“Gail! Gail!” I continued to scream, although I knew it was useless.
I ran to the wooded area along the edge of the parking lot, diving in among the clusters of trees. I ran along for a few yards, calling out Gail’s name occasionally, frantically searching for any sign of him. Was he hiding for me, as if for a joke? If so, I wasn’t finding it funny at all.
After a minute or two of aimlessly crashing through the trees, I realized that I was making an awful lot of noise. If someone had taken Gail, they could easily avoid me and go the opposite direction I was going in. If Gail was in danger, I was just making it easier for whoever wanted to hurt him.
I quieted myself and crouched down by a tree. Ok, so, time to be quiet, and search. Think sneaky, Stevie. It’s what you’re used to.
I started to creep slowly in another direction than the one I had been going in, being as silent as possible and being careful where I stepped so as to not make a single sound. The slowness was painful; I wanted to go screaming and crashing around again. I was terrified for Gail and worried out of my mind.
After what seemed like years of my heart beating fast and my brain going through every possible horrible thing that could happen to Gail, I heard a twig snap a few yards to my left.
I froze and listened.
Soft footfalls were moving carefully further to my left, and they sounded heavy. I moved even more silently than I had been before, searching for the sounds.
Just ahead, I saw a glimpse of movement. I moved more forward, peering between the trees for whoever it was. I saw two tall men carrying as large, human-shaped sack between them.
My eyes zeroed in on the sack and I sucked in my breath through my teeth. Gail, I thought, my eyes narrowing.
Found him. One step down, now I just need to get rid of these two guys and get Gail and I out of here, I thought.
I slunk forwards and to the right, faster now than before. I tried to get far enough to the right of them that they wouldn’t notice me, but I could still keep them in my line of vision. I heard in the distance a growing roaring sound, like heavy amounts of water falling on rocks. A waterfall.
I managed to get ahead of them by a couple yards, and then I stepped into the area they were heading, finally letting them out of my sight.
I heard the crunch of footsteps coming from in front of me, and low voices that I couldn’t make out the words of. They obviously weren’t worried about me anymore if they weren’t being careful about the noise they were making.
I allowed myself a smile, thinking, Good, then, they won’t be expecting me, and I’ll have the element of surprise.
I moved back a little bit into a clearing just behind me and waited for the men to find me.
It wasn’t too long before they stepped into the clearing, and they froze when they saw me, their eyes going wide.
I smiled at them and cocked my head to the side.
“Well now,” I said, “seems this didn’t really go as planned for you, did it?”
I find that if I act all blasé and nonchalant while going up against people bigger and stronger than you, if gives you a certain edge. If you seem so totally sure of yourself that you are unconcerned with them, then they automatically are just a little more scared, which makes them just a little more easy to fight. It has always helped me.
I slipped my knife out of its sheath hidden under my shirt, and held it up, making sure it caught in the light so it would gleam at Gail’s captors.
They narrowed their eyes at me and dropped the bag with Gail in it, making me wince as he hit the ground with a pronounced thud.
They each took out knives of their own and faced me with ugly menacing grins on their face. I quickly took in their appearance, trying to spot anything that might help me.
They were both tall, so tall, in fact, that they seemed to be human towers. Not just human towers, actually. Human towers of muscle. Sure to be real fun fighting them. One had a nasty scar zig-zagging all the way down one side of his face, and he had long, shaggy hair that fell into his face, partially covering said scar.
The other one was bald, and his head was kind of shiny.
They bother flexed their muscles and advanced on me, making me roll my eyes. Did they think showing off how much muscle they had was going to intimidate me? Fat chance, losers.
I leaned up against a tree at the end of the clearing and pretended to yawn. They growled at me- yes, actually growled- and then baldy started to charge, his knife held high.
I waited for him to reach me, still acting casual, but tensing my muscles. I was leaned up against the tree in a way that made it easy for me to brace my feet on the ground in a manner that allowed me to be able to leap in any direction at any given moment.
