Inside the Parker ranch house:
McCarthy had his back to them - peering out the window and looking for any intruders. As Jeff Parker lay there watching the man, he heard the walkie talkie on the table suddenly squawk into operation.
"We are back at the driveway to the ranch. We should be there in a minute or two. Don't get trigger-happy."
As McCarthy strode past to pick up the phone, Jeff quietly rolled over to position himself so the man would have to step over - or at least close to him - as he went back to the door. The two officers were spreading out and doing the same. They'd have only one chance at this. They knew they needed to make this work.
"I'll be watching for you," said McCarthy, standing at the table.
"Any difficulty with your ... guests?" asked Williams.
"Naww... at least nothing I couldn't easily handle," said McCarthy. He put down the walkie-talkie and turned, taking two steps before realizing his prisoners had been up to something. By then Jeff was able to kick out with his feet, despite the tape on his ankles, and knock McCarthy's feet out from under him. With his hands behind him, there was little else Jeff could do. Even so, he quickly rolled over - trying to use his bound legs to pin the man's ankles against the floor, impedi ng him from being able to get himself upright before the other two captives could close in, hoping that one of them could get their hands on the weapon in McCarthy's waist band. It wasn't much, but it was all he could do. It was very nearly enough...
As Jeff Parker's feet took his own out from under him, McCarthy was surprised, but even before he hit the ground, the surprise had become anger.
'I am going to KILL that son of a bitch,' McCarthy thought, as he impacted heavily, his outstretched hands just barely managing to break his fall, saving his face from taking the impact. Even that turned out to be a problem though.
Before the dust even settled from his fall, both Pemberton and Valenti were rolled up against him on either side, their back to him but their own bound hands grabbing at his belt on the one side while the other reached for the pistol in his waistband. He wanted to struggle to his feet, but before he could even get started, Jeff's legs came pounding down to immobilize his ankles - even as he felt the hands of the deputy slip the pistol from his waistband.
Of course grabbing a pistol, and actually having it in a position to fire it were two different things - particularly when it was behind your back. Pemberton had grabbed the semiautomatic handgun by the slide, but with both a manual and handgrip safety, you certainly couldn't fire the weapon that way - nor could you tell with any certainty exactly which way the barrel was pointed even if you could. Pemberton struggled mightily to switch the gun from his left hand - which was gripping the slide - and slip it grip-first into his right palm. The procedure was complicated not just by having to do it behind his back with his wrists taped together, but by the writhings of the outstretched McCarthy himself. Twice ha almost had it - each time having it knocked again onto the floor and grab for it again.
Jim Valenti was just hanging on for dear life. He had his hands tied behind him, but they were firmly gripping McCarthy's belt. As McCarthy brought his hands down he held himself close to the man's body, at least impeding the right hand from getting to his waistband with his bulk. It was then that the man's free right hand started raining down blows against the top of Jim's head.
The blows were - at first - ineffectual. It was just too awkward an angle for McCarthy to get a clean shot at him, but as the man used his left hand to lever his body up slightly, he opened a better path for the blows and they began to rain down on the top of his head.
'Two can play THAT game,' thought Jim Valenti.
McCarthy knew he was winning the battle with the sheriff, and as he backed in to the deputy again he heard - yet again - the clatter of his pistol being dropped on to the floor. Already he was kicking off the feet encumbering his legs. If he could just keep the deputy from picking up the gun for another couple seconds, he thought as he elevated his fist to prepare to send it crashing down into the right temple of Jim Valenti, but the blow never fell as Jim arched his back suddenly - unexpectedly - and sent the back of his head crashing back into the face of McCarthy. There was a sickening crunch in his nasal cartilage, and pain burst forth from his face.
"Unnnhhh," screamed McCarthy, noticing as he did that he'd send a fine mist of blood spraying over the back of Jim Valenti's head with each exhalation.
Still, it wasn't the first time he'd ever gotten the nose broken. He struggled to put enough distance between himself and Valenti that he could get a hand between them and once that was done he pushed hard - shoving the sheriff away while at the same time jamming himself against Pembroke and rolling onto his back, trapping the gun underneath him. After that McCarthy kept Jim off woth one hand while sending elbow after elbow into Pembroke and - once he got the first leg free - was able to kick Jeff Parker's legs away from his ankles and thrust himself up on elbows long enough to reach behind him and get the gun. Both law enforcement officers had their back to him and he struck Jim Valenti first across the back of the head - not rendering him totally unconscious but stunning him enough that the sheriff released his grip on McCarthy's belt and allowing him to gain the time to strike a second blow against the head of Pemberton. After that he staggered to his feet - kicking first one and then the other two men in the midsection.
It had been a valiant effort by the three captives, but the disadvantages of having their wrists taped behind them and their ankles taped together had been just too much for even three of them to overcome. McCarthy, however, hardly appreciated the valor of the effort. He flicked off the safety and pressed the barrel on the forehead of Jim Valenti, pressing his head down to the floor with the barrel as he wiped his own bloody nose with the sleeve of his left hand...
"You bastard," he screamed. "... you broke my fuggin' dose,...now I'm gonna put a fuggin' bullet through your fuggin' brain."
He heard the 'click' as McCarthy pushed the thumb safety forward and Jim Valenti closed his eyes. A lot of things go through your mind when you know you are going to die... his last thoughts were of Kyle and Jim wondere what kind of life his son would have ... and while he was at it, Jim wondered why he'd never found the courage to ask Amy DeLuca for a date. Maybe it would be better that he hadn't he thought - after all she'd already had one guy leave her. She didn't need to be a widow too, he told himself, not altogether convincingly.
The radio cracked to life:
"We're almost out front," announced Williams, "....come give us a hand with these fuel cans, I want to get this over..."
The pistol barrel came off his forehead and he heard again the 'click' as the thumb safety was once again engaged. McCarthy looked down at Jim ... looked at all three of the men really and growled out at them, "Shooting's too good for any of you, why don't you just lay there a few minutes while I go get the gasoline. Think about what it's going to feel like to be burned alive."
"You OK, Sheriff?" asked Pemberton.
"As well as could be expected ... under the circumstances," replied Jim.
"Sorry sir, I did my best, but with my hands tied together..."
"Yeah, me too," agreed Jim. "At least I was able to break the bastards nose."
"That's something, I guess," agreed Pemberton.
"Jeff..?" said Valenti.
"Yeah, Jim?"
"In the unlikely even we get out of here alive, I'd like you to do me a favor."
"Anything, Sheriff. What do you want?"
"If we do get out of here, and if I haven't asked Amy DeLuca out within 48 hours, kick my butt, OK?"
From the other side of the room the two women had watched the brief struggle, at first with hope and finally with resignation. They lay there with the comatose young man that each loved between them and their eyes locked on one another.
"I am so sorry, Liz," said Diane, "... I would have so loved to have you as a daughter."
Liz nodded. "I'm sorry, too Diane. I guess it was just never meant to be."
They both looked to the open door where they could see McCarthy already approaching the oncoming pickup truck. It would not be long. Diane looked back to Liz to see the girl scooting awkwardly and painfully closer to Max .. finally stretching out as her lips neared his face. There was a soft kiss and she heard Liz quietly say.
"I'm sorry, Max. Maybe in our next lives...."
Diane thought her heart would break...
Decisions AUwA (Mature) 12/28/10 [WIP]
Moderators: Anniepoo98, ISLANDGIRL5, truelovepooh, Forum Moderators
Re: Decisions AUwA (Mature) 12/14/10
Liz was wrong about what had brought Max out from under the influence of the alcohol that night, just as Isabel had been wrong imagining that what was keeping Max from detoxifying the alcohol was her fault. The fact was, even Max would not have been able to explain why he had instantly fallen in love with the young third grade girl the first time he'd laid eyes on her. Perhaps it was destiny. It had not been a romantic love, of course, but it had been love nonetheless. Love that even a bossy older sister had not been able to dissuade – although he'd certainly gone out of his way to hide it from her. It had been beautiful and pure and totally Platonic. Third graders didn't think in terms of sexual love.
Young Max loved Elizabeth Parker much like he loved his mother – very much like that in fact. Just as he knew that he could never be the 'real' boy his mother wanted him to be – but could play the part well enough to please her- he knew that he could never really be a human friend to Liz, and yet he could play the part enough to please her. And that had worked – not any more perfectly than he'd been able to be the perfect son – but it had worked well enough until puberty.
The problem had begun in junior high school with the first tentative budding of sexuality in his classmates, in Liz, … and himself. If friendship was a wonderful thing this special sort of friendship was – he learned – even more special. As the years passed and the opposite sex became an ever more important part in the lives of his schoolmates, he had to consider just what that meant. His conundrum was a simple one. He loved Liz and she deserved a happy life … a full rich life with her own someone special. Someone he would never be.
It was one thing to – like Pinocchio – pretend to be a real boy with his mother. She'd never had a real boy of her own and – poor substitute that he was – as long as he could keep her from knowing the truth, she actually seemed happy with him. With Liz it was different.
Liz had a chance for a real life with a real young man who could be her own someone special – something that someone like him – someone different – could never be. He never stopped loving her – but because he DID love her – he knew he had to give her up. He had to give up the friendship that meant the world to him so that – someday – she could live a happy life with a real boy – one who wasn't different.
So he did give her up. In seventh grade twice, three times in eighth grade, he'd actually lost track of how many times he'd given her up their freshmen year. It had been nearly like a three pack a day smoker, who quit smoking sixty times a day. But despite his good intentions, every time he decided to put emotional distance between himself and his best friend, there would be a science fair project or a lab course that required a partner, or an algebra assignment she'd ask him for help with. He knew the right thing – the honorable thing – was to let her go. He had simply lacked the willpower to do it.
And then had come the incident at the end of ninth grade -
That last day of school it had become undeniable to Max – undeniable that his need to be close to her was denying her the future she might have with a real person – the love that she truly deserved. All of the excuses, all of the times he'd told himself that they could still be friends and as long as he made no overtures to be anything else it would be OK. All the times he'd told himself that he could continue to love her but still not interfere with her someday finding her own true love had come crashing down around him that day. Telling her that they had been too different to do what he'd have willingly given his life to do – had he been a real boy – was the hardest thing he'd done in his life, but he'd done it for her.
Oh, it wasn't that he hadn't relapsed – at least part way. The guy had no real will power when it came to resisting her. He'd have been overjoyed if she'd taken him back as a lab partner at the start of sophomore year – now that she understood there could never be anything real between them. As great as the pain was – being near her and knowing he'd never really be hers – the pain of being away from her was even greater. But she hadn't accepted that and he'd learned to live with it – until that night.
When she showed up that night – when he'd seen how angry she was – how out of control – when he'd heard her words he knew that it wasn't over. That she still hurt. That his being different – the thing that had kept them apart – the thing that had destroyed HIS happiness, was destroying hers as well. He'd known that he was different but he hadn't let himself believe he was that much of a monster – to turn the person he loved into someone self-destructive.
The alcohol spiked Gatorade in the face had surprised him, but its effects were surprisingly comforting. The anesthetic effect allowed him to forget – mostly – that he was not a real person – that he was different – that he would never have what he most loved in this world – and that he had hurt her so badly.
No, Max's subconscious mind had reveled in the feeling of the pain going away. It would have kept him drunk forever if it could have. The alcohol gave him the strength to bear the pain – the loss – the hopelessness. His subconscious hadn't done anything to metabolize that alcohol as he had wandered away from her – free of the pain of his impossible dream of being a real person.
Liz had been wrong. It hadn't been the sex act that had somehow awakened him. It had been the knowledge that she was there – the closeness – the fact that as little as he might deserve it, she did care for him still. Even his subconscious had been – again – unable to bear not being able to feel the way he felt when she looked at him with affection. So a face full of alcohol had been sent along it's metabolic pathway – just as the alcohol dehydrogenase would have done it – to become acetaldehyde - and he had awakened. Then the real nightmare had begun.
He'd awakened to total horror when he'd realized what he'd done – or at least what he thought he'd done -and he'd been living with that horror for months. Months of sleepless nights and guilt-ridden days and – once he'd seen that sign painted on the water tank – living with stark terror at the risk Liz was in – had addled his conscious mind and utterly convinced his subconscious mind that should it encounter that two-carbon hydrocarbon with the hydroxyl group on the end of it again, it would just stay forever anesthetized.
