Bart jogged over to Drew and held out his arm. Drew reached for the hand that Bart was offering him. The sharp crack of point-blank gunshots. His dad jerked around and fell to the ground screaming in pain. Drew spun around looking for the shooter. He was expecting the next bullets to rip into him. Bright flashes of light and more gunshots sounded. Drew saw the man he’d thrown into the swamp stumbling out of the weeds firing a pistol at him. The man was screaming at the top of his lungs while he yanked the trigger.
Seeing the pistol in the attackers hand reminded Drew he had one as well. Tossing his empty AR-15 out of the way he fumbled the pistol out of its holster. He swung it up just like his dad had shown him and rested the sights on the chest of the attacker. The man was frantically reloading his pistol. Hearing his dad screaming in pain and knowing this man would kill them both as soon as he got his pistol reloaded Drew fired his weapon. The tall man spun in a circle on the first hit with a surprised look on his face. He fell to one knee still trying to load his pistol. Drew took a dazed step forward and pointed his pistol at the man.
“Don’t shoot. I‘ll leave. All good kid.” The attacker stuttered from his kneeling position. He’d lost the bullets he was trying to shove in the chamber of his revolver. Drew waved the pistol to the side signaling the man to get up and leave.
“Drop your pistol.” Drew ordered. He watched until the man dropped his pistol into the dirt and started backing away. Drew knelt down next to his dad to see how bad he was hurt. Some of the bikers that’d been shot had survived. They were crying out in pain as they lay on the cold concrete bleeding out.
Bart was sitting up bandaging his own leg. He had blood covering a good portion of his clothes. In a weak shaky voice, he told Drew he was doing ok but would need help getting back home. Wondering if he could rig up something with one of the bikes Drew glanced over to the pile of bodies and bikes scattered around the path. The pile was partially illuminated by flashlights that were throwing light at random angles creating some really freaky shadows.
In the light Drew saw the man he’d shot rooting around in the bodies. The man saw that he’d been seen.
“Just trying to see if I can save my friend.” The man said pointing down at the pile and leaning over to adjust the man he’d pointed at. Drew lowered his weapon and began to turn back to take care of his dad. Luckily, he realized he was being a moron by turning his back on the guy. Drew turned back around to tell the guy to get lost. The guy who was now holding a pistol in his hand and trying to stand up with it.
Drew shot him adding one more corpse to the pile of bodies. Drew sent random shots into the pile of moaning bodies until he ran out of bullets. That seemed to shut up the whiners. At least he thought it did since his own hearing was pretty much crap after all the gunplay. He understood now why Bart always insisted they wear the bulky earmuffs when he took them to the range. Drew focused back on his dad. He was ashamed to realize he’d almost forgotten about him with all the violence going on. He shoved his pistol back in the holster and knelt down next to his dad again.
“I just killed somebody.” Drew said loudly. The temporary deafness causing him to yell when he thought he was using a normal voice.
“I just killed like five guys. Screw ‘em. They were going to kill us. Let’s get the hell out of here and back home before anything else happens.” Bart said before lapsing into a coughing fit. Drew had been thinking about grabbing some of the weapons the bikers had dropped. Hearing the coughing and the weakness in his dad’s voice all thoughts of corpse robbing immediately left his mind. He was suddenly overcome with the dark certainty that his father was going to die on the trail.
Drew bent down and scooped his dad up into a fireman’s carry. He shifted him around on his shoulders then started jogging down the trail back towards their house. He’d expected to hear a ton of complaints on this undignified and probably very painful mode of transport. The silence was a lot more concerning. He doubled his pace while straining to see ahead of him in the darkness.
The weight across his shoulders was just another day for Drew. One of the sports he excelled at was wrestling. He’d won his way to the varsity slot as a freshman and then proceeded to rack up a ton of medals for victories at the state, regional and district levels. Bart had assumed correctly that it’d be a great way to constructively channel his rage at the world. A good portion of that anger control had been learned running bleachers after he got in fights at practice or in school.
