Radioman (A 2/19th Spinoff) - Complete

Fear

Cartwright was screaming, holding onto his leg. He kept alternating between hitting the trap on his leg, trying to pry it open, and holding onto his leg and screaming. The guy who had hit the one just off the porch had rolled onto his back, holding onto his leg and screaming. Inside the house everyone was yelling.

It took Dave's father a few moments to shout everyone else down as I moved into the woods, got what I wanted, then walked back so I was standing just behind the brush, less than fifteen feet from where that unknown guy was holding onto his leg and screaming.

The door opened and another guy moved out onto the porch, obviously unwilling to be out there.

"Go out there and help them," Dave's father said.

"What if he's out there?" The guy asked. "What if he throws another saw blade?"

Dave's father scoffed. "He missed me, don't worry about it. Go help Cartwright out."

The new guy carefully, exaggeratedly moved in the footprints left by Cartwright. I watched as he got right next to Cartwright. He bent down and tried to put his hands on the trap, but Cartwright, still screaming, grabbed onto him.

"I can't open it with you grabbing on me," The guy said.

The hand-axe was silent, despite what you saw on the movies, as it whipped end over end through the snowfall, missed the new guy by inches, and hit Cartwright. Gore splashed at the blade of the hand-axe split open Cartwright's face, burying two inches of the wide blade into the man's skull.

I'd been aiming for the new guy, but that would work too.

The new guy screamed, jumped up, and ran into the house, leaping over the guy laying there screaming. In the house several people screamed.

I put my free hand in my pocket and walked over to a new spot, where I had a better view of the guy at the base of the steps.

Inside the cabin they were screaming, yelling at each other, yelling out into the darkness at me.

I didn't pay attention. Their words were meaningless.

They'd taken Hannah from me.

I knew, no matter what happened here, that I would accept whatever consequences there were from what I was doing, I would gladly pay them. I wasn't Special Weapons, nobody was going to save me because I was valuable. The military had hundreds, thousands of communication specialists. They had no need to smooth things over, no reason to hide me like they did Stillwater after his rampage.

But Hannah, my sweet and strange Aine, and Tuath du Aine would all know I loved her.

Someone fired the shotgun again, hitting near the bushes I had been standing in when I had thrown the first hand-axe.

I was thirty feet away, standing out in the darkness.

The Sheriff stuck his pistol out the window and fired all six shots from his revolver into the darkness, hitting nothing but blameless trees and show.

I just stared.

"I thought you said he was just a radioman!" Dave's father screamed.

"I checked. He's nobody. He's in some kind of clandestine unit that I was told to stop asking about, but he's nobody!" The Sheriff yelled.

My God, voices really carried in the snow.

"Wait, he's in a clandestine unit?" Dave asked. "Like, special forces or some shit?"

"No, no, I mean, probably not. Who cares, he's just a radioman. It isn't like he's some a fucking Ranger or Green Beret," The Sheriff answered.

I could see them, standing in the window.