Of course, in the end, Max's subconscious mind was as weak and irresolute as it had always been. The touch of her lips upon his was simply too lovely a situation to allow to pass while his conscious mind was in an anesthetized state. The suconscious gave in to the inevitable and the alcohol in almost a half liter of single malt Scotch … 215 milliliters of it … was instantly converted to acetaldehyde.
As Liz drew back away from the kiss her eyes were closed, imagining a world very different from this one.
"I'm sorry, Max. Maybe in our next lives....," she said as she opened her eyes
His eyelids blinked once as they opened, a smile on his face.... and then she saw them focus on her... and fill with terror.
“Liz,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper and his eyes full of pain “... it isn't a baby. It's a monster, and you have to let me kill it.” Exactly how he got his right hand loose she wasn't sure, but the palm started to glow with a silvery iridescence as he moved it downward – toward the slight swelling in her lower abdomen.
Young Max loved Elizabeth Parker much like he loved his mother – very much like that in fact. Just as he knew that he could never be the 'real' boy his mother wanted him to be – but could play the part well enough to please her- he knew that he could never really be a human friend to Liz, and yet he could play the part enough to please her. And that had worked – not any more perfectly than he'd been able to be the perfect son – but it had worked well enough until puberty.
The problem had begun in junior high school with the first tentative budding of sexuality in his classmates, in Liz, … and himself. If friendship was a wonderful thing this special sort of friendship was – he learned – even more special. As the years passed and the opposite sex became an ever more important part in the lives of his schoolmates, he had to consider just what that meant. His conundrum was a simple one. He loved Liz and she deserved a happy life … a full rich life with her own someone special. Someone he would never be.
It was one thing to – like Pinocchio – pretend to be a real boy with his mother. She'd never had a real boy of her own and – poor substitute that he was – as long as he could keep her from knowing the truth, she actually seemed happy with him. With Liz it was different.
Liz had a chance for a real life with a real young man who could be her own someone special – something that someone like him – someone different – could never be. He never stopped loving her – but because he DID love her – he knew he had to give her up. He had to give up the friendship that meant the world to him so that – someday – she could live a happy life with a real boy – one who wasn't different.
So he did give her up. In seventh grade twice, three times in eighth grade, he'd actually lost track of how many times he'd given her up their freshmen year. It had been nearly like a three pack a day smoker, who quit smoking sixty times a day. But despite his good intentions, every time he decided to put emotional distance between himself and his best friend, there would be a science fair project or a lab course that required a partner, or an algebra assignment she'd ask him for help with. He knew the right thing – the honorable thing – was to let her go. He had simply lacked the willpower to do it.
And then had come the incident at the end of ninth grade -
- “Max…”
“Yes, Liz..?”
“We’ve known each other now for seven years…and we’ve always been friends..”
“Good friends, Liz..”
“Good friends maybe, but not really…close…friends. This summer…I think I’d like it if we could hang out together sometimes..maybe go to the pool or lake together….just the two of us, not a whole big group.”
That last day of school it had become undeniable to Max – undeniable that his need to be close to her was denying her the future she might have with a real person – the love that she truly deserved. All of the excuses, all of the times he'd told himself that they could still be friends and as long as he made no overtures to be anything else it would be OK. All the times he'd told himself that he could continue to love her but still not interfere with her someday finding her own true love had come crashing down around him that day. Telling her that they had been too different to do what he'd have willingly given his life to do – had he been a real boy – was the hardest thing he'd done in his life, but he'd done it for her.
Oh, it wasn't that he hadn't relapsed – at least part way. The guy had no real will power when it came to resisting her. He'd have been overjoyed if she'd taken him back as a lab partner at the start of sophomore year – now that she understood there could never be anything real between them. As great as the pain was – being near her and knowing he'd never really be hers – the pain of being away from her was even greater. But she hadn't accepted that and he'd learned to live with it – until that night.
When she showed up that night – when he'd seen how angry she was – how out of control – when he'd heard her words he knew that it wasn't over. That she still hurt. That his being different – the thing that had kept them apart – the thing that had destroyed HIS happiness, was destroying hers as well. He'd known that he was different but he hadn't let himself believe he was that much of a monster – to turn the person he loved into someone self-destructive.
The alcohol spiked Gatorade in the face had surprised him, but its effects were surprisingly comforting. The anesthetic effect allowed him to forget – mostly – that he was not a real person – that he was different – that he would never have what he most loved in this world – and that he had hurt her so badly.
No, Max's subconscious mind had reveled in the feeling of the pain going away. It would have kept him drunk forever if it could have. The alcohol gave him the strength to bear the pain – the loss – the hopelessness. His subconscious hadn't done anything to metabolize that alcohol as he had wandered away from her – free of the pain of his impossible dream of being a real person.
Liz had been wrong. It hadn't been the sex act that had somehow awakened him. It had been the knowledge that she was there – the closeness – the fact that as little as he might deserve it, she did care for him still. Even his subconscious had been – again – unable to bear not being able to feel the way he felt when she looked at him with affection. So a face full of alcohol had been sent along it's metabolic pathway – just as the alcohol dehydrogenase would have done it – to become acetaldehyde - and he had awakened. Then the real nightmare had begun.
He'd awakened to total horror when he'd realized what he'd done – or at least what he thought he'd done -and he'd been living with that horror for months. Months of sleepless nights and guilt-ridden days and – once he'd seen that sign painted on the water tank – living with stark terror at the risk Liz was in – had addled his conscious mind and utterly convinced his subconscious mind that should it encounter that two-carbon hydrocarbon with the hydroxyl group on the end of it again, it would just stay forever anesthetized.
Of course, in the end, Max's subconscious mind was as weak and irresolute as it had always been. The touch of her lips upon his was simply too lovely a situation to allow to pass while his conscious mind was in an anesthetized state. The suconscious gave in to the inevitable and the alcohol in almost a half liter of single malt Scotch … 215 milliliters of it … was instantly converted to acetaldehyde.
As Liz drew back away from the kiss her eyes were closed, imagining a world very different from this one.
"I'm sorry, Max. Maybe in our next lives....," she said as she opened her eyes
His eyelids blinked once as they opened, a smile on his face.... and then she saw them focus on her... and fill with terror.
“Liz,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper and his eyes full of pain “... it isn't a baby. It's a monster, and you have to let me kill it.” Exactly how he got his right hand loose she wasn't sure, but the palm started to glow with a silvery iridescence as he moved it downward – toward the slight swelling in her lower abdomen.
Last edited by greywolf on Tue Dec 14, 2010 4:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Decisions AUwA (Mature) 12/14/10
At this time we must make a brief digression into the subject of organic chemistry. Not a major digression into that rather voluminous and technical subject, but more a very brief digression – to allow a better understanding of the biochemistry going on in Max's body right now. Mercifully, that too will be brief – biochemistry not being a very enjoyable subject for those not compelled to deal in that field - and confined only to the source of the present problem.
Organic chemistry, for those not familiar with it, has NOTHING to do with the 'organic' used to describe vegetables grown 'naturally' by being fertilized with animal fecal material consisting mainly of E. Coli, various Salmonella species, your odd Enterococcus, and various and sundry other animal parasites, pathogens, and viruses of undefined human infectivity and pathogenicity. No, it has nothing to do the 'organic' that insures that no insecticides associated with the company having all the bad karma from decades of napalm production are allowed to keep the codling moth or apple maggot out of your undersized 'orgaic' apple. What this 'organic' is about, is the chemistry of Carbon.
OK, don't panic. We'll try to keep this pretty basic and - if not totally accurate for those of you having a PhD in Organic Chemistry - at least accurate as something this brief can be.
An atom of Carbon can be thought of like a wooden tinker-toy having four attachment points. An atom of Oxygen on the other hand, has two attachment points. Hydrogen, only one. If you put a single Hydrogen on an Oxygen atom and attach it to a carbon atom – then fill the other empty attachment points up with more Hydrogens, you get something called methanol, or wood alcohol. But if you add another Carbon to the Carbon in that methanol instead of one of those Hydrogens, then fill all the other vacancies with Hydrogen, you get ethanol or grain alcohol, the very thing you find in half a bottle of single-malt Scotch. Aha, the plot begins to thicken.....
It is preferable not to drink wood alcohol. Not only does it taste particularly bad, it is absorbed into the body almost as well as grain alcohol. Worse, it is metabolized in the human body by an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase (the plot thickens further). What this enzyme does is to do precisely what it's name says it does (biochemists being unimaginative fellows) and pull two Hydrogen molecules off the methanol. This forms something called formaldehyde, a poison, a human carcinogen and a major constituent of embalming fluid. Even if it doesn't actually kill you, it can certainly blind you.
Grain alcohol – the single-malt Scotch kind, is also acted upon be alcohol dehydrogenase, for those who have it, and in this case by powers of molecular manipulation by those who don't. It too has two Hydrogens removed by the enzyme – or in this case by Max's power – and forms something called Acetaldehyde.” For those of you still with us, an additional enzyme will add oxygen to this and convert it to acetic acid, the acid in vinegar. A multitude of other enzymes will then attach this to something called Coenzyme A to make acetyCoA. For the one or two readers still with us, Acetyl CoA is burned to make energy for the entire body.
Now what this rather lengthy and tedious diversion really has to do with is actually the Acetaldehyde.
Because acetaldehyde is a normal product - in fact a key step – in the body's metabolism, Max's subconscious didn't think twice (if what a subconscious does can really be called thought anyway) about converting about 160 grams of ethanol to 160 grams of acetaldehyde. It did precisely what the alcohol dehydrogenase would have done. The problem was that it did it immediately. Acetaldehyde is less toxic – slightly – than formaldehyde – but only slightly.
Max was really really drunk. Had Max had normal alcohol dehydrogenase, he'd have spent hours sobering up. Even at that, the enzyme that converts acetaldehyde to acetic acid wouldn't have been able to keep up with the alcohol dehydrogenase and he would have had elevated levels of acetaldehyde that would have caused him to have a really severe hangover. But Max's powers converted that alcohol to acetaldehyde almost instantaneously. Max had been really really drunk. Now he had a really really severe hangover.
He hadn't slept – other than 15 minutes of being near-comatose from the alcohol – for a couple of days, and not well for weeks before that. He was stressed out, fatigued to the point of exhaustion, dehydrated, and now loaded with near toxic levels of acetaldehyde, which was causing a galactic-class headache. Max was barely functional here – even without the alcohol on board. But the moment he recognized Liz, the first thing that went through his mind - such as it was and the state it was working in - was that the alien parasite inside her was going to kill her.
Meanwhile, laying on the floor across the room:
Jeff's eyes were on the departing McCarthy only briefly, realizing that he'd be back all too soon. He looked across the room at his daughter - to tell her that he loved her and to say his last goodbye – when he was distracted by a silvery glow coming from the duct tape on Max Evans wrists and ankles. OK, the tape itself was silvery, but not iridescent silver – at least not normally.
OK, the tape was that cotton duck with adhesive on it. Cotton duck was – well, cotton fibers that were woven together. Cotton fibers are something called cellulose. OK, cellulose is also made out of those Carbon atoms, put together in rings with some more of those alcohol thingies attached. The rings were really sugar but linked strongly together in a row in a way that - unless you were a termite – you couldn't digest it. The woody fibers were pretty strong.
But you didn't have to be a termite if you could manipulate matter. The silver iridescent glow instantly cleaved all those linkages. Max still wasn't in particularly good shape but – adhesive or not – he was plenty strong enough to break cotton candy.
'What the....??? thought Jeff, as he saw Max pull his ankles and wrists apart and reach for Liz with one hand. Suddenly, there was a thin ray of hope. Despite his daughter's obvious feelings for the boy, he'd certainly had his doubts. Whatever the troubles had been between the boy and Liz, Max was suddenly the one ray of hope in a desperate situation. Jeff didn't care if he survived or not, but the survival of his daughter and his unborn grandchildren....
