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Rick didn’t get up for a full half hour. He lay motionless on the floor, tilting his head every few minutes as he struggled to pick up any possible sounds he might have missed. When he was satisfied that he was finally alone in the building, he got up slowly and put his backpack on, slipped the hunting rifle back into the soft case along with the shotgun and started walking back toward the stairs.
When he reached the gang leader’s body lying face-down on the metal grates, blood dripping down onto the pipes and floor far below, he shook his head and grimaced. He knew that, eventually, he would have to deal with the fact that he had just taken someone’s life. When his adrenaline finally wore off there would be more shock to deal with, and hard questions would surface that would have to be answered.
But in that moment, as Rick felt simultaneously elated to be alive and horrified at what he had done, he thought of one thing above all else: justice. He hadn’t set out to try and balance the scale of Jack and Samantha’s death, and if the gang had left him alone he wouldn’t have even tried. In a way he was grateful, though, since the gang leader’s death undoubtedly meant that other innocents might be saved from the madness and carnage, and that in some way at least, he had avenged his travel partners’ deaths.
“One day.” Rick whispered at the body of the man in front of him. “In one day you went from… whoever you were before to this.” He held out his right hand and turned it over, looking at his index finger he had used to pull the trigger on his rifle.
“And in one day I turned into this.”
Rick stepped over the lifeless body and headed down the stairs. He pulled the pistol from his waistband holster and checked to make sure it was loaded, then slipped it back in. He exited through the back of the buildi
ng, glancing around for any sign of the men that had driven off, and was relieved to see that they were really and truly gone. Rick walked around to the front of the building and saw the third vehicle, the SUV, sitting out on the road with the keys in the ignition and the radio still playing.
Rick opened the front passenger door and threw his bags in, then climbed into the driver’s seat and switched off the radio. He ran his hand across the top of steering wheel and sighed. To his left and right the smoke and fire continued inching forward, turning more homes filled with memories and life and joy and happiness into nothing more than piles of ashes. For Rick, his memories, life, joy and happiness were thousands of miles away, and he had no idea if they were intact or if they had perished along with countless others.
If Rick Waters had learned anything in the last day, it was that he was going to make it home no matter the cost. He didn’t know how it would happen, but he knew in the deepest corners and recesses of his heart that it would.
“Stay safe.” Rick whispered to his wife half a world away as he turned the key and the SUV’s engine roared to life. “I’ll be there soon.”
