The little car's gears ground as I shifted into reverse and backed into the parking spot. Aine had helped me clean it out, and the inside of the car smelled a lot better. Part of it was the pervasive smell of honeysuckle and apple blossoms that she had left behind.
I got out, pulling on the bottom of my Levi jacket to get it to set properly. I slapped the lock stud and slammed the door before pushing my hands into my pockets and taking a quick scan of the area.
General store in front. Church to my right. Video rental store to my left. Post office behind me. Sidewalks clear. Rooftops clear. No signs of...
God damn you to Hell, Stillwater.
He just laughed at me in the back of my mind.
The rain kept coming down, but I was wearing a battered BDU softcap to keep it out of my face. The wind wasn't too bad, nothing like the screaming gale force winds that tried to steal what little breath you had, driving ice crystals against exposed skin, snatching away your breath as it sliced through your clothing, icy claws sinking into your skin and muscle to...
I shook myself slightly as I reached for the door of the store.
The bells rang and the complex smell of the store washed over me, instantly reminding me of being a child and coming to the store to buy things with my mother.
Which instantly reminded me of my father smacking her for spending the money "on stupid shit" instead of leaving it to him to spend on heroin.
Aine wanted cast iron cookware, a pitcher, some cleaning supplies, lemons, and a bunch of other stuff. It wasn't like I didn't have the cash and traveller's checks in my pocket, but I didn't like shopping without her.
Part of being in the military, I guess. I didn't do any shopping outside of infrequent trips to the PX or Class-VI. I didn't need to.
I grabbed a cart, pulled out her list written in tiny neat cursive, and started moving through the aisles. I was startled to see that the gingham she wanted was actually available. I wouldn't have thought the local general store would carry bolts of cloth, but then I should have realized that Aine would know if it did or not.
I'd put a wooden box full of cast iron cookware into the cart when I felt someone moving up the aisle toward me. Whoever it was, they weren't the little old lady I'd passed by in the fabric section, this person was looking for me.
God damn you to Hell, Stillwater...
They stopped behind me, waiting while I reached up and grabbed the steel cookware utensils that Aine had wanted. I dropped them in my cart and tensed to turn around.
I could feel the grip of my M1911A1 pistol in my hand.
When I turned around, someone I didn't recognize was standing behind me. My brain instantly calculated everything about them.
Over six feet tall. Not as big as Stokes but taller than Stillwater. Mill work muscle, strangely soft looking to my eyes. Black hair. Brown eyes. No scars. Face trying to look menacing and failing. Smaller hands than the muscle on their arms and chest would suggest. Blue and black checkered flannel shirt over a T-shirt, Levi jeans worn across the thighs, thick leather belt, boots. Old sweat and sawdust smell. Not standing right for any weapons on him beyond the knife in a sheath at his right hip.
"Paul Foster?" He asked me.
"Who's asking," I stared at him, not backing up even though he was right in front of me.
"Heard you were back in town," he said. I just nodded. "Heard you been in the Army since you done disappeared," Again, I just nodded. "Got some new scars on yer face, and ya look different, Paul, ya seen some shit, ain't ya?"
Just nodded again. I couldn't place the voice. I knew I should be able to, but I couldn't. Just knew it was a voice from high school.
He suddenly held out his hand. I looked at him, curious, but took his hand anyway. He shook my hand. "Glad yer home safe, Paul." was all he said. He let go of my hand. "Muh pappy, he came back all twisted up, so you take care of yerself, Paul, ya hear?" I just nodded. He smiled and walked away.
What the hell?
I tried to put it out of mind, moving to get an orange juice press. The ceramic kind. I found one with cherries, apples, and oranges painted on the ceramic and set it in the cart. It wasn't until I was putting the dish soap in the cart that I remembered who he was.
Carl Hanford, he'd been a grade ahead of me, played on the football team as a linebacker. A decent guy, but pretty quiet. I'd heard he'd won a scholarship to the University of Kansas and I wondered why he was still in town.
Oh well, none of my business.
I finished Aine's list, tossed in a small tub of udder balm, some candles, and, with a smile, put in something special that was behind the counter. The older woman behind the counter looked at everything I was buying, gave me an odd look, then rang me up.
"Um, I haven't had a chance to go to the bank yet and I just got home after being stationed in Europe. Do you take traveller's checks?" I asked her.
She smiled. "Sure, if you've got military ID."
I showed it to her. I'd had it updated only a few months before, so the picture actually looked like me. I hadn't worn the eye patch, and the scarring where they'd had to put in a piece of surgical steel below my eye to replace the shattered bone was more obvious, but at least it looked more like me than the ID card that had been made for me in Basic Training. She glanced at it, smiled at me, and let me pay with American Express traveller's checks. I took the twenty and the ones, dropped a dollar in the Children's Fund container, and pushed the cart outside.
It took a minute of jiggling the key to get the hatchback to pop up. Thankfully Aine had helped me clean out the back, so the bags fit inside with a minimum of fuss. I slammed the trunk closed, then took the cart inside.
