Getting Home

8

Dan approached the front door cautiously, working his way through the hallways lined with faded and ancient wallpaper that peeled at the edges.

He held the gun in hands that trembled no matter how much he tried to steady them.

The unnamed woman’s screams ran through the house.

The sounds at the front door continued. Thumping and banging and the crashing of wood.

Dan was as nervous as he’d ever been. But he was keeping it together.

He knew what he had to do.

Point and shoot.

That was it.

It sounded simple. But there were so many potential complications.

What Dan was most worried about was the shooting. He couldn’t take Rob at his word that whoever was breaking in was dangerous. And deserved to die.

Dan was fine with killing to defend himself. He’d done it before. And he’d do it again.

But those had been cases where his own life was clearly in danger.

This wasn’t one of those cases, as far as he could tell.

After all, how could Rob possibly know that some stranger breaking into the house would kill them without hesitation? He simply couldn’t know.

Dan was close now. He was standing in the dimly-lit hallway that ran adjacent to the dining room.

The dining room had one long wooden table, the kind that was made to look ornate but was actually quite cheap in construction. A glitzy chandelier hung overhead. For some reason, there weren’t any chairs.

It didn’t look like the room had gotten much use.

Two windows, covered in dusty ancient blinds, led to the front of the house.

Should he try to look through them?

It depended on how far the intruder had gotten through the door.

One final crash made up Dan’s mind for him.

He heard the footsteps inside. As clear as day.

Whoever it was was inside.

Dan pressed his back flat up against the wall. He’d have better luck lying in wait than going to confront them, whoever they were.

The footsteps paused. No movement for a full minute.

Surely the intruder would hear the woman’s screams. Another one, loud and vicious sounding, rang through the house yet again.

If it had been Dan, breaking into someone’s house out of desperation, he’d have turned on his heel after hearing a scream like that.

But the footsteps continued. Whoever it was seemed intent on entering the house no matter what.

There was no telling how desperate they were.

Dan braced himself.

But it wasn’t enough.

An adult man came crashing into the room, swinging a huge lamp right at Dan. Somehow he’d known where Dan had been. Maybe it’d been his shadow. Or a noise he made. Who knew. It wasn’t like there was time to go back and mentally review the situation.

The lamp struck the gun Dan held and then smashed into his shoulder. Pain flared through him.

He didn’t drop the gun. It was his lifeline. His only hope.

He couldn’t overpower this huge man who towered over him, his eyes gleaming with anger and intensity.

The lamp dropped to the ground with a clatter.

The next thing Dan knew, the man had pinned his wrist against the wall. The handgun, which he gripped tightly, his finger on the trigger, was pointed uselessly at the ceiling.

The man brought up his knee swiftly. It smashed into Dan’s stomach. The air rushed out of his lungs, leaving him gasping.

A punch connected with the side of his head.

But he didn’t drop the gun.

It was all happening so fast.

Dan hadn’t even really reacted.

Where was Rob? Would he come? Surely he’d heard the commotion.

But the woman’s scream pierced the air again. Rob was probably deep in the middle of the ramshackle surgery.

Dan brought his knee up hard and fast. It connected with the man’s groin.

The man let out a grunt of pain, momentarily releasing his grip on Dan’s wrist.

Dan couldn’t overpower him. He didn’t stand a chance against an adult in hand-to-hand combat. But all he had to do was get the gun in the right position.

Dan brought the gun down as fast he could, trying to get it into position.

He saw the man’s eyes following the gun.

The man, still groaning in pain, managed to reach out. His hand, formed into a fist, moved swiftly through the air in a backhanded motion. It collided with the hard metal of the gun.

Dan still gripped the gun.

Dan pulled the trigger.

He felt the gun recoil as his arm was thrust to the side.

The bullet lodged itself in the opposite wall, right in the middle of one of the wallpaper’s many ornate roses.

He’d pulled the trigger a split second too late.

The next thing Dan knew, he’d been knocked to the floor. He hadn’t even seen the blow coming at him.

The man was going for the gun with both hands. Dan was holding onto it with all his might.

