[Posted by Ted H]
Halfway to happy hour!
As I check in, halfway done with the NaNoWriMo challenge at the halfway point in the month, I look seductively at next week, where Ill have 3 WHOLE DAYS where I don't work. Thanksgiving and black friday are going to be murderous, so using those 3 WHOLE DAYS OFF to finally get a big lead are gonna be vital.
Current status of my 2014 NaNoWriMo: 20,070 / 50,000 (24,930 words to go!)
Current pace has me writing my 50,000th word on: November 30th
Joooooin us!
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[Race for Safe Haven - Return to the Scene]
Before he did anything, though,
Rhett decided he needed to lose the handcuffs. He sat down at the kitchen table
where he had left a pile of papers. Out of the pile he pulled out a paperclip.
"Doesn't look too hard," he said as he bent the paperclip a couple
times and inserted it into the cuff lock. It took a few tries but he was able
to pick it open and free his wrist. "Easy," he said triumphantly as
he rubbed his wrist and walked away, leaving the handcuffs.
He showered and changed,
sobering up as best he could. His cold was defiantly beginning to weigh on him,
but a few cold pills and another aspirin seemed to keep it at bay. He reasoned
he'd have plenty of time to rest afterwards. He called up Jake again to leave
another voicemail. "Me again, I'm gonna head out and investigate things. I
wanna see if things are as bad as the TV says. If I don't call back today, then
I'm dead."
Rhett approached his front
door and eyes the handgun lying nearby. He recalled how useless it seemed last
night for the cop, doing nothing to stop the approach of the man who would
devour him. He picked it up and ejected the magazine. "Nine millimeter
rounds," he said to himself, disproving his comment last night that they
were blanks. "How the hell was it so useless?" he asked, remembering
the bullet hitting the other man where his heart would be.
Despite his reservations on
how useful it might be, Rhett popped the magazine back into the gun and placed
it behind him under his belt. Better to have it anyway, he figured. He checked
one last time through a window to confirm again the world outside his door was
silent, then he opened the door and stepped out.
There was no one waiting to
kill him, but Rhett made sure to quickly walk to his car anyway. As he placed
his hand to open the car door he stopped and listened. No sounds of shuffled
feet or moaning could be heard. Rhett strained his ears though to hear
anything. No birds, no other people, nothing. It was as if the entire world
around him was dead, broken up by the occasional noise he would force through
the otherwise quiet street. It made him uncomfortable. He hopped in his car and
drove away.
The drive out of his
neighborhood was uneventful, but once on the open road, he noticed more than
one wrecked vehicle on the sides of the road, usually with the driver side
window smashed in and with blood on everything nearby. Occasionally he would
see a person shuffling in the middle of the road, turning to see him drive up, and
immediately raise their arms and grasp for the vehicle speeding by.
Rhett soon came upon the spot
where he was pulled over last night. The cop car remained, now dark and
abandoned without a soul nearby. Rhett stopped his car and got out, pulling out
the handgun just in case. It all seemed so different to him in the daylight as
he was able to peer into the woods and see if anything was approaching. The
large, red stain on the pavement indicating where the cop fell now sat empty.
It looked like the body had been moved, though Rhett couldn't tell who or why
would do it. The people last night were perfectly content to devour him in the
middle of the street, and it wasn't like the cop was going to get up and move
himself. "Where are all the bodies?" Rhett asked himself as he
recalled that every scene of blood he passed to this point had no trace of a
body anywhere.
He approached the cop car,
sitting quietly near all the blood. The door was unlocked as he stuck his head
inside. He grabbed the radio receiver and pressed the button.
"Hello?" he asked into it "Is anyone picking this up?" The
radio sat silent, not even generating static. Rhett dropped it and looked
around inside the car. The keys were in the ignition, but when Rhett tried, the
engine wouldn't start.
He reached over and opened the
glove box. Inside were various papers and candy wrappers. Two pairs of gloves,
one of them fingerless, and a pair of sunglasses were pulled out. Some digging
brought out an empty magazine for the gun he took. No actual bullets or extra
weapons were inside. Rhett took the gloves and magazine and exited the car.
There was nothing of real use inside.
He went around to the back and
popped the trunk. Inside were various pieces of equipment and a locked metal
case. "Nice," he said as he ran back to his car and pulled out a gym
duffle bag and dumped out the contents. He took the empty bag back to the cop
car, then checked around to make sure no one was approaching from any
direction. The last thing he needed was one of those people getting the drop on
him while he was raiding a dead cop, or worse, another cop catching him there
and assuming he was responsible for the cops blood being all over the street.
He pondered that thought a
moment. Technically he was responsible; if the cop didn't pull him over last
night, then he wouldn't have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. "I
guess my drunk driving really did get someone killed," he said to himself,
getting a chuckle out of it. He quickly snapped back into focus. Now was not a
good time to be morbid. He began packing the duffle bag with equipment.
Into the bag he stuffed the
gloves and empty magazine along with a bunch of flares, a tactical vest and a
first aid kit. He dragged out the metal case. It was locked and needed the
proper four digit combination to open. Rhett figured he'd deal with that later
and brought the case and bag over to his car. After loading up, he climbed back
into the driver seat and drove off.
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