Capture And Escape, P.3 of "The Search"

A Post Apocalyptic Adventure P.3:

Andrew approached slowly. The old man was indeed asleep with his eyes open...Upon looking closely there was no way that Andrew was going to be able to relieve the old man of the large bag strapped to his chest. Instead he turned his focus to the satchel...He was getting tense. Inch by inch he dug his hand deeper to try and grab a brick. Finally he had one in his hand and his arm was in the bag up to his elbow. Then he glance at the old man's eye. It was glaring right at him. Before Andrew could react the man had flung him over his shoulder, pulled out a machete from his sleeve and pinned Andrew to the ground with the blade at his throat. This was no feeble old man. He though he was going to die...Andrew opened his left eye only to see the old man still pinning him, but the blade was gone and the man was resting his arm on his other knee and was just plainly looking at Andrew as if he was amuse at some cheeky prank that a child would pull. He lay silent, not knowing what to do next. "You're Andrew aren't ya?"

Andrew didn't meed to answer. His face told all.

"And the name's Peter by the way."

Peter lifted his knee and let Andrew get to his feet. "That paper brick you gave me. I showed it to the bartender...and he said it was worth a lot of money. I wanted some more." ...

Peter began to chuckle. The chuckle then turned to hearty laughter...

"Kid, I think you though of the wrong kind of value. Did you even open it?"

Andrew paused. The parcel was still wrapped in paper and string. Confused Andrew handed it over...Peter undid the string and revealed a stack of papers about the size of two decks of playing cars stacked together and bound on one side.

"What is this?"

"That is called a book."

"Is it valuable?"

"Not in a monetary sense, no."

"But, he said you were the wealthiest man he knew. "

Peter chuckled again. "Maybe, but not in the sense you are thinking of, kid."

"Ya see there is two kinds of wealth, kid. There is the physical kind and then there's...

Peter paused. He looked over towards the road and his face became grim and focused...

"Help me clean up and hide that we were here."

"Why, what is wrong? Bandits?"

"Worse. Now help me or start running, 'cause you are not gonna wanna be here if they find us."...

He grabbed a mound of dirt and started trying to smother the small campfire while Peter grabbed a mound of dirt and started trying to smother the small campfire, while Peter grabbed a piece of dead shrubbery and tried brushing over and readily visible trace of recent activity. The fire went out, just as Andrew heard the sound of an approaching buggy. Before he could anything else, Peter grabbed the back of his collar and yanked him over a decrepit old station wagon, sitting about 20 feet away...Peter yanked open the front hood to check and see if the engine was gone, and fortunately it was. He hastily told Andrew to climb in and not make a sound until he came back...The buggy's headlights were now visible as Peter closed the hood. There were a few tiny rust holes in the car, so Andrew could see what was going on...Peter ran to the back of the car...It sounded like his climbed in the back and had laid down. About 30 seconds later he heard the buggy pull up and stop. He heard two men get out and start talking.

"Alright, look around. The tracks end about here, so he's gotta be nearby.

"Why does our leader want this guy?"

"Because, nitwit, he has been giving people those stupid books."

"Oh yeah. Man he has got a pair on him to be worshippin' any other than the road king."

"Yeah. The way I hears it is he thanks some guy, because he got nailed to some pieces of wood."

"Yeesh. Maybe the road kind will do the same thing. Ironic ain't it."

The two mean were walking closer the whole time. Through the rust hole, Andrew could see both of them carrying revolvers and were clad in brown leather jackets and what looked like old combat apparel. Suddenly one of them shouted out.

"Hey! I got someone over here!"

"Man, can't ya just let an old man sleep?"

"Shut up and get out here."

Andrew heard the two men yank the door off and reach in at Peter.

"Hey c'mon! What'd I do?"

"Ya sure this is him?"

"Unhuh, he fits the description to the letter."

"What description?..."

"Shut it. You're coming with us. Boss wants ya alive...

