Mack handed Scott his binos. “They don’t seem to have much. I wouldn’t be that concerned with these guys,” he commented.
“Maybe so. Let’s get a count for anything here that might tell us something,” Nelson said.
“Look, look. Someone’s coming out of the trailer,” Mack said.
The front door of the old trailer opened. One of the scraggly-haired men from the other day stepped out. From his swagger, it was clear that he was intoxicated. He slipped on the snowy ground and landed on his hip, yelling out something unintelligible. Picking himself off the ground, he raised his middle finger to the trailer.
The door opened again and a woman who was wearing nothing more than a towel tossed out his jacket. She too yelled something, then slammed the door.
The man walked back, picked up his jacket, then walked back over to the trailer, unzipped his pants, and began to urinate on the side of the trailer.
“Who needs TV? This looks like one of those reality shows you used to be able to watch,” Mack joked.
The woman opened the door again but this time she threw what appeared to be empty beer bottles at him. The two exchanged loud words, then she slammed the door shut. The man then stumbled up to the main house and knocked. Truman opened the door a crack. The two men talked for a second before Truman opened the door fully and allowed the other man to come in.
“Nelson, these guys don’t look like much of a threat. They look like a bunch of drunks,” Scott quipped.
“Maybe you’re right,” Nelson responded. He surveyed the property and saw several trucks, but they seemed like they hadn’t been driven in months, covered with garbage and snow. From the looks of it, these people didn’t have any form of transportation beyond their own two feet.
“Well, I’ve seen enough,” Scott said, then scooted away from the top of the hill.
Mack followed suit and asked Nelson, “You coming?”
“You guys go on ahead, I’m going to stay for a bit longer to see if we might have missed something.”
“Suit yourself, man,” Mack said. “Just watch your back.” He and Scott soon took off down the hill and were gone.
Nelson was shivering now. He disliked the Idaho winters, with their cold and very short days. The sun was already making its approach toward the western horizon, and it was only a little after three p.m. The frozen ground was sucking what warmth he had out of his body, and his damp clothes were starting to freeze over. But he had a gut feeling that there was something more to this group, something more insidious. Truman’s words sat uncomfortably with him—it seemed more like a promise for revenge than the hollow threat that Mack and Scott had assumed it was. He couldn’t sleep well at night knowing these guys were over here, and so he wanted to gather as much information as possible. Unfortunately, even with the extra time, nothing significant happened. He could see movement inside the house, but nothing telling. He stayed for as long as he could, but when he started to shake, he knew it was time to go. He inched his way down the hill, stood up, and made his way back.
On his long trek back to the community, Nelson dwelled some more on the situation. If they didn’t have operational vehicles, they soon would be limited by how far they could go and would run low on supplies. If he were Truman, he thought, he would look at Eagle’s Nest as a nice place to get resupplied and to steal a vehicle or two. Nelson thought that would be the way to convince the others that an attack would be necessary. It was better to be safe than sorry, in his eyes.
As he walked back, the chill in his body became increasingly worse and he feared he was experiencing the beginning stages of hypothermia. He tried to keep his mind occupied with thoughts about a potential attack.
At one point, deep in the thought about the logistics of his plan, he laughed aloud. It hit him just how strange everything was now. If he had a time machine and went back only a few months ago and told himself that he’d be living in Idaho, looking after his best friend’s wife and kid, and that he would soon be leading an assault with the intent of killing people, he’d tell himself to go fuck off. Hell, if he had a time machine, he’d even probably even punch his future self because he would have mistaken himself for a crazed bum, what with his shaggy hair and unshaved face.
He stopped at the hill where Raymond used to do his peeping-tom act and watch Samantha. It was a perfect view of their house, and the thought of this creep peering in filled him with a new rage. He thought of Gordon and how he would react if he knew some guy had been staring at his wife that way, and laughed at the thought. He knew Gordon, and, to put it mildly, he would not tolerate that sort of behavior.
The back door of the house opened, then closed, the sound echoing off the valley below. He saw little Haley running ahead of Samantha. It was time to feed Macintosh. He smiled, seeing the two of them together. It was clear that their relationship was slowly on the mend, as Samantha was much more affectionate and attentive. The attack had really jolted her to reality.
He wasn’t sure how Samantha would respond to his plan. Until he could get a good feel for how the others would react, he figured it was better not to say a word. He headed toward the warm house, mind swimming.
Gordon had progressed only a few feet down the hallway as he stopped to shoot any adults who presented themselves. By his rough count he had put down five people. From the sound of shooting behind him, Rubio had also entered a target-rich environment. Lexi had taken a knee across the hallway from him, but Gordon’s swift action with the rifle was not leaving her much to shoot at.
Gordon wasn’t sure who he’d shot so far. While the desire to take Rahab’s life with Gunny’s knife existed in his mind, the reality of their situation trumped that fantasy. If Rahab took a bullet, so be it. It was better to see him dead than to face enemy fire.
It took Gordon minutes before something clicked. No one was watching the stairwell door. “Shit,” he thought to himself. There was no room for those sort of messy errors, not with the type of manpower they had.
“I need you to watch the door to the stairs!” he ordered Lexi.
“No, you do it! Let me in on the action!” she yelled back.
“Goddamn it! Rubio, I need you back down here to watch the door!”
Rubio heard him and obliged. He stepped backward until he took up a position watching the door and hall.
“We need to go room to room!” Gordon barked.
Lexi listened, but took off without a plan. She walked up to the first door and kicked it. The door didn’t move, so she kicked it again. Still no give. She tried several more times but the door would not break open. She let out a frustrated yell.
Gordon walked up and was ready to kick it, but before he could, a shower of bullets flew out the door. One hit his cut through the fleshy portion of his left thigh. He yelled out in pain.
Lexi returned fire until she emptied a full thirty-round magazine into the room. The room fell quiet.
“Fuck, that hurts!” Gordon cried out. He could feel warm blood running down his leg. He knew that the hit wasn’t life-threatening, but it was painful.
“You good?” she asked.
“This isn’t going to work. There’s got to be three dozen rooms up here. His reinforcements have to be coming.”
“Suggestions?”
“We need someone to tell us where he is. I should’ve grabbed that girl. Fuck.”
Lexi didn’t hesitate; she walked away, opened the door to the stairs, and disappeared.
“Rubio, how’s your ammo?” Gordon asked.
“All good, eight more mags. You?”
“About the same,” Gordon said hoarsely. He grimaced from the pain.
“Are you okay, buddy?” Rubio asked.