'If Max can just get Liz out of this safely,' he thought, '... nothing else matters....
Max's head was pounding – and it felt like someone was working an ice-pick slowly through either eyeball – but all he saw was Liz. Nothing else in the world was as important as saving her from what he'd done to her.
Liz watched the silver iridescent glow of his hand. She was shocked by the realization that the theory that she and Diane had formulated almost certainly was true. She was temporarily speechless – not even understanding what Max was about to do as his palm approached her lower abdomen.
To Max this was redemption. Oh, it would never make up for what he had done to her, but at least Liz would live. She might not understand – might fear what he was trying to do and would certainly hate what he was – but nothing... absolutely nothing was going to stop him from doing this now. He pushed back the pain, ignored the weakness, and reached out.
“Liz,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper and his eyes full of pain “... it isn't a baby. It's a monster, and you have to let me kill it.”
His hand moved scant inches from her abdomen as he got ready to send his power into her and disrupt the molecular structure of the alien being inside …. when it was stopped short by a voice from beside him.
“Maxwell Evans what DO you think you are DOING?” came the voice of Diane Evans.
Just that quickly it seemed like Max was back in his childhood … the year before he'd entered third grade … when his mom had caught him up on the kitchen counter with his hand in a cookie jar. He turned his head to the side and saw his mother laying there with her hands taped behind her back.
“Mom?”
He turned back to Liz and noticed for the first time that she was tied up too. By that time Liz had found her own voice.
“You didn't rape me, Max. I sort of raped you. I wish I hadn't, but our children aren't monsters ... and you certainly CAN NOT kill them. I had them tested. They aren't going to be able to hold their alcohol any better than their daddy, I guess, but they are certainly human.”
“Children???”
“A little girl and a little boy, Max.”
“Humans??”
“Of course, they are humans.”
Max's hand continued down and came to rest on her abdomen and he sensed the two small aura's inside.
“That means … I'm human too...?” he asked, not really daring to believe it.
Liz smiled and nodded at him. Max's eyes filled with tears.
“This,” he said, “is the happiest day of my life...”
“Maybe not...,” said Diane. “... those three guys outside are going to kill us in another couple of minutes....”
Organic chemistry, for those not familiar with it, has NOTHING to do with the 'organic' used to describe vegetables grown 'naturally' by being fertilized with animal fecal material consisting mainly of E. Coli, various Salmonella species, your odd Enterococcus, and various and sundry other animal parasites, pathogens, and viruses of undefined human infectivity and pathogenicity. No, it has nothing to do the 'organic' that insures that no insecticides associated with the company having all the bad karma from decades of napalm production are allowed to keep the codling moth or apple maggot out of your undersized 'orgaic' apple. What this 'organic' is about, is the chemistry of Carbon.
OK, don't panic. We'll try to keep this pretty basic and - if not totally accurate for those of you having a PhD in Organic Chemistry - at least accurate as something this brief can be.
An atom of Carbon can be thought of like a wooden tinker-toy having four attachment points. An atom of Oxygen on the other hand, has two attachment points. Hydrogen, only one. If you put a single Hydrogen on an Oxygen atom and attach it to a carbon atom – then fill the other empty attachment points up with more Hydrogens, you get something called methanol, or wood alcohol. But if you add another Carbon to the Carbon in that methanol instead of one of those Hydrogens, then fill all the other vacancies with Hydrogen, you get ethanol or grain alcohol, the very thing you find in half a bottle of single-malt Scotch. Aha, the plot begins to thicken.....
It is preferable not to drink wood alcohol. Not only does it taste particularly bad, it is absorbed into the body almost as well as grain alcohol. Worse, it is metabolized in the human body by an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase (the plot thickens further). What this enzyme does is to do precisely what it's name says it does (biochemists being unimaginative fellows) and pull two Hydrogen molecules off the methanol. This forms something called formaldehyde, a poison, a human carcinogen and a major constituent of embalming fluid. Even if it doesn't actually kill you, it can certainly blind you.
Grain alcohol – the single-malt Scotch kind, is also acted upon be alcohol dehydrogenase, for those who have it, and in this case by powers of molecular manipulation by those who don't. It too has two Hydrogens removed by the enzyme – or in this case by Max's power – and forms something called Acetaldehyde.” For those of you still with us, an additional enzyme will add oxygen to this and convert it to acetic acid, the acid in vinegar. A multitude of other enzymes will then attach this to something called Coenzyme A to make acetyCoA. For the one or two readers still with us, Acetyl CoA is burned to make energy for the entire body.
Now what this rather lengthy and tedious diversion really has to do with is actually the Acetaldehyde.
Because acetaldehyde is a normal product - in fact a key step – in the body's metabolism, Max's subconscious didn't think twice (if what a subconscious does can really be called thought anyway) about converting about 160 grams of ethanol to 160 grams of acetaldehyde. It did precisely what the alcohol dehydrogenase would have done. The problem was that it did it immediately. Acetaldehyde is less toxic – slightly – than formaldehyde – but only slightly.
Max was really really drunk. Had Max had normal alcohol dehydrogenase, he'd have spent hours sobering up. Even at that, the enzyme that converts acetaldehyde to acetic acid wouldn't have been able to keep up with the alcohol dehydrogenase and he would have had elevated levels of acetaldehyde that would have caused him to have a really severe hangover. But Max's powers converted that alcohol to acetaldehyde almost instantaneously. Max had been really really drunk. Now he had a really really severe hangover.
He hadn't slept – other than 15 minutes of being near-comatose from the alcohol – for a couple of days, and not well for weeks before that. He was stressed out, fatigued to the point of exhaustion, dehydrated, and now loaded with near toxic levels of acetaldehyde, which was causing a galactic-class headache. Max was barely functional here – even without the alcohol on board. But the moment he recognized Liz, the first thing that went through his mind - such as it was and the state it was working in - was that the alien parasite inside her was going to kill her.
Meanwhile, laying on the floor across the room:
Jeff's eyes were on the departing McCarthy only briefly, realizing that he'd be back all too soon. He looked across the room at his daughter - to tell her that he loved her and to say his last goodbye – when he was distracted by a silvery glow coming from the duct tape on Max Evans wrists and ankles. OK, the tape itself was silvery, but not iridescent silver – at least not normally.
OK, the tape was that cotton duck with adhesive on it. Cotton duck was – well, cotton fibers that were woven together. Cotton fibers are something called cellulose. OK, cellulose is also made out of those Carbon atoms, put together in rings with some more of those alcohol thingies attached. The rings were really sugar but linked strongly together in a row in a way that - unless you were a termite – you couldn't digest it. The woody fibers were pretty strong.
But you didn't have to be a termite if you could manipulate matter. The silver iridescent glow instantly cleaved all those linkages. Max still wasn't in particularly good shape but – adhesive or not – he was plenty strong enough to break cotton candy.
'What the....??? thought Jeff, as he saw Max pull his ankles and wrists apart and reach for Liz with one hand. Suddenly, there was a thin ray of hope. Despite his daughter's obvious feelings for the boy, he'd certainly had his doubts. Whatever the troubles had been between the boy and Liz, Max was suddenly the one ray of hope in a desperate situation. Jeff didn't care if he survived or not, but the survival of his daughter and his unborn grandchildren....
'If Max can just get Liz out of this safely,' he thought, '... nothing else matters....
Max's head was pounding – and it felt like someone was working an ice-pick slowly through either eyeball – but all he saw was Liz. Nothing else in the world was as important as saving her from what he'd done to her.
Liz watched the silver iridescent glow of his hand. She was shocked by the realization that the theory that she and Diane had formulated almost certainly was true. She was temporarily speechless – not even understanding what Max was about to do as his palm approached her lower abdomen.
To Max this was redemption. Oh, it would never make up for what he had done to her, but at least Liz would live. She might not understand – might fear what he was trying to do and would certainly hate what he was – but nothing... absolutely nothing was going to stop him from doing this now. He pushed back the pain, ignored the weakness, and reached out.
“Liz,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper and his eyes full of pain “... it isn't a baby. It's a monster, and you have to let me kill it.”
His hand moved scant inches from her abdomen as he got ready to send his power into her and disrupt the molecular structure of the alien being inside …. when it was stopped short by a voice from beside him.
“Maxwell Evans what DO you think you are DOING?” came the voice of Diane Evans.
Just that quickly it seemed like Max was back in his childhood … the year before he'd entered third grade … when his mom had caught him up on the kitchen counter with his hand in a cookie jar. He turned his head to the side and saw his mother laying there with her hands taped behind her back.
“Mom?”
He turned back to Liz and noticed for the first time that she was tied up too. By that time Liz had found her own voice.
“You didn't rape me, Max. I sort of raped you. I wish I hadn't, but our children aren't monsters ... and you certainly CAN NOT kill them. I had them tested. They aren't going to be able to hold their alcohol any better than their daddy, I guess, but they are certainly human.”
“Children???”
“A little girl and a little boy, Max.”
“Humans??”
“Of course, they are humans.”
Max's hand continued down and came to rest on her abdomen and he sensed the two small aura's inside.
“That means … I'm human too...?” he asked, not really daring to believe it.
Liz smiled and nodded at him. Max's eyes filled with tears.
“This,” he said, “is the happiest day of my life...”
“Maybe not...,” said Diane. “... those three guys outside are going to kill us in another couple of minutes....”
Last edited by greywolf on Wed Dec 15, 2010 1:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Decisions AUwA (Mature) 12/15/10
Crude people have a rough sense of humor and there actually weren't a whole lot cruder people in the world than Abernathy. Even before the pickup truck had come to a halt he was laughing at McCarthy - he'd started as soon as the bloodied handkerchief to his nose had been apparent.
"Shit, we leave you alone with six completely helpless people - and it looks like they kicked your butt."
"Gimme one of those damn Jerry cans and we'll see who gets the last laugh," replied McCarthy.
"Just make damn sure that you don't let ANY of that blood drip where it won't be consumed in the fire," growled Williams, "...I don't want to give the forensics people anything to work with but charred corpses and one kid's suicide."
Abernathy climbed up on the back bumper and soon was handing down gas cans to the other two men.
Inside the ranch house Deputy Pemberton saw what was going on across the floor and couldn't really believe what he was seeing. He nudged Jim Valenti, who was busy trying to use the metal night stick holder attachment on his web gear to erode through the duct tape - and making no progress whatsoever. Jim looked up to see the face of his deputy. With a nod of his head and a roll of his eyes, Pemberton directed his vision over to the other side of the room - in time to see a brief silvery glow before Max Evans somehow was out of his wrist and ankle restraints.
Max reached toward Liz's lower abdomen and then froze as Diane appeared to say something to him. Whatever it was, Jim couldn't make it out. But Liz Parker was laying with her face pointed directly at them. Neither he nor Pemberton missed what she had to say ... nor did Jeff Parker.
“You didn't rape me, Max. I sort of raped you. I wish I hadn't, but our children aren't monsters ... and you certainly CAN NOT kill them. I had them tested. They aren't going to be able to hold their alcohol any better than their daddy, I guess, but they are certainly human.”
Whatever Max Evans mumbled in reply, went unheard, but not Liz's next statement.
“A little girl and a little boy, Max.”
Liz looked at Max with a sweet smile. But perhaps none of the three men were really ready for what she said next.
“Of course, they are humans.”
Pemberton looked at Jim... who looked at Jeff. They turned back in time to see Max put his hand on Liz's lower abdomen gently, lovingly. Whatever he said to her went unheard, but not the louder voice of Diane Evans trying to shake her son from his sudden fascination with Liz's pregnancy.
“Maybe not...,” said Diane in answer to some comment her son had made. “... those three guys outside are going to kill us in another couple of minutes....”
"Maybe...," said Max, reaching down to touch the tape at Liz's feet. There was a silvery iridescent glow and the tape turned to dust. He reached around her and apparently did the same to her wrists because - almost immediately - her hands were free. Then he reached first for Diane's ankles and then for her own bound wrists, as he looked his mother squarely in the eye. "... and maybe not, Mom..."
Max appeared to struggle to his feet - looking almost totally exhausted. He took one step toward the three men when they all heard the shout from out by the truck.
