He blinked the sting from his bloodshot eyes, gripping the rail of the house porch, and staring unseeingly out into the night.
This can't be it.
Dale hadn't had much time for belief in a god. Losing the love of your life to terminal cancer, watching her wilt and die from the inside-out each day as your prayers go unanswered, it's not hard to think you are alone in your pain.
Yet here he was, eyes to the sky, speaking words to the heavens, asking for an answer to an impossible situation.
This can't be the 'grand plan'. Making us hate and hurt each other… for what? A test?
"Why am I bothering to ask you?" he mumbled quietly to… who knows?
Dale looked over at the slaughterhouse shed. It's gabled roof and windowless walls looked very plain. It gave no indication of it's purpose. No sign of the years of animal butchery and carving. And no marker or notice of it's new purpose, housing a man slated for death row.
Even death row inmates get the time to appeal their case.
The idea appeared in Dale's thoughts like a small figure stepping out of the shadows. It pushed on his mind and swelled as he fed it by entertaining the notion.
Time. I just need a little time.
He hitched the rifle back up on his shoulder and moved quickly to the RV to collect his .38 special. The weight of his decision pressing in the back of his throat, making his heart race and his doubt battle with his actions. He switched the weapons, leaving the rifle on the small table inside the mobile home and tucking the revolver into the front of his trousers, covering it with his shirt, and walking quickly over to the shed.
"Son?" Dale asked quietly as he turned the combination, unlocking it and releasing the latch.
He opened the door and saw the pathetic kid lying on the ground; gagged, blindfolded and bound with rope to the wall behind him.
"Hold on son." Dale said getting down on the ground beside the boy as fast as his old man knees would allow. Peeling the blindfold from the kid's eyes, bruised and swollen from Daryl's 'chat', Randall looked up at Dale with fear, like a mangy dog that had been kicked and beaten. "It's okay." Dale soothed, trying to lift him up into a sitting position.
Randall cringed, hurting from the beating and his healing leg wound. Dale pitied the lowly boy, bolstering his belief that he was doing the right thing. He removed the gag from Randall's mouth and met his wretched eyes.
"They're gonna kill me, right?" Randall whimpered.
"Not if I can help it." Dale consoled, his pitying eyes asking the boy to trust him.
"Are you gonna let me go?" The soft whine in the boys voice tightened something in Dale chest.
"No. I can't do that." Dale shook his head. "I'm just buying us some time, so I can make everyone see reason."
"Oh man." Randall sobbed, looking away towards the open door behind Dale.
"It's gonna be okay, son." Dale soothed, pulling his knife from his pocket and open the hinged blade. He bent down and cut the ropes from the wall, leaving Randall's hands bound together.
"Hey, what about…?" Randall asked, gesturing to the cord binding and cutting into his wrists.
"Don't mistake my kindness with foolishness." Dale chastised quietly, getting to his feet and helping Randall to his own.
"Okay. Okay." Randall nodded short hasty nods, looking at Dale's back as the older man peered out the door. "I…I didn't mean for any of this. I'm just… some guy. I ain't dangerous or anythin'." He pleaded his case.
"It's okay, just be quiet now." Dale decided the coast was still clear. The meeting was still going. "We're going to make a run for it. Over to the stables. Are you okay to run?" Randall stepped away from Dale, retreating further into the shed behind him. "What are you doing, son?" Dale asked, puzzled.
"I'm sorry." Randall said, straining his words as he charged at Dale with his shoulder, knocking him to the ground in front of the shed door.
Dale fell to the dirt, Randall winding him and sending him crashing forward. His knife skittered out of his hand, the desperate kid scrambling in the dust to right himself and get the small blade.
Randall rolled onto his back, manipulating his bound wrists under himself and out from behind his back, under his legs.
Dale struggled to take in a lungful of air, let alone, call out for help. He lunged forward, grabbing onto the torn pant leg of Randall's jeans.
Randall kicked himself free from Dale's grip, gasping and wincing against the pain in his ribs and thigh. He crawled forward on his elbows, towards the knife. Diving for it, Randall grabbed onto the handle of the blade and spun around.
Dale shook his head, eyes wide and palms open before him, mouthing the word 'No' but having nothing come out from his empty lungs.
Randall pushed the knife into Dale's neck with a hushed grunt. Dale weakly grabbing onto the front of Randall's shirt as the life flickered and faded from his scared eyes. His body slackened and his arms dropped, Randall breathing short hard puffs behind his scrunched up eyes and twisted lips.
He looked behind him once the old man had stopped moving, fighting the urge to throw up what little food he had in his stomach. No one from the house had seen him yet. Now was his chance to get out of here, and get away from the lifeless body of the first person he had ever killed and the only person who had foolishly trusted him.
*angst*
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