Radioman (A 2/19th Spinoff) - Complete

The Cabin by the Lake

The snow whispered down, once in a while a branch on the tree popping and the snow sloughing to the ground. It had snowed three inches since I had started walking, now mid-way up my boots as I walked through the woods. My blood stained hands were in my pockets, a cigarette in my mouth. I had no plan further than meeting Gail at the cabin, confronting her, and seeing if I could see a way to just end all of this once and for all.

I had seen Tuath du Aine twice, in a way that she had probably not been seen in eons, but she was like me, no more no less than the world had made her.

I could understand why ancient people had worshipped beings like her. She was fierce, savage, and beautiful. Merciless as a blizzard.

Seeing her reminded me of Hannah so much that the cold emptiness inside of me ached.

Wind whipped through the trees, blowing snow off the branches, making the snowflakes dance around me as I stopped at the edge of a clearing.

Gail's family's cabin was in front of me. The lights were on and I knew they had started the generator in the shed. They had phone service, I could see the line attached to the pole and knew that Gail had called, not only the Sheriff, but her little enforcers that I'd left to Tuath du Aine's appetites. There was a pickup truck in front of the cabin, snow chains on the rear four wheels of the dualie truck.

The snow crunches and whispered as I moved up to the side of the house. I brought out my Leatherman, unfolding it into a pair of needlenose pliers with the ability to cut through wire. I opened up the phone box with the screwdriver prong, folded it back in, stared at the wires. I could disable the phone quickly if I needed to. I left the cover resting against the phone circuits and walked back into the woodline.

The clouds covered the nearly full moon as I circled around the shed. I could hear the generator running and closed my eyes for a second, visualizing the way it used to look. It was one of the big older ones that you didn't find in Sears but that someone built by hand. The cabin, the shed, all of it had been built by hand in decades gone by. It had been in Gail's family since the Civil War, back when her family had owned everything around the lake and slowly logged it off.

The shed wasn't locked. Everyone else had to lock their sheds to keep the junkies from stealing everything nailed down, but the Keagans never locked their shed. I knew now why they weren't worried about being robbed.

Staring at the darkness inside I thought about what I intended to do.

the sound the rock made as it hit Aine's face

The darkness inside of me shivered and I stepped into the shed. Looking around I saw the same old things. Rusting tools on the walls. A pair of old chainsaws on the floor. An old crosscut logging saw on the ground. Surprisingly there was a mini-bike against the wall.

I disabled the mini-bike in less than thirty seconds. I could fix it, the spark plug wire sitting in my jacket pocket, but right now it was disabled for anyone else.

From there I moved to the generator.

On Alfenwehr our lives depended on those generators to keep light and heat in the barracks. Here, they could walk out. They could drive out.

I turned from the generator and walked back into the woods, circling around to where the truck was. Instead of raising the hood I just simply checked the door. It was unlocked and I squatted down in the snow, popping the cover off of the fuse box. I pulled the fuses, stripping the entire fuse box, and pulled the spares from the cover, then replaced it.

That finished, I walked back into the woods. There was a stump out there, and old one, with several circular saw blades embedded in it and slowly rusting away.