Coming Home

[yikes]

Foth it's been a long time now. Have you given up on Einar? We haven't.

[FOTH]

I am sorry, Yikes. No, I haven't given up on Einar, but he/I have been very busy between projects on the mountain, and travel/work. Little time for writing, but Einar is still alive, and his story will eventually continue!

[FOTH]

Ok, time to get this back underway...if anyone is still reading!

This one is short, next will be longer.

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Flattening himself against the wall, Einar was relieved to discover that the space was wide enough to prevent his immediate detection by whoever had just entered the room, a light coming on, blinding him after his time in the darkness of the tunnel.  He shut one eye, hoping to preserve something of his vision should the light go off again.  Silence, aside from heavy footfalls that he knew could not be Bud's, as this person had no limp, had to be one of the intruders, and as soon as the steps had passed his hiding place, Einar knew it was time to make his move.  Any longer, and his opponent would have time to find his way over to the gun safe, and become better armed than he might be at the moment.  Quick glance out from behind the door, man's back in his view and Einar moved quickly, slamming down the light switch and in the same moment closing the distance, pressing the pistol into the back of his opponent's neck and delivering a hurried and very insistent order that the man get down on the ground.

The sequence of events which then followed in rapid succession surely would have ended more favorably for Einar had he been a bit warmer, a bit more well-fed and thoroughly in control of the movements of limbs gone stiff and nearly useless after his time in the tunnel, but as it was he found himself slammed back against the wall with such rapidity and force that the pistol was knocked from his hands, breath knocked from his body to leave him briefly doubled up on the floor and gasping for air before he regained enough control to scurry back behind the door, crouching, listening.

Nothing.  No movement out there, but the next second Einar heard breathing, all he needed, and he launched himself, eliciting a heavy grunt from his opponent as he impacted the man in the mid-section, temporarily knocking him off balance. In the scuffle that followed Einar moved like a berserker, a wild man, mind taking him back to the last time he had been accosted upon exiting a water-filled tunnel all those years ago in the jungle, and he was fighting for his life, his freedom, fighting the stinking little bamboo hut, the interrogation, the captivity he knew would come if the man prevailed.  Which he did, a hard blow to the side of his head ending Einar's struggles.

Woke up shaking with cold some minutes later, bleeding from a wound just above his left eye, vision obscured on that side and hands bound painfully behind his back as a bright light shone in his face.   Somewhere out there in the darkness he could hear his captor moving about, muttering to himself in a language that could almost have been Russian but wasn't, quite, could hear but not see, and when he struggled against his bonds, deliberately at first, testing, but then more frantically as the terror took over, mind slipping back to the jungle, he was rewarded only with a rush of blackness as unconsciousness tried again to take him. 

Einar fought it, managed to stay awake, mind screaming at him to slow it down, get it under control, here, this is no jungle prison camp, this is Bud Kilgore's basement and you've just come out on the real bad end of a fight with...feds?  Probably.  Maybe. No. Doesn't quite fit. Got to think this one through, find a way out.  And he did it, managed to hold things together for an entire two minutes as the man walked around out there in the darkness, striking him occasionally with some hard object and never saying a word but it was getting to him, that sensation of hands-bound-behind-the-back, inability to move, too familiar and he felt himself slipping, struggling, throwing himself so violently to the side that he upset the chair to which he had been bound, breaking the flimsy ties which had restrained his hands and leaving him free to scramble across the room and slam on the light switch.  Which immediately changed everything.

Einar's captor, camouflage-clad and squinting in the harsh glare of the basement light, took a casual seat on a six gallon bucket of mashed potato flakes, wiped blood from the side of his face and regarded Einar with a crooked smile.

"Hey, you put up pretty good fight for a mostly-dead man," he chuckled, his English vaguely accented, something Slavic, but Einar could not in the moment place it with any more precision. Body still but eyes quickly scanning the room, searching for his weapon, for any weapon, Einar weighed his options.

[steelbutterfly]

Yay! Thank you! A new twist? New enemies?
Nothing specifically to do with Einar?
Someone that Bud has pissed off?

[captaincaveman]

Good to see Einar in action! Thanks for the read, hope to see more soon.

I've followed this since the early days.. never really had a strong circle of people locally or online that could direct me to more PAW fiction. When I found the board here, it was from diligently searching the web with search strings, until I found Einar here. heh
That said, I'm seeing a few PAW fiction websites around now (although Einar's tale doesn't strictly conform to "Post Apocalyptic Fiction", Einar's struggles are an apocalypse to him for sure.

