Gray Hills - Chapter 5
AN - I hope you guys didn't feel like you waited for too long for this chapter, but I wanted to build some tension for this chapter, and so I hope you guys like it. Onto the reviews!
PIE1999 - Thanks, I am glad that you are enjoying it.
Guest Sorta - I wouldn't call it a knife. More like a sharp two inch piece of metal.
theRevil - I'm glad that you are enjoying my story, and picking up on all of the little detail that I am putting in. I look at it like a breadcrumb trail of details that if you read into it tell their own story. I hope I did well with delivering your expectation for the cliffhanger.
- Was the wait worth it?
Disclaimer - I do not own Star vs The Forces of Evil
The end of the barrel was black and dirty. The farther up the gun, the cleaner
it got, and under the mud and black water there signs that the gun was well kept by its owner. The face behind the barrel was terrifying to Marco, though only because of the circumstance. Had they met months ago, before the bombings he could imagine them having a conversation over coffee, or helping the man if he dropped his things.
The man could only be a year older than Marco, maybe two. A thin ginger beard decorated his face as unkempt hair just covered his ears. A long duster going down to the knees covered most of his body, leather boots and khaki pants below that, complete with sunglasses to cover his eyes and a large, misshaped backpack.
Marco's eyes shot between the man and Star, noticing that he was not making any action towards Star. She was covering her mouth in an attempt to not cry, and locked eyes with Marco for a brief second, before looking away.
"What do you want?" asked Marco calmly, as to not set off the man.
"I just want to talk, a nice, relaxed conversation." The young man smiled at them, crooked teeth showing. "So I am just going to ask that you put your knife down, and I will put the gun down."
"And how do I know you won't just shoot us?" Marco asked him, thinking of a way out. Glossaryck was still nowhere to be seen, but he could help them if he came back.
"Because if I wanted to shoot you I could have done it from the safety of the forest while you were asleep." Marco couldn't see the man's eyes to tell what he was thinking.
"Marco, please." Star begged him, her eyes red and puffy.
Marco hesitated. He does have a point. Eventually giving in, he lowered the small knife, and the man smiled doing the same to his firearm. "See, this is better eh?" he said, slinging the shotgun over his shoulder.
While the man was distracted with putting away his firearm, Marco did the first thing he thought of. Roundhouse kicking the man in the face, knocking him to the ground. Marco quickly ran over and collected the shotgun that landed on the forest floor a foot away from the man.
He handed the shotgun to Star. "Keep this end trained on him, and if he gets up pull that little lever in the hole." Marco instructed, while pointing to the trigger. "But keep your finger off of the lever, you don't want to accidentally fire.
Marco removed the backpack from the larger man, and rummaged through it. At the bottom he found rope, which he used to bound the man to a nearby tree.
As Marco dragged the man he found that he was easily twice the weight of Marco, even though he did not appear to be much larger. Using his basic knowledge of rope tying he secured the knot on the other side of the tree from the man, bounding him by the waist while Star emptied the contents of the backpack on the ground.
Star spread the contents around the ground surveying them. A small metal box, four cans of meat, three cans of vegetables, some sort of pump, a basic first aid kit, a sac of some sort, and small flashlight. Opening the box she found a peculiar sight. Half of the box was dedicated to just over a dozen shotgun shells, and cleaning equipment. The other half was full of large metal balls.
"Marco, do you know what these are?" Star asked, distracting him from his current task. He walked over to see what she was talking about, to see Star pointing into the box.
"Careful with those, they seem to be lead." Marco warned, while picking one up with his hoodie sleeve.
"What's wrong with lead?" Star asked, putting them down and wiping her hand on her pant leg.
"It is toxic if ingested, so it will make you really sick." Marco inspected the shotgun shells, noting they had fourteen shells. More than enough. He thought to himself.
Moving to the other items, they started sorting out the food. "Where is all of his water?" Star asked, turning the pack upside down to make sure that they missed nothing, a tarp falling from a secondary pouch in the main pocket.