Baldy drew near to me, and he positioned his knife so that it would go straight between my ribs, and I quickly reached my arms out, grabbing his left arm and jumping in that direction, pulling his arm that way as well with all my might, yanking hard to the ground. He lost his footing and crashed into the floor, his knife flying out of his hand and into the trees beyond. I brought the hilt of my knife down on his head hard enough to knock him out, but not hard to enough to draw blood. Blood is messy business and I don’t really like to deal with it if I can help it.
Scar Dude glared at me and came charging as well, so I aimed my knife and threw it at his throat. It pierced his flesh easily, and he made a chocking noise, reaching for his throat with wide, startled eyes before his eyes clouded over, and he was dead.
I hovered over Baldy for a second, checking to see how he was breathing, and then I reached out and punched his neck, knocking his Adam’s apple clean out of its place.
Hopefully, I thought, he’ll swallow it, and then he’ll be dead. If not…oh well, then. I guess I’ll just have to deal with him being alive.
I went over to the bag they dropped on the ground, and checked to see if Gail was ok.
There was a red swollen lump growing on his forehead, presumably from his being knocked over the head in order for him to be unconscious. But he was breathing, and as soon as I noticed that, I started breathing again too. I hadn’t even realized that I was holding my breath as I checked him over.
There didn’t seem to be any other major injuries on him, just a few scratches and a bruise.
I lifted him out of the bag and leaned him against a tree in a sitting position. Then I pulled my hand back and shot it forward, slapping him hard across the face.
Gail’s eyes snapped open, and his hand went up to hold his cheek.
“What was that for?” he asked, then moved towards me and winced.
“My head… ow,” his hands went up to the lump on his forehead, “What happened?”
“Some bozos knocked you out and took you on a walk through these woods, and I saved your ass, is all. No need to thank me,” I told him.
“Thanks, I guess,” he said, sounding a little skeptical, which caused me to snort.
“No problem, buddy. But start expecting enemies everywhere. Always be on the lookout. I don’t want to have to come and save you again. You’re lucky I even came after you this time,” I told him, completely leaving out how worried and terrified I had been for him.
“Yeah, sure. I can really tell how much you care. Why did you drag me along with you if you’re only going to hate on me?” he asked.
I sighed, then said, “I don’t want your death on your head, and I don’t want you hurt. I mean, I’ve killed plenty of people before, but they weren’t innocent. You haven’t done anything wrong as far as I know, so if I let something happen to you, I’d feel as if I did something terrible, and it was my fault. So, stay out of trouble so I don’t have to feel guilty. I hate that feeling.”
“Yeah, no problem,” he rolled his eyes.
“Come on,” I said, standing him up and offering him my hand, and he grabbed it. I heaved him up.
“What now?” he asked.
I looked at the two bodies on the ground and chewed on my lip. I would usually move them to the most inconspicuous place I could find, but instinct was telling me to check out the waterfall that I had heard earlier. Only idiots ignore instinct.
I grabbed Gail’s hand and started pulling him to the roaring sound of the water.
We walked in silence for a few minutes, the rushing and roaring getting louder with every step. Finally, we stepped beyond another group of trees and the sound grew deafening, filling my eyes and pounding in my head as I stared out at the waterfall before me.
We were at the bottom of it, the water falling from high above and falling angrily onto the rocks in the river below, pushing on them and beating at them, churning up the water in the river. It was loud as hell, and I saw Gail reach up to grasp his lump. I guess the sound wasn’t really helping with the headache he was sure to have after a blow like that.
But the waterfall wasn’t the only thing I saw. There was an encampment on the other side of the river. A group of about 20 people were bustling about between tents and trucks and a trailer, all in busy motion, seemingly working their tails off.
The people were mostly about as big as the two men who had tried to capture Gail- and had failed miserably thanks to me, I couldn’t help thinking smugly- and they all were just as muscle-y.
“Keep quiet,” I whispered to Gail, and then moved slowly further down the raging river, farther away from the crashing waterfall.