"Look, that Evans kid is loose," said Abernathy from the back of the truck. He knelt in the pickup bed and raised his rifle and pointed it through the open door. The crosshairs of the telescopic sight were right over Max's heart.... but Williams shoved it in the air just as it was discharging and the round went high, to shatter the light fixture above Max's head.
"Not the rifle, we need to get close enough for us to finish him with one of the cops pistols - with a shot to the face - otherwise it won't look like a suicide. He's a drunk kid and there's three of us.... just don't let him take off running.
Max looked momentarily at the three captives who were still tied up, but Jim Valenti thought he could almost read the kid's mind. His time was up - he needed to do something now. And physically, the kid looked just dreadful. He might appear sober, but clearly the alcohol hadn't done him any good. He turned away from the three of them and walked straight for the door.
"Get out the back door and just keep on running. I'll stop as many as I can...," he told his mother and Liz.
As he went by Jim Valenti, the Sheriff called out, "The tall guy... Williams. He's the one behind this. If you can somehow take him out, they can't win. The other two might just quit."
Max nodded as if to acknowledge the comment and stepped out onto the porch...
"Shit, we leave you alone with six completely helpless people - and it looks like they kicked your butt."
"Gimme one of those damn Jerry cans and we'll see who gets the last laugh," replied McCarthy.
"Just make damn sure that you don't let ANY of that blood drip where it won't be consumed in the fire," growled Williams, "...I don't want to give the forensics people anything to work with but charred corpses and one kid's suicide."
Abernathy climbed up on the back bumper and soon was handing down gas cans to the other two men.
Inside the ranch house Deputy Pemberton saw what was going on across the floor and couldn't really believe what he was seeing. He nudged Jim Valenti, who was busy trying to use the metal night stick holder attachment on his web gear to erode through the duct tape - and making no progress whatsoever. Jim looked up to see the face of his deputy. With a nod of his head and a roll of his eyes, Pemberton directed his vision over to the other side of the room - in time to see a brief silvery glow before Max Evans somehow was out of his wrist and ankle restraints.
Max reached toward Liz's lower abdomen and then froze as Diane appeared to say something to him. Whatever it was, Jim couldn't make it out. But Liz Parker was laying with her face pointed directly at them. Neither he nor Pemberton missed what she had to say ... nor did Jeff Parker.
“You didn't rape me, Max. I sort of raped you. I wish I hadn't, but our children aren't monsters ... and you certainly CAN NOT kill them. I had them tested. They aren't going to be able to hold their alcohol any better than their daddy, I guess, but they are certainly human.”
Whatever Max Evans mumbled in reply, went unheard, but not Liz's next statement.
“A little girl and a little boy, Max.”
Liz looked at Max with a sweet smile. But perhaps none of the three men were really ready for what she said next.
“Of course, they are humans.”
Pemberton looked at Jim... who looked at Jeff. They turned back in time to see Max put his hand on Liz's lower abdomen gently, lovingly. Whatever he said to her went unheard, but not the louder voice of Diane Evans trying to shake her son from his sudden fascination with Liz's pregnancy.
“Maybe not...,” said Diane in answer to some comment her son had made. “... those three guys outside are going to kill us in another couple of minutes....”
"Maybe...," said Max, reaching down to touch the tape at Liz's feet. There was a silvery iridescent glow and the tape turned to dust. He reached around her and apparently did the same to her wrists because - almost immediately - her hands were free. Then he reached first for Diane's ankles and then for her own bound wrists, as he looked his mother squarely in the eye. "... and maybe not, Mom..."
Max appeared to struggle to his feet - looking almost totally exhausted. He took one step toward the three men when they all heard the shout from out by the truck.
"Look, that Evans kid is loose," said Abernathy from the back of the truck. He knelt in the pickup bed and raised his rifle and pointed it through the open door. The crosshairs of the telescopic sight were right over Max's heart.... but Williams shoved it in the air just as it was discharging and the round went high, to shatter the light fixture above Max's head.
"Not the rifle, we need to get close enough for us to finish him with one of the cops pistols - with a shot to the face - otherwise it won't look like a suicide. He's a drunk kid and there's three of us.... just don't let him take off running.
Max looked momentarily at the three captives who were still tied up, but Jim Valenti thought he could almost read the kid's mind. His time was up - he needed to do something now. And physically, the kid looked just dreadful. He might appear sober, but clearly the alcohol hadn't done him any good. He turned away from the three of them and walked straight for the door.
"Get out the back door and just keep on running. I'll stop as many as I can...," he told his mother and Liz.
As he went by Jim Valenti, the Sheriff called out, "The tall guy... Williams. He's the one behind this. If you can somehow take him out, they can't win. The other two might just quit."
Max nodded as if to acknowledge the comment and stepped out onto the porch...
Re: Decisions AUwA (Mature) 12/16/10
Despite being conscious, Max was not in any condition to take on three guys, and he sort of knew that, even if he didn't know exactly why. Exactly why was a little complicated.
Partly it was a huge excess of acetaldehyde, which is harmless enough in low concentration but significantly impairing in high concentrations. But even as his body was doing what it was supposed to be doing - and converting the acetaldehyde to acetic acid, that didn't solve the problem. Acetic acid is an organic acid and it was lowering his body's pH considerably. That too markedly decreased his ability to function. His body was doing its best to convert the acetic acid that was formed to acetylCoA, but even there there were some problems.
High levels of Acetyl CoA exceed the capacity of the next enzyme systems - those of the Krebs cycle - and this causes alternate pathways to be used to attempt to lower the amount of AcetylCoA to more normal levels. These pathways lead to something called ketogenesis. Ketogenesis results in the formation of additional metabolic acids - acetoacetate and beta hydroxybutyrate - with a little left over to form acetone as well.
Right now Max's condition didn't differ in any meaningful way from that of a diabetic in ketoacidosis. The symptoms of ketoacidosis are severe and in a diabetic can be life-saving. All Max really needed was a few fluids, a few carbohydrates, and a few hours rest. Unfortunately he had time for none of those.
"Look, that Evans kid is loose," said Abernathy from outside.
Just that quick, three guys with guns were coming toward the door. Max looked momentarily at the three captives who were still tied up, and he desperately wanted to let them go too, ... but he'd had to struggle to even get the duct tape off his mother. He was having trouble even walking and wasn't sure he could even manage a single powerblast. He was simply running out of time.
He looked at the three men on the floor - wishing he could do something for them - but by the time he did - assuming he even could - the bad guys would be in the door with guns blazing. Reluctantly he turned away and headed for the door. As he passed abreast of Jim Valenti the Sheriff said to him, "The tall guy... Williams. He's the one behind this. If you can somehow take him out, they can't win. The other two might just quit."
Somehow the message got through and Max nodded briefly as he stumbled out the door and onto the porch.
Jeff Parker wanted nothing more in this world than for Liz to do exactly what Max told her to do. She'd spent many a day at the ranch as she'd grown up, and knew the countryside well. All she had to do was go out that back door and she'd be in familiar territory with dozens ... hundreds ... of hiding places. With a two minute head start they'd never find her - not before the sheriff's deputies would be here looking for their missing sheriff at least.
But instead of going directly out the door, she went first to the kitchen where she pulled the paring knife out of the drawer and brought it to her father's hands. Both law officers and Jeff had been wrestling with their tape bonds, and that had served mainly to twist and bind the tape into what almost amounted to a tight rope. But after several seconds of sawing with the knife, Jeff felt the bonds loosen.
"I've got it," he said, "...just leave me the knife and run. I'll get my ankles and the others..."
Liz looked at him with uncertainty, then looked back outside to where Abernathy, Williams, and McCarthy were moving away from the truck to confront Max.
"Liz, just go. Get out of here now," Jeff said, grabbing the paring knife from her. She looked at him with worried eyes, but then got up to follow Diane Evans toward the back of the house...
Jeff went back to his work, bending at his waist to get at the tape on his ankles. It too had been rolled up by all the exertion. Worse yet, the circulation had been cut off in his hands for quite awhile. As he sawed away at the tape on his ankles his hands felt awkward and weak, with pins and needles sensations that made it difficult for him to get a firm grip on the small paring knife.
'I don't need a little paring knife,' he thought as he wore his way laboriously through the mashed together tape, '... I need my Kabar.'
The three men had instinctively spread out as the boy had stepped out on to the porch. Drunk or not, the kid might be faster on his feet than any of them and they couldn't afford for him to bolt. Even if he was too drunk to get away they didn't want to waste the time to chase him down, and whatever happened it had to be McCarthy that shot him - he was the only one who had one of the service automatics from the cops.
"Do NOT shoot him with your rifle," Williams warned Abernathy, "... but don't let him get by you either..."
Max looked at the man giving the orders - the man in the middle - the tall man... Williams.
Max's vision was blurry and he was nauseated and weak. He'd never powerblasted feeling like this - and wasn't altogether sure he could. That wasn't surprising, physically he'd never felt this bad in his life.
Mentally, surprisingly enough, he was strangely at ease. He was only going to get - at most - one powerblast off. He doubted he'd have the strength for more than that - and they were already too widely split to get them all. When he doubled the width of the powerblast it took four times the energy. When he tripled it, it took nine times as much. Distance worked the same way. Something Liz had once mentioned called the inverse-square law. If he tripled the width of the beam and tripled the distance as well, he'd need 81 times the energy of the narrower - shorter distance burst... and he was pretty sure he could generate nowhere near THAT much energy.
He needed - he knew - to get closer to the target - to Williams - and even then he'd need to keep his powerblast fairly narrow and concentrated.
'No wider than his body, and aimed right for the middle of his abdomen,' he told himself, '...and at not much more than half this distance.'
With luck - if the vertigo didn't get to him or the man didn't move too fast - he'd be able to obliterate Williams. Of course when THAT happened, he rather doubted that the other two were going to feel constrained about what they shot him with or where. But that was OK with Max.
He had a mother who knew what he was - and loved him anyway. He had a girl who knew what he was and loved him - who was carrying his children - and who no doubt would take good care of them no matter if he were around to assist or not. Both were making time out the back door and away from here, and every second he delayed these three gave them another second to put more distance between themselves and these guys and to find a place to hole up until the other law enforcement guys got here. That was all that really mattered.
It was, as the Native American expression went, 'a good day to die...,' and Max was content with it. He stepped off the porch and started walking slowly toward Williams.
Every foot closer and every second of delay increased the chance of survival for his family. If he could actually get Williams, perhaps the survival of his mother, Liz and their unborn children - maybe even the three people back in the house - would be assured.
Whatever the surviving two did to him then wasn't really all that important. He just hoped they wasted a lot of time doing it. He slowly took the next step toward Williams, and as he did so he slowly raised his palm.
Partly it was a huge excess of acetaldehyde, which is harmless enough in low concentration but significantly impairing in high concentrations. But even as his body was doing what it was supposed to be doing - and converting the acetaldehyde to acetic acid, that didn't solve the problem. Acetic acid is an organic acid and it was lowering his body's pH considerably. That too markedly decreased his ability to function. His body was doing its best to convert the acetic acid that was formed to acetylCoA, but even there there were some problems.
High levels of Acetyl CoA exceed the capacity of the next enzyme systems - those of the Krebs cycle - and this causes alternate pathways to be used to attempt to lower the amount of AcetylCoA to more normal levels. These pathways lead to something called ketogenesis. Ketogenesis results in the formation of additional metabolic acids - acetoacetate and beta hydroxybutyrate - with a little left over to form acetone as well.
Right now Max's condition didn't differ in any meaningful way from that of a diabetic in ketoacidosis. The symptoms of ketoacidosis are severe and in a diabetic can be life-saving. All Max really needed was a few fluids, a few carbohydrates, and a few hours rest. Unfortunately he had time for none of those.
"Look, that Evans kid is loose," said Abernathy from outside.
Just that quick, three guys with guns were coming toward the door. Max looked momentarily at the three captives who were still tied up, and he desperately wanted to let them go too, ... but he'd had to struggle to even get the duct tape off his mother. He was having trouble even walking and wasn't sure he could even manage a single powerblast. He was simply running out of time.
