The dark corridor stretched out before Arc and Julie as they raised their guns. Even though they saw nothing, the two kept their weapons aloft fearing that one of Colt’s men would round the far corner at any second. After thirty seconds of holding their breath, they dared to exhale and Arc gave Julie a nod.
He led the way along the constricting oblong of concrete and metal, taking careful steps to avoid rustling his clothes. Julie clung close to him, checking over her shoulder constantly, determined to play her role well. If Arc got shot in the back on her watch, she would never have been able to forgive herself.
At the end of the corridor, Arc hugged the wall and counted down from three before peeking around. Glad to see that all was quiet and the moonlight was being let in through a smashed window above, he walked into the small stairwell and placed a firm foot on the first step. Before taking another step, he listened carefully, just in case he heard the breathing of bandits waiting in ambush. If he heard as much as a single rasp, he was throwing Julie back into the corridor to keep her from harm.
“Alright,” he whispered as lowly as he could manage. “I think we’re good.”
“Where to?” mouthed Julie, not trusting herself to emit any noise.
“Next floor up,” replied Arc. “If we start from the top and work our way down, that only makes an escape more difficult. We would have bandits in our way every step we take. We’re going to clear out Colt’s men as they come, but I suspect the second we start shooting is the second the whole factory goes on high alert. I’ll try and avoid that for as long as possible, but I reckon it's inevitable.”
Julie gave him a nod and the two started their trepidatious ascent. Upon reaching a steel door leading, Arc gave its bar handle a light push and found that it was open. He kept the barrel of his gun pointing through the gap as he pressed his shoulder against the metal, leaning hard until it was wide open. He held up a hand and beckoned Julie through before closed it. He then stepped in front of her to shield her from any surprise attacks.
The pair began moving cautiously along with Julie continuing to look over her shoulder every couple of steps. With every room they passed, they took a glance inside and found them to be mostly abandoned. Occasionally, there would be a bedroll or two and a few backpacks, indicating that these rooms were where Colt’s men would hole themselves up for the night before venturing out during the day.
Suddenly, Arc held up a hand and froze his movement, leading Julie to do the same. He cupped his hand to his ear, listening intently. Exactly as he thought. There were voices coming from somewhere up ahead. They were faint, but they appeared to be laughing and joking based on the sound. Well, they were about to find out that their jokes weren’t so funny after all.
The two edged along the corridor, listening for where the chatter and laughter was coming from. It must have been at least around the next corner and in one of the rooms for it to be as stifled as it was. Arc’s ears continued to prick up with each small boom in volume. So focused was he that he didn’t notice the shadow lurking in one of the rooms he passed.
“What are you doing here?” called a weaselly voice from the room.
As the man reached for his gun, Arc burst inside and tackled the bandit to the ground, knocking his gun aside. Julie raised hers to shoot, but Arc knew this would be a mistake.
“Don’t fire,” he told her as he thrust his head down and broke the man’s nose.
“Augh,” grunted the man, his eyes rolling as he clenched his jaw to deal with the pain.
“Goodnight,” said Arc, raising his revolver and cracking the man across the side of the head with it.
The man let out a pained yelp before Arc struck him again. Each time the man refused to die, Arc beat him. He beat him until his head was a bloody mess and he started twitching. Knowing that the man would not be able to make any sudden moves, Arc drew his knife and plunged it into the man’s eye socket, first piercing his eyeball and then forcing it into the man’s brain, killing him.
Julie stood at the back of the room shaking as she continued to point her gun at the man. “Is he…is he…” she began, but couldn’t say anything else.
“Assuredly,” said Arc quietly, wiping his knife on the man’s shirt and stashing it back in the small sheath on his belt. “Are you alright?”
“I…I…think so.”
The spellslinger walked over to the trembling girl and placed his hands on her shoulders. “I’m sorry you had to see that, Julie, but it had to be done. If you want to hide in here until I’m finished, that’s fine. I understand that none of this is easy for you.”
“No,” said Julie, shaking her head defiantly. “I…I have to come, Arc. I have to.”
“If you say so,” said Arc, “but we’ll try and avoid any more mistakes. I was concerning myself with the voices so much that I lost my vigilance. A mistake like that can be fatal, as it almost was. If that dope hadn’t spoken out in shock, he could have shot both of us before we had a chance to react.”
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The two departed from the room and resumed their original strategy of checking through each doorway before moving along. In one of the rooms close to where the voices were coming from was a sleeping man.
Arc crept into the room while Julie waited just inside by the door. As the bounty hunter closed in on the man, she fought to keep her eyes open, but couldn’t help but shut them. When she heard the faint plop of the knife being plunged into the man’s throat, she wished she had been able to keep her eyes open. With only the sound to focus on, it ran through her viscerally and sent a chill up her spine.
“Don’t forget,” Arc said to her as he walked from the room, “he would do much worse to you and already has done to many others. You don’t get to be on a crew like this without being bound together by the heinous crimes against nature you commit. These men are the lowest of the low.”
Arc and Julie slinked around the corner and tiptoed up to a room with a shut door where a small sliver of light crept through the crack. This was the one. Arc placed his eye to the light and saw a group of seven men drinking from pewter cups and laughing away as they munched down some crispy pork they’d cooked on an old iron stove at the back. The food smelled delicious, but Arc wasn’t here for a meal, although perhaps he would come back for it once this factory was bandit-free.
