Dear God, but one planeload of supplies into Asheville, but one, and my worst worry is gone.
“Would you talk to her?” he asked, looking back at Jen.
“Coward, and yes, I already have. But I think you as a dad better talk to both of them as well.”
“OK, later,” he said a bit too quickly.
Looking at Zach and Ginger, John went to the gun cabinet. He pulled out the 20-gauge and headed out the door, the two dogs slowly trotting along behind him, knowing that today there just might be some food if their master and provider got lucky.
CHAPTER NINE
He awoke to the dogs barking and instantly knew… someone was in the house.
They had drilled the plan after the murder of the Connors last week, their home at the top of the road, all four of them, parents, two kids, the house then ransacked from one end to the other for whatever scraps of food they might have.
He didn’t hesitate, shotgun up as he stepped out of the office crouching low.
The two dogs were barking madly, snarling, and then he heard the crack of a gun and a high-pitched, yelping scream.
He stepped into the living room. The back door into the kitchen was wide open. Two men, at least it looked like two men.
So this was the moment and he did it without hesitation.
The first blast nearly decapitated the man by the door. The second turned; one shot fired wild and the second blast caught that one in the guts, flinging him back against the kitchen counter.
The girls had been drilled; if there was an intruder they were supposed to get on the floor behind the bed. The water bed where they now slept together was an excellent barrier….
After several seconds Elizabeth started screaming “Daddy!”
“Stay put!”
Crouched down low, he came around the turn into the kitchen. The one man was definitely dead; even in the dark moonlight John could see that, the other whimpering, kicking spasmodically. By his side was Zach, crying pitifully, Ginger, with hackles raised, snarling at the wounded man.
There could be someone outside, John realized, but first he crawled over to the wounded man, grabbed his pistol, which was on the floor, a .22 revolver from the feel of it, and stuck it into his belt. The other man didn’t have a gun, just a machete, and John took that with his free hand.
He headed back to the wide-open door, was about to step out, then thought twice, doubling back through the house, coming in low to first Jennifer’s room and then Elizabeth’s to make sure there wasn’t a third intruder.
Past his old bedroom he looked in for a second.
“I’m all right. Now don’t move!” he hissed. “Elizabeth, you have your gun.”
“Yes, Daddy,” and her voice was trembling.
“If I come back to this room, I’ll call out first. If anyone else comes through, you shoot and don’t hesitate.”
“Yes, Daddy.”
Back out through his office and then the front door, which he slipped open, circling back around the house.
No one else. He slipped through the rear door into the kitchen and touched the basement door; it was still locked. Then once more, down low, sweeping Jennifer’s and Elizabeth’s rooms yet again, nervously popping the closet doors open, both rooms still empty.
He went back into the kitchen.
“Jen, light a candle and get out here.”
A minute later the flickering light illuminated the kitchen. Jen recoiled at the sight of the first man, face gone. The second was crying louder now, curled up. And then there was Zach.
John went over to his old buddy, his friend of so many years, who had saved their lives with his warning. He was shot in the top of the back, just behind the shoulder blades.
“Oh, God, Zach,” John sighed. And like so many dogs, so desperately hurt, Zach licked John’s hand as if by doing so he’d feel better.
John looked over at Jen, wide-eyed.
“You got to help me.” It was the wounded man. “Please help me.” John actually felt stunned with how quickly he reacted. The Glock he kept strapped to his side even when he slept was out, round already chambered.
“John?” It was Jen.
He squeezed the trigger, the discharge of the 9mm round an explosion that set Elizabeth and Jennifer to screaming again.
“It’s all right!” John shouted. “It’s all right, girls, but stay put.” John looked at Jen, who stood stock-still, horrified. “I’d of shot him in town if he lived that long.”
John had executed five in the last week. Two of them locals, who had stolen a pig, killed it, and were gorging themselves up in a mountain hollow when finally tracked down, the two pathetic fools never fully realizing that hungry men could now smell meat cooking from half a mile away. The other three caught raiding a house, just like the two on the floor now.
“Jen, you’ll have to help me drag them outside. I don’t want the girls to see this mess.”
Zach’s whimpers made John turn around. Ginger was lying by Zach’s side, licking her old friend.
John filled up. The execution-style killing had bothered him not in the least. Washington Parker was right. After the first one, it starts to get easier, and in this case, the men invading his home, threatening his girls, it didn’t bother John in the slightest.
It was Zach, though. Zach and Ginger were down to skin and bones, ribs showing through their once sleek coats. Regardless of the ban on letting dogs run wild, John had let them out to forage since their old stomping grounds had been up in the woods that became Pisgah National Forest not a hundred yards away. Though he worried that others out hunting would bag them, so far they had been lucky.
He knelt down by Zach’s side. Zach lifted his head and again licked John.
“Thank you, old friend,” John sighed. “Thank you for everything.”
“Do you want me to do it?” Jen whispered.
Startled, he looked up at her.
“No, he was our dog, Mary’s and mine.”
He pulled out the .22 taken from the dead man, cocked it, and put it behind Zach’s ear. Ginger stood up, sensing something, whimpering loudly now… and John couldn’t do it, dissolving into tears.
“I’ll take care of him,” Jen whispered. “You go outside, take Ginger with you. You don’t want her to see it either. Now go on.”
Jen left the room and was back seconds later with the last pack of cigarettes and the bottle of scotch that held a final precious ounce.
“Girls, we’re safe, but you are to stay in your room, on the floor!” Jen shouted.
John looked at Zach and felt at that moment like a coward, completely unmanned. He knelt down and kissed Zach on the forehead. He was bloody, panting hard. He stood back up and then went outside, dragging Ginger by the collar, and let her loose. He lit the cigarette and uncorked the bottle.
“There, there, Zach,” he could hear Jen in the kitchen. “Tell Tyler I love him. You remember our dog Lady. Its time to play with her now….”
The muffled crack of the pistol had John leaning over the deck railing, crying, Ginger whimpering and nuzzling against his legs.
There was such a surreal sense of disconnect. I just killed two men, executing one without a second’s hesitation. But this? Sobbing over a dog?
Jen came out the door a moment later bearing Zach, wrapped in a blanket.
