“Hey, Arthur, it’s just me,” Rudy said sniffling and Arthur noticed Rudy’s nose was a very bright red, almost glowing.
“I know. I’m only going to ask once, how did you know the code because we never gave it to you?” Arthur demanded, seeing a revolver shoved in the front of Rudy’s pants.
“I, um, asked Jack last year when you and Wendy were in Dallas,” Rudy said slowly, lowering his arms.
“Move your arms more and you will die,” Arthur warned and Don and Daisy moved in front of him, growling at Rudy. Rudy’s arms jumped up fully extended over his head. “Jack wouldn’t just give you the code.”
“I told him I had to bring your lawn mower back and forgot the code,” Rudy admitted and then sneezed, but somehow kept his arms up.
“You come to ask for forgiveness for stealing from us?”
“No, I know you have power and food. I came to stay with you,” Rudy told him. Then Rudy noticed Arthur’s unkempt appearance. “I can help out, you know it.”
“No, get out of here because if I see you again, I’ll kill you,” Arthur barked.
“No, you won’t,” Rudy grinned. “Arthur, either I stay or you leave, your choice,” Rudy said, lowering his hands slowly. “I don’t want to kill you, so I’ll stay with you, or you can leave, or I will kill you. Those are your choices.”
BOOM, sounded as Arthur squeezed the trigger and saw Rudy jump as the bullet hit him in the center of his chest. Arthur squeezed the trigger three more times, hitting Rudy almost in the same spot. As Rudy wavered back with the hits, Arthur saw the window in Rudy’s truck shatter as the bullets passed through him.
Hitting the truck with his back, Rudy looked down at the blood flowing out of his chest. He looked up and noticed his vision was getting fuzzy. “I should’ve just killed you,” Rudy gasped as blood dripped out of his mouth.
Lowering his pistol, “Yep, you should’ve,” Arthur said and then saw Rudy grabbing for the revolver in his pants. Leveling the pistol again, Arthur squeezed the trigger one more time and Rudy’s head snapped back as a hole was punched in his forehead.
Arthur kept his aim on the body for several minutes until there was no movement from Rudy. Finally lowering his pistol, Arthur ejected the magazine and pulled a fresh one from his mag holster. Putting the partial magazine in the holster, he shoved the full one into the pistol.
Holstering his pistol, Arthur shook his head counting up the days in his head. “Fucking asshole, you exposed me when you were here to get the auger.”
He stepped up to the body and looked at the revolver in Rudy’s pants. “You motherfucker, that’s Jack’s,” Arthur snapped and then spun around and jogged to the house. Don and Daisy followed as Arthur ran to his office and pulled a box of shells from the gun safe. Topping his magazine off, he walked over and grabbed his AR.
“Dogs,” he said, running for the back door. All the dogs ran after him as he ran outside and jumped on the electric buggy. Spinning tires as he backed up, Arthur shifted into drive and took off down the driveway.
As he sped down the driveway and saw the gate still open, “Shit-wad couldn’t even close the gate,” Arthur mumbled and breathed in through his nose and realized he could breathe better. “Yeah, you haven’t cried,” he mumbled, reaching the end of the driveway and turned onto the road. “I should be experiencing something.”
Looking beside him, he saw the dogs running full speed and he slowed down some until they were at a trot. “Maybe I’m immune,” he concluded.
Reaching Jack’s house, Arthur pulled into the driveway and noticed the front door was open. Climbing out of the buggy, he grabbed the AR and moved to the front door. Jack’s truck and Starlie’s car were both in the driveway so he knew they should be home, but that had been Jack’s prized 1873 Colt Peacemaker that Rudy had.
Moving to the door, Arthur jerked his head back after catching a whiff of rankness. Easing up to the door, Arthur peeked inside and saw Jack on the floor and Starlie on the couch. Even standing in the door, he could tell they had been dead for a few days.
“Sorry, Jack and Starlie,” Arthur mumbled, closing the door and started thinking of just leaving and heading nowhere, just away from the land he and Wendy had turned into a home. As the idea started picking up steam in his mind, he looked up the valley and saw the next house as a tiny speck. “Lord, please let Ted, Tammy, and Nicole be all right.”
Remembering them on the porch when he had taken Wendy to the airport, he jogged back to the buggy and just drove through the yard to reach the road. Fighting a growing apprehension, Arthur kept a steady pace for the dogs to trot along beside him. Ted and Tammy had moved into the old house two years ago and Arthur really liked them. They were a very young couple. Ted had gotten to legal drinking age last year and Tammy still had a year to go.
Two months ago, Tammy had given birth to their first baby, Nicole, a precious little girl. He and Wendy had visited them in the hospital but when Ted brought them home from the hospital, Wendy and Arthur came down to the house and gave them two hundred dollars for a baby gift and a prepared meal. Arthur had been trying to figure out a way they could talk Joseph into having a kid as he’d held the tiny baby. For the next