It seemed like the end.

Dan punched up with his free hand, his fist closed tightly. It knocked hard into the man’s jaw. But it wasn’t enough. He barely flinched.

There were loud footsteps coming from somewhere.

Was it Rob?

A single shot rang out, echoing in Dan’s ears.

The man on top of him suddenly fell limp. The two hands on Dan’s gun moved no more.

The limp body fell heavily onto Dan. No longer supported at all, all the weight was on him.

Hot blood gushed onto Dan’s face.

Still not releasing the gun, Dan pushed up, trying to get the limp body off of him.

“Just a second,” came Rob’s voice from above.

The next thing Dan knew, Rob was pulling the corpse off of him. He caught a glimpse of Rob’s face finally, and he threw the body to the side, where it landed heavily on the thin wooden floorboards of the dining room.

Rob was standing there. He’d laid his gun on the dining room table. He fished into his pocket, pulled out a dirty white handkerchief, and handed it to Dan. “For the blood,” he said. “Don’t worry. It’s about as clean as anything else we’ve got on hand.”

Dan wiped the warm blood from his face as best he could. He could taste it in his mouth, as some had gotten in there. He spit on the floor a couple times, but the taste remained. For some reason, it tasted slightly metallic. Maybe something to do with the dead man’s blood, some nutritional deficiency he was suffering from.

“How is she?” was the first thing that came out of Dan’s mouth.

“She’s fine. I finally got the bullet out. I would have come to help you sooner, but she was bleeding badly and I had to stop it.”

Dan stood up slowly. From where he was, he could feel the air coming in through the busted front door.

“How many of these scrounger people are there?” said Dan. “You think anyone else will come by?”

“With the door broken like that? There’ll definitely be more. We need to get out of here as soon as possible.”

“I don’t get it,” said Dan. “This guy,” gesturing to the dead body, “heard her screaming, and still came in. He knew there were people in here. He wasn’t even armed.”

“They’re desperate,” said Rob. “Like the rest of us. But some are more desperate than the rest. This door is just going to be an invitation for those who can’t even break down a door. Come on, you’ve got to help me with her.”

“Did you get her name?” said Dan as he followed Rob, who toted his gun at his side, back into the kitchen.

“Her name? No. The pain pills kicked in and she’s pretty loopy. You’re going to have to help me get her out of here.”

In the kitchen, the woman wasn’t looking good. Most of the color had drained from her face. Her eyes were only partially open and her arm was covered in blood. But Rob had managed to bandage the wound in an almost professional-looking way. It looked clean, and the blood was only on the rest of the arm, not to mention the bottom of her shirt.

“She’s going to be fine,” said Rob. “But we’re going to have to carry her out of here.”

Dan didn’t say it, but he was worried that he wouldn’t be able to support her weight for very long, considering his small size. Even with Rob’s help, Dan didn’t know how far he could support her.

“Where are we going to go, though?”

“Anywhere that has an intact door,” said Rob.

“Like next door?”

Rob, moving over to the window, pushed back the old curtains and peered out at the neighbor home, which couldn’t have been more than twenty feet away.

“That’ll have to work,” he said.

Rob was quickly gathering up his things, shoving everything back into his bag. The only things that he took time with were his medical instruments, making sure that he wiped them down completely before replacing them in his little kit. “Never know when you’re going to need these again,” he remarked. “Better to take the time now, even though it doesn’t appear that we have much of it. I don’t think there’s anything in this house worth taking. It’s been hit before. So we’d better just move on out right now.”

Together, Rob and Dan lifted the woman to her feet. She was groggy and could barely stand on her own. She groaned in pain whenever she accidentally put weight on her feet.

The three of them managed somehow to fit sideways in a line through the back door, back out the way that Dan had come in not that long ago.

Would the soldiers be looking for him? The thought crossed his mind as they stepped down the steps and outside once more, leaving the meager shelter of the house. He’d been convinced that they wouldn’t be able to find him. But who knew?

It seemed like everyone was converging on him. It seemed as if he had no time left, as if everything was happening at exactly the worst possible time.