With a bit of liquid courage resting in his belly, Nealson once again turned his attention to his wound. The bullet had passed through cleanly, tearing apart muscle and ligament but missing bone entirely. The blood flow had mostly stopped, too, and he gently prodded the wound to see if he could feel any fragments of the bullet at either side. A fresh dribble of blood and another wave of pain made him pull back sharply and he sighed, turning his attention back to the boxes.
“She couldn’t have used up all the bandages.” Nealson mumbled to himself while digging through the boxes, growing more impatient until he finally found a sealed package of gauze. He tore it open with his teeth and divided it across both sides of the wound before taking the remnants of a roll of duct tape from the floor and taping it down to keep it in place. A long, thin towel was quickly fashioned into a makeshift sling and within half an hour of arriving back at the community center he was sitting on a stool, eating cold canned corn with the edge of a knife blade while wondering what to do next.
“Boss?” A voice called from outside, and Nealson froze up for half a second before recognizing the voice and relaxing.
“Get in here.” He answered back before taking another bite. A moment later a pair of faces peeked through the front door.
“Boss? What… what happened here?” The pair entered the community center, eyes wide at the sight of the bloody pile of bandages, the general state of disarray and a
t Nealson sitting with his arm in a sling.
“She happened. Her and that family of hers.”
“Where’s everyone else?”
“Dead. All of ‘em.”
One of the pair shook his head. “We saw a couple bodies out front but didn’t think… how’d you stay alive, boss?”
“Luck and skill.” Nealson took a last bite before tossing the can to the floor. He wiped the knife clean on his pant leg before standing up and slipping it back into his pocket. “Where’s the truck?”
“Down the road. Things looked off so the boys stayed with it while we came up to take a look.”
“Good thinking. Signal them; tell ‘em to get up here.” One of the pair nodded and ran out the front of the building while Nealson addressed the other. “What’d you bring back?”
“Couple bags of meds—the good stuff—more ammo, a few guns, a couple water purifiers and a bunch of boxes of food. Mostly canned stuff. Oh, and seeds. Enough to start growing some food…” he paused. “I guess we’ll need to find some new labor to work on that, huh?”
“Nah.” Nealson shook his head. “We don’t need new ones. There’s still a few perfectly good ones. They just up and ran off is all.” The sound of a truck engine came from down the road, and the other man walked back through the door.
“They’re coming up, boss.”
“Good. As soon as they’re here I want something to deal with the pain from this, then I want a full stock of our weapons and ammo.”
“Boss,” the first man replied, “you want to go after them again?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?” Nealson nearly growled at the pair.
“Because they nearly killed you, and took out everyone else. Maybe we should just leave them alone.”
The pain all but vanished as Nealson felt the rage rising up in his gut. Even in his weakened and wounded state he was still a force to be reckoned with, and he demonstrated that for the man who was talked to him. Two steps forward were followed by a powerful right hook, catching the man in the jaw and sending him spinning around as he toppled to the floor. Nealson towered over the man while the other one slowly backed up, silently wishing he could somehow melt into a wall and disappear.
“What did you say to me?!” Nealson bellowed at the man on the floor. “I don’t just leave someone alone! They killed my men, they shot me and you want me to just leave them alone?!”
The man on the floor clutched his jaw, slurring his words as he tried to speak. “Bossh, I di’n’t mean…”
“You didn’t think! That’s what you didn’t do! I don’t back down, so neither do any of you!” Nealson kicked the man savagely in the stomach, making him cry out in pain.
“Boss, what’re you—” The rest of the group from the truck walked into the community center to see Nealson standing over the man on the floor. He looked up at them with fire in his eyes.
“Get everything ready for an assault! And the next one to argue with me gets a bullet in between the eyes!”
Chapter 8
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“I’ll never get used to this.” Commander Palmer’s unusually candid confession surprises both Ted and Jackie.
“Get used to what?” Ted wonders.