It took awhile to get far enough away that the water was calm enough to cross, and by then I had long lost sight of the camp. I cautiously put my little finger in the water, and recoiled at how cold it was. I really didn’t want to get in, but my instinct was still acting up and I somehow knew that I needed to see what was going on in that camp. And the only way to find out would be to cross this river, I thought miserably with a sigh.
“Come on, Gail,” I said, a little despondently, slipping off my shoes and rolling my jeans up above my knees, “we’re going in.”
Gail took off his sneakers and rolled his jeans as well, and then we both stepped into the river. The water rushed along my ankles when I first stepped in, and the further I walked, the deeper it got. Soon, the water was rushing around my knees, and my jeans were getting splashed every time I took a step. We weren’t even halfway across.
I turned to Gail and said, “There’s no help for it, it seems. Looks like we’re gonna have to get wet.”
I closed my eyes and bent my knees, letting the freezing water rise to my chest. I moved my arms in front on me and then dived under the water.
My clothes stuck to my front and billowed around my back as the water continued to move past me. I opened my eyes and turned, seeing that Gail hadn’t come under yet. I reached out and wrapped my arms around his legs, pulling him under the water with me. His startled expression when he found himself submerged was priceless, and I let out a laugh that floated to the surface as tiny bubbles. He frowned at me, and then I ran out of breath so I popped back up to the surface to re-stock my air supply. Gail’s head popped up beside me and he shook his head, water droplets flying in different directions.
“What was that for?” he asked, grumpily.
“The water’s only going to continue getting deeper, dummy. It’s easier to just get accustomed to it all at once. We’re gonna swim across,” I told him.
The current was carrying us further right of where the encampment was, so I dived back down in the water and swam ahead before it could carry me further away.
Despite what it may have seemed by my reluctance to get into the water, I actually love water. Adore it, really. I can spend hour upon hour just swimming through it and letting it move past me, feeling it on my skin.
Being in water again was making my spirits lift considerably. I came back to the surface and splashed water in Gail’s direction.
“Come on, slow poke!” I shouted at him, smiling, “Get moving!”
He rolled his eyes at me, then ducked under the water. I saw his form moving towards me, so I went under water and swan to meet it. He saw me and waved.
“Hello,” I said, bubbles rising from my mouth. I took his arm and we swam forwards again, towards the opposite shore of the river.
It was a rather wide river, and with the current pushing us, it took awhile to get to the other side. By the time we got there, I was exhausted from the exertion. I flopped down on the bank and closed my eyes, letting myself relax for a moment.
It felt good to allow myself to just not worry about anything or do anything for a minute, to just let myself drift and let go. It was a nice change from how I usually was: uptight and constantly moving, constantly active in some way or another.
After a minute, however, the wet clothes got rather uncomfortable and it was time to start heading over to the encampment. I forced myself to get up and then dragged a complaining Gail up after me.
We walked along the bank of the river, watching the water move peacefully, and then as we got closer to the waterfall, angrily and forcefully. The camp was up ahead, but all the people seemed to have left it abandoned, at least for the moment.
Gail and I slipped between the tents, peeking in to see if there was anything for us to discover, but there didn’t seem to be.
I went into one of the bigger tents that appeared to have food items in it, and I wasn’t sure where Gail had gotten too until he reappeared with two sets of clothes.
“There are only guys here, so there’s no clothes that’ll fit you really well, but here,” he handed me a large shirt and a pair of sweatpants.
“Thanks,” I said, smiling at him a little, “I guess we should get out of here. They have extra tents in this tent here, so we can go back down the river and set up for the night. We can check to see if they are back in the morning, but right now I’m just really tired.”
“Same here,” Gail agreed, and we took a tent bag and a box of cereal out of the camp with us.
We walked back down the stream in silence, then moved further back into the trees so that no one could spot our tent from the river bank. We set up the tent in silence and then took turns changing in silence. The clothes were way too big for both of us, but the ones I were wearing seemed to swallow me up. Gail smirked a little when he saw me, but I slapped him on the arm and he didn’t say anything.
We shoveled some of the cereal into our mouths, then lay down on the tent floor. I was so tired that it wasn’t very long before I was sound asleep.