Page 83 of Purgatory
Oh well. C’est la vie. At least we went out with a bang. Literally. The bad guys were definitely no more and Aly would be safe. Job well done. Time for a drink in Valhalla.
The darkness that had overtaken my senses starts to wane, and in its place, a pounding headache, tinnitus and pain spanning the entire length of my back begin to take over.
Jesus…I’m gonna need just a bit more than simple Ibuprofen and new socks to fix myself after this...
I take my time, stretching and counting each of my digits, first my fingers, then my toes, wiggling them in my boots. All good so far. I slowly move my jaw and assess my breathing. There’s no wheezing and I can’t feel any sharp pain anywhere, just the dull throb of massive, developing bruises everywhere.
Opening my eyes, it takes a second or two to get them to focus properly but once they do, I see the plume of smoke rising above us. Well, that’s that then. The house is gone and it’s time for us to move on. The end of an era, I guess. One that I’m perfectly fine with, to be honest, now that our new era includes Aly. I can't wait to get her back in my arms and confirm that she’s safe.
These past days were just too much. Jax leaving, Aly sneaking out, her kidnapping, the rescue and now this? I’ve, officially, had enough. When we make it back to Aly, I’m gonna suggest the beach. Hell, a fucking island in the middle of nowhere will do. It’s not like we have any responsibilities or even a home to return to now. We deserve a vacation and I, for one, choose a beach with mai tais and margaritas and ... ah shit...
Note to self: find more booze... asap. Tell… no one... except maybe Aly ‘cause she deserves a drink after all this bullshit too.
After about a minute or two of static silence, I think it’s safe to say that the interlopers didn’t survive. There aren’t any sounds, that I can hear, other than the crackling of the raging fire and the occasional muffled moan coming from the two walking penises located somewhere to my left and right. Thank God. I really didn’t want to have to fight anymore at the moment.
I roll onto my side and see Jax flat on the ground. Sadie’son top of him with her head on his chest, keeping a look out like a good pup. I call out quietly to see if he’s responsive.
“Jax...”
No response…
“Jax…” I say a little louder but still he doesn’t respond.
Oh wait, that’s right. Fucking grenade. Dude’s probably temporarily deaf from the blast.
I move a little bit closer and nudge his shoulder with my fist. It takes a few seconds but eventually his eyes blink open a couple of times and his breath hitches before he turns my way, one hand curling into a fist while the other pulls his knife from his belt. When he sees its just me, he visibly relaxes and nods in my direction but keeps his knife wielded just in case. Good. He’s ok. He’s even started rolling and checking his feet and legs while reaching his arms up to pet Sadie.
Cognition and motor functions good. On to the fire chicken...
“Hawk?” No answer. I turn over, slowly. The pain in my back becoming more and more annoying. The ringing in my ears is just as aggravating but nothing I can’t deal with for now. I find Hawk next to me, also on his back like Jax was. I call out again but I’m not surprised when I receive no response again since none of us can hear for shit right now. It’s all just muffled nonsense, almost like you’re under water.
I make my way over to him, low crawling on the ground the few feet to where he’s laid out like a starfish. His eyes are closed but thankfully I can see his chest rising and lowering so he’s still breathing. He must have gotten knocked out like the rest of us. Other than the lack of consciousness, I don’t see any other injuries on him so we’ll just have to wait until he wakes up or carry his unconscious ass down the trail. Personally, I’m hoping for the former.
“Hawk ok?” I hear Jax ask as I turn away from Hawk and settle down again to nurse my own injuries. Consistent with my earlier evaluation of myself, I think I lucked out and just have a shit ton of bruises. Nothing seems out of place or hurt worse when I moved so that’s good. Jax, on the other hand, sounds like a damn glowstick with the number of bones he’s cracking back into place.Damn…
“Yea, just knocked out like we were. Possibly concussed. I’m not sure if his back is jacked up, though, so I left him alone since he was breathing just fine. Seeing as we’re probably the only ones left alive here, I’d say we just wait for him to wake up. I mean, unless you want to carry him back cause I’m in no shape to do so. Thanks for that, by the way. Next time, let’s work on kill zone dynamics prior to using the boom boom sticks, ok? They were a little too effective this time around.”
“Fuck off, did you not see the fucking grenade being thrown at us?” Jax grunts. I turn my head toward his, showing my widening smile and seeing his reflecting the same sentiment. Fuck, we were both just happy to be alive. We only needed the third musketeer to get his ass into gear so we could get this show on the road.
While we wait, my thoughts inevitably turn to Aly. I can’t keep my mind off of her, wondering if she made it to the bug-out house safely. I didn’t get to see her take off to the lake or the flare that said she made it to the boat and was on her way, but the plan went off as it should so I can only assume her end of the plan worked out ok.
It was a risk, letting her go by herself, but I understood the justification. We three were a team. Always have been and always will be. We worked best when we were together. If you took one of us out of the equation, the entire operation would suffer. A normal fire team consisted of four people so we were already working with bare bones as it was. But Aly is strong and without the dangers that Earl’s crew posed, she shouldhave been able to steer the boat down the lake and walk the rest of the way to Jax’s secondary place without much trouble. Granted there weren’t any hordes that way. But we had to trust that Aly could take care of herself if it came to that. She survived months on her own, traveling through every type of village, town, city and state. A couple of hours on her own, while we took care of the imminent danger here, should have been a cake walk for her.
Note to self: Aly deserves to get some cake too. Not sure how that’s gonna happen but she deserves it nonetheless.
A noise in the tree line catches my attention. Jax must have heard it too because he readies his knife once again, looking in the direction the sound came from. Neither of us makes any sudden moves, not wanting to attract any attention to ourselves in case anyone else did survive and is hiding in wait for us now. I slowly reach my hand down to do the same when I hear more sticks breaking but it’s not the sound that has the hair on my arms and the back of my neck rising... it’s the smell.
I punch Jax in the arm to get his attention. “The horde” I whisper to Jax, hoping he can read lips well enough to get the meaning behind them. “The fire and smoke must have drawn them to us. Fuck. Masks!”
We both pull up our filtered gaiters from our necks. I creep over to Hawk and lift his as well before lying back down. Luckily, we always have them on just in case. Ever since we found out that the disease could be spread by airborne transmission, they became part of our regular attire, as well as Aly’s when she joined our band of misfits.
Time seems to drag on at a snail’s pace but we all stay put on the ground, even Sadie, lying flat on Jax’s chest while he whispers under his breath to her, keeping to his commands to stay down.
The horde is huge. They surround our position but thankfully they don’t get close enough to be able to see us. A couple dozen go past but unfortunately, this was far from over. We’re trapped. We can’t risk getting up and moving since that would draw attention to us and have the entire band of them up our asses. No. We needed to wait it out. Aly would be fine in the meantime.
“A spoon full of your pussy make the medicine go down, sweetheart. Come ‘ere and gimme some sugar.”
I bite my lip to keep myself from leaping onto Hawk and shutting down his horny ass before he got us all killed. Instead, I graze my arm across the ground to where he laid, close enough to poke his arm and wake him up.