He looked at the three men on the floor - wishing he could do something for them - but by the time he did - assuming he even could - the bad guys would be in the door with guns blazing. Reluctantly he turned away and headed for the door. As he passed abreast of Jim Valenti the Sheriff said to him, "The tall guy... Williams. He's the one behind this. If you can somehow take him out, they can't win. The other two might just quit."
Somehow the message got through and Max nodded briefly as he stumbled out the door and onto the porch.
Jeff Parker wanted nothing more in this world than for Liz to do exactly what Max told her to do. She'd spent many a day at the ranch as she'd grown up, and knew the countryside well. All she had to do was go out that back door and she'd be in familiar territory with dozens ... hundreds ... of hiding places. With a two minute head start they'd never find her - not before the sheriff's deputies would be here looking for their missing sheriff at least.
But instead of going directly out the door, she went first to the kitchen where she pulled the paring knife out of the drawer and brought it to her father's hands. Both law officers and Jeff had been wrestling with their tape bonds, and that had served mainly to twist and bind the tape into what almost amounted to a tight rope. But after several seconds of sawing with the knife, Jeff felt the bonds loosen.
"I've got it," he said, "...just leave me the knife and run. I'll get my ankles and the others..."
Liz looked at him with uncertainty, then looked back outside to where Abernathy, Williams, and McCarthy were moving away from the truck to confront Max.
"Liz, just go. Get out of here now," Jeff said, grabbing the paring knife from her. She looked at him with worried eyes, but then got up to follow Diane Evans toward the back of the house...
Jeff went back to his work, bending at his waist to get at the tape on his ankles. It too had been rolled up by all the exertion. Worse yet, the circulation had been cut off in his hands for quite awhile. As he sawed away at the tape on his ankles his hands felt awkward and weak, with pins and needles sensations that made it difficult for him to get a firm grip on the small paring knife.
'I don't need a little paring knife,' he thought as he wore his way laboriously through the mashed together tape, '... I need my Kabar.'
The three men had instinctively spread out as the boy had stepped out on to the porch. Drunk or not, the kid might be faster on his feet than any of them and they couldn't afford for him to bolt. Even if he was too drunk to get away they didn't want to waste the time to chase him down, and whatever happened it had to be McCarthy that shot him - he was the only one who had one of the service automatics from the cops.
"Do NOT shoot him with your rifle," Williams warned Abernathy, "... but don't let him get by you either..."
Max looked at the man giving the orders - the man in the middle - the tall man... Williams.
Max's vision was blurry and he was nauseated and weak. He'd never powerblasted feeling like this - and wasn't altogether sure he could. That wasn't surprising, physically he'd never felt this bad in his life.
Mentally, surprisingly enough, he was strangely at ease. He was only going to get - at most - one powerblast off. He doubted he'd have the strength for more than that - and they were already too widely split to get them all. When he doubled the width of the powerblast it took four times the energy. When he tripled it, it took nine times as much. Distance worked the same way. Something Liz had once mentioned called the inverse-square law. If he tripled the width of the beam and tripled the distance as well, he'd need 81 times the energy of the narrower - shorter distance burst... and he was pretty sure he could generate nowhere near THAT much energy.
He needed - he knew - to get closer to the target - to Williams - and even then he'd need to keep his powerblast fairly narrow and concentrated.
'No wider than his body, and aimed right for the middle of his abdomen,' he told himself, '...and at not much more than half this distance.'
With luck - if the vertigo didn't get to him or the man didn't move too fast - he'd be able to obliterate Williams. Of course when THAT happened, he rather doubted that the other two were going to feel constrained about what they shot him with or where. But that was OK with Max.
He had a mother who knew what he was - and loved him anyway. He had a girl who knew what he was and loved him - who was carrying his children - and who no doubt would take good care of them no matter if he were around to assist or not. Both were making time out the back door and away from here, and every second he delayed these three gave them another second to put more distance between themselves and these guys and to find a place to hole up until the other law enforcement guys got here. That was all that really mattered.
It was, as the Native American expression went, 'a good day to die...,' and Max was content with it. He stepped off the porch and started walking slowly toward Williams.
Every foot closer and every second of delay increased the chance of survival for his family. If he could actually get Williams, perhaps the survival of his mother, Liz and their unborn children - maybe even the three people back in the house - would be assured.
Whatever the surviving two did to him then wasn't really all that important. He just hoped they wasted a lot of time doing it. He slowly took the next step toward Williams, and as he did so he slowly raised his palm.
Last edited by greywolf on Fri Dec 17, 2010 1:46 am, edited 2 times in total.
Re: Decisions AUwA (Mature) 12/17/10
Williams had hunted big game animals for decades and you develop a feel for what you hunt after awhile. Even before the kid took the step off the porch he knew something was wrong.
Williams had known - even before they'd poured the whiskey into him - that the kid had been scared half to death. The kids eyes had glazed over fast - well that wasn't that much of a surprise, they'd made the kid chug most of a fifth of Scotch - and the look in those eyes had almost seemed to welcome the relief from the terror that was in there. And if you just looked at the kid - well, the kid looked like crap really. The kid looked like he'd been run hard and put away wet, like he was on the fifth day of a six day drunk, like ... well, all the trite expressions you could use to describe someone barely able to stand after he'd been through way too much. But the eyes told the true story.
Williams had hunted predators with dogs before, and he'd seen that look in their eyes at the end. The cougar would run from the dog pack until it could run no more - until cornered with it's back to a wall - or until it stood before it's den. Then, exhausted and seemingly spent, it would turn on its pursuers. That's when it would have that look in its eyes - the look that Max Evans had now. That was when - despite the physical fatigue - the animal was at its most dangerous. Because now it had ceased to fear the dogs - given up hope or at least ceased to care about survival. The look in the animals eyes said it all.
Whatever had put the frightened look in the kids eyes before - well it wasn't there now. Physically, the kid seemed barely mobile, but the steps he was taking were right at Williams, and those eyes were boring in to his with a look like that of a predator that had nowhere to run and wanted to get some of its own back before it went into the long dark sleep of death.
And that was alright with Williams. If the kid just kept coming - a half dozen more steps - the angle would be perfect for McCarthy. A bullet in the side of the kid's head would do just fine - they could take the bullet out of another shell and fire it into the same area at close range to give the right powder splatter if they had to. It wasn't like the kid was armed or could do any serious damage.
The kids predatory look actually caused more curiosity than fear in Williams - even as he stepped off the proch to come toward the three of them.
"Of course," said Williams loudly. "It's the girl. That's your little bastard inside her," said Williams. If he could just keep the kid coming after him a little bit longer - not suddenly recover his wits and try to bolt - McCarthy's shot would be perfect....
Williams had known - even before they'd poured the whiskey into him - that the kid had been scared half to death. The kids eyes had glazed over fast - well that wasn't that much of a surprise, they'd made the kid chug most of a fifth of Scotch - and the look in those eyes had almost seemed to welcome the relief from the terror that was in there. And if you just looked at the kid - well, the kid looked like crap really. The kid looked like he'd been run hard and put away wet, like he was on the fifth day of a six day drunk, like ... well, all the trite expressions you could use to describe someone barely able to stand after he'd been through way too much. But the eyes told the true story.
Williams had hunted predators with dogs before, and he'd seen that look in their eyes at the end. The cougar would run from the dog pack until it could run no more - until cornered with it's back to a wall - or until it stood before it's den. Then, exhausted and seemingly spent, it would turn on its pursuers. That's when it would have that look in its eyes - the look that Max Evans had now. That was when - despite the physical fatigue - the animal was at its most dangerous. Because now it had ceased to fear the dogs - given up hope or at least ceased to care about survival. The look in the animals eyes said it all.
Whatever had put the frightened look in the kids eyes before - well it wasn't there now. Physically, the kid seemed barely mobile, but the steps he was taking were right at Williams, and those eyes were boring in to his with a look like that of a predator that had nowhere to run and wanted to get some of its own back before it went into the long dark sleep of death.
And that was alright with Williams. If the kid just kept coming - a half dozen more steps - the angle would be perfect for McCarthy. A bullet in the side of the kid's head would do just fine - they could take the bullet out of another shell and fire it into the same area at close range to give the right powder splatter if they had to. It wasn't like the kid was armed or could do any serious damage.
The kids predatory look actually caused more curiosity than fear in Williams - even as he stepped off the proch to come toward the three of them.
"Of course," said Williams loudly. "It's the girl. That's your little bastard inside her," said Williams. If he could just keep the kid coming after him a little bit longer - not suddenly recover his wits and try to bolt - McCarthy's shot would be perfect....
Re: Decisions AUwA (Mature) 12/18/10
Jeff Parker sawed frantically at the wadded up tape at Jim Valenti's ankles. He'd gotten his hands free only seconds ago, but Jim's hands were almost numb themselves. Even so, Valenti had been able to fish his own folding knife out of his pocket and had already succeeded in opening it and was even now sawing away on Pemberton's bonds.
Jeff stole a look outside where Max Evans was facing down three armed men bare-handed, and Jeff's thoughts turned to the gun cabinet by the back door. If he remembered correctly, Williams had left the 12 gauge and the little 22 rifle back there when he took his own weapons - the ones whose firing pins he had removed - back to his own ranch. Neither weapon was actually much of match for the weapons the three men outside had.
The 12 gauge was normally used only for shooting rattlesnakes that tried to get too close to the ranch house. Because of that it was loaded with tiny pellets - only 0.08 inches in diameter. The 2 and 3/4 oz load provided a huge number of pellets - almost 900 - but they were very small and lost energy quickly once they left the barrel. Oh, at close range the lead pellets were held together by the shotcup and they'd kill an elephant under three feet, but they'd be hard-pressed to penetrate human skin at a range of 100 feet and unlikely to stop anyone from much over twenty feet. The little 22 was scarcely better. While a well placed shot might theoretically be fatal at up to a mile, the short barrel meant a short sight radius and rapid attenuation of bullet velocity. The round had no stopping power and only marginally better effective range than the 12 gauge ... and unlike the double barrel, the 22 was a single shot bolt action which meant the shooter was likely going to get off ONLY the one shot against a better armed opponent. Even so, the weapons were better than nothing - certainly better than the nearly dull paring knife that Jeff had in his hands.
"There might be a 22 and a 12 gauge back in the gun cabinet if Williams left them there," said Jeff, continuing to hack at the tape on the ankles of Jim Valenti. Of course, by the time any of them actually got to the weapons the confrontation out front would likely already be over....
'That's your little bastard inside her,...' The words echoed in his mind.
"Children" he said with more than a little regret.
Not regret that she carried his children. Regret that he'd been a fool and wasted the time they might have had together - regret that he'd never told her just how much he did love her - regret that he wouldn't be there to see them grow up. But - strangely - little regret about what he was doing now. Because that was what you did do - that's what being a real person was all about. For all the many years he'd been confused, for all the poor decisions he'd made, this was the right thing to do - whatever the cost - to stand between evil and the people you loved. Despite the weakness of his body, the nausea and pain that wracked his brain, this decision was finally the right decision.
And in the end, what Liz had said about him - that he was incapable of killing anyone - that was simply wrong - because like any normal human being - like any man - he would kill if he needed to - to protect the mother he'd never really deserved, the girl he'd never really deserved.... and their children.
Williams became more uneasy every step the boy took toward him. Physically, the boy didn't look that impressive, but there were still those eyes. The eyes looked.... murderous. The eyes had no indication of the defeat that seemed to perfuse the rest of the kid's body. There was something here, Williams knew, that he was missing. Did the kid somehow have something up his sleeve? A ripple of fear went through his mind - almost below the level of consciousness.
Maybe that's why he settled with the geometry they had. McCarthy was close enough - at the right angle - to put a bullet in to the kids head that could be made to look like suicide. It really didn't have to be that good. With an escaped fugitive - running from an attempted murder charge - and the apparent suicide after killing not just the intended victim but the arresting officer... it wasn't like Chaves county was going to spend a whole lot of money chasing down improbable theories when they had such an obvious murder-suicide staring them in the face.
"McCarthy, ...kill him," said Williams.