Andrew was paralyzed. What could he do? He barely knew Peter, but he wanted to ask him so many things. He saw through the rust Peter getting led off with a pistol to the back of his head. Suddenly he felt the rust riddled wall starting to give out. He tried to shift to a safer position, but it was to late. The fender of the car collapsed and out came the upper portion of Andrew. Before he could scramble away the seconde man was on him. He was dragged to his feet, and then had his arm twisted behind his back, as he was walked over to the buggy and stood next to Peter...

"Now hold on! The boy's not involved in this! Let him go!"

"Well, if he's not involved then what's this book sticking out of his pocket?"

Andrew felt the book being pulled out and had no idea why, but he wanted it back. But why where these guys so upset by it? He couldn't dwell on the thought. The man had placed the barrel of his revolver under his chin...

"Sorry kid," both men smirked. "Nuthin personal."

Andrew saw the hammer pull back. He was frozen. Time slowed down to almost nothing. He saw the man's finger pulled back. He shut his eyes. Ping!

Andrew's eyes snapped open. Time seemed to freeze for a split second. He saw Peter's right arm holding the other man's pistol straight up and his left arm stretched out towards Andrew with the machete in his hand. The blade had stuck between the gun's hammer and firing pin. Before anyone could react Ptere swing the machete causing the pistol to go airborn. Heverese the blade in his hand and brought the handle cracshing into the head of the man who intially held him at gunpoint. The man holding Adnrew flung himn to the ground and lunged at Petere. As if he;d predicted it, Peter let go of the wrist of the man he'd just knocked out and pushed the charging thug's head to the side, casuing him to cartwheel and land on his face. As the man fell his pistol landed cleanly in Peter's hand who turned to the thug and just glared. Peter walked over to the man with gun pointed at his face. Peter spoke. "Sorry for this, but I can't get caught just yet."

He whirled the gun in his hand and brought the handle down on the man's forehead.

Andrew was silent. Peter turned and asked if he was alright, to which Andrew only nodded. He watched as Peter went over to the buggy, grabbed some rope and bound both men together. He looked closely and saw both men were still alive and breathing. Peter then turned to him and said that they'd both be awake in about an hour. He also instructed Andrew to get in the buggy. Peter went over to the buggy's cargo latch after Andrew got in, and pulled out two bottles of water and put them in each man's lap. He then reached into his bag and pulled out two books and did the same with those. He then got into the buggy, shifted into drive, and pulled away. As they pulled out Andrew heard one man groaning and beginning to come to.

The two drove for about 20 minutes before either said anything.

"You're wondering why I didn't kill them."

Y...yeah. They were evil. They were gonna kill us.

"No, not evil. Just misguided. Anyway if I kill them, then how can I save them?"

"Save them?"

"Yup."

"Why?"

"Because it's the right thing to do. Just like I saved you from them, I still have a chance to save some many from something horrible."

Andrew thought for a while. Peter spoke after a while and fished through his bag, "By the way I couldn't help but notice you needed another book."

Andrew felt it fall in his lap.

"But why did you give those thugs books?"

"Because that has the information that can save them."

Andrew realized he'd never taken a good look at the book until now. The front cover only had one word, Bible. Peter spoke again. "Its kind of a long read but a good place to start is the book of

Luke. "

Andrew didn't know what to do, say or anything. He just began to read. After about 2 hours of driving he closed the book and looked ahead. Peter looked at him and asked what he thought.

"It's pretty heavy stuff. I have a few questions that you could probably answer, but these 2 first. You go around giving these to people, right?" Peter nodded. Andrew then asked, "You need some help?"

-Courtesy of one of my Christian youth group leaders short stories.

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Yup, the series is over. I have spent an hour or so typing the story from a PDF file to the Flickr desc box. I really like how the last scene came out. I spent a lot of time building this one and it was about 5 hours for the dune buggy, two for the station wagon,(which is based off of Andrew Somer's design), and about an hour for the landscaping. I also didnt like the first version of the scene, so I had to rebuild the whole thing. The setup was hard, and I had to take about 100 pics to get this one just right.

The first part here: www.flickr.com/photos/56829148@N05/6791144711/in/photostr...

The second part here: www.flickr.com/photos/56829148@N05/6797100141/in/photostream

Dune buggy here: www.flickr.com/photos/56829148@N05/6777821585/in/photostr...

 

Enjoy!

Done