Radioman (A 2/19th Spinoff) - Complete

Just Leave Me Alone

The snow shivered off the branches above me as the Sheriff fired off another six shots into the darkness, the bullets coming nowhere near me. I knew he was probably firing at a shadow of a half-fallen tree. He wasn't verifying his target. The snow and darkness was no excuse, common sense said to make sure what you were shooting at.

I heard someone screaming and moved around so I could see them.

The guy I'd let go was running toward the front of the house. He wasn't wearing a jacket.

"She's after me! Help me! She's after me!" he screamed.

The shotgun fired from inside of the house and blood sprayed from the guy's hip. He went down with a scream, holding his hip.

The snow flurry increased, covering him, and I heard him scream. The scream dwindled, fading away, and it felt like he was being pulled away somehow. Pulled into the dark and snow.

There was something out here with me. Something worse than me.

My mother in law to be.

I held still, in mid-stride, my hand pressed against the tree trunk.

The scream in the distance was raw, full of agony.

weregild

blood paid in blood

The blood flowing from the cut on Aine's forehead from where the rock had smashed into her face.

blood for blood

I started moving again. My mother-in-law to be was hungry. She was part of these woods in a way I could never understand. She fed on the weak, the disrespectful, those she was offered.

I moved to the stump and picked up the blade embedded in it that I had sharpened with the file from my Leatherman. I held it up, looking at it closely.

Four people inside the cabin. Dave. His father. The Sheriff.

And Gail.

There was four shots from a pistol, then I heard a clicking noise.

The pistol was out of ammunition.

The shotgun hadn't fired the entire time since whoever was shooting it had hit the guy my mother-in-law to be had dragged away to devour.

The snow crunched under my combat boots as I headed toward the cabin. My mind was still, empty, the singing core of darkness and emptiness inside of me filling me with cold purpose.

the sound the rock made as it hit Aine in the face

The snow was swirling around me as I moved up to the back door. I wondered if they were guarding it, but from the half-panicked voices I could hear in the cabin, they were all toward the front of the lake cabin.

"What about the shotgun in your cruiser?" Dave's father was asking.

"Gone. He took the guns and the ammo from my cruiser," Sheriff Wesley said. His voice was tight with fear.

"Dammit. We're trapped here," Dave's father stated.

"But, like, how? Paul is totally just a radioman and junk. He's, like, nobody important and junk," Gail said.

She was right.

I was nobody special. Just a radioman who had followed a psychotic killer named Stillwater through fire and blood. He was special. Stokes was special. Bomber was special.

Hannah/Aine was special.

I was just Paul Foster. A radioman from a small time in Kansas.

The door opened quietly and I stepped inside, closing the door behind me.