lumy12

Page Two Hundred Sixty-Eight

"Don't-- He-- --if you come in here, he might kill me!" you call out, sounding pretty damn believable if you do say so yourself.

Joel just quirks an eyebrow at you.

The soldiers don't answer immediately; you imagine they're conferring with each other on how to proceed. And then-- "Sir, you need to send the girl out here to us. Let her go."

...Now he's a "sir"?

Joel shakes his head, chuckling to himself. "This just might work," he says quietly, keeping his voice just above a whisper so they can't hear. He selects a gun and... starts emptying the bullets out of it?!

"What are you doing? You can't assume that--"

"No way in hell am I holdin' a loaded gun to your head." And then he calls to the soldiers, "I'm afraid I can't do that!"

You frown at him. "Well, obviously you're not gonna shoot it..." You don't like the idea of him being so vulnerable. Both of you will be, since you obviously won't be able to wield a weapon yourself. Which reminds you... "Here -- you must have taken this from me, right?" You hand him your gun.

Now it's his turn to frown. "Right. But you need... -if shit goes down, you just grab one of mine, okay? But they ain't gonna shoot at you, so... use that to your advantage. Play it cool if you can. If we get separated, I'll come back for you." He sticks your 9-millimeter... somewhere. His waistband?

"Send the girl out. Then we can... talk about your situation."

Joel snorts. "He's gotta pretend they'll be okay with me killin' all these people as long as I give you up, alive. Sure. You ready, kiddo?"

You take a deep breath and nod. "Ready."

"Act scared."

Like I'm not?! "That won't be a problem."

He positions you in front of him. "I hate puttin' you in the line of fire, but I can't let 'em get a clear shot at me."

"I get it."

"All right... it's show time." He kisses your temple... then replaces his warm lips with the cool barrel of the gun. "We're comin' out!" he warns the soldiers as he marches you to the door.

He's doing a good job of restraining you; with his arm across your chest, both of your arms are pretty well immobilized -- and it's totally uncomfortable being squished against your overloaded backpack. "Don't shoot!" you plead again as Joel starts to shoulder the swinging door open -- all the fuckers are pointing their guns at you! I need to muster up some tears... fuck... You squeeze your eyes shut like maybe you're... bravely trying not to cry? and you start taking short, exaggeratedly-panicky breaths.

"Drop your weapons!" Joel barks at them as he marches you into the lobby/lounge type area. "All of you. Right now."

"Please do what he says," you urge them in a wavery voice. The gun pressing into your skin is surprisingly unnerving, and now you're grateful Joel unloaded it. "Please! I don't wanna die..."

The soldiers exchange looks with each other, then turn back to Joel -- and none of them have dropped their fucking guns! There's six of them, not four... "What is it that you want?" asks one of them... the one who appears to be in charge.

"All I want is to get outta here," Joel tells them. "That's it. No one else needs to get hurt."

"Okay... all right... but let the girl go."

Joel snorts. "Now why would I do that? I ain't stupid. The second I let her go, I'm dead."

"I promise you, we won't shoot," the soldier lies (at least, you assume it's a lie... why wouldn't they shoot him? What else would they do with him?).

Now imagine them shooting him, and fucking CRY, you command yourself silently.

"Right, right. 'Course you won't. All you wanna do is talk to me." Joel laughs bitterly. "This little girl's gonna get me all the way to Boise. All of you -- move that way. An' drop your goddamn guns!"

...Boise? -Joel is dead... Joel is DEAD... You can say this to yourself, but the meaningless words aren't sinking in enough to produce tears.

"You don't have to do this," says the soldier placatingly. "We can work this out."

"Yeah -- I know how you all work shit out." Joel's loathing of soldiers sure comes through loud and clear to your ears...

"Doesn't have to be that way," the soldier insists.

"Pleeeease just do it," you beg them, turning eyes wide with fear on each of the men in turn. And now your eyes are, amazingly, moist with tears! ...maybe the high emotion of the situation was enough? "He's crazy! Don't make him kill me, please!" You think you've found the one that will be most sympathetic to your plight. You can see it in his eyes... they're not hardened (even deadened?) like the others -- he has compassion. He might even be a nice person. Maybe he has a daughter... You focus extra energy on that particular soldier. As if he can feel it.

...and he's the first one to lower his assault rifle, though he doesn't drop it. "Do what he says," he tells his comrades. "She's just a kid."

Not really... but that's fine if they think so.

The others look at the leader dude... and when he lowers his gun, they all follow suit.

"I said drop 'em," Joel growls. "And move!"

The two on Joel's right move over to the left, where he indicated, and one by one, they start lowering their guns to the ground.

