Living on Borrowed Time

Chapter Fifteen

     Consciousness slowly peels my eye lids open. The uninvited guest of pain comes rushing back as I awaken. The stench of the corpse in the room fills my nostrils once more, and now, hunger relentlessly clenches onto my stomach. My legs shake as I struggle to stand, forcing me to use my newly found rifle as a cane like support. First on my agenda... getting that corpse out of this room.
A couple minutes after waking up I walk over to the faceless corpse and grab him by the collar of his shirt, painfully dragging him to the door and open it. It's morning, I must've slept all day. This day is significantly colder than yesterday, that cold air makes me dread the future... winter is coming. I don't know when... but soon.
I drag the corpse near the front of the store, trying to use purely arm muscles, avoiding putting more tense and strain on my torso. As I let go of the corpse my hunger grasps my attention, reminding me of number two on my agenda, food and water, but before I can take another step my attention is grabbed by something else yet again. A gunshot behind the store, then the squeal of tires, someone stomping on their brakes.
"What now!" I growl, letting out a sigh of frustration, "Too early for this shit." I close the office door and lock it, then limp over to the desk and climb on top of it with a wince of pain, peeking out the back window. On the street behind the shop sits a truck, a man sits behind the wheel, and standing in the bed of the truck is a man armed with an automatic assault rifle. Beside the rusty truck on the ground lies a dead man, fresh blood pouring out onto the pavement. In front of the truck lies a woman who is still very much alive. The third man that's on top of the woman, trying to hold her down, is the beat up redneck. The redneck that caused me to get my beating. The woman thrashes her arms at him but he holds them back with one arm as he gropes her body with the other. Fueled with rage I jump off the desk and grab the handgun that the dead man was holding.
I limp through the shop and around the side of the building that has trees so that I'm not so easily spotted on the sidewalk. With a silent limp I come up behind the truck, the armed man doesn't notice me, he just watches the redneck assault the woman as the assailant tries to get her pants off. I come up beside the armed man and with brute force that I cannot afford to use I grab the man by the bottom of his shirt and pull him off the side of the truck, slamming him down onto the pavement. I quickly fire a shot directly into his face, then instantaneously fire another shot through the window of the truck, splattering the drivers brains all over the dash. At this point the redneck is struggling to stand to see whats going on, but the woman is punching and kicking wildly. Limping out to the front of the truck I face him, a look of surprise is slapped across his face as the woman slaps her hand across his face as well, but the slap barely fazes him as he stares at me.
"Son of a bitch!" He shouts, reaching for his shotgun in a panic. The woman sends her knee flying into his groin, causing him to roll off of her and onto the ground. The woman jumps to her feet faster than I thought possible. She looks at me through eyes filled with fear and started to run.
"Wait!" I shout, "I'm trying to help." She suddenly stops, and looks at me, still shaking fiercely.
I now loom over the redneck assailant, my gun pointed right at his face.
"Hold on now." He says, holding his hands in front of his face, "Wait, let's jut talk for minute."
"Move your hands!" I kick his hands away from his face, "Your hands won't block these bullets." I stare at him with pure hate for a moment as the woman stands there and watches from about fifteen feet away. He suddenly tries to stand and run but I'm quick to fire a bullet right into his knee cap. With a shuttering scream he collapses and clasps his hands around his knee that is sputtering blood.
As the man hollers I look over at the man that was just shot before I came out here.
"Who was that?" I ask the woman as I look at the man. She stands there, tears running down her face.
"My husband." She sobs. I look down and fire one more shot, another bullet into his other knee cap. His screams intensify but strangely enough his screams are like music to my ears, oddly satisfying. I spin the gun around my finger and grab it by the barrel, the handle pointing toward the woman. For a moment she just stares at it, then eventually approaches me. Tears continue to run down her face as she slowly reaches for the gun. She takes it and looks down at the man who is now beginning to fade into unconsciousness.
"Wake up!" I drive my foot right into his ribs. As he comes back he feels the pain again, moaning and groaning intensely.
"Why kill me?" He asks, "Safety in numbers, right?"
"Why kill him?" I point to the dead man, "Safety in numbers...right?" I mock him, "You're scum, you don't deserve to live... I knew from the moment I met you that I was going to end your worthless life... and after I kill you I'm coming for your precious Joseph." I stand up, disgusted by his face. The woman now stands there with the mans face in her sights.
"Do it." I tell her, and without any hesitation she gladly pulls the trigger.

It's been about fifteen minutes since the woman pulled the trigger... fifteen minutes since this earth was relieved of one more scumbag. I scavenged everything I could from the three men and put it all in the office, then parked the truck beside the store in the trees. For the past fifteen minutes the woman has been sitting on her knees beside her husband, quietly mourning. After I finish I walk up to her, standing there in awkward silence for a moment.
"I'm sorry for your loss." I tell her, "I truly am."
She looks up at me through her teary eyes.
"I would help you uh... you know... bury your husband but..." I open up my jacket and show her my torso. Nearly my entire ribcage and chest is blue, black, and purple as well as cuts and scrapes scattered all over, "I pretty much used all of my energy on these guys."
She just looks back down at her dead husband. Her long light brown hair all tangle up and dirty as some of it sticks to her face from her tears.
"Look, uh... I don't know what you want to do or what your plans were but... you're more than welcome to come sit with me in the shop." I stand there a moment and wait for a response but she just sits there in shock, still mourning for her husband. I eventually walk away and go back to the office.

As I limp into the office I go straight for the supplies I scavenged, grabbing a granola bar that the driver had in his pocket and tearing it open. I savor the flavor as I chew, it's small but it's something.
As I'm nearly finished with the granola bar the woman suddenly walks through the door quite slowly. Her eyes are red from sobbing so much and her hair isn't as bad as it just was, she must've fixed it a bit before walking in here.
"You live here?" She asks. I just slowly shake my head as I chew.
"Just since yesterday afternoon... somewhere around that time. Don't quite remember." I say. She walks over and sits on the desk beside the one I'm sitting on.
"You said..." She hesitates for a moment, "You said you're going after Joseph."
I stop chewing and look over at her.
"You know him?" I question.
"Do I know him..." She says, "He had my husband and I locked up for I don't even know how long. A month maybe?"
I stare at her as she talks, my hate for Joseph growing stronger by the second.
"He gave us just enough food and water so that we wouldn't die... they beat my husband on the daily. His men, they..."
"I get it." I stop her, "No need to continue... but I do just have one question."
She looks at me, "What is it?"
"Why did he do it?" I ask. For a moment she's silent, then she looks back up at me with eyes that show she's clearly been through a lot.
"We just wanted to leave." She says, "We tried to work off our so called debt but... it was always something... we tried to sneak out... that was that."
The only thing that comes to mind is Jane, David, Sammy and Johnny... who knows what he's done with them.
"I want to be the one to do it." She says, "I'll help... but I want to be the one that pulls the trigger."
I look over at her, "...deal."