Radioman (A 2/19th Spinoff) - Complete

Fear

The back door opened a crack.

Ah, so they were standing by the window to distract me.

I swept my eyes over the side of the cabin. There, the bedroom window. It had been cracked open, I could see a patch of darkness that had a shape, see the barrel of the rifle they were pointing out of the window.

They were looking the wrong way.

The back door fully opened. I could see one person with a flashlight, shielding the beam with their fingers, and the guy who I'd missed with the axe throw trying to sneak out there.

"Oh, God, James, help me!" The one by the back porch screamed.

"Shut up, that psychos out here," The one who came out, James, hissed.

I glanced around. Psycho? The last thing I wanted to do was go toe to toe with a...

Oh. Me.

I waited till he bent down and threw the hand-axe. It whipped through the snow and air, making the guy, James, cry out and slap his hand to his head.

The axe hit the guy at his feet in the throat. He fell back, clawing at his throat, pulling the hand-axe free. Steaming blood gouted from the wound now that the axe wasn't blocking the wound. He gurgled, air bubbles erupting from his split trachea, the blood steaming in the air.

James screamed, still with one hand clapped over his ear, blood streaming down the side of his head and his neck. He ran back into the house.

I just walked away.

Someone fired off the shotgun again. The rifle fired at a shadow. The Sheriff fired off six paced shots.

My hands in my pockets, I walked around the edge of the clearing, to behind the shed. The snow was falling harder as I walked around the shed to where Cartwright was laying. I grabbed his collar and dragged him into the woods. I stopped by the stump, grabbing one of the hand-axes, then kept dragging Cartwright away. I let go of him and lit a cigarette, then kept dragging my dead burden down to the lake.

The ice was thin, when I threw Cartwright onto the ice to see if it was thick enough to stand on, his body vanished into the dark water.

I walked back, smoking another cigarette.

I was used to the air getting thin when it was cold. Alfenwehr's air could be deadly in the middle of winter, as the thin atmosphere made you pull in more air, the air lowering your core temperature and the microbleeds from the thin atmosphere froze in your chest. I'd coughed up blood more than once on that mountain.

The atmosphere in Kansas was thick to the point it almost felt like soup.

My hands in my pockets I walked up to where the other dead guy was, listening to what they were saying.

"Maybe he's gone," Someone said.

"He killed Cartwright and Jimmy with fucking hatchets," Dave yelled. "You said he wasn't a problem, Gail."

"He, like, totally isn't! He's, like, a radioman or some junk!" Gail shouted back.

I dragged "Jimmy" away, back to the lake. Pausing at the end of the fishing dock to do something, then rolling the body onto the ice. The ice cracked and broke, the body sinking into the dark water.

I walked back, lighting a cigarette, and circling the house.

"He's out there, right now, laughing at us!" someone yelled.

There were five more voices I didn't recognize. Gail, Dave, his father, the Sheriff.

Eight, at least.