Down the Rabbit Hole, Chapter Seven
Sometimes you just have to feel sorry for Simon.
Chp 1
Chp 2
Chp 3
Chp 4
Chp 5
Chp 6
He landed facedown in dirt and leaves, arms covering his head, neurons simultaneously screaming at him to run and holding him unmoving, until the shooting ceased as suddenly as it had started. Simon looked up cautiously.
“He’s outta ammo,” Mal whispered. He was crouched on Simon’s side of the hovercraft, which now sat on the forest floor. “You got that gun?”
“Yes,” Simon answered, pulling the pistol from his waistband.
“Keep it out, and make for the house when I start firing. Use it if you need to. Don’t stop ‘til you’re behind those walls.”
“What about you?”
“Oh, I’m right behind you. I got no desire to linger.” Mal shifted position away from the hovercraft. “Can’t have that Cortex link getting shot up,” he explained. “Ready?”
Simon glanced ahead through the dark woods. The clearing was some hundred-plus yards distant. He bowed his head and readied himself to run.
“Go now!”
He sprinted for the house as gunfire started again behind him, first Mal’s revolver, then the rapid answer of the reloaded automatic weapon. He forced himself not to look back but raced on, branches slapping his face and snagging at his shirt and trousers, and a new worry occurring to him.
Fo zu, please let the house be empty.
He tightened his grip on the gun as he broke from the trees and sprinted across the yard, slowing only slightly as he leapt up bowed wood steps to a sagging back porch, and---oh, lao tian bu.
The door was ajar.
Simon ducked back in the shadows against the house, his mind racing. A trap? Had they been tracked? From their wave? Had they been herded here? Behind him the firing had again stopped, and he strained without luck to hear any sound from within the house, from the treeline, from anywhere. Where the hell was Mal?
An enraged yell sounded from the woods, and a new eruption of gunfire forced his decision.
Don’t stop til you’re behind those walls.
Leading with his gun, Simon slipped inside the door.
He nearly fell as he skidded on something slick, just managing to catch himself on the doorframe. Shaking, he waited for his eyes to adjust, keeping the gun up although he was fairly certain the room was empty. But anyone in the house would be alerted now to his presence.
Gingerly he slid his foot along the floor, feeling something like mud beneath his sole. He pulled out the engineer’s flashlight and scanned the room, trying to force his nerves to settle. He was in a small kitchen, with an overpowering smell of mildew and decay. Thick sediment covered the floor. Water marks lined the walls. The house had clearly been flooded, and not long ago.
Simon saw no footprints in the muck, but recent events had left him wary of assumptions. He could wait, nerves on edge, to see if anyone approached him from outside of the house or within. Or he could find out for certain. Straightening, he wiped his hands on his shirt, adjusted his grip on the gun and flashlight, and proceeded down the hall.
Two empty rooms, presumably sitting and dining, were divided by a front door that hung wide open on broken hinges. The same muddy sediment covered the floors and the bottom steps of the narrow staircase, which Simon slowly ascended, ignoring the frantic protest of every instinct. He reasoned that it would be ridiculously easy for a gunman to shoot down on someone stupid enough to head up, but still he continued, trying to avoid creaks, expecting with each step to glimpse the rifle barrel that would end his life.
The shot never did come, and when he gained the landing he found, not assassins, he found more empty rooms. No furniture. Nothing on the walls. Only some worn window curtains, long-faded from their original pattern, testified to anyone having lived here. He had just lowered his arms and permitted himself to breathe when the chatter of an automatic rifle sounded outside.
Darting to a broken window, Simon tried to make out the action below. Muzzle flash flared from the trees, followed by return fire from Mal, visible as sparks near the clearing. Simon rested his forearm on the windowsill and aimed toward the trees, thinking to provide cover. Before he could shoot, the auto weapon again raked the night. The captain cried out even as he fired back, and Simon could trace his dark form as he crumpled into the bushes at the edge of the yard.
Simon tore down the steps two apiece, only to skid on the slick bottom treads, crashing hard on his side. It was a full minute before he could draw a proper breath and regain his feet, using the wall for support as he scrambled to the back door.
Outside, it was disturbingly quiet once more as Simon hid in the shadows, adjusting his orientation from the second story height to the flat ground before him. With just enough light and landmarks to guide him, he slipped off the porch, moving through the brush at a crouching run, painfully alert for noise from humans or hardware. He was halfway to where the captain had fallen when a figure emerged from the trees opposite, just at the spot where Simon had seen the automatic weapon fire.
Simon froze on one knee, his breath refusing to come, as the man advanced with a lopsided stagger. Coming to finish the captain off? Coming to hunt down Simon? The shadow figure lurched, but made steady forward movement. Closer to him. Closer to Mal.
Simon felt the gun in his hands, felt the weight. Extended his arms. Took aim at the man approaching him. Watched him. Watched him.
You’ve done this before.
Watched him.
Not with this certainty. Not in this quiet.
Watched him. The man didn’t see him. Simon’s shot would be a surprise.
Watched him.
At any moment the face would be visible. Better not to see it. Better not to risk the familiar features of a boyhood friend. Better to shoot now. Shoot him.
Shoot him.
Shoot him.
Shoot him!
And he fired.
You might want to take a minute before you continue to
Chapter Eight.