"It's strange, he doesn't have any. Maybe he just finished it and he came to ask for water?" Marco pondered, before noticing a small black cylinder. "Or, most likely, this is a water pump so he just got water from rivers."
Handing it over to Star, she turned it over in her hands. "Why did he need this to get water from the river? Couldn't he just put the bottle in the water?"
"Because if humans drink water straight from rivers, we could get sick from Beaver Fever." Marco shuddered at a memory of camping as a child.
"Awww, that's cute. So you go crazy for beavers?" Star asked innocently.
"If you call diarrhea fun, well I don't judge." Marco laughed as Star frowned at that. "Let's put everything back into the backpack and put it with the others." Marco suggested, and Star agreed.
After they put the packs together, they ventured just into the woods to gather fuel for the fire. "Do you think you did the right thing?" Star asked Marco, as they picked up dead wood from the forest floor.
Marco stopped, not considering that himself. "I'm not sure, I just did what I thought was best at the moment and he seemed dangerous, so I incapacitated him."
"But what he said was true, if he wanted to hurt us then he would have just shot us from the forest right?" Marco was only silent to her comment.
After a dozen trips, they had enough wood to burn for the whole day. Marco started getting food as Star tried to restart the fire. She found a coal in the ash, and watched it for a minute. "It's us." was all she said, and Marco walked over and bent down.
"The coal?"
Star nodded at him, and explained. "In all of this ash, we are the flame that can reignite everything." She demonstrated by catching fire to dry grass, and piling more flammables on top until it could sustain a log.
How Star could have so much hope when she looked around and saw only death and destruction, Marco would never know but he was glad that she was there to keep him together.
Hungry from not eating breakfast, they cracked open a tin of spam, and cooked it on sticks over the fire. They were unevenly cooked, but the two consumed them regardless. As they were feasting, Star looked over to the man.
"Do you think he is a bad guy?" Star asked Marco.
"Worst. I think he is Canadian."
"What does that mean?" Asked Star, but the man was starting to wake up.
When he awoke, he saw the two tearing into meat slabs. "If you're going to eat my food, could I atleast have some?" the man asked from a few feet away. Star looked at him, seeing no anger in his face. Marco shook his head, but Star got up anyways and brought him three slabs of meat.
"Thank you." was all he said before Star started to feed him. When he was done she moved back to Marco and sat down. After a few minutes of silence, the man started talking. "You have a good kick."
"Thanks." was all Marco responded with, before getting up and approaching the man while Star waited by the fire. He kneeled in front of the man, removing the sunglasses so he could look the ginger in the eyes. "How many more of you are there?"
"None. There were sixteen of us, but I'm all that's left." The man looked down at saying this.
"What happened?" Star asked from behind, feeling sympathy for him.
"We just graduated, came down from Canada and we were out in the woods hunting. It was just me an' a friend out in the woods when we heard the guys back at camp blowing a whistle. We rushed back to see what was happening, and when we got back the girls were panicking." He chuckled at this, remembering the day.
"Was that the day everything went down?" Asked Marco.
"Yeah. When we all got settled down they explained what had happened and we came up with a plan. During the first few days when there was still radio they were saying that we needed to get to the coast, so we got into our cars and headed west. Until we stopped at a town that is. The first place we stopped people were everywhere, we went to see if we could get some food for the future. We knew money was going to be useless, so we head in with our stuff to barter and find nothing inside. When we got outside our cars were gone, and a fight had started in the street."
Throughout the story they heard a tale of hope and sorrow. The man went on to explain their journey of walking across multiple states, and a desert. "Shortly after we got close to the coast, we were camping and saw you two walk by. We were following you for almost a month until a couple of days ago."
"You were following us that long?" Asked Marco, doubtingly.
"Yeah, we didn't know if we should approach you two since after a while we saw how dangerous you could be, especially with that little blue guy."
"You've watching us at night?" Star asked incredulously. Surely they would have seen a group that large if they were watching them.
"Yeah, we always had at least two of us watching you at night while the blue guy goes off and talks to himself in the dark."
We will have to talk to Glossaryck whenever we find him. Star thought to herself.
"His name is Glossaryck, and where is he?" Marco demanded.
