As before, a rough first draft. Be generous.
Chapter 21
Barbara woke
up with the sun in her eyes. She’d gone
to sleep without closing the curtains, like she normally did.
Why’d I do that? She wondered. Did I hit the sauce last night?
A bolt of
pain up her leg brutally reminded her of what had happened. She groaned and rolled out of bed. She tested her footing. The leg was swollen. She could feel the pounding of her pulse, and
it was painful, but she used the trick she had learned of pretending the pain
was happening to someone else and stood up.
She fell
back into bed with a cry.
She
immediately pushed herself up and tried again.
This time she’d stayed standing.
Now if
rampaging swine weren’t surrounding her house, she probably would have allowed
herself bed rest. But these were no
ordinary pigs. She’d seen that look in
the smart one’s eyes. The mean one. Unless she missed her guess, he was probably
trying to figure out how to get in.
She made it
the bathroom and too a pain pill. Just
one, because she wanted to be alert.
It was time
for her to figure out what her vulnerabilities were.
She hobbled
into the living room, and immediately saw the giant cracks. She had an old plate glass window, illegal
now. But it seemed to her the glass was
clearer than shatter glass and she’d connived to get some installed. No one could get around the law better than a
career law enforcement officer. Which
why some of them became corrupt.
Her ethical
failures were small ones, petty ones.
One more
blow -- however they’d managed that -- and that window was going down. She went to the garage and started hauling
the scrap lumber into the living room.
She had just enough to cover the picture window but that wouldn’t take
care of the smaller windows.
She pulled
one of her picture frames out of the wall.
The backing was plastic. Strong
enough to hold out for a short time.
Better than nothing.
She got to
work. The more she hobbled about, the
more functional her leg became. She’d no doubt pay the price tonight, but it
needed to be done.
By the time
she was finished, her house looked half empty.
Much of the wood furniture had been broken apart. The pictures on the walls. The bookshelves.
It looked
like the insides of the house had exploded and attached themselves to the walls
and windows. But it looked pretty secure
to her. The little monsters would
probably be able to get in eventually, but not all at once and she still had
thirty-six bullets.
She went to
the closet and pulled out her leather jacket.
The electricity had gone off during the night, but despite the
sweltering heat, she put the jacket on.
Then, as long as she was being silly, she pinned her old badge in its
old spot.
Now she was
ready.
She poured
herself a stiff drink and sat down and waited.
***
A crash woke
her up. It had come from the bedroom.
She hadn’t
planned it, but in addition to her gun, she reached over to the magnetic knife
rack and picked the biggest knife she had.
A pig had
managed to get its head through one of the wooden slats she’d nailed across the
window. He was squealing, unable to get in or out.
She examined
it for a few moments. Just a pig, one of
the dumb ones. She ran the blade across
its throat, and the squealing was muted and then silenced. She left the head hanging there.
“Next?” she
called out. “Which one of you bastards
wants it next? How about your
leader? Is he too much of a coward?”
I’m off my
rocker, she thought. It wasn’t the
danger; that was making her feel alive.
No, it was the loneliness. That’s
why she was having a conversation with pigs.
“Come and
get it, you little bastards. Come on!”
There was a
thump in the living room and she turned and strode purposefully toward the
sound. A smaller pig had squeeze through
a gap, but a bigger pig was still trying to get in.
She pulled
the gun and shot the one running around the living room. Then she walked over and slit the throat of
the bigger one. Again she left it
hanging.
That’s one
way to fill the gaps, she thought, and giggled.
Yep,
completely off my bonkers.
And then
they were trying to come in from every direction and she was too busy to giggle
or tell herself she was nuts. Too busy
killing.
By
nightfall, she was covered with blood.
Almost too late it occurred to her that she had no light. She managed to find time between battles to
search for her old flashlight. She found
it with the rest of her police stuff in the closet. It still had strong batteries, and its heft
was reassuring. She’d never actually had
to wield it in action and she had always been curious. She slammed it against the next intruder, and
it had landed with a satisfying thud, and it still shone bright.
Not bad, she
thought. Again she chuckled, and that’s
when she knew the frequency of attacks was diminishing. She was finding time for thought, for humor.
She found some candles and lit them in every room, well away from the
walls. She always had the fixings of a
fire in the fireplace, though she almost never lit it even in the coldest
winter nights. (Which by Crook County standards, wasn’t cold at all.) She hated cleaning it up afterwards, but she
liked the look and smell of the wood.
She took
some papers off the table, and set them on fire. (Wait, wasn’t that her driver’s license renewal? Oh, well.
She’d be lucky to be alive, much less driving around.)
The fire was
soon roaring, and it was atavistically satisfying. The attacks came less and less, almost as if
good old-fashioned fire was driving them away.
She checked her watch and was astonished that both the day and the
following night were almost over. She’d
been besieged for almost a full day.
Boar heads
stuck out of every wall, as if she was some kind of mad great white hunter.
“Bwana,” she
said, out loud.
She heard a
scream from outside. It sounded like the
most pissed off animal she’d ever heard.
Surprisingly human sounding.
And somehow,
she knew she’d won. That the enemy was
giving up. That his dumber followers
were defying the leader.
She checked
her ammo.
And she
still had five bullets.
