Gunslingers #5, May 2 2011

The Gunslingers #5: Jace and The Flame Bringer

“That is something…” I say, looking at the two storey building with the words Bobby Joe’s Family Gun Emporium written above the front door. “Can you call it an Emporium if it’s that small?”

            “I’m pretty sure the definition of an emporium is; a large retail store, most likely containing a large variety of articles.” Saul says that as if he’s reading from a dictionary. We all laugh except Annie, who just fidgets uneasily.

            “So by no means is it an emporium at all?” Alex says, rubbing her forehead.

            “Nope.” I say and we all chuckle a little. It’s nice, being able to let loose. “Let’s go look around.”

            As expected, most of the guns are taken. Saul finds a couple boxes of shells for his shotgun which disappear mysteriously into one of his coat pockets, and Annie finds a slightly larger pistol which uses the same ammunition as her pistol. I look over at Alex and see that she is taking a legitimate quiver off of a mannequin decked out in cameo. She counts out the arrows she now has and I count with her. Twenty-three. That should help. There’s another bow, a little lower-end than Alex’s, but she decides to give it to Annie and promises to teach her how to shoot.

            “What do you think’s upstairs?” Annie’s standing in front of a small door, hand on the knob.

            “It’s probably where this Bobby Joe guy lives. Think he’s home?” Annie twists the knob and the door creaks open. “I guess we’ll find out.”

            The four of us file up into the small apartment to find… nothing. The four of us stand flabbergasted in the smallest apartment I’ve ever seen, almost completely stripped bare of anything. There is a small fridge, a bed, a table, and a small washroom.

            “I guess Bobby Joe’s emporium down there didn’t do so well,” Alex looks around, trying and failing to find anything interesting about the apartment. “This place is boring.”

            I walk over to the bed and see something poking out from under it. “Look,” I say aloud, “It’s a camcorder.” I hold up the small black video recorder and everyone gathers around and I flip the camera open. “Wow, there are a lot of videos on here.”

            “Go to the first one.” Saul says with a nod. I navigate to the first video and we watch as it plays on the small screen.

           

            “My name is Bobby Joe Williams,” The fat man in the plaid shirt says on the screen, “and I’m here to give you the gun advice you need in the event of a terrorist attack.” The way he’s speaking sounds almost as if he’s trying very hard to be articulate. “This first video is just an introduction, so you know, and I know what we’re dealing with. These foreigners wanna’ take our dag’on country? Not If I’ve got anything’ ta say about it!” Bobby Joe salutes the screen and it goes blank.

            “Well that was… interesting,” Saul says, “some poor redneck who owns a gun store planned to give the whole country advice on how to use guns to save us from terrorists? Wow.”

            “Here,” I hand the camcorder to Alex, “put this in your bag, we may need it later.” She nods and takes it from me. Everyone turns to leave, but I feel like I’m missing something. We didn’t look somewhere. I go down on my knees and feel around under the bed. My hand nicks a small metal box and I pull it out.

            “What’s that, Jace?” Annie asks.

            “I don’t know,” I put the box up on the bed and flip the latches open. The lid of the box slowly slides open to reveal a note, written by our friend Bobby Joe, and two silver-plated Desert Eagles. I read the note first.

            These guns have been my babies for a long time, ever since Nam’ I’d say. But I don’t need them now. I’m going somewhere the sun don’t shine, where these freaks can’t get to me. If you’re reading this, than my store is probably empty and useless, but hopefully you can take these guns and save yourself, and maybe others. Pray for my soul, traveler, that’s all I ask. You can have these two Desert Eagles, but please, put me in your prayers. Lord knows we could all use some salvation. God bless.

            I pick up the guns, one in each hand. They were sitting in a holder that can attach to your belt on the back, making each gun easy to draw. The guns are both heavy, but  I can still hold one in each hand. I imagine firing one, the bullets exploding out of the chamber and landing in some unsuspecting Rager’s chest.

            “I think those are for you, Jace.” Alex says, breaking my train of thought.

            “Well, we can spilt them up, I mean…”

            “No really,” Saul interrupts me. “We all have decent weapons, but you have that stupid hunting rifle. Take the pistols, man.” I nod, a smile creeping up on my face. It feels like Christmas. I attach the holster to my belt and put the guns in their right spot. I pick up the box by the inside, but instead of the box lifting, just the inside part goes, revealing a false bottom. “Holy shit!” Saul says, looking down into the box. Inside are two boxes of ammo for the pistols and a small package labelled C4.

            “Plastic explosives?” I say aloud, looking at the small package.

            “Do you know how to use that?” Saul asks, clearly interested.

            “Yeah, they trained us how to use them when I was overseas.” I say, looking at the familiar package. I’ve held larger explosives than this before, but for some reason this one feels more important. I put it in my bag alongside the bullets.