"Now kick 'em over here," orders Joel. "Kick 'em hard. That radio there, too. Do it!"

The guns go skittering across the floor... as does the walkie talkie, which looks just like the ones they use back home.

The leader lifts his hands in a gesture of surrender. "We don't want anyone to get hurt here, man..."

"Little late for that," Joel sneers at him.

"It's okay. We'll let you go... if you let her go. It's not too late for her."

"I don't think so. Move back -- all of you." He's nudging you toward the exit, careful to keep you positioned in between himself and the soldiers. "Now, I saw a couple of horses outside when I got here. I'll be takin' those. ...I'll be takin' the girl, too. None of you assholes are gonna follow me. You understand? I can see right through these doors. If any of you bastards go for your guns... or open the goddamn doors..." He presses the barrel into your temple, a little harder than before but not enough to really hurt -- although you wince theatrically as if it does. To your delight, a couple of big fat tears roll down your cheeks, too.

Your fearful gaze bounces from soldier to soldier, but most frequently lands on the 'nice' one. "I'll be okay, if you just do what he says." You employ your best scared-but-trying-to-be-brave voice. "Like he said, he needs me as a hostage! Please don't make him kill me," you repeat, because you especially like the sound of that plea. Reminding them that your death would be their fault. ...and they actually seem like they might care about that??
I'm such a good actress!

You breathe an inward sigh of relief when you make it through the doors.

"Don't relax just yet," Joel says under his breath. He backs away from the building, still keeping you in the middle -- and keeping an eye on the doors, presumably. "We've gotta actually get away. You're gonna ride with me. ...Can't see shit through those doors... hopefully they don't realize that."

You see that he's right; all you see in the doors is a reflection of outside!

"You get up there first... an' I'll go back here..." -to keep the horses in the middle as well.

"Too bad we can't take that truck," you lament as you mount Joel's horse. "We'd get away so fast..."

"The horses are plenty fast, an' we can cut through the trees, so they can't follow us." He hands you the lead rope of your horse. "Now hold your hands up... as if I asked you to. Don't want 'em gettin' suspicious, an' they can't really see what I'm doin' with the gun from here... that'll show 'em I'm bossin' you around, at least."

You snort. "Should I try to fight you?"

"You're just bein' a good little hostage." He swings himself up behind you and makes you scoot forward, which surprises you -- but you quickly realize it's because it's a little hard to hold a gun on someone with your back to them. "Shit -- you hear that? We've gotta fly--"

And off you go! You're galloping down the street... and you don't hear what Joel's referring to for another ten seconds or so. ...is that a fucking HELICOPTER?!

"We've gotta make it into the woods or we'll never lose 'em!" Joel tells you, speaking loudly not because the helicopter's all that loud, but because the wind seems to whisk away the words when you're galloping. He hands you the unloaded gun, freeing up his hand to get a better grip on the reins. He urges the horse to go faster, which she does... and it takes your horse a couple seconds to match the pace, but thankfully, you don't lose your arm holding on to his rope.

You try to twist your head around enough to look in the direction of the noise. The helicopter is only a black speck in the sky, far behind you. "You think it's here cuz of us?"

"Bastards prob'ly called for backup while we were in the kitchen! I was gonna start headin' west an' then swing back around, but I'm sure they told 'em that's the way we're goin'..."

"We are going west!" you point out. "Aren't we?"

"Only for now!"

'Now' being until you get into the woods, probably. Looking around, it's the fastest route there. You know south is out, because of the 'hundred blocks' it took to get to the hospital. North... has no trees in sight. East has some on the horizon, but you do think the western trees are closer. You keep glancing at the helicopter nervously... watching the speck grow bigger. It's definitely flying in your direction! "Do you think it can see us yet?"

"I hope not. Hopefully they'll give up the search real quick!"

"Haha -- nice. So now we don't want them to care about saving me!" you snicker.

Getting away from the skyscrapers worries you; the closer you get to the trees, the more exposed you feel as the buildings start growing smaller... as the helicopter grows bigger...

...but you make it! And the trees do offer pretty dense overhead cover here. Joel slows the horses down to a trot, and you slump back against him, now breathing an outward sigh of relief this time. "That was intense!"

"We ain't outta the woods just yet."

"Duh -- we just went into the woods!" you giggle. Oh how nice it is to be able to relax again!

"And we're gonna stay in here... at least until that helicopter goes away. No open areas."

"What if they know you were bluffing when you said Boise? Like... maybe you said it to throw them off?"

"It'll prob'ly occur to 'em, sure. But I ain't sure how much time an' resources they wanna spend huntin' down one homicidal maniac."

"Uh... and saving a girl's life!"

