The Unknown - Chapter 9d by nova

Chapter 9d

First I went and retrieved the lance and it was a bitch to get out. Definitely a one shot weapon. I ended up having to roll him over on his stomach and slide him down the length of the shaft to get it loose. It had a wicked piece of steel on the end that looked freshly forged. All the cool feathers fell off though in doing that or ended up lodged in his lungs or somewhere.

I had to wipe the shaft off with his shirt and it was going to require further cleaning later. Then again it might be a decent stain, kind of redwood looking and all. I was laughing to myself over that when Ty yelled out, "Got a live one here Gardener!"

"How live is that?"

Ty looked at me puzzled, I added, "Does he got another 30 minutes or more left?"

He looked down at the survivor who all I could see of was a leg. My guess was he got pinned when his horse went down.

"Oh yeah. At least."

"Make sure he doesn't have a weapon, then finish the horses and take of Grandmother. I'll be over in a few."

I worked real hard at keeping my voice level and the irritation out of it. "Fucking rookies" is what I thought. It had been a while since I had worked with people who were this clueless about the basics. I started checking bodies to make sure they were dead using the same method I had used since the beginning. The lance made it easier, I leaned on it and kicked them in the head. I left the pat down and weapons collection for later, I wanted to make sure I talked to the survivor. No one else was alive. I would have been pissed if they had been.

Ty and Kat were hovering over Grandmother, they couldn't figure out how they were going to dig a hole. Yeah. Rookies. I could hear them arguing over who was going to walk back to the truck to get the shovel as I walked over to say hello to my new friend.

I sat down on the haunch of the horse that had him pinned. Their horses weren't all that big which was fine because none of these guys had been very big either. They were all post PowerDown born except for two of them. The young ones coming up were kind of on the scrawny side compared to the males who were grown, or were close to it, when the economy tanked. This was one of the older ones. I was glad. They cracked easier then the young ones I had found.

"How ya doing there?" I asked him.

"Hows it look asshole. I got a dead horse on my leg."

"Bet that hurts."

He was doing a pretty good job of eating the pain but it hurt, I could see it in his eyes.

"Yeah. Want to get it off me."

"No. Not really."

His eyes narrowed. "So you're really Gardener."

"Yep."

"You'll be dead soon."

I laughed. "Right. Well you'll be dead sooner."

"I'm not afraid of dying." He sounded like he meant it too.

"That's nice." I told him. Then I reversed the lance and drove the head into his stomach and pulled it back out.

He yelped, just a small little yelp, then groaned and grabbed at his gut. Blood was already starting to darken his shirt.

"I'm not going to kill you right away. I'll just leave you out here for the buzzards and maybe the coyotes. You have wild dog packs around here? Yes, I believe you do."

He called me a mean name. I laughed.

"So...want to hear my deal?"

He didn't respond. Well, he snarled but technically I didn't consider that a proper response.

"Okay. You talk to me and I put one in your head if I'm satisfied. If not? I leave you."

Much to my delight a coyote pack started singing. His unease over hearing this was palatable.

"You're really an asshole Gardener" he told me through gritted teeth.

"Yeah. So I've been told."