“Seven men, six bullets in the cylinder,” he said to Julie, who nodded to indicate she understood. “You ready for this?”
“I don’t have a choice,” she replied.
With a glance up and down the corridor to ensure nobody else was nearby, he shoved the door open and fired all six of his shots, hitting each one of his targets and dropping four of them instantly. Three men cried out as they leapt to their feet, two of them with bullet holes in their shoulders and one with a missing ear. Eight bangs later, and they all dropped to the floor as Julie stared down the sights of her pistol.
“Inside,” Arc said, checking to make sure that they hadn’t stirred anybody nearby from their slumber or bathroom break.
Julie stood still, unable to move her feet.
“A little slow off the mark, but you did good kid,” Arc said to her, hurrying into the room and pulling her with him before closing the door. “You ain’t got time to think about it, alright? We see what weapons these chumps have on them and we keep on moving, you hear?”
“Yes,” said Julie breathlessly, her eyes wide with horror.
She had taken a human life; she couldn’t believe it. And not just one, she had taken three lives. It was for Jack, she told herself. It was for her brother. Every man dead was one less man between her and reuniting with her beloved twin. No, these were not men. These cruel creatures were beasts and no better than goblins or giants.
They may have drunk cold beers, laughed and enjoyed a helping of pork like a normal person, but that was just a mask. What lay beneath the surface, hidden in their souls, was abject wickedness that could not be redeemed. Once a bandit, always a bandit, and they deserved to pay the ultimate price.
Arc finished rifling through men’s possessions and shoved all of their guns into his bag, taking a handful of revolver rounds for himself and two half-filled magazines for Julie. He tossed them to her and they whizzed past her, hitting the door as she stood perfectly still.
“Clear your head,” he said to her. “You can stress about death later.”
“I’m fine,” said Julie snapping back to life. She turned around turning around and picked up the magazines from the floor.
She placed them in her pouch and wiped the cold sweat from her forehead with the end of her baggy purple t-shirt. As she adjusted her clothing, she noticed something in the corner of the room. There was a metal box attached to the wall with a metal rod sticking out from it that ran up to the ceiling and out of sight. On the box was a small circle of mesh with dozens of tiny holes and positioned below the circle was a red button.
“Arc, what’s that?” Julie asked.
Before Arc could answer her, the intercom crackled, making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.
“Well, well, well,” came the smooth voice of Colt. “If it ain’t my old friend, Arc the Hawk. You’ve caused me an awful lot of trouble over the last couple of weeks, haven’t you?”
Arc walked over and pressed on the large red button. “Colt, you son of a bitch, where’s Jack?”
“Ah yes, that young friend of yours who came to visit. He’s been asking about you and I told him that you’d be along soon. Glad you’re not going to disappoint him.”
“Let him go.”
“I don’t think so, pal.”
“If you bring Jack to me right now, I’ll let you walk away with your life.”
“Hoo wee!” cackled Colt upon Arc releasing the button. “You really think you’re in the position of power here, don’t you? Sorry, Hawky, but I’m the one with all of the aces and all you’ve got is a pair of twos. Ain’t that right, young Jack? Go ahead, sonny, you tell him.”
Arc heard a thump from the other side and a grunt from Jack. “Pair of twos…” muttered the young man and Julie clutched her forehead, trying desperately not to cry.
“Let him go, Colt,” said Arc. “Or the last thing you’ll see is a rain of fire upon your entire operation. You’ve seen what I’m capable of by now. I won’t let a single one of your men walk out of this factory alive and I’ll make sure I save you for last, you hapless oaf.”
“No need for petty name calling, my friend. If you want to see your pint-sized friend, you and that little girl had better meet me on the roof good and soon. Clock is ticking for Master Jack, Arc, and I’m not a patient man.”
The intercom crackled again and let out a small tone of static before falling dead silent. Arc wiped the sweat from his brow and shook his head before letting out a dry laugh. It wasn’t a laugh of amusement, more a laugh of knowing how stupid he was about to be.
The bounty hunter looked to Julie, who was biting her lower lip. “Well,” Arc said to her, “looks like this is where I go it alone.”
“No!” cried Julie, running over to Arc and hitting him on the chest. “You can’t bring me all this way, let me hear my brother on some…some radio and then kick me aside because Colt says the clock is ticking. We can stand up to him together.”
“Julie,” said Arc, taking her by the shoulders and pushing her back so she couldn’t keep thumping him. “Listen to me, alright? Yes, I’m going to the roof alone, but there’s something else I want you to do for me.”
The young woman calmed down. She was heaving up and down as she drew in breath and then exhaled, but she nodded so that Arc knew she was ready to listen.
“When we were scouting the factory out by the cliff, I was trying to absorb every detail. Now, I’ve got a theory and, if it’s correct, we may be able to get out of here alive.”
“Jack too?”
“Of course, Jack too.”
Julie nodded and wiped the tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry for overreacting,” she said. “Tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it. No questions asked.”
Arc smiled comfortingly. “Attagirl,” he said. “Now listen closely.”