*AUTHOR'S NOTE* - Many thanks to those of you that took the time to read the first installment. It's very much appreciated!
... and oh yeah ; the action ramps up, in this chapter, too.

The term 'winging it' had never been more appropriate.
Previously caught between what my duty dictated and what my soul was screaming at me to do, I was now facing the dilemma of 'just where the Hell do I go next?'
I hadn't thought ahead, so all I could rely on was my instinct and creativity.

I had to slow my comrades down.
I had to give Joel and the girl some time to put meaningful distance, between us.

Hickey was the first to come screaming into the room. Shaven of head, built like a brick outhouse, and swathed in tattoos of dubious quality, the man was always going to be first one to any incident. For as long as I had known him, he had craved and duly cherished the thrill of the hunt, and the twisted satisfaction of the sadistic kill ... Oh yeah ; I loathed the man with a passion. The things that he had done to certain female tourists in the past had appalled me in monstrous measures - so if someone was ever wholly deserving of a BIG karma kickback, then it was this guy.

Before Hickey could properly digest the situation, I fell to my knees and used the crate in front of me to drag myself upwards.
Feigning injury seemed like my best plan of action.
Seeing my distress, he made a cautious but rapid beeline straight toward me. His eyes were wide and flooded with dark adrenaline.

"Red, what the fuck happened?", he drawled. "Was he here? ... Which way did the bastard go?"

Slowly shaking my head to clear the cobwebs that didn't actually exist, I pointed toward the duo's truthful escape point.

"Over ... Over there. That way."

Hickey grinned in response to my semi-whispered information, brandishing his 9mm with an unnatural glee.

"I'll get the fucker, just you watch!"

As it turned out, he didn't even make it to the window, let alone climb through it. His wide back had proved to be too much of a temptation for me.
My first bullet caught him in the kidneys, as he reached the window bay.
My second then burrowed into his chest, as he whirled to face me, in agony-addled disbelief ... And I'd be lying if I said that it hadn't felt good to mow the monster down.

A heavy cluster of footfalls duly signalled the approach of more violence, but I just couldn't prise my eyes away from Hickey. His messily gurgled last breath actually drowned out a yell from the doorway, so surreally focused was I.

"RED! ; WHAT THE F-?!"

Instinctively, my shooting arm raised itself.
I still wasn't even looking in their direction. I was still looking down at my previous kill. Time seemed to slow - but in reality, my action must have only occupied its usual micro-second of time.
Zeb didn't even get the opportunity to finish his sentence. Best that I could tell, out of the corner of my eye, he had taken my shot right on the bridge of his nose. Had I been looking at him when pulling the trigger, you can bet that I probably would have missed him entirely.

"OH SHIT!"

Drake's voice rang out in Zeb's place, and it was this that brought me out of my trance. I swivelled my head and set my stance, putting my next potential victim into my figurative crosshairs.
As unkempt as Stretch, but considerably more athletic in build, Drake now resembled a startled deer, trapped in the headlights of an oncoming runaway truck. His trusty baseball bat, which was wrapped in rusted, bloodied barbed wire was his only form of offence ; something that was useless in a gunfight ...

'CLICK'

... until my bullets ran out.

"Ah crap!", I muttered in a resigned tone that would've been deemed as amusing to me in most other circumstances.

However, Drake seemed to be decidedly more upbeat about things than I was, and his battlecry indicated to me in no uncertain terms that he'd chosen 'fight' in his 'fight or flight' deliberations. Bat positioned above his head, Drake launched himself full tilt. A rush of Berserker rage had enveloped him, and anyone thinking straight would've turned tail and fled from the promise of being bludgeoned to death ...

... But I wasn't thinking logically at all. I was acting on impulse, driven by a pent up rage that had been simmering since this World went to shit, twenty years ago. I needed to feel physical pain as a payback for all of the terrible things that I had done, in the past - but to a greater degree, I wanted to lash out at those that had forced me to change the person that I had been ; the kind of man that I could now never truly return to being. I saw Drake's charge and I offered one back of my own. The primal rage was unfettered.

When we collided, Drake sent his baseball bat crashing downwards, on a furious arc toward my head. Thankfully, I had already thrown my now empty gun into his face less than a heartbeat before - so instead of splitting my skull, his blow was an inaccurate and glancing one. Instead, the barbs skidded off my left shoulder, via my ear, making my discomfort searing, rather than death-inducing.
Using my forward momentum, I crashed into him in a very ungainly fashion. It was however an ugly but effective manoeuvre. It took Drake off his feet, ridding him of both his equilibrium and his weapon in one foul swoop. In a blur, my fists found his head, as I fought for superiority, upon the floor. I felt my own blood stream down the side of my neck, and it amplified my loathing.

It was twenty years of having my humanity stripped away, piece by piece.

"DAMN YOU, HUNTER SCUM!"

It was being two years removed from failing my wife, and losing a daughter.

"THIS IS FOR LAURA AND SKY!"

And it was because they had threatened to kill me and my family, if we ever tried to leave ...

"YOU SON OF A BITCH!"

... And I have no idea where the brick came from, either.
All I can remember is hitting Drake with it ; not once, not twice, but at least thrice.
All I can remember is that his face was no longer resembling one, by the time exhaustion had forced me to stop.
I rolled off the recently deceased and found my way to a standing position, trying to catch my breath.

