He waited around fifteen minutes, completely still and silent until he heard faint movement outside. His shoulders ached from being tense for so long but the time had also allowed his head to clear and for his hearing to return. His ears had stopped ringing completely. Joel shut his eyes and concentrated hard on the sounds. He pinpointed the noises quickly, footsteps quietly approaching from the front of the cabin to the left.
Here we go. He thought.
He waited. Gun trained. Ready.
The footsteps approached. Not four people. Not the whole group. Only two. Close now.
Get ready...
The footsteps stopped near the door and Joel could sense the indecision of the people outside. He guessed that whoever was there wasn't the leader of the group, that he wouldn't have risked himself. In his mind he pictured two men standing in front of the door, deciding whether to bet their lives on the risk that Joel was dead or nor. Deciding whether to simply open the door and come into the cabin. The men were probably looking down at the body of last person who had tried to gain entry. Two men, full of indecision, standing there trying to decide who was going to go first. All because their boss, who now was hiding fifty meters away behind the tree line had told them to go into the cabin. Joel raised the gun slightly, aiming at head height in the middle of the door – he figured that if the roof was rotting then most likely the door also wasn't as strong as it once had been, especially after the scavengers had already tried to break it down. He was prepared to gamble that a bullet would go straight through it.
Nothing to lose either way.
His finger squeezed the trigger a fraction of an inch.
Here they come. He told himself
A shadow approached closer and formed under the door but it did not linger and passed by, slowly moving to the right and towards the window. This was followed a second later by another brief shadow.
Not trying the door so aparently not complete amateurs. he thought.
Joel followed the slow movement and aimed at the window. He saw the end of the pistol first, followed by an arm and then a face appeared at the window, peering through the dirt for a glimpse into the cabin. The scavengers eyes searched the inside for a second or two and Joel could see his pupils widen slightly and his face contort in shock as the two men made eye contact. The last thing the scavenger saw was the flash from the muzzle of the rifle as Joel pulled the trigger. No warning. No delay. The window shattered and sprayed glass in all directions outside. Joel immediately heard a shout, not from the man who he had shot, but from his companion. He jumped from his sitting position and ran to the front of the cabin, risking a quick look out of the window. He saw the second man who had been close outside ducking around the left hand side of the cabin. There was not enough time to take another shot. He looked down at the ground outside at the latest body. It was still.
Two down, He thought.