The man thought for a minute, before responding with, "He was out in the woods last night while I was in a tree but then I lost sight of him. All of a sudden he was in front of me floating, interrogating me. We talked for a while and it turns out he knew we were following you three. He asked me to watch over you tonight and approach you in the morning."
"But where did he go?" Star begged the man to answer.
"He went towards the hills over there." The man nodded towards the hills adjacent to the road. Just then they heard yelling.
"Star! Marco! We have to get moving!" Yelled Glossaryck, flying out of the forest at breakneck speed. He looked panic ridden, and his eyes moved towards the man. "You need to untie our friend here and we need to leave now."
"Glossaryck we don't even know his name how can we trust him? And why do we need to go?" As Marco finished his sentence they heard dogs barking and men yelling no more than a few hundred yards away.
"I imagine that is reason enough." The man stated. At the sound, everything started to go quickly. Star and Marco grabbed their bags, and Marco tugged at the knot he had made.
"It won't budge!" Marco yelled as he made a futile attempt to untie his sloppy tieing job, and the yelling got closer. Star came to try, before Marco grabbed her shoulder. "We gotta go Star!"
"We can't just leave him here Marco." Star exclaimed, tugging harder at the knot. Across the clearing two men holding a pistol and knife, along with a dog emerged from the forest. Marco instantly recognized them as the men who had passed them earlier in the week.
"Get em!" Yelled one of the men and they started running towards Star and Marco. Star clumsily turned towards the running group and did as she was instructed earlier, pulling the small lever back. A roar unlike anything she had ever heard emerged from the end of the barrel, and she got blown backwards landing on Glossaryck.
They heard a whimper as the dog tumbled over, along with the man holding the gun. The man with the knife on the other hand, seeing their vulnerability charged faster, and jumped on top of Marco.
The two struggled on the ground, each grunting and trying to get the upper hand. Their fight lasted for only a few seconds, but Marco couldn't hold the large man back. His muscles burnt from exhaustion and he eventually gave way. Marco only hoped that Star would run away and be safe.
The man on top of him pinned Marco's arms and raised his own to stab the teenager. I came this far. Please tell them that Star. Marco thought, right before the man started to lower his large hairy arms, and Marco closed his eyes. Click. Bang. Foom. Was what Marco heard, and he opened his eyes to see the man no longer straddling him, but on the ground a foot away, a massive hole in his chest, smoke filling the air.
A hand was offered down to Marco, and he grabbed it looking at who had saved him. What he saw he didn't expect. He saw their prisoner, musket in hand cut ropes behind him. "The name is Wallace." was all he said before he helped up Star. "Never fired a gun before eh?" Star shook his head and he grabbed the shotgun, loading another round into the chamber and handing it to Marco.
Grabbing his bag he turned to them. "Let's get out of here!" They ran into the forest, Wallace pausing for a moment looking around. "Hold on for a second."
Star and Marco were confused until he pulled an instrument from a hollowed tree stump. Star had never seen something like it, but decided to inquire later. Wallace slung it over his back, and they ran.
They ran through the forest, up a hill, and towards the road. When they could see the road, they kept to the side of it, just far enough away to not be seen as they sprinted for their life.
Once they could run no longer, and their lungs burnt they stopped, Wallace doubling over against a tree. He was hyperventilating and coughing. He stayed that way for a few minutes. Star walked over to him, exhausted. "Are you okay?" She asked, noticing his fast and shallow breathing.
He weakly coughed out "I will be in a few minutes. Just asthma." After he started taking deeper breaths, they continued down the road, trying to put as much distance between them and the group behind them.
After a few hours of walking they couldn't continue any farther, and collapsed at the bottom of an embankment. They couldn't muster the strength to start a fire, so they ate cold beans for dinner. No one spoke the entire night.
After dinner, they immediately fell asleep, as Glossaryck took the nightly watch sitting very close to the group, not saying a word. Marco lay awake for only a minute, staring up at the stars, thinking of the girl who, rather than being beside him, slept a few meters away. Marco didn't have enough time to think about this before he passed out.