McCarthy had kept his hands empty, expecting the kid to bolt and to have to run after him, but at the command from Williams he went for the service pistol - the one that belonged to Deputy Pemberton - that he was carrying in his waistband.
Max saw McCarthy make the move for his gun out of the corner of his eye. He'd hoped for a few seconds longer - a few steps closer - it made the shot pretty marginal with the way he felt right now - but the important thing was to get off a shot at all. Even if he missed them entirely - if his being different did no more than buy his mother and Liz a few more seconds to hide as these guys stood over his body and discussed just what in hell had just happened that alone made being different worthwhile.
Max had already had his hands forward - as if he were surrendering - he quickly centered his right hand on Williams and willed the powerblast to happen.
The sudden purposeful movement crystallized the fear in the primitive parts of Williams brain that he was under attack. It didn't know how - didn't care that his eyes told him the boy was unarmed - there was something about the movement that was so inherently threatening that - quicker than he could really believe it was happening - Williams found his body diving for the ground. But his eyes remained on the boy - and even before he hit Williams saw that right palm flash with a golden light even as he felt a blast of air as something passed above and beside him in the space where his chest had been only moments ago. For a fraction of a heartbeat, Williams felt relief. Then all hell broke loose.
Jeff stole a look outside where Max Evans was facing down three armed men bare-handed, and Jeff's thoughts turned to the gun cabinet by the back door. If he remembered correctly, Williams had left the 12 gauge and the little 22 rifle back there when he took his own weapons - the ones whose firing pins he had removed - back to his own ranch. Neither weapon was actually much of match for the weapons the three men outside had.
The 12 gauge was normally used only for shooting rattlesnakes that tried to get too close to the ranch house. Because of that it was loaded with tiny pellets - only 0.08 inches in diameter. The 2 and 3/4 oz load provided a huge number of pellets - almost 900 - but they were very small and lost energy quickly once they left the barrel. Oh, at close range the lead pellets were held together by the shotcup and they'd kill an elephant under three feet, but they'd be hard-pressed to penetrate human skin at a range of 100 feet and unlikely to stop anyone from much over twenty feet. The little 22 was scarcely better. While a well placed shot might theoretically be fatal at up to a mile, the short barrel meant a short sight radius and rapid attenuation of bullet velocity. The round had no stopping power and only marginally better effective range than the 12 gauge ... and unlike the double barrel, the 22 was a single shot bolt action which meant the shooter was likely going to get off ONLY the one shot against a better armed opponent. Even so, the weapons were better than nothing - certainly better than the nearly dull paring knife that Jeff had in his hands.
"There might be a 22 and a 12 gauge back in the gun cabinet if Williams left them there," said Jeff, continuing to hack at the tape on the ankles of Jim Valenti. Of course, by the time any of them actually got to the weapons the confrontation out front would likely already be over....
'That's your little bastard inside her,...' The words echoed in his mind.
"Children" he said with more than a little regret.
Not regret that she carried his children. Regret that he'd been a fool and wasted the time they might have had together - regret that he'd never told her just how much he did love her - regret that he wouldn't be there to see them grow up. But - strangely - little regret about what he was doing now. Because that was what you did do - that's what being a real person was all about. For all the many years he'd been confused, for all the poor decisions he'd made, this was the right thing to do - whatever the cost - to stand between evil and the people you loved. Despite the weakness of his body, the nausea and pain that wracked his brain, this decision was finally the right decision.
And in the end, what Liz had said about him - that he was incapable of killing anyone - that was simply wrong - because like any normal human being - like any man - he would kill if he needed to - to protect the mother he'd never really deserved, the girl he'd never really deserved.... and their children.
Williams became more uneasy every step the boy took toward him. Physically, the boy didn't look that impressive, but there were still those eyes. The eyes looked.... murderous. The eyes had no indication of the defeat that seemed to perfuse the rest of the kid's body. There was something here, Williams knew, that he was missing. Did the kid somehow have something up his sleeve? A ripple of fear went through his mind - almost below the level of consciousness.
Maybe that's why he settled with the geometry they had. McCarthy was close enough - at the right angle - to put a bullet in to the kids head that could be made to look like suicide. It really didn't have to be that good. With an escaped fugitive - running from an attempted murder charge - and the apparent suicide after killing not just the intended victim but the arresting officer... it wasn't like Chaves county was going to spend a whole lot of money chasing down improbable theories when they had such an obvious murder-suicide staring them in the face.
"McCarthy, ...kill him," said Williams.
McCarthy had kept his hands empty, expecting the kid to bolt and to have to run after him, but at the command from Williams he went for the service pistol - the one that belonged to Deputy Pemberton - that he was carrying in his waistband.
Max saw McCarthy make the move for his gun out of the corner of his eye. He'd hoped for a few seconds longer - a few steps closer - it made the shot pretty marginal with the way he felt right now - but the important thing was to get off a shot at all. Even if he missed them entirely - if his being different did no more than buy his mother and Liz a few more seconds to hide as these guys stood over his body and discussed just what in hell had just happened that alone made being different worthwhile.
Max had already had his hands forward - as if he were surrendering - he quickly centered his right hand on Williams and willed the powerblast to happen.
The sudden purposeful movement crystallized the fear in the primitive parts of Williams brain that he was under attack. It didn't know how - didn't care that his eyes told him the boy was unarmed - there was something about the movement that was so inherently threatening that - quicker than he could really believe it was happening - Williams found his body diving for the ground. But his eyes remained on the boy - and even before he hit Williams saw that right palm flash with a golden light even as he felt a blast of air as something passed above and beside him in the space where his chest had been only moments ago. For a fraction of a heartbeat, Williams felt relief. Then all hell broke loose.
Last edited by greywolf on Sat Dec 18, 2010 5:35 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Re: Decisions AUwA (Mature) 12/17/10
There is a tremendous amount of energy in five gallons of diesel fuel. At 45 megajoules per Kilogram, that's very close to a thousand megajoules. Diesel oil actually has four times the chemical energy of dynamite - it's just real difficult to get it out quickly. Dynamite - basically some dilution of nitroglycerin - has a carbon skeleton that's not much bigger than that of acetic acid. Tack three nitrate groups on to that and you have nitroglycerin - concentrated dynamite. But the nitrate groups basically just supply oxygen. Where the energy comes from is oxidizing those carbon atoms and the reason that nitroglycerin is explosive - capable of releasing all that energy quickly - is that the nitroglycerin supplies its own oxygen.
But some of the most explosive weapons made don't supply their own oxygen. They are called fuel-air munitions. They were invented to mimic the sort of fuel-air explosions that occur in industry in the form of coal dust and grain dust explosions. If carbon containing compounds are aerosolized - finely divided and suspended in the atmosphere - and then ignited, they release all their energy quite quickly. On a pound for pound basis, these are more explosive than conventional explosives just because they don't carry the weight of that added oxygen - they get it from the atmosphere instead.
The five gallon can of diesel fuel - like the five gallon can of gasoline beside it - had been placed up on the edge of the pickup bed before the unloading of the pickup truck had been interrupted. The powerblast that had missed Williams had hit it flat side on. Initially - in the first few milliseconds that is - the wall of the jeep can had started to deform inward. That presented an immediate problem. The can was entirely full, and contained liquids are NOT compressible. And yet when an irresistible force meets an immovable object, something must give. It was the jeep can.
Jeep cans are rugged - not like the little plastic or tinny sheet metal cans that are sometimes used to carry gasoline. Jeep cans are welded steel. But it didn't matter matter. It's a matter of hydraulics.
Even if the force of the five inch diameter powerblast had only been a hundred pounds per square inch - and it was far more than that - the fact that the can was totally filled doomed the wall of the can to failure. As the wall of the can bent inward, every bit of that hundred pounds per square inch was imposed upon the entire inner surface of that container. A jeep can is about 6 inches by 13 inches by 18 inches. That's 208 square inches per side, which meant a force of well over ten tons per side. The jeep can had thick steel - but not that thick. Part of the jeep can simply splintered - forming shrapnel that blew into the adjacent cab of the truck - and the adjacent jeep can of gas. more about the latter later.
But the impressive part - the really impressive part - was the stream that blew out the back. Even with the fractures in the jeep can, the diesel oil immediately in the path of the powerblast simply couldn't get out of the way fast enough.
A five inch cylinder of diesel oil was pushed right through the back side of the jeep can - no doubt collecting a few more metal fragments as it went - and shoved at hypersonic speed into the desert behind the truck - into the desert air. Between the heat generated by the process and the turbulence generated by the air flow, the cylinder of diesel fuel became first widely dispersed and then finally atomized. It achieved something the chemical engineers would call a stochiometric mixture - just enough oxygen for the carbon and hydrogen in the diesel fuel.
Did I mention heat earlier? Oh yes, diesel oil has a temperature known as the flash point. The results were rather spectacular. Fortunately for everyone - including Max - the actual fuel-air explosion occurred mostly on the far side of the pickup truck from the house and the four people standing before it. Such explosions do, however, generate a hell of a shock wave.
Despite the fact that the powerblast was directed away from the farmhouse, shock waves are a lot more ecumenical than that. They go out in circles and since the explosion was north of the truck, the shockwave spent a portion of its energy traveling south - back toward the truck, the three assailants - and Max. A funny thing happened along the way.
The gas filled jeep can - remember the gas filled jeep can? It was sitting next to the diesel filled jeep can on the back of the pickup truck. The gas-filled jeep can had been impacted by flying splinters from the diesel jeep cans disintegration. The weight of those splinters were small compared to the weight of the Jeep can and contents - but they'd been going pretty fast. Not only had the splinters succeeded in penetrating the side of the Jeep can, their own momentum had been transferred to the can itself. Conservation of momentum is one of the laws of physics. In the process of conserving that momentum, the gas-filled jeep can had flown off the rear of the truck and managed to cartwheel almost five feet across the desert before the shockwave going south hit it.
McCarthy had drawn the service automatic and steadied it on the kids head ... had even begun to squeeze the trigger. Max putting his palm out toward Williams had fazed McCarthy not at all. Not so the jeep can hitting him in the back - driven there by the shock wave from the explosion.
By this time the can and contents only weighed about 20 pounds, down from the original 35 pounds because of the gasoline that had spewed from the shrapnel holes in the can as it had cartwheeled along from the truck. But even twenty pounds of fuel and metal - hitting you in the back at thirty miles an hour is going to spoil your aim. As the jeep can hit McCarthy his hand jerked upwards from the impact of the cartwheeling can, and as the spray of gasoline splashed against the man's face, his finger exerted five pounds pull on the trigger and the sear released. The bullet went high - it would hurt no one - but the muzzle discharge ignited the raw gasoline.
As his face caught fire, McCarthy gave out a long piercing scream of agony. What did the real damage though was after that - when McCarthy inhaled and pulled the fire down into his lungs...
But some of the most explosive weapons made don't supply their own oxygen. They are called fuel-air munitions. They were invented to mimic the sort of fuel-air explosions that occur in industry in the form of coal dust and grain dust explosions. If carbon containing compounds are aerosolized - finely divided and suspended in the atmosphere - and then ignited, they release all their energy quite quickly. On a pound for pound basis, these are more explosive than conventional explosives just because they don't carry the weight of that added oxygen - they get it from the atmosphere instead.
The five gallon can of diesel fuel - like the five gallon can of gasoline beside it - had been placed up on the edge of the pickup bed before the unloading of the pickup truck had been interrupted. The powerblast that had missed Williams had hit it flat side on. Initially - in the first few milliseconds that is - the wall of the jeep can had started to deform inward. That presented an immediate problem. The can was entirely full, and contained liquids are NOT compressible. And yet when an irresistible force meets an immovable object, something must give. It was the jeep can.
Jeep cans are rugged - not like the little plastic or tinny sheet metal cans that are sometimes used to carry gasoline. Jeep cans are welded steel. But it didn't matter matter. It's a matter of hydraulics.
Even if the force of the five inch diameter powerblast had only been a hundred pounds per square inch - and it was far more than that - the fact that the can was totally filled doomed the wall of the can to failure. As the wall of the can bent inward, every bit of that hundred pounds per square inch was imposed upon the entire inner surface of that container. A jeep can is about 6 inches by 13 inches by 18 inches. That's 208 square inches per side, which meant a force of well over ten tons per side. The jeep can had thick steel - but not that thick. Part of the jeep can simply splintered - forming shrapnel that blew into the adjacent cab of the truck - and the adjacent jeep can of gas. more about the latter later.