When I came back out I couldn't help but notice the black Trans-Am that had pulled up. The thing screamed junky, from the bondo on the fenders to the peeling paint across the hood that made the firebird look like it was suffering from a bad case of molt.
There was also three guys in it.
I sighed to myself as I moved over to the driver's side and put in the key.
Behind me the doors slammed.
I left the keys in the door and turned around.
Three men. Black greasy hair on two, nasty blond on the third. All of them with that weird hollowed out feeling that heroin junkies have. The one at the driver's side was the guy I'd seen in the grocery store, and he hefted a baseball bat with a grin.
I just watched, keeping the car to my back, as they moved up on me.
"Where's your skank, Foster?" The one with the bat asked me.
I just shrugged, staying silent.
"Well, before she interrupted us, I think we were having a conversation," he said, smacking the bat into this hand. I knew that the sound was supposed to make me flinch, but I'd heard the sound of steel hitting flesh and bone, the bat didn't bother me.
"You don't want to do this," I warned them. "I don't want any trouble."
"Maybe we do," one of them laughed, cracking his knuckles.
Stillwater laughed in the back of my head.
"Last warning," I said, and was startled to hear my voice turn into a low growl. I meant to try to deescalate things further, try to calm things down, find a way to get through it without violence, just like I had when I was a kid.
But Stillwater took control of my vocal cords.
"Or I put you smack shooting child molesters in the goddamn ICU," I snarled.
All three of them stood stock still, shocked at my words.
"Fucking faggot," One yelled, taking a wild swing at me.
Part of me, the part that had remained deep inside despite everything I had been through, shrieked at me to cover up, to run away, to start begging them not to hurt me.
I caught his fist with one hand, yanked him toward me so he stumbled my way, and drove my elbow into his nose hard enough the shock of the impact made my shoulder ache. Blood spattered and his feet went out from under him, and I let go of his hand as he fell on his back on the rain slicked tarmac.
Stokes's training had hammered into me that the other one would be swinging too, and I turned around with my hands already in the guard position.
He was just staring at his downed friend.
The one I'd ran into in the store was staring.
Part of me told myself to stop, that it had gone far enough. That little part was still terrified of the one with the bat. The one who used to laugh at my tears as he hurt me.
I gave the other one a short chop to the throat, sending him to his knees gagging, holding his throat. I didn't break eye contact with the one with the bat as I drove my knee into the other one's face, feeling things break under my knee. He went backwards, still gagging, trying to scream through a bruised trachea.
I stepped over him.
"You should have ran," I snarled, "You shouldn't have made me do this," I told him.
He swung the bat.
Reflexes hammered into me by Stokes's hand to hand escrima drills took over. I took the bat from him and left him standing there staring at his hands.
Part of me wanted to burst into tears and beg him not to hurt me any more as he flushed with rage and swung at me.
The bat stayed in my off hand as I caught his fist.
His brain hadn't caught up with just how much things had changed. His eyes widened when I tightened my grip. Years of hard work out at Atlas, constant PT, and hard living had made me much stronger than the 8 year old boy he was used to.
His knuckles crunched as I increased the pressure. He grabbed my wrist and I squeezed harder.
"Lemme go, man, I didn't do nuthin' to you," he tried, then groaned as I increased the pressure, his knees buckling slightly.
I held up the baseball bat. "Just wanted to play ball with me?" I asked mildly.
That ugly part of me, the part that belonged out at Atlas or following Stillwater into a firefight, urged me to smash his face in with that bat.
Instead, I just dropped it.
"Stay away from me," I told him. I shoved at his hand and, off balance, he stumbled back slightly. I stepped back over his idiot friend, who was still holding onto his bloody face. The first one who had gone at me was using the fender of the shitty Firebird to pull himself up. "I don't want any trouble, but that doesn't mean I can't handle any that you three throw my way."
The guy holding his face started crying. I glanced at one leaning against the fender of the Firebird and he flinched back, holding up shaking hands coated in blood from his smashed nose. When I looked back at the one who had been holding the bat, he stepped back, his sallow face paling even further.
The anger inside of me collapsed, leaving that singing empty spot inside of me again.
"Just leave me alone," I said, turning around and opening my car door. I got in, fired it up, and went to pull out.
The guy picked up his bat, throwing it at my car. It bounced off the grill and he ran in front of my car, putting his hands on the hood. I resisted the urge to floor it, to run him over, feel the hatchback bounce as it rolled the tires over his screaming body...
My mouth tasted sour.
He moved over to my window, smiling. A twisted, evil smile that I remembered seeing more than once on his face as my father brought me into the front room wearing only my pajama bottoms, my father's hand tight around my neck.
"Your little girlfriend might not want trouble either, but she might have found it," He told me.
The urge to get out of the car and stomp him into screaming, crying bloody paste roared up in me.
But fear for Aine smothered it, the singing emptiness inside of me expanding, making it so that each beat of my suddenly hammering heart physically hurt.
I jammed down the gas pedal and was doing fifty by the time I saw my house.
And the beat up blue Mustang in the driveway.