Robert Swartwood by In the Land of the Blind

Author:In the Land of the Blind
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-06-01T13:08:57+00:00

Chapter 2

By the time he left Hunter Headquarters it was nine o’clock in the morning. His usual routine when he headed home was to first stop and pick up a bouquet of flowers, then weave his way through the city streets of Olympus, drive over the bridge, merge onto the Shakespeare Expressway. But before he left the city he noticed he was low on fuel and decided to stop at the first station he came to.

He pulled up to one of the pumps and got out. He had just swiped his credit card when he heard someone yelling.

“Hey, buddy, what the fuck?”

A large man was heading his way. Behind him was a black pickup truck, a child about Kyle’s age in the passenger seat. The child’s lifeless eyes were wide as she watched.

Conrad looked around the pumps. A convertible had pulled up to the pump directly opposite his, the driver having just gotten out. He was wearing a gray baseball cap and had his head down, and Conrad figured the large man was talking to him.

But then the large man came right up to Conrad and said, “Well? What you got to say for yourself?”

The driver in the baseball cap walked past them, his head still down, headed toward the store.

Conrad said, “Excuse me?”

“I was here first,” the man said. A large finger suddenly appeared an inch from Conrad’s face. “You cut in front of me.”

“I did?”

The man nodded, jabbed the finger a half-inch closer. “You’re fucking right you did. Now what are you going to do about it?”

Conrad knew exactly what he could do about it. He could pull out his Hunter’s badge and hold that in front of the man’s face. It would be a shock to the man of course—the man seeing him as no threat, a guy dressed in street clothes, driving a sedan with a bouquet of flowers on the passenger seat. The man no doubt figuring Conrad was just another citizen out for a Saturday afternoon drive and not someone who hunted down and killed zombies.

“Hey, asshole,” the man said. He was wearing mechanic’s clothes, some dried oil on the pants. “You deaf or something? You got five seconds to move your sorry ass or I’m gonna move it for you.”

So yeah, he could pull out his badge, show it to the man, watch the man quickly back down, apologize, probably offer to pay for his gas. He could then make the man do anything he wanted—kneel down and lick his shoes, make a fool of himself in front of everyone watching them now—but truthfully that had never been Conrad’s style.

“Five.”

He had no problem letting this man go first. He had an idea he could take him even without his Hunter’s badge—he was about this man’s size, after all—but the sight of the girl watching them made him pause.

“Four.”

Still, he wanted to give it a couple extra seconds, so he glanced around the pumps again, at the people watching, at the convertible parked on the other side of the pump.

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