But the impressive part - the really impressive part - was the stream that blew out the back. Even with the fractures in the jeep can, the diesel oil immediately in the path of the powerblast simply couldn't get out of the way fast enough.
A five inch cylinder of diesel oil was pushed right through the back side of the jeep can - no doubt collecting a few more metal fragments as it went - and shoved at hypersonic speed into the desert behind the truck - into the desert air. Between the heat generated by the process and the turbulence generated by the air flow, the cylinder of diesel fuel became first widely dispersed and then finally atomized. It achieved something the chemical engineers would call a stochiometric mixture - just enough oxygen for the carbon and hydrogen in the diesel fuel.
Did I mention heat earlier? Oh yes, diesel oil has a temperature known as the flash point. The results were rather spectacular. Fortunately for everyone - including Max - the actual fuel-air explosion occurred mostly on the far side of the pickup truck from the house and the four people standing before it. Such explosions do, however, generate a hell of a shock wave.
Despite the fact that the powerblast was directed away from the farmhouse, shock waves are a lot more ecumenical than that. They go out in circles and since the explosion was north of the truck, the shockwave spent a portion of its energy traveling south - back toward the truck, the three assailants - and Max. A funny thing happened along the way.
The gas filled jeep can - remember the gas filled jeep can? It was sitting next to the diesel filled jeep can on the back of the pickup truck. The gas-filled jeep can had been impacted by flying splinters from the diesel jeep cans disintegration. The weight of those splinters were small compared to the weight of the Jeep can and contents - but they'd been going pretty fast. Not only had the splinters succeeded in penetrating the side of the Jeep can, their own momentum had been transferred to the can itself. Conservation of momentum is one of the laws of physics. In the process of conserving that momentum, the gas-filled jeep can had flown off the rear of the truck and managed to cartwheel almost five feet across the desert before the shockwave going south hit it.
McCarthy had drawn the service automatic and steadied it on the kids head ... had even begun to squeeze the trigger. Max putting his palm out toward Williams had fazed McCarthy not at all. Not so the jeep can hitting him in the back - driven there by the shock wave from the explosion.
By this time the can and contents only weighed about 20 pounds, down from the original 35 pounds because of the gasoline that had spewed from the shrapnel holes in the can as it had cartwheeled along from the truck. But even twenty pounds of fuel and metal - hitting you in the back at thirty miles an hour is going to spoil your aim. As the jeep can hit McCarthy his hand jerked upwards from the impact of the cartwheeling can, and as the spray of gasoline splashed against the man's face, his finger exerted five pounds pull on the trigger and the sear released. The bullet went high - it would hurt no one - but the muzzle discharge ignited the raw gasoline.
As his face caught fire, McCarthy gave out a long piercing scream of agony. What did the real damage though was after that - when McCarthy inhaled and pulled the fire down into his lungs...
Last edited by greywolf on Sat Dec 18, 2010 11:09 am, edited 3 times in total.
Re: Decisions AUwA (Mature) 12/18/10 (2)
"Son of a bitch!!!...," said Pemberton as the fireball of the explosion flared behind the truck. "Head's down..."
Even if Jeff and Jim hadn't been warned, the flash of fire would have convinced them something was going on. They flung their faces at the floor and closed their eyes, barely beating the arrival of the shockwave of the explosion at the windows. The windows were nearly as ancient as the house and dated back to a time long before annealed safety glass. The windows disappeared in a shower of splinters - fortunately none of them with the mass to do serious damage to the exposed neck of Pemberton, who alone among the three still had his hands taped and had been unable to cover his neck.
But before he'd ducked his head, Pemberton had seen it all. What exactly he had seen he still wasn't sure about. Visually there had been a lance of golden light - almost like a laser beam - that had narrowly missed Williams, but hit the jeep can squarely. He'd seen the other jeep can get hit by the shockwave just before getting his head down, but at the scream from McCarthy he looked up to see the man flailing among the fiery remains of the second jeep can. All things considered, Pemberton handled the situation pretty pragmatically.
'I really DID NOT care for that man,' he thought.
Despite his dive to the earth, Williams had never taken his eyes off Max. No, Williams didn't truly comprehend what had happened either, but he understood enough. Whatever thoughts he had once had of of carrying this off - and resurrecting his political career - had just vanished.
Whatever the kid had done and however he had done it was less important than the result. With his truck on fire and McCarthy's own funeral pyre burning 50 feet away, there was precisely no way that he was going to be able to hide his own involvement in this - even if he did manage to finish off the rest of the people in the ranch house.
The kid had won, even though he stood there on feet that seemed too wobbly to support him. Williams rifle was on the ground at his own feet - having slipped from his hands at the time of the huge explosion... but Abernathy still had his rifle pointed at the boy .. and the boy was going nowhere fast. With his dreams literally turning to ashes, Williams was not inclined to let bygones be bygones.
"Use your rifle. Kill the son of a bitch," shouted Williams. Apparently the 'bitch' in question had other ideas though.
Abernathy didn't know what was going on. He'd seen the flash of light from the kid's hand, seen the explosion - but still didn't understand it. But the order from Williams seemed to crystallize his thoughts. Killing is something he'd done before - something he understood. Even so, as he raised his weapon, Max's legs gave out beneath him and he fell to the ground. That fall bought the boy only a second or two, but it was enough. A thousand needles lanced suddenly into Abernathy's abdomen.
That was actually somewhat of an exaggeration really. They weren't needles, they merely felt like them, nor were there really a thousand. There HAD been almost 900 of the little number nine birdshot in the 2 and 3/4 ounce load that had left the right barrel of the shotgun Diane Evans had fired from the corner of the porch. The old gun really didn't have much of a choke and the shot had scattered pretty widely in traveling the fifty or sixty feet to Abernathy. Only about a quarter of those had hit Abernathy - centered right where Diane had fired them, on the center of mass. Many of those had not even penetrated the man's shirt, although they'd certainly raised a multitude of small welts underneath
Oh, Abernathy had gotten a scattering of pellets in other areas even to his hands, legs, and face, some of those had even actually broken the skin - but the pattern density outside the abdominal area was sufficiently low to be only intensely annoying, and even in the abdomen the few pellets that actually forced their way through his shirt succeeded mainly in embedding themselves in his skin.
But the attack from an unexpected direction - however limited the damage - had at least served one purpose. It stung Abernathy - surprised him - and made him have to make a choice between returning fire on Diane Evans or shooting Max Evans.
Diane Evans was somewhat less conflicted. With the man threatening her son with a rifle she had no doubt who she was going to fire at. She hesitated only long enough to go to school on the results of her first shell - and to understand how pitifully ineffective the small shot was. Before Abernathy had sorted out his own surprise and target choices, Diane had raised her aim by a little over two feet, and had fired her second barrel.
Once more 870+ pellets spread out, and this time even more of them missed. But over two hundred of them did hit - the spread centered on Abernathy's face. The skin was thinner there and the ratio of penetration greater. Even so, the penetration of the small pellets generally wasn't deep enough to cause any serious damage - the exception of course being the three pellets that hit Abernathy's right eye and the six pellets that hit his left. The cornea is almost as tough as the skin, but once that was penetrated the eyeball had the consistency of week-old gelatin. Several of the pellets actually made it all the way to the retina.
Blinded and his face on fire from the pain, Abernathy staggered away from the direction of Diane Evans and simply ran. He'd gone almost thirty feet when his path was impeded by a pickup truck, but that was only the start of his problems.
The gas can that had pinwheeled into McCarthy had lost over two gallons of gas along the way, and the pyre from where the man had not quite yet quit writhing in death had also set fire to that trail of gas. There were two more canisters at the base of the truck - holed by shrapnel and leaking - that had formed a spreading ring of fire. In his collision into the truck Abernathy fell into one edge of this ring of fire.
Totally blind, the man had no idea which way to roll to get away from the burning pool of gas and extinguish the flames that had already set fire to his clothing. It was a life or death decision and a fifty-fifty chance.
Abernathy chose poorly.
Even if Jeff and Jim hadn't been warned, the flash of fire would have convinced them something was going on. They flung their faces at the floor and closed their eyes, barely beating the arrival of the shockwave of the explosion at the windows. The windows were nearly as ancient as the house and dated back to a time long before annealed safety glass. The windows disappeared in a shower of splinters - fortunately none of them with the mass to do serious damage to the exposed neck of Pemberton, who alone among the three still had his hands taped and had been unable to cover his neck.
But before he'd ducked his head, Pemberton had seen it all. What exactly he had seen he still wasn't sure about. Visually there had been a lance of golden light - almost like a laser beam - that had narrowly missed Williams, but hit the jeep can squarely. He'd seen the other jeep can get hit by the shockwave just before getting his head down, but at the scream from McCarthy he looked up to see the man flailing among the fiery remains of the second jeep can. All things considered, Pemberton handled the situation pretty pragmatically.
'I really DID NOT care for that man,' he thought.
Despite his dive to the earth, Williams had never taken his eyes off Max. No, Williams didn't truly comprehend what had happened either, but he understood enough. Whatever thoughts he had once had of of carrying this off - and resurrecting his political career - had just vanished.
Whatever the kid had done and however he had done it was less important than the result. With his truck on fire and McCarthy's own funeral pyre burning 50 feet away, there was precisely no way that he was going to be able to hide his own involvement in this - even if he did manage to finish off the rest of the people in the ranch house.
The kid had won, even though he stood there on feet that seemed too wobbly to support him. Williams rifle was on the ground at his own feet - having slipped from his hands at the time of the huge explosion... but Abernathy still had his rifle pointed at the boy .. and the boy was going nowhere fast. With his dreams literally turning to ashes, Williams was not inclined to let bygones be bygones.
"Use your rifle. Kill the son of a bitch," shouted Williams. Apparently the 'bitch' in question had other ideas though.
Abernathy didn't know what was going on. He'd seen the flash of light from the kid's hand, seen the explosion - but still didn't understand it. But the order from Williams seemed to crystallize his thoughts. Killing is something he'd done before - something he understood. Even so, as he raised his weapon, Max's legs gave out beneath him and he fell to the ground. That fall bought the boy only a second or two, but it was enough. A thousand needles lanced suddenly into Abernathy's abdomen.
That was actually somewhat of an exaggeration really. They weren't needles, they merely felt like them, nor were there really a thousand. There HAD been almost 900 of the little number nine birdshot in the 2 and 3/4 ounce load that had left the right barrel of the shotgun Diane Evans had fired from the corner of the porch. The old gun really didn't have much of a choke and the shot had scattered pretty widely in traveling the fifty or sixty feet to Abernathy. Only about a quarter of those had hit Abernathy - centered right where Diane had fired them, on the center of mass. Many of those had not even penetrated the man's shirt, although they'd certainly raised a multitude of small welts underneath
Oh, Abernathy had gotten a scattering of pellets in other areas even to his hands, legs, and face, some of those had even actually broken the skin - but the pattern density outside the abdominal area was sufficiently low to be only intensely annoying, and even in the abdomen the few pellets that actually forced their way through his shirt succeeded mainly in embedding themselves in his skin.
But the attack from an unexpected direction - however limited the damage - had at least served one purpose. It stung Abernathy - surprised him - and made him have to make a choice between returning fire on Diane Evans or shooting Max Evans.
Diane Evans was somewhat less conflicted. With the man threatening her son with a rifle she had no doubt who she was going to fire at. She hesitated only long enough to go to school on the results of her first shell - and to understand how pitifully ineffective the small shot was. Before Abernathy had sorted out his own surprise and target choices, Diane had raised her aim by a little over two feet, and had fired her second barrel.
Once more 870+ pellets spread out, and this time even more of them missed. But over two hundred of them did hit - the spread centered on Abernathy's face. The skin was thinner there and the ratio of penetration greater. Even so, the penetration of the small pellets generally wasn't deep enough to cause any serious damage - the exception of course being the three pellets that hit Abernathy's right eye and the six pellets that hit his left. The cornea is almost as tough as the skin, but once that was penetrated the eyeball had the consistency of week-old gelatin. Several of the pellets actually made it all the way to the retina.