            “You were in the military?” Annie asks.

            “Yeah, a long time ago.” I say, dropping it. “Let’s get out of here.” The other three nod in agreement and we head back down the stairs.

            “I told the commander that this place would be empty, but he said that The Holy Father commanded it.” Says a burly looking bald man in a tight fitting white dress suit. The man he’s facing, also wearing a white suit, runs a hand through his short blonde hair. “They never listen to us!”

            “That’s because we’re the grunts, Frank. If we had The Radiance in us, then maybe they would give two shits.”

            “Who the hell are you?” I interrupt, one hand on my knife. “And what’s with the suits?” The two men look over, and that’s when I notice the large, medieval looking hammers they’re holding.

            “Looks like we may have some infidels on our hands, Arthur.” The bald man says to the blonde one. “Shall we bring our holy justice down upon them?”

            “Not these fucks!” I hear Saul say as the two men run towards us. We have them out numbered but one smack of a hammer sends Saul backwards into a shelving unit which collapses on top of him. I know Annie is too fragile to actually fight this close, so I move in front of her. I don’t know who they are but I assume there are more close by, so a gunshot would not be advisable. I move forward to intercept the blonde one, Arthur, before he gets to Annie, while Alex engages the bald one, Frank.

            I slash upwards at him, but his hammer catches my hand, sending huge waves of pain through every finger. The knife falls from my hand, but I can still feel my fingers, nothing’s broken. I close my sore hand into a fist and slam a hay-maker across the guys face, he jerks to the left and I follow his face with an upper-cut from my other hand. He staggers backwards but somehow regains his wits. My hands are sore, but this guy can keep fighting? He thrusts the hammer forwards and it causes a ripple of pain through my gut that drops me on my ass. The guy stands over me, Hammer raised above his head, ready to finish me. I reach as deep into myself as I can, trying to find any energy I have to get up, block the blow, dodge it. Anything.

            “May your judgement be swift, sinner.” He swings the hammer down just as I throw my hands out in front of me. I wave of heat brushes against my face as an inferno explodes from my hands and collides with my attacker’s chest. His hammer clatters to the floor as he flies across the store, landing in a heap by the entrance. I pick up the hammer and instantly it is covered with the unnatural looking red flames that are spewing out of my hands. He raises his head to look at me, and is met by the crushing power of the flaming weapon across his face. He slumps down, limp and motionless. I know he isn’t dead, but he won’t be getting up anytime soon.

            “Holy shit, Jace.” Saul says, I look over and see that he’s managed to push the broken shelves off of him. Alex is poking at her unconscious foe, and Annie is staring at me wide-eyed. “Did that actually just happen?”

            “What was that…?” I ask, not to anyone specifically.

            “You conjured fire, you actually created fire by will. It worked!” Saul has this big, shit-eating grin on his face, like he just saw his kid walk for the first time.

            “What worked, Saul?” Alex asks the question on everyone’s mind.

            “The Guardian F…” Saul’s interrupted by the sound of a shotgun blast outside. We all turn to look.

            “Disgusting Hell Spawn.” A large black man says as he walks into the gun shop. He loads another shell into a sawed off shotgun, painted white, with a large blade attached to the bottom of it. As he loads the shell, he says “What’s taking you two so long?” He looks up and sees the two men on the floor unconscious. He too is wearing a white suit with a black dress shirt underneath it. The difference between him and the other men, though, is the tie he’s wearing. The other two had thin black ties, whereas he has a long, white tie, with a golden cross on the tip. Also, on each wrist he has a bracelet made of five large, bright-white beads. Bellow his well-groomed, short, black hair is a black eye-patch with a golden cross on it.  “Who are you?” He yells, looking at each of us with his good eye.

            “We could ask you the same thing.” I say, wondering if I can still conjure fire or if that was more of a one off thing.

            “This is no good, The Holy Father did not wish for our presence to be known to other survivors yet. How…unfortunate.” I step forward to say something, revealing Annie who’d been hiding behind me. “You!” He bellows, pointing at Annie. He takes a step forward, and so do I.

            “I don’t know who you are, but you aren’t touching her!”  I can feel the heat flowing through my veins.

            “I don’t have time for you. Give me the girl.” He holds up his left hand, as if that would be enough to convince us.

            “I don’t know who you are, why you want Annie, or why you’re wearing that goofy-ass suit, but I’ll tell you one thing, asshole. We aren’t giving her to you.”

            “Then I shall take her.” One of the beads on his bracelet explodes, covering the room in a blinding white light. The fire leaves my veins, I feel fear. Fear of weakness, fear of blindness, fear of losing the fight. Fear of losing Annie.

            I regain sight for a second to see the one-eyed attacker walking out of the store with Annie over his shoulder. And then my legs collapse beneath me and I hit the floor with a loud thud.