Joel immediately ducked back down under the window again, crouching back behind the cabin wall his his shoulder resting on the old timber. He took a couple of deep breaths, trying to slow his breathing. He closed his eyes, concentrating on the sounds around him.
There should be three left. Where are they ?...
He could hear the panicked screams that were still coming from the intruder who had been standing near the window. The cries were coming from beyond his line of sight around the left hand side of the cabin, moving away quickly.
Back to the cover of the trees I guess...
He tried to ignore the loud bawling, concentrating on trying to pick out any sounds the the other two assailants.
There...
After a moment Joel heard shouts coming from the remaining two men who had, up until now, remained hidden in front of the cabin. Their voices were quiet at first, barely talking, but now they were shouting towards the clearly injured man. He estimated they were now about thirty meters from the front door.
The shouting halted as abruptly as it had began, the sounds that Joel could hear replaced now by the tell-tale snaps and claps of the thick undergrowth being disturbed from around their position. He stole another quick look out of the window. Now that there was no glass to impede his view, he could clearly make out the two men in front moving away to his left as quickly as they could. They seemed preoccupied with what was happening with their companion.
The way that fool is screaming, I'm guessing he got cut up pretty badly by the flying glass when I downed his friend...
As Joel waited, he could hear that the stricken man's cries seemed to be getting weaker and more faint. He had another brief glance outside. The men were still moving away, making their way towards the injured man.
Now's your chance...
Joel knew he couldn't stay in the cabin for much longer. There was no element of suprise left. He couldn't risk another confrontation and he had no escape route while he was in the cabin.
He made up his mind; it was time to move.
Joel quickly grabbed his pack bag, putting it over his left shoulder. He then moved to the door, took a deep breath and unbolted it. He hoped he would have a couple of seconds before the gang realised what he was doing, but with no time to think or plan anything better he decided he could not wait any longer.
Now or never...
He burst though the door and sprinted along the right side of the cabin. His only option was to make it to the edge of the cabin, hopefully before his attackers realised he was out in the open. He figured once he had rounded the corner of the building he could then use the cabin walls as cover while he ran flat out towards the nearby trees.
It only took seconds but as he reached the corner of the building bullets started to whizz by his head as his assailants realised what was going on. The projectiles hit the wall around him but Joel kept on running. He half fell around the corner but caught his stumble as he continued on, running erratically left and right behind the small building, away from his assailants.
As he reached the trees he stole a look behind him; the two men who had been hiding in front of the cabin, his toothless nemesis and a taller man, had just appeared around the corner of the cabin and were keeping up their pursuit.
Now is not the time for a stand off...save your bullets, get to cover.
He ran on blindly and kept going through the trees, slower now around the obstacles that the thorny undergrowth presented. The bushes and the lower branches of the thick trees dragging at him with each step. He moved to keep the line of sight between him and where he thought his pursuers would be as small as he could.
Joel looked back again, even though he knew they were there somewhere he could now longer see them. His frantic sprint and his erratic turns meant he had started to lose track of where he was. He paused to look around, unable to get a bearing on where he now was.
Dammit...
Disoriented he started to try and move slowly in a loose arc, to his right in a direction he hoped would take him away from the gunmen. He carefully chose his footing with each step, trying to remain as quiet as possible. After around a further hundred meters he stopped completely. He listened intently. He could still hear voices in the distance a way behind him, but with the trees causing the sounds and echoes to bounce around it was hard to know exactly where from. He crouched down and waited. He couldn't see anyone, although the voices were growing slightly louder.
"Come out come out wherever you are".
The sentence had been shouted in a sing song way, as a child might have during a game of hide and seek.
"We know you are there. Come out now and maybe we won't radio our comrades back in Boston to pick up that woman of yours."
The last sentence sent a chill down Joel's spine. He hadn't considered that they would know who he was, but now he thought about it, of course they would – he had been paid to do a job after all.
Looks like they did their homework...
Could it be that they knew where Tess now was? Had they been watching them? Or was it all a bluff.
Can't take that risk.
At that instant Joel knew he couldn't take any chances. He knew what he needed to do. He just wasn't sure how to do it whilst they were hunting him down.