"Don't ... you ... move, man."

The voice was barely audible, but it held a deadly seriousness that was undeniable. Even despite this, I couldn't help but laugh aloud.
Stretch was pointing his rifle straight at me.

"It was either him or me, Stretch.", I said, as he edged cautiously into the fray.

The ball was in his court. I had next to nothing left physically, and there was no way that I could get to him, without adding a lethal amount of lead to my body.

"Just what is wrong with you, huh?" Stretch asked. "Dammit, if it was any other person stood in front of me right now, then they'd already be a dead man falling."

So you see, I was only half right, earlier. We weren't really friends - but he thought we were. Even so, I still refused to raise my hands, in a gesture of surrender. I just stood there, swaying from side to side like an old school Friday night drunkard.

"There was a girl with him. Barely a teenager. I just couldn't l-"

"DON'T YOU DARE, RED!"

"I JUST COULDN'T CONDEMN HER, YOU DICKHEAD!"

How Stretch refrained from executing me then and there, I'll never know. Even more surprisingly, this guy really seemed as though he wanted to try and understand my mindset.

"You couldn't condemn her, but you had no problem with slaughtering your brothers?
What the fuck, man?"

That relit the touchpaper. Angered anew, I pointed over to Hickey, the first victim.

"That pig was NO brother of mine. I'm so far removed from that walking bag of putrid crap. "

"And how far removed are ya from me, huh?", came the sharp retort. "Just how much better than me do you think you are?"

I shook my head. There was no talking my way out of this one, and the prospect of being taken back to my boss was more of a 'worst case scenario', for me ... So I bluntly told him an exaggerated truth, hoping that it'd push his self destruct button.

"Stretch, I'm a million times better than you, you ugly braindead bastard!"

And with that, I closed my eyes. There was no way in Hell that I was going to look at the bullet that had my name on it.
Accentuated by a heartfelt and venomous "FUCK YOU!" exclamation, the shot sounded ... but all I sensed in response was a loud struggle between two separate entities, and the ping of a slug hitting somewhere other than myself.

With urgency, I re-opened my eyes - and there she was ; tenaciously piggybacking Stretch, plunging her switchblade into the flesh around his chest and neck just as frantically as she was allowed. For his part, my former partner was squealing and cussing in abundant amounts. He was spinning on his heels, in an effort to try and rid himself of the unwelcome extra weight.

"OH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!", I yelled, as my body begrudgingly galvanised into action once more. Why in Hell had she come back? Was the term 'haul arse' so difficult to understand?
I picked up Drake's discarded bat and injected myself into the melee.

And suffice to say, he never saw it coming. One big swipe to the back of the knee was all it took, sending both of them clattering downwards. Agile as a cat, the girl rolled herself away from danger, allowing me to follow up with a barbwire-wrapped 'strike and pull' move to his stomach. The cry of pain rang loud in my ears - even my shredded one.

"Quick, grab his rifle!", I barked at her.

"Okay. On it.", came the reply. She scampered across the room to retrieve it.

I dropped to my haunches and placed a hand firmly against his chest. The pressure I applied was merely to hold him in place, but he wasn't struggling at all, such was the extent of his trauma-induced daze. .
I leaned in, so he could hear me over his panicky whimpering.

"Now listen, I'm not going to kill you ... but if you do indeed live long enough to be rescued, then please be sure to tell Galen that I quit, okay?"

A disjointed nod of his head was all that he could give me - not that I really required his sign of compliance, of course.
The girl handed me the rifle, as I stood. Looking at this lightly freckled and diminutive spitfire, I couldn't work out if I was more angry at her, or grateful. Without a doubt she had deserved a lecture regarding doing as she was damn well told, but that would have to wait.

"There's a couple of med packs in the room next door, across the hall. Go get them and meet me at the main door.", I said to her brusquely.

She hesitated.
Was she expecting a 'thank you'?

"Get going! There's no one else left, kid", I insisted.

"It's Ellie."

"What?"

"My name is Ellie.", she reiterated whilst making her exit ; her solemn expression letting me know that my aggressiveness was neither needed, or appreciated.

Yeah, she had probably hesitated because she had wanted to tell me her name.
Way to go, Red.

Now alone, I retrieved my gun, before performing a quick search of Zeb's body. He had a gun pretty much identical to mine, so I emptied the fully loaded chambers. I then made my last visit to Stretch, who was writhing weakly in torment. Taking his knife wounds into account, I hadn't liked his chances at survival, but in his case I didn't want to play the executioner. Instead, I pressed Zeb's empty gun into his right hand, making sure that he saw me hold up a lone bullet, right afterwards.

"This is for you.", I hoarsely whispered. "I'm leaving you this one shot, just in case you feel the need for it. Use it wisely."

I let the shell fall by his feet.
I had no problem in walking away from the carnage that I had created, that day ; no problem in walking away from the rules that had dominated the last two decades of my life. The one thing I hadn't counted on though, was the strange need I had to say to something more to the man that I had just left to die. I paused in the doorway and turned my head enough so he could hear me.

"And if it's of any consolation to you, Stretch, I've got to say that out of every damn hunter that I know, I probably hate you the least ... Man ..."