CYOA Page 163
Sep. 12th, 2013 10:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lumy12You don't need these fuckers to find Joel.
But you can't just shoot them like this, out in the open. If the horse guy has a gun in his pants, and he sees you shoot the rifle guy, you're dead. And you can't shoot him when he's so close to the horse. Or, rather, you won't. Your aim is fine, but you can't anticipate his or the horse's movements with great accuracy.
So you dive behind a huge rock.
The horse guy laughs. "Don't be scared of us. We don't shoot girls. 'Specially pretty ones."
"Yeah," the rifle guy chimes in. "Girls are... meant for other things."
"Nice things."
...Nice for YOU, maybe?! Fucking creeps. You hope they're telling the truth about not shooting you, though. That will make this a breeze. Although... you imagine they might change their minds if one sees you shoot the other one.
"Yeah... we got one right now. You and her could be besties."
You can feel, more than hear, them closing in on you. You creep along the length of the massive rock providing you cover and find a place to take a peek... and a shot! You fire at the rifle guy and hit him somewhere in the chest. You shoot him twice, just to make sure he goes down.
"What the fuck!" yells the other one. "You little bitch! You're gonna regret that!"
You were hoping he'd be dumb enough to run over to his friend, but he doesn't. You assume that means he'll be coming up from the other side, probably on your side of the rock -- but he doesn't. You have no idea where he went. And he's stopped talking to you.
Did he leave? But... if he was going to do that, he would've taken one of the horses. He was standing right next to Joel's a moment before; even if the horse got jumpy at the gunfire, the dude was right there. You listen hard, but you don't hear anything that would give away his location. You start to creep out into the open, then think better of it and retreat to your spot, even though that quick look around didn't reveal any danger. You head back to your right, toward where you first ducked behind cover. The guy might be waiting for you over there, but you feel safer behind the rock than out in the open...
Right now would be a really good time to have Joel's ability to just fucking sense when people are hiding nearby. He claims it's not sensing, it's hearing, but whatever -- they have to make noise in order to be heard. Sometimes you can hear them breathing, or shifting slightly, and you do think your hearing became more focused over the course of that first trip... but they have to be really close by, whereas Joel can do it from miles away. (...okay so not really miles, but it seems pretty fucking far)
-I hear him! He just snapped a twig or something, very faintly... but enough that you heard it. He's right on the other side of your rock! You should have seen him there, before... but maybe he's creeping around, too. Changing spots. You're confident that you haven't made any noises loud enough for him to hear; he's probably waiting for you to emerge on the other end, perhaps to lift his buddy's rifle off him. He must have a gun, too, otherwise this spot makes no sense... The rock isn't that tall. If you could just jump up real quick, you could shoot him in the head -- or the face, if he hears you in time and looks up.
You grab hold of the top of the rock and carefully step onto a sort of foothold part of the way up -- he could've heard that... move quick! You propel yourself up so you can see over the edge, and aim your gun at--
Nothing! There's no one there!
He's behind you now! How did he--
You try to swing your arm around to shoot him, but he's already grabbed it and pushed your aim up to the sky. Dizzy-hot pain cracks over your face as it meets the rock, and you drop the gun. You're stunned for a moment, and bleeding enough that it splatters on the rock, but you need to recover quickly if you want to survive! Luckily, the gun fell on the other side of the rock.
The man has a firm grip on your arm. Well, one thing that never fails... you bring your knee up--
But he blocks you, and spins you around, his arm essentially strapping you to his chest like a seat belt. You kick and struggle to get free, but your kicks only meet air, and you can't dislodge his fucking arm. He starts dragging you backward. "No worries, baby -- I still don't plan on shootin' ya. But those nice things we talked about? They're gonna be a hell of a lot less nice now. At least until you... atone for what you've done."
...Atone? What the fuck is this guy talking about? Why doesn't he just kill me?
"Let her go!"
...Joel?! OMIGOD! He just appeared out of nowhere! And he's okay! He's at the rifle guy's end, so you're in between him and the guy holding you. Joel is aiming a gun (the Shorty, maybe?) at you. -Well, at the guy, of course, not you. You beam at him; you've never been so happy to see someone in your life! He doesn't look happy. But you suppose that would be weird, to see him smile while he--
You flinch as you feel the cool steel of a knife press against your neck -- the flat end, fortunately -- and for a second, you wonder how the fuck he got your knife out of your pocket, but you quickly realize it's not yours. "Drop the gun," the hunter growls. "Right now -- or I slit her throat!"
