The Green Rising

Chapter Thirty-nine

The bullet grazed my shoulder and shattered the passenger side window. I sat confounded, my eyes widened in disbelief as blood discolored the parka. Knowing my only hope was in escaping the truck, I scooted towards the door.

“Would you stay still?” Timmy asked, his voice laced with inconvenience. “I’m not trying to kill you.”

“You could have fooled me.” I didn’t want to argue with him, especially since he had control of the rifle, but I wasn’t going to go down without a fight, either.

“I don’t kill anything. That doesn’t mean I’m not a good shot. Matter of fact, I’m one of the best in the state.” He seemed to look at me for affirmation.

“Well, if you aren’t trying to kill me, you could at least stop the bleeding.”

He brought his hand to my shoulder and wiped the blood onto his jeans. “I’ll help you in a minute, but you’ve got to spill some blood in here, make them think you’re dead so they won’t kill me for letting you go.”  

I brushed the shoulder against the door and cursed under my breath as the wound smarted. “Has it occurred to you that maybe your group isn’t much better than the greenies?”

“There’s nowhere else for me to go. I don’t think I’d last long on my own.” He seemed resigned to the life he was living. “That’s good on the door. Can you get some on the seat, too?”

He wasn’t making this easy for me, but I cooperated, turning my back to him and pressing my shoulder against the gray leather. The bleeding had slowed and only a smudge remained. If Timmy’s life depended on the blood left in the truck, he was a goner. I wasn’t about to take another bullet for him, though. He needed an alternative.

“It wouldn’t be hard for you to leave. They obviously trust you enough with a vehicle and a gun. All it would take is acquiring a few supplies and a full tank of gas. My family is in West Virginia and there are two teens probably close to the same age as you. If you can link up with them, you’ll be safe. I’ll bet that some of the prisoners would even go with you. The only thing I know is that if you keep killing the good guys, the greenies are going to win.” I gave him directions to the mountain and the stone cottage, knowing that Edgar and Caleb would investigate his arrival immediately and offer him sanctuary once they determined his intentions.

“And if I use this information to hunt them down?” His eyes narrowed to slits as he waited for my reply.

“Then you’ll have to live with it. I’ve given you a way out, and you have the ability to atone for your group’s murdering of innocents by freeing the prisoners and taking them with you. I’m certain, though, that if you go into that cottage with your guns blazing, you won’t walk away. Edgar and Caleb have lived there all their lives.”

Timmy’s expression softened. “I’ll think about it. Put your hands on the seat and spread them as far apart as you can get them.” He must have noted my perplexity because he added, “I don’t have keys, but I can break the chain.”

A moment later, the bullet split apart the handcuffs. I wished that my hands could be free, but my arms were fully mobile. It was as much as I could ask for under the circumstance. I thanked Timmy.

He opened his door and walked to the back of the truck, lifting my boots from the bed and shaking the snow from their interior. As he opened the passenger side, a gust of wind caught the door and swung it to the hinges. Timmy handed me the boots. I shivered after slipping into them, unsure if it was the result of the lurking snow, the thought of walking two more miles, or what lay in wait for me at the checkpoint.

Timmy extended a hand and helped me out of the cab.

“I can’t go with you the whole way, but I’ll walk with you until the Interstate if that’s all right.”