the pistol from Haley’s trembling hands just as the door burst open.

The man tumbled inside and ran right into Samantha, knocking the gun from her grip. They both fell to the ground with a loud thud. Samantha quickly scrambled from underneath him and looked for the gun. It was gone; it had seemingly disappeared.

The man reached for her but she resisted and kicked him in the face.

Thinking on her feet, Samantha eyed her basket of yarn and a crochet needle next to her bed. She crawled over to it and grabbed the needle.

The man lunged for her again, but this time his aggression was matched when she plunged the needle into his throat.

The man clutched his throat. Blood began to gush out from between his fingers and under his hands.

Samantha wasn’t done with him. She plunged the needle two more times. The second thrust hit his hands, and the third punctured his right cheek.

Wounded and in a full panic, he got up and ran out of the room.

“You come into my house and hurt me and terrorize my daughter!” she said as she chased him down the hall.

The man was leaving a trail of dark red blood as he stumbled toward the stairs. He coughed and spit out more thick, dark blood before he fell to his knees at the top of the stairs.

Samantha caught up to him and said, “You think you can just come into this house and hurt me? You think that you can take what you want?” She grabbed his hair, pulled back his head, and drove almost the full length of the needle into his right eye.

His body gave a shudder, then went limp.

A still-shocked Haley walked into the hallway just in time to see her mother’s brutal and deadly blow to the man.

Samantha didn’t notice her. Her focus was still on the man. With disgust, she let go of him and kicked his body down the stairs.

Gordon knelt down so he could look at Tyler eye to eye. He could see that the boy was upset at the news that Gordon was leaving them.

Tyler had overheard Gordon speaking with a Marine outside the bedroom about his departure. When Gordon had entered to get his belongings, Tyler confronted him.

“You’re leaving us?” Tyler asked, clearly hurt by the news.

Gordon looked over at the bed and saw that Brittany was still asleep. He didn’t want to have the conversation here but he couldn’t get Tyler to leave Brittany’s room.

“Tyler, I know you overheard that I’m leaving. I want to tell you that if all goes well for me, I’ll be coming back for you and your mother. I promised I was taking you to Idaho and I’ll honor that promise,” he said just above a whisper.

Tyler wouldn’t look at him.

“The Marines will take care of you. I know one of them very well; in fact he’s a friend of mine. Gunny Smith is his name. If you need anything at all, just ask him. You’re safe with them, I promise you,” Gordon said softly. Every time he attempted to make eye contact, Tyler would look away.

“Where are you going?” Tyler asked.

“I’m going to meet someone who might have some information for me.”

“About going to Idaho?” Tyler asked. He now nervously looked at Gordon.

The look in Tyler’s eyes tore him up inside. In so many ways, Tyler reminded him of his own son.

“I’m going to be honest with you. There’s something else I’ve needed to do before we go to Idaho. I can’t tell you exactly what, but I could be gone for a bit and it’s better that you and your mother aren’t with me.”

Tyler nodded.

“You can tell me,” Brittany said with a raspy voice.

Hearing her voice brought joy to Gordon’s ears. He stood up and went to her side. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m good. I kinda have an idea of what happened but it’s all a bit fuzzy,” she said as she struggled to sit up in the bed.

“Hey, just lie there, you shouldn’t be putting a lot of pressure on that shoulder.”

Struggling, she moved herself into a more comfortable position to talk. She asked, “So… are you getting ready to leave us?”

“It’s not like that.”

“Then what is it?”

Gordon knew that it was time to have the dreaded conversation he had put off for so long.

“Tyler, do you mind if I talk with your mother in private?”

“No, Tyler, you can stay,” she commanded him, then turned to Gordon and stated, “Whatever you tell me, he can hear.”

Gordon looked at her, then him, then back to her, and took a deep breath.

“I haven’t been totally honest. You see, I’m heading to Idaho but via Oregon,” he said, then stopped. “Can we please talk about this in private? Trust me, I don’t want him to hear some things.”

She looked at Gordon intently and nodded, resigned. “Okay.”

Surrendering to his mother’s wishes, Tyler grunted something unintelligible and left the room.

“Go ahead,” she said to Gordon.

“Just before I found you two, I had been held hostage by a group of people. They murdered my son and left me to die. I had a chance to meet back up with my wife and daughter but chose to go after this man instead.”

“Wait a minute. You have a wife and daughter and your son was murdered?”

Gordon looked at her. He felt like all the trust that had been built up between them over the past weeks was being destroyed in the matter of seconds.

“That’s exactly right. I have a wife and daughter who are still alive.”

“Where are they now?”

“By now they should be in Idaho.”

“Should be?”

“If I were to guess, they probably made it there by now.”

“If you were to guess ?”

Gordon was feeling very nervous and even he knew the story he was telling just sounded bad. His own story, if being told to him by someone else, would have sounded like that of a man who had abandoned his family.

“I know this sounds bad in some ways.”

“So you abandoned your family to go get this man and now you’re abandoning us?”

Her point hit him like a ton of bricks.

“You don’t understand,” Gordon said defensively.

“Then make me understand.”

“I made some decisions. I put myself in the situation that resulted in being captured by this group. I attempted to escape but it wasn’t successful,” Gordon said somberly. He lowered his head and could feel emotions rising.

Brittany just looked at him. She wasn’t angry with him, nor was she disappointed. She just wanted to have him honestly explain himself.

“They tied me and Hunter to a cross.” Gordon paused. The vision of it was now front and center in his mind and the pain from that moment was fresh. “Ahh, they tied us each to these X’s, like this.” Gordon raised his arms in the shape of an X. “They tied our legs and arms. He was so scared and I couldn’t do anything to protect him. I couldn’t comfort him. It was my fault he was there. I made a stupid, stupid decision that got my son killed.”

Brittany could see the pain etched across Gordon’s face. She reached over and touched his hand, but he pulled away.

“The man I’m after murdered my son in cold blood. He took a knife and drove it into my son’s chest right in front of me. I watched the life drain from my boy and there wasn’t a goddamn thing I could do about it.” Tears welled up in his eyes. “This here was a parting gift so I’d never forget,” Gordon said, pointing to the bandage on his face.