And Joel fucking drops it. Even puts his hands in the air. He probably assumed, like you did, that this asshole was unarmed.
"Shit," the guy mutters, "What else you got on you? All of it -- on the ground! And kick that gun over here. ...Do it!"
"No, Joel, don't! He'll kill you!" ...which you probably don't need to tell Joel. He's slowly removing other pieces of his arsenal, though, ignoring your plea.
The guy laughs. "Do it or I'll--"
"All right," Joel says when he sees the guy turn the knife. Your neck starts to sting (though not as bad as your face). Joel kicks at the gun, and it makes it about halfway between you.
You know he could've kicked it harder, but you guys are pretty far apart, so the guy doesn't seem to think he did it on purpose. He snorts derisively at Joel. "Back up. Back beyond the rock there. Move!"
Joel slowly retreats as directed, and you stumble forward as the guy moves toward the gun. The hunter pauses. You wonder how he plans on picking up this gun (yep, the Shorty); does he bend over and pick it up himself, or make you get it? Oh please let it be the second one...
But it seems he's just watching Joel continue to strip off his weapons. Backpack on the ground, holsters empty, nothing slung over his shoulders... you don't see anything else he can rid himself of.
Joel holds his hands up again. "That's all of it." He looks at you.
...He's lying! you're thrilled to realize.
The hunter shifts the knife to his other hand, repositioning the 'seat belt' arm to double as a restraint and a threat while he bends to fetch the Shorty. He moves quickly -- but Joel is quicker! As soon as the dude turns sideways enough that you're mostly out of the way, Joel pulls a pistol out of his ass (...okay, just from somewhere behind him) and fires. Then he yells your name in a tone that tells you to get the fuck out of the way; it wasn't a kill shot.
You were preparing to bite the guy's arm the moment you got the chance -- but it's gone slack now, so you don't even have to. You easily slip away...
...and Joel proceeds to blow the guy's brains out.
You run straight into his arms. "Omigod, Joel -- I was so scared for you! Where the fuck did you go? What happened?" You pull back to look at him. "I went looking for you -- and I found these two guys -- and they said they had you somewhere -- but I wasn't sure -- I guess they didn't, did they? -- I mean, you came right here -- I guess you heard my shots -- that was me, I killed the guy -- the one with the rifle -- this one didn't have a gun -- I didn't know he had a knife -- never saw it -- and he was hiding -- after I shot his friend--"
"Ellie Ellie Ellie!" Joel interjects until you stop. He still has his hands on your shoulders. "Calm down. It's all right now. It's okay."
"I know! I'm telling you what happened!" you explain.
He starts to cup your face, then seems to think better of it. He cringes, examining what must be some ugly-ass wounds on your forehead, nose, cheeks... "I think your nose might be broken."
You suspected as much. Ugh! "The guy smashed my face in the rock! But -- your eye! Oww!"
"One more shiner ain't gonna kill me," he says dismissively. As usual, he's more concerned about you than about himself. "But you... other than your face, did they... did they hurt you?"
"No! No, I'm fine! Oh but Joel -- they mentioned they have a girl. God knows what they've done to her. We should--"
"She's fine."
"--go and-- ...what? You found her?"
"Well, she ain't fine, but she'll be okay now... I think." Joel starts reassembling his gear.
"You think?"
He shrugs... or maybe he's just shrugging into his backpack. "Apparently, one of the hunters in the group was nice to her. Older guy. Said he'd look after her... an' she begged me not to kill him. She's prob'ly around your age. I think they developed a... sorta father/daughter thing after a while."
"Just like us!" But... you're kind of surprised Joel believed the guy. "How do you know he wasn't some perv just trying to save his own ass?"
"Well, that was my first thought. But they've had her there for about three weeks... he had plenty of opportunity. Opportunities that... all the other guys took advantage of. She said he never touched her, and I believed her. Don' know why she'd lie about that... unless she was scared of me an' it was a... devil-you-know thing."
You don't think you heard that last thing right. "A devil what?"
He chuckles. "It's an expression. 'Better the devil you know than the devil you don't.' Meanin'... for all she knew, I might be worse than this guy, even if he ain't the greatest. But... my gut tells me the guy was all right. Even if I wasn't sure yet... when I heard gunshots out here, I had to go. It was either shoot him or leave him be, split second decision."
You smile a little. "So you 'leave'd' him be... to get back to me. But hey -- why did you leave me in the first place?" You slug his arm now, freshly annoyed. "I was scared shitless, thinking something had happened to you!"