Blinded and his face on fire from the pain, Abernathy staggered away from the direction of Diane Evans and simply ran. He'd gone almost thirty feet when his path was impeded by a pickup truck, but that was only the start of his problems.
The gas can that had pinwheeled into McCarthy had lost over two gallons of gas along the way, and the pyre from where the man had not quite yet quit writhing in death had also set fire to that trail of gas. There were two more canisters at the base of the truck - holed by shrapnel and leaking - that had formed a spreading ring of fire. In his collision into the truck Abernathy fell into one edge of this ring of fire.
Totally blind, the man had no idea which way to roll to get away from the burning pool of gas and extinguish the flames that had already set fire to his clothing. It was a life or death decision and a fifty-fifty chance.
Abernathy chose poorly.
Last edited by greywolf on Sat Dec 18, 2010 11:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Decisions AUwA (Mature) 12/20/10
By the time the shotgun had fired the second time, Williams had found his rifle and as he looked at Diane Evans, a lot of thoughts were going through his mind. He had held that ancient double-barrel himself, once the captives had been 'safely' tied up, only about thirty-five minutes ago. Thirty-five minutes during which the situation had gone from manageable to totally hopeless. But the situation had started coming apart before that ... before the Evans kid had even showed up. In fact, the situation had been going reasonably well right up to the moment that Diane Evans had turned up at the Parker ranch holding that accursed old shotgun.
He could have taken out both Jeff Parker and the girl, and been gone long before the deputies had arrived - if it hadn't been for the woman. In fact, since the Evans kid had somehow broken out of jail, he would have almost certainly gotten the blame for the deaths of Jeff and his daughter - if only the Evans woman hadn't been there.
No, the problem with the boy - whatever he did and however he had done it - would have been moot if Diane Evans had just not been there when that telephone connection got cut.
All this went through Williams head in a fractional second - the echo of that second shotgun blast hardly dying out before Williams came to his conclusion. Nothing could bring back the political career he might have had ... had not that little bitch step-daughter of his not gone off the rails after a little loving attention from her step-father - or had not the Evans woman butted in to a situation that was none of her damn business.
Women were the source of all of his troubles, Williams decided. From little Debbie Hargreaves who couldn't handle a little harmless sex, to her mother Janice who couldn't take the fact that her whiny daughter had become a slut and a druggie, and now Diane Evans...
Well Debbie and Janice were dead, damn it, and his score with them was settled... and that's the way it would be between himself and Diane Evans.
But as he placed the sights on Diane Evans, Williams started to smile. He watched as she fumbled to get the shotgun broken, knowing just how long the ancient firearm - it didn't even have automatic cartridge ejectors - would take to reload. And even then... she had number nine birdshot and he had his hunting safety glasses on. At this distance all she could do was piss him off once she did reload. And as she saw him looking - and fumbled to extract the shells that had swollen somewhat as they were fired from the breech of that ancient shotgun, Williams knew he wasn't going to shoot her - not yet.
He'd seen what happened to Janice after Debbie died. That pain was a thousand times worse than the pain Diane herself would feel if he just put a round through her. But there was a reason she was out her - not yet reloaded and totally vulnerable. Like Janice with Debbie, the woman was more concerned about her child than her own life. Before he put her down he wanted her hurt, and nothing he could do to her was going to hurt her nearly as much as watching the death of her son.
So Williams smiled as he rotated his body slightly to bring the chest of Max Evans into his crosshairs and - knowing damn well that Diane Evans would be unable to stop him Williams took a deep breath and began a slow steady squeeze on the trigger of the powerful 30-06. It was the classic way to achieve accuracy. The instructors say that you use a slow steady squeeze and the noise of the gun firing should surprise even the shooter when the gun discharges.
But it wasn't a discharge from the expensive 30-06 hunting rifle that surprised Williams. It was a 22 caliber 55 grain bullet that came from the other side of the porch - fired from the humble elderly little single-shot plinking rifle now held in the hands of Elizabeth Parker. You see, Diane Evans wasn't the only woman that loved that young man.
Diane hadn't told Liz her plan, just to cut one of the guys loose and run and hide. It seemed like a poor time to argue so Liz had just nodded. She wasn't going to argue with her father either, which is why she'd left him as soon as he was sure he'd be able to finish the job of cutting Valenti and Pemberton free. She knew that Max would buy the men some time and that Diane would buy them even more - and she intended to buy them any other time they needed. Of course, it wasn't for them really, much as she loved her father, it was for her own children - or at least that's how she rationalized it to herself.
She loved her father - always had - all her life - and he had loved her. Her children deserved the same in their life. OK, so she and Max had gotten off to a rocky start. Maybe - despite Diane's joking about marching the young man to the wedding with a shotgun if necessary - maybe what she'd done - what she'd put him through - was just going to be too much for the two of them to ever put back together what they might have had.
But the Max that Liz knew - and loved - certainly wasn't going to hold their mother's actions against a couple of children - especially his children. Whether or not their mother deserved the husband of her choice, her children deserved their daddy - and it was Liz's intention to save him.
Immediately after cutting her father's hands free, Liz had bolted for the back of the house for the little 22 waiting in the gun cabinet. She'd grabbed it, shoved the half-box of shells in her pocket, and gone out the back door, chambering one shell and cocking the rifle as she went.
Diane had turned right to come back alongside that side of the house - she'd turned left. The first shotgun blast had come when she'd been halfway back to the porch - the second just before she'd reached the corner of the porch opposite Diane. Liz turned the corner to face - carnage.
One of the guys - Liz couldn't tell who - was burning fiercely in front of her. Another of the men - it had to be Abernathy by the size of him - although his face was a mass of blood and shredded skin - was in the process of blundering blindly in to the pickup truck that was surrounded by a widening circle of burning fuel. But standing there between the pickup truck and Max - a Max who was collapsed and barely moving - was Williams. He was in the process of swinging his gun from Diane who was desperately trying to reload - toward Max.
Liz had never hunted in her life - perhaps one of only ten percent of New Mexico residents who could say that, the state was full of avid hunters - but she'd heard the stories told by all the hunters who would have early morning breakfast at the Crashdown. A 22 is not really a hunting rifle at all - and certainly not for big game. It had no stopping power. There were only two areas that would kill something instantly with the little 22 - the heart or the brain - and the heart was smaller. She'd hit tin cans out back with the little rifle a thousand times - but tin cans aren't about to kill someone you care about. That's why she rushed the shot - pulled the trigger rather than squeezed it. She missed the head altogether as the shot wound up below and behind the side of Williams head.
Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good, or perhaps something else guided that shot. As the bullet hit the side of Williams neck, he collapsed onto his back as if he was a puppet whose strings had been cut.
He could have taken out both Jeff Parker and the girl, and been gone long before the deputies had arrived - if it hadn't been for the woman. In fact, since the Evans kid had somehow broken out of jail, he would have almost certainly gotten the blame for the deaths of Jeff and his daughter - if only the Evans woman hadn't been there.
No, the problem with the boy - whatever he did and however he had done it - would have been moot if Diane Evans had just not been there when that telephone connection got cut.
All this went through Williams head in a fractional second - the echo of that second shotgun blast hardly dying out before Williams came to his conclusion. Nothing could bring back the political career he might have had ... had not that little bitch step-daughter of his not gone off the rails after a little loving attention from her step-father - or had not the Evans woman butted in to a situation that was none of her damn business.
Women were the source of all of his troubles, Williams decided. From little Debbie Hargreaves who couldn't handle a little harmless sex, to her mother Janice who couldn't take the fact that her whiny daughter had become a slut and a druggie, and now Diane Evans...
Well Debbie and Janice were dead, damn it, and his score with them was settled... and that's the way it would be between himself and Diane Evans.
But as he placed the sights on Diane Evans, Williams started to smile. He watched as she fumbled to get the shotgun broken, knowing just how long the ancient firearm - it didn't even have automatic cartridge ejectors - would take to reload. And even then... she had number nine birdshot and he had his hunting safety glasses on. At this distance all she could do was piss him off once she did reload. And as she saw him looking - and fumbled to extract the shells that had swollen somewhat as they were fired from the breech of that ancient shotgun, Williams knew he wasn't going to shoot her - not yet.
He'd seen what happened to Janice after Debbie died. That pain was a thousand times worse than the pain Diane herself would feel if he just put a round through her. But there was a reason she was out her - not yet reloaded and totally vulnerable. Like Janice with Debbie, the woman was more concerned about her child than her own life. Before he put her down he wanted her hurt, and nothing he could do to her was going to hurt her nearly as much as watching the death of her son.
So Williams smiled as he rotated his body slightly to bring the chest of Max Evans into his crosshairs and - knowing damn well that Diane Evans would be unable to stop him Williams took a deep breath and began a slow steady squeeze on the trigger of the powerful 30-06. It was the classic way to achieve accuracy. The instructors say that you use a slow steady squeeze and the noise of the gun firing should surprise even the shooter when the gun discharges.
But it wasn't a discharge from the expensive 30-06 hunting rifle that surprised Williams. It was a 22 caliber 55 grain bullet that came from the other side of the porch - fired from the humble elderly little single-shot plinking rifle now held in the hands of Elizabeth Parker. You see, Diane Evans wasn't the only woman that loved that young man.
Diane hadn't told Liz her plan, just to cut one of the guys loose and run and hide. It seemed like a poor time to argue so Liz had just nodded. She wasn't going to argue with her father either, which is why she'd left him as soon as he was sure he'd be able to finish the job of cutting Valenti and Pemberton free. She knew that Max would buy the men some time and that Diane would buy them even more - and she intended to buy them any other time they needed. Of course, it wasn't for them really, much as she loved her father, it was for her own children - or at least that's how she rationalized it to herself.
She loved her father - always had - all her life - and he had loved her. Her children deserved the same in their life. OK, so she and Max had gotten off to a rocky start. Maybe - despite Diane's joking about marching the young man to the wedding with a shotgun if necessary - maybe what she'd done - what she'd put him through - was just going to be too much for the two of them to ever put back together what they might have had.
But the Max that Liz knew - and loved - certainly wasn't going to hold their mother's actions against a couple of children - especially his children. Whether or not their mother deserved the husband of her choice, her children deserved their daddy - and it was Liz's intention to save him.
Immediately after cutting her father's hands free, Liz had bolted for the back of the house for the little 22 waiting in the gun cabinet. She'd grabbed it, shoved the half-box of shells in her pocket, and gone out the back door, chambering one shell and cocking the rifle as she went.
Diane had turned right to come back alongside that side of the house - she'd turned left. The first shotgun blast had come when she'd been halfway back to the porch - the second just before she'd reached the corner of the porch opposite Diane. Liz turned the corner to face - carnage.
One of the guys - Liz couldn't tell who - was burning fiercely in front of her. Another of the men - it had to be Abernathy by the size of him - although his face was a mass of blood and shredded skin - was in the process of blundering blindly in to the pickup truck that was surrounded by a widening circle of burning fuel. But standing there between the pickup truck and Max - a Max who was collapsed and barely moving - was Williams. He was in the process of swinging his gun from Diane who was desperately trying to reload - toward Max.
Liz had never hunted in her life - perhaps one of only ten percent of New Mexico residents who could say that, the state was full of avid hunters - but she'd heard the stories told by all the hunters who would have early morning breakfast at the Crashdown. A 22 is not really a hunting rifle at all - and certainly not for big game. It had no stopping power. There were only two areas that would kill something instantly with the little 22 - the heart or the brain - and the heart was smaller. She'd hit tin cans out back with the little rifle a thousand times - but tin cans aren't about to kill someone you care about. That's why she rushed the shot - pulled the trigger rather than squeezed it. She missed the head altogether as the shot wound up below and behind the side of Williams head.
Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good, or perhaps something else guided that shot. As the bullet hit the side of Williams neck, he collapsed onto his back as if he was a puppet whose strings had been cut.
Last edited by greywolf on Mon Dec 20, 2010 3:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.