Is it appropriate and good to start a thread here for links to other stories, and websites that have them? "asking for a freind" haha

[FOTH]

Captaincaveman, I think you've been there from the very beginning, at Frugal's, haven't you?

Yes, it would be just fine to start a thread to help people find other stories, maybe in the "General" section.

Thanks for reading!

FOTH/Chris

[captaincaveman]

Nov 7, 2019 22:29:46 GMT -6 FOTH said:

Captaincaveman, I think you've been there from the very beginning, at Frugal's, haven't you?

Yes, it would be just fine to start a thread to help people find other stories, maybe in the "General" section.

Thanks for reading!

FOTH/Chris

Yip, from the beginning! I haven't thought of Frugal's in ages lol

Thanks for the direction, I'll try to whip something up for everyone

[FOTH]

The pistol was gone, apparently knocked under something in the struggle, and he could see that his opponent was carrying, was, under his relaxed exterior, both ready for action and supremely confident of its outcome. Bad news, but perhaps it could be used to his advantage, and Einar did not wait, feeling that the cold-trembling and the exhaustion which had so crippled him after exiting the tunnel were on the verge of returning to render limbs all but useless and motions less than accurate, made a lunge for a length of rebar that lay partially concealed by Bud's reloading bench. Only to be brought up short by a well-placed kick in the back from his captor--who rather embarrassingly to Einar remained seated for the entire action--knocked to the floor and badly winded as he crumpled onto the overturned chair.

"Better quit that, mostly-dead guy, before somebody is dead all the way. You maybe not too good at this today," and the camouflage-clad intruder scooted his bucket-seat back by a few feet, left Einar to untangle himself painfully from the chair, fighting for breath. Task accomplished the two men sat glaring at one another, stranger--mid to late 40s, dark hair, light eyes, apparently quite fit, Einar hastily catalogued, hoping to find something which might offer him an advantage, a way to survive--cleaning the rest of the blood from his face where it must have been impacted during their first scuffle, eyes wary but filled at the same time with a quiet humor that left him from time to time shaking his head and appearing to suppress laughter.

Einar was not laughing, and the standoff might have gone on that way for quite some time but for the sound of footsteps on the basement stairs, heavy, limping, Bud, and the door burst open, admitting the tracker.

"Hey, Dima, what're you doing down here, man? Sounds like you're tearing the place apart instead of..." Silence as Kilgore took in the chaotic scene, mud and blood and wreckage all over the floor, Einar crouching in the corner muddied and bloodied and ready to make the next move, hoping to take advantage of the disturbance to shift the situation in his favor.

"Whoa, guys, take it down a notch, here. Asmundson, now I'm gonna...hey, don't you do it!" But Einar, confused, distrustful and on the brink of collapse, was not listening, got the rebar into his hand and all in the same motion launched himself at the intruder. Only to be brought up short, flat on his back and spitting blood as he struggled to rise.

"Cut it out, you two," Bud grumbled, as if scolding rowdy children, "or I'll knock your fool heads together." As he spoke he worked himself around between the two men, settling into a crouch beside Einar, who had managed to hang onto the rebar.

"Now I know I'm not gonna be able to get you to hand that thing over, so go ahead and keep it, but I got to ask you to stop trying to brain my friend Dima with it. Ok?"

Einar just stared and hung onto the weapon, starting to tremble violently as he cooled down from the fight.

"Can't say he's not gonna hurt you," Bud allowed, "because it looks like that ship's already sailed, but I can say that he is not going to do it again. Yeah, Dima?"

The stranger laughed, stood, stretched his arms behind his back and cracked his knuckles. "Ya. Sure."

Bud glared at the man. "What do you mean, 'yeah, sure?'"

"Mean that mostly-dead guy is starting the trouble. He is starting, I will finish."

"He isn't starting any more. Not today. Trouble's all over.   Dima. Get the stuff you came down here for and then clear out, ok? I can handle this fella by myself."

"Sure, boss." Another laugh from the stranger as he walked over to the gun safe--seemed to know his way around the contents, Einar noted--took out a scoped rifle and headed up the stairs.

[steelbutterfly]

Not an enemy, but not yet an ally. Einar doesn't trust easy. My bet is he will want to grab his family and run for the hills.

[yikes]

My heart-felt thanks Foth. Something had been missing in my life and this is it. I will now go back and re-read the story again from the beginning as I have many times before. You have written into Einar a character that I claim as a brother and friend and for giving that to me (and us), thank you.

