The Broken and the Dead (Book 1) (42 page)

Tucker.

A second blast and another biker went down as he tried to back away from the ledge.

“COME ON!” I yelled.

I pulled the M-9 from the holster. The dumb ass bikers hadn’t even told me to take it out of the holster, of course maybe they didn’t have time. I started up the stairs, Karen behind me and I saw Tucker coming out of the woods on the far side of the drive. He had that big lever gun and smoke was coming from its barrel. Karen stopped and picked up a shotgun from the ground, it was weird looking with a top folding stock,

“How do you work this” she asked.

Tucker showed her a little lever or button or something on the side and how to pull the pump towards you and push it back to load a new shell. I stepped over the Fat Man’s intestines into the entry hall. Mrs. Livingston’s body looked small and broken on the floor in front of me, three holes in a line going across her chest. I felt bile and hatred for the killer and I swore I would have revenge. I looked further down and saw Mr. Lowe’s body, there was a single perfect hole in his forehead, he looked, well. Surprised. I hadn’t seen him firing but from the pile of empty casings around his body he had been very active in our defense before they got him. He died trying to protect the others, he died doing what he had to do. Tucker and Karen followed me in, I heard a scream from the kitchen and started that way but someone started shooting at me from the top of the stairs. I dove behind one of the couches and popped up to return fire. Karen fired the 12 gauge and she was knocked on her butt for the effort by the recoil. A man came out of the kitchen and he had me dead to rights but he was knocked down by a shot from Tucker, he had that damn .41 Colt in his hand and he headed into the kitchen; the swinging door going back and forth behind him.

Two more blasts from his revolver and then there was banging and clanging and crashing from in there. Again I started that way but yet another biker appeared at the top of the stairs, he w3asa bald and tall with a strange tattoo on his neck that looked like a blue bruise against his pale white skin. He was holding a pistol sideways like thugs do on TV, he looked like an idiot. It didn’t work, every time he fired he was further and further off target, which was fine since I was the target. He had never learned about weapon support it seemed. Apparently he didn’t even know to keep his wrist ridged so the pistol action could do its job because his weapon jammed. I raised my pistol, sight alignment, sight picture, center mass, double tap, and down he went. Just like that.

Tucker appeared at the door, he was bleeding from his right side but he still held his revolver in his right hand. Tucker nodded up the stairs and I started up them with Karen behind me and I could hear Tucker wheezing along behind. When we got to the landing I saw that the last biker I had shot wasn’t wearing any pants. Gross. He was still breathing but his eyes had that glazed over look, I didn’t waste a bullet. At the top of the stairs Karen turned right, I went left, I checked the rooms at my end but they were empty, when I turned back I saw Karen backing out of a room, a look of horror on her face. I started to run to her, she saw me coming and she quickly pulled the door shut.

“NO!” she yelled.

She turned me towards the door that led to the stairs to the roof.

“We have to find Lucy and Gina!” she yelled.

Tucker got to the door first having just made the landing.

              He pulled the door open from the side but no one shot down at us.  He looked over at Karen and motioned that he wanted the shotgun. She traded for his revolver and he said quietly,

“Two hands Karen, two hands, like I showed you.”

She nodded. Tucker started up the stairs when I heard a man call down to us.

“Mister? We are done OKAY?” another man’s voice said “Let us go and we promise we will not hurt the girls.”

A woman’s voice said “Damn right you won’t hurt these little girls” and I heard Lucy crying. Tucker looked back at me then shook his head no, but when he turned back to the voices from upstairs he said

“Alright, alright, how do we do this?”

              One of the men yelled down

“Lay down your guns and back out into the front yard!”

“Not a chance in Hell douche bag.” Tucker responded.

“How about this, you lay down your guns and we will let you go.”

There was a murmur of discussion and then

“No can do, brother”

“We gotta find another way.” the other man yelled down.

There was a moment then Tucker called back,

“First, you are not my brother, second I think we can do this. A little bit at a time, you send one guy out with a girl, when they are outside he waits. Then you send a second guy out, no kid, when is outside they let the little girl go.”

The woman’s voice finished the plan,

“When she is safe I come out with the last girl and when I am downstairs I let her go.”

Tucker added, “
Before
you touch the door. Agreed?”

              Again there was silence then one of the men yelled down that they agreed. Tucker stepped back and we made a path for them.

“Alright, we are ready.” Tucker yelled up.

A moment later a biker came down the narrow stairs, one arm around Gina, the other held a pistol. The biker was short and thin with a narrow face, he was trembling and I thought he might cry. We all pointed our weapons at him but didn’t fire. We watched him go all the way down the stairs and out the door.

“Okay, we are out.” he called up to the roof.

“No shit” said an annoying voice from the roof, “I can see you, you idiot.”

              A moment later a second biker appeared, Lucy nowhere in sight. He held his rifle pointed at the roof at first but when he saw we were targeting him he slowly responded. He backed down the stairs and joined the other guy, a moment later Gina came running up the stairs to us. Karen grabbed her and hugged her tight, she picked her up and went into her room.

“Okay, here I come.” said the woman.

I heard her reassure Lucy that everything was going to be okay that a deal was a deal. She started down the stairs I looked over to Tucker who mouthed to me

“Follow. Them. Down.” I nodded.

The woman had a tiny pistol, smaller than anything I had ever seen but she wasn’t pointing it at Lucy. She started down the stairs and I followed her, making sure that she heard me.

              “Okay let her go.” I said.

The woman turned and set Lucy down, she knelt in front of her and pulled Lucy’s hair out of her eyes.

“See honey, I told you it would be okay.”