He rubs his arm as if it really hurt (actually, it probably did; you do hit harder than you know!). "I'm sorry about that." He explains that he heard some hunters nearby-ish while exploring the woods, and when he found and followed them, he overheard them discussing unspeakable things regarding this girl... things that made him angry (and no, he won't elaborate on what he overheard). One of the guys left the other two to take some game back to their camp, and he just had to go see about this girl. "The other two weren't headed your way. I reckoned the place wasn't that far an' I could just get in an' outta there real quick-like, before you'd even miss me."
You give him a withering look. "Since when do I take baths that last for hours?"
"Hours? I doubt it's been--"
"A long fucking time, anyway!"
"All right, well... I didn't know I'd be gone so long. In hindsight, I wish I'd stayed with you, since they found you anyhow. I'm--"
"Only because I went looking for you! They heard me yelling for you."
Joel nods. "An' I should've known you would do that. I'm sorry."
You're so happy he's okay that you can't really be mad at him. In fact... "I'm glad you went," you decide. "You saved that girl."
"I think that one hunter was gonna let her go anyhow. Take her with him when he was ready to leave the group."
"Okay, so... you forced him to be ready now. He had no choice. Maybe you saved the girl from getting raped a hundred more times."
"I hope so."
You shake your head. "I still just... I mean... he's still kind of a dick, right? What kind of guy just looks the other way while that's going on? Yeah, he didn't hurt her himself, but... it's almost as bad, isn't it?"
Joel nods. "And he has to live with that now. You'd be surprised what people will do in a group. ...I s'pose you've seen it with the kids back home. Back in Boston, too. They can be jerks, showin' off to each other, but one-on-one, they're nice as can be?"
"Yeah, but... that's kids. You said this guy was old."
"Older," he corrects you. "Maybe around my age."
"Old as fuck, then," you tease.
"I beg your pardon: he was old as fuck," he says with a chuckle. "Older than the other guys, yes, but that herd mentality... it can cut through age differences. What matters is he turned on 'em in the end. Maybe he finally decided he'd had enough of the bullshit. Maybe the guilt was catchin' up to him. Who knows. I wouldn't be surprised if he pretended to treat her the same as they did, just to keep the peace."
You listen raptly, eager to hear Joel lapse into talking about his own hunter days... but he doesn't. And you can't tell if he's speaking generally or speaking from personal experience. Somehow, you can never quite bring yourself to ask "Is that what you did, Joel?" and things like that (you don't have to ask if he ever hurt a girl that way -- of course he didn't!). "Their camp... it can't be that far, if you got here so fast."
"I ran pretty hard... 'til I caught sight of your handiwork. Then I had to be careful."
"Still -- not all that far. We should go back and make sure everything's okay, shouldn't we? What if the girl changed her mind?"
"She wouldn't go back there. I killed the other hunters that were there, but she knew these two were still alive."
But... "Wait. You heard my shots. How come I didn't hear yours?"
"...Who says I shot 'em?"
"Oh. Right." Duh! "Okay, well, we should still go."
"Why are you so set on--"
"Because you said the one guy was taking his kills back there. And now there's no one there to eat them!"
Joel laughs. "That's right. Look at you... never wantin' to waste food. I think it was just a few rabbits an' squirrels."
"And if we don't eat them, then they died for nothing, and that's just wrong," you declare.
"You're right. We'll go an' have dinner there. After I get your face fixed up."
"You are not pouring any of that shit on my--"
"Oh yes I am. You should see yourself."
"Is it that bad?"
"It is. Yes."
Great. "So I'll be saying 'but you should see the other guy' for a while, huh?"
He chuckles. "You did get the better end of the bargain."
Of course you did. You're alive! And so is Joel. And so is some girl you'll never meet... maybe she won't exactly live happily ever after (there's no such thing anyway!), but maybe that hunter (or... ex-hunter, now?) will become the Joel in her life. You're glad Joel facilitated that. It's worth a few cuts and scrapes, bumps and bruises... even a maybe-broken nose. You're very aware that her fate could have easily been yours, if you hadn't met Joel. After all, you can never live in a QZ again. And how many other places out there are as safe as they are? Yeah, they come with their own brand of bullshit... but you never got kidnapped by a band of hunters while living in Boston.
Even if you have to leave Jackson some day, for whatever reason... you know Joel will always be with you. And you'll take that over a QZ any day.
If you'd like to start another adventure, return to page 1.
Carlos
Date: 2020-12-25 12:27 pm (UTC)Re: Carlos
Date: 2020-12-26 07:26 pm (UTC)especially compared to one of the others in this thread