[ref100]

Tried to post earlier so if I double up, sorry. Just wanted to say sorry for being so long getting back to Einar. I moved for the first time in over thirty years. What a mess. Amazing what you collect in thirty years. Saw your yurt pics. Looks great. And beautiful.
Einar seems to be getting along. A little better and a little worse. He is a conflicted fella after all. Hope he gets to eating a little more, maybe hide a rib or two. Maybe help him think a little more clearly. Wife and son need him around.
Plan to post a little more often.
Be safe and God Bless

[FOTH]

Steelbutterfly, yes, that does seem likely.

Yikes, thank you. I appreciate your words very much.

Ref100, welcome back! Moving certainly is hard work. Hope you are liking your new place.

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Bud and Einar alone in the basement, the tracker leaned back against the wall beside Einar, waited for the man to settle down, some. Did not take long. No momentum left now that the immediate danger had passed, blackness rising before his eyes, barely enough energy left to shiver. Which he desperately needed to keep doing, body temperature perilously low after his time in the tunnel and still headed in the wrong direction, and he lowered his head, arms wrapped around his knees for warmth, clinging to consciousness but able to do little else, just then.

"Guess you found the tunnel, then... Thought that thing had flooded a decade ago."

"I kind of...swam. Crawled in the mud."

"You look like it. Never had a problem with mud or water the first few years after I put that thing in. Dry as a bone in there. But then we had an especially heavy snow year and quite a bit of water settled in there. Still passable, but it got a little worse every year, seemed like. I still maintained it--fella always needs more than one exit strategy, you know--but then I was away once for almost two years on a job and the fool thing went and flooded all the way! After which I kind of abandoned it."

No answer from Einar, who sat hollow-eyed and shaking on the cold concrete, looking close to sleep. Or unconsciousness. Bud elbowed him hard in the side.

"Wake up, soldier! And tell me what in the name of all that's good and holy are you doing wearing my old uniform? You sure don't fill it out very well, you walking sack of bones! Lose your clothes in that tunnel, or what?"

Einar jumped, shook his head, looking confused. "Sorry. No, just...they were wet. Had to find...had to get warm."

"Yeah. No such luck, looks like."

Einar shrugged off his remarks, dismissing the obvious. Needed information. "Thought you guys had been...thought it was...hostage situation in here."

"Oh! The Serb? Nah, he's a friend. Old friend, long story. Kinda rough around the edges, but he's a great guy once you get used to him. Two of us have been in a couple of real difficult spots together, and I owe the guy. Roger brought him up here a couple days ago, after he found himself in an urgent situation and needed a real remote place to stay for awhile. Had to lock the place down for a day or two, keep a real close watch until were were sure those two weren't followed here. Which they weren't. But that's why I couldn't come out looking for you to give you the all clear. Sorry, man. Looks like you had a rough time of it."

Another shrug, more stating-of-the-obvious.

"Your lady's missed you, wondered if you were still alive out there. Guess we better head upstairs and let 'em know you're back, such as you are. Got to say Dima may not have been too far off with his 'mostly dead guy' stuff. Didn't think it was possible for a fella to get any scrawnier than you were a few days ago, but you sure seem to have managed it. Looks like you need some hot soup and about a week of sleep!"

When Einar seemed uninterested in acting on the proposal Bud grabbed him by the elbows and lifted, helping him to his feet. Looking like a muddy, half-frozen scarecrow in borrowed clothing that was two sizes too short and many more than that too wide for his emaciated frame he stumbled up the stairs, Liz setting aside a book she had been reading to Will to run to him as he stood holding himself rigid against knees that wanted to buckle with the effort of the ascent.

Liz said nothing, just handed Will to Susan, took Einar by the arm and led him to the bathroom. The cleanup took a while as Einar nearly passed out every time she turned the shower to warm, peppering her with half-coherent questions between episodes and trying his best--which even under present circumstances was pretty good--to escape the stream of warm water as though it were a living entity, an enemy. She couldn't stand the thought of running cold water over his already-freezing body, but finally resorted to this as a matter of practicality, Einar trembling so violently that further questions were not a possibility, going a deeper shade of purple but making no further objection as she worked. Finally, tunnel-mud gone, Liz dressed his various wounds, withholding comment on his physical state but blinking back tears as she helped him into clean clothes.

Einar went through the motions in a daze of exhaustion and altered expectations, rescue mission cancelled, invader a good friend of Bud's and his family apparently not in immediate danger, after all.