She let Lucy run up the stairs to me and Lucy wrapped her arms around me. The woman said quietly “I’m sorry, really I am.”

And she stepped out the door. I heard a couple of the motorcycles start up then suddenly I heard rifle fire from the roof. It sounded like an M-4, just like mine, a .308. There were screams outside and then silence except for one of the motorcycles that continued to run. A moment later Tucker appeared from the roof, M-4 in his hands.

              “We had an agreement” I said.

He hobbled down the stairwell past me.

“I don’t make agreements with bastards who kill women and children.”

He stepped out the front door and I heard the rifle bark once more. I took Lucy upstairs, she was nearly hysterical and I called out to Karen. She appeared at the door of her and Kyle’s room and waved me to her. I picked up Lucy and we all gathered together. Gina was crying and was hiding under a blanket on Karen’s bed. I took Lucy over to the bed, Karen lifted the edge of the blanket and Lucy crawled under it to be with Gina. Karen let the edge of the blanket fall and she quickly grabbed me and pulled me into a hug but instead of comfort she wanted to whisper horrors into my ear. She told me that the bodies of both Jordan and Candace Hardy were in the room next door. It looked as if both had been raped and then strangled. Karen was trying not to cry but all she was able to do was keep it from boiling out of her, her chest heaved with sobs and I held her tight. A tiny voice screamed from under the blanket

“WHERE IS RONALD?”

I whispered that I would get it for her but Karen shook her head and nodded in the direction of the room next door. I sighed but slowly went to fetch my little sister’s friend:
Ronald the Bear
.

              I opened the door and cringed, the smells of feces and urine, body odor and blood hit me in the face like a hammer. I walked in and saw the body of a biker sitting in a chair in the corner, seven or eight tiny holes in him left trails of blood running down his shirt. Mrs. Hardy hadn’t gone quietly. Indeed there was the .22 caliber rifle laying on the ground. Mrs. Hardy’s body was on the bed, she was naked and obviously had been used, beaten, and strangled. She looked like she was looking off to one side where her daughters’ body lay. She too was naked and I felt sick. I vomited. Who could do that to a little girl? Who? What sort of animal, no, less than an animal, less than the
Before
up the hill in its cage. The thing that did this to a little girl was filth. They deserved to die, and die in agony. I hoped it was one I had shot. I hoped that he died slowly. I found the little stuffed bear and could not help myself. I hugged it like I had seen Lucy do so many times before, then I heard Lucy calling for him again. I set the bear down and picked up the little girl I laid her next to her mother, then I picked up a blanket from the floor and covered them both. I picked up the bear and went back into the hall pulling the door shut behind me. I saw Mr. Tucker sitting on the stairs, he was wrapping a bandage around his thigh over and over, another bandage already wrapped around his stomach.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

I couldn’t believe it of all the people here, Old Man Tucker had survived. He looked at me, sadness in his eyes,

“Yeah, I’ll live.”

He didn’t sound too happy about it.

              I nodded and started to go back into Karen’s room. “John” he called out.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Keep them in the room for a while okay? I’ll bring some food and drinks up in a while.”

He paused then added “I need to clean up a bit.”

I nodded and went back into Karen’s bedroom. Karen had joined the girls under the blanket so I did too. Karen had her arm around Gina and I mirrored her on the other side, I held Lucy close and as tightly as she held Ronald. I guess we were like that for 30 or 40 minutes when Gina asked

“Are we the only ones?”

Karen said that of course we weren’t but even if we were, she and I would always be there for them.

“Isn’t that right Johnny?” she said, begging me to agree.

I didn’t believe it, I didn’t believe in anything or anyone anymore but I couldn’t say that, not to Lucy, not to Gina, and certainly not to Karen.

“That’s right.” I said,

“We will always be here for you guys.”

“What about Mr. Tucker?” Lucy asked.

“Yeah, he’s here too, he’s going to bring us some food in a bit.” I said.

Gina cried and said that she wasn’t hungry and that she wanted her mommy. Karen kissed her and said that her mother and her sister were in Heaven, and that there was no one there who would hurt them ever again, that they would never be afraid, never be hungry again. Gina looked at her and asked in a trembling voice

“Can I go too?”

Karen looked at her and barely containing her own tears whispered,

“Not right now honey, not right now.”

              I heard things, bodies being dragged down the stairs, Tucker was treating them roughly and while I knew it wasn’t so, I prayed that it wasn’t the Hardys. Things were silent for a while and Gina and Lucy both went to sleep. I started to speak to Karen but she had fallen asleep as well. I was afraid to move, afraid I would wake them. Let them sleep a bit longer I thought. I heard the floor creak outside the door and Tucker’s heavy footsteps going back and forth outside our door. I wasn’t sure but I though I heard Tucker moan in pain when he went into the room next door. That at least I understood, that at least made me believe that Tucker was a human being after all.

              True to his word sometime later Mr. Tucker knocked gently at the door and entered carrying a tray of food. There were peanut butter sandwiches that had some kind of white goo in them. Pickles and canned pears, and several cans of soda pop, real soda pop. He sat on the edge of the bed.

“Kids, I brought some food.”

He said and he almost sounded kind. Gina and Lucy sat up and both looked frightened but when Lucy saw it was Tucker she launched herself at him and hugged him as hard as she could. He gently patted her back and while he didn’t say anything he did kind of hum some song, I didn’t recognize it but Lucy seemed to like it so I let it go without comment. After a moment Gina asked

“Mr. Tucker? Are they all dead? The bad men?”

Lucy let up a bit so that Tucker could answer.

“Yes, they are dead.” he said.

“All of them?” she asked, seeking reassurance.

“Yes, Gina, every single one.” in the way he said it I knew it to be true.