"Yeah... that would've meant somethin', back in the day. Both of those things. It would've been a big priority to catch the person that slaughtered all those people. Now... it just ain't all that unusual."

"On that scale, though?"

"Maybe not, but... still. Limited resources... no political agenda... more desensitization..."

You don't really get politics, the way Joel talks about them. You thought it had to do with deciding who's going to run things in government, but he applies it to other stuff, too -- like this. "Maybe they'll find the real killer... instead of us?"

"Let's hope. ...Are you okay, after... all that back there? With the soldiers?"

"What, the hostage thing? Why wouldn't I be? It was my idea," you remind him proudly. "I thought I did pretty good, don't you?"

"Mm. Definitely an Oscar-worthy performance."

"Thanks!" You know this is high praise because you've heard about the guy named Oscar who, in olden times, used to give statues of himself to the best actors every year. "You weren't so bad yourself!"

Joel snorts. "Bein' an asshole comes easy to me. I wasn't too rough with you?"

"Pffff. Gentlest kidnapper ever."

He chuckles. "Those two words don't go together. At all."

"They do now! But you know what I was thinking? Why would you need me as a hostage now? Unless there's like... a lot of places where you can go kill people that the military might show up at? I mean... hunters prob'ly wouldn't give a shit. Infected sure as fuck wouldn't give a shit."

"True. I said it anyhow... for two reasons. A: I wanted an excuse to... accidentally toss out the name of a place that sounds somewhat plausible, to throw 'em off track. B: I didn't wanna leave you here or kill you, so... it was one of the nicer reasons I could think of for takin' you with me."

"Nicer? It's nice to keep someone around for... their hostage value?"

"Relatively speakin', yes. But since you don't have to be my hostage anymore, why don't you hop on over to your own horse. An' maybe put some of this shit away... what the hell did you fill this with anyhow?" You feel him jiggling your backpack.

"Oh... just this and that. Okay, let me just... hop on over..." You shift around as if you're literally going to jump onto your horse.

"Whoa!" Joel stops the horse and you in the same motion, his arm barring you from any such foolishness.

"Got you!" you giggle. "Did you really think I was going to do that? Although you know, I probably could..."

"You could also fall an' get trampled. Or break a bone or two."

"Whatever." You slide off the horse instead... and peer up at the sky, patchy as it is through the treetops. "Fuck, that helicopter sounds really close now!"

"I don't like it. If they land an' send guys in here on foot..."

You mount your horse immediately; you're not going to dick around with your bags right now. "Let's keep moving then!"

Joel clucks to his horse and immediately takes a left turn. "Let's swing back south now... see if we can go a ways while stayin' under cover. They might be able to see us... but if the trees stay this dense, I doubt it."

"So... what if the trees get more spaced out?" you wonder out loud, pulling your horse up alongside his... or, trying to. Single file is probably going to work better through these woods. "Do we just... hide somewhere?"

"I don' know. Maybe. But we need to calm down... quit talkin' an' pay close attention 'cause that damn bird's makin' it harder to hear if there's other dangers out here."

"Shit, you're right... okay." He called the helicopter a bird... Joel's so funny sometimes! "One more thing first? Does this mean we're giving up the search for Danny?" After all, you didn't see his body in there...

"I'm afraid it does. We can't go back into that town. An' right now, not knowin' what the soldiers are doin'? We can't even travel along the highway, which is where he'd prob'ly go if he was hurt or somethin'... tryin' to make it home... there's enough country out here to get lost in. Some of it not vetted by our scouts yet."

"Sounds perfect for us right now. We need to get lost!"

He chuckles. "We need to lose our tail, not get lost ourselves."

"So what if we do? As long as we're safe. We'll get home eventually."

"...An' then they can send other people to search for Danny if they want to. We're done." He trots on ahead, indicating it's time to shut up now.

It sucks that you have to give up on Danny... but maybe you can return with a larger party, now that you know he's in trouble... if he survived. Big 'if', there... and yet, you didn't find his body, which is encouraging, right? Joel's "We're done" sounded so final that you wonder if he'd be completely against the idea of returning... maybe playing the murderer/kidnapper bad dude really rattled him or something. There's also the possibility that, given the massacre, they'll decide Danny's most likely dead and not bother to send anyone. People go missing all the time. ...well, not all the time... but it happens, and sometimes, the only 'search effort' made (if you could even consider it that) is for the patrols to branch out a little more than usual. Or for scouts to 'keep an eye out' where the person was last suspected to be.

Yeah, it sucks... but the important thing is you and Joel made it out of there alive (and the helicopter noise is receding now, too!). Bonus: you didn't even have to kill anyone to do it! You would have felt bad killing that one soldier with the kind eyes.

THE END

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