The Shutdown

Stand Your Ground

I heard a muffled scream from down the hall, so I rushed to my slightly open door and looked out, before nearly shitting myself

   I saw a man in a black hoodie digging through a closet in the hallway. Backing into my room I opened my nightstand to reveal a Ruger Sp101 chamber in 357 mag. A small J frame revolver with only a small 2.25 inch barrel, but enough power to take down a black bear if needed. It is my favorite to shoot and what I decided would be my home defense gun.

   'Ok, someone is in my house and my family is in danger. Luckily my room is farthest back away but he's at the closet so he's past all their rooms and there may be more than one. Shit. What to do..'

   At that moment I heard some gunshots but they seemed to be from two different guns.

   'Hopefully that was dad with his 45..'

   Finally gaining the courage to engage the intruder I softly walked to the door to peek out and see the man looking into my parents room.

   "Shit Steven! This was supposed to be a quite thing!"

   "Sorry, the motherfucker had a gun! It's a good thing that I bought this vest, it caught one!"

   "Fuck man that was close! You sit down and I'll make sure those last two rooms at the end are empty. We should be ok, I doubt the neighbors heard that from that far away, but be ready to move!"

   As the man turned around I brought my head back in and cocked back the hammer of my gun, that way I would have a lighter and shorter trigger pull, while listening to the sound of footsteps coming closer.

   'I need to hit him and quickly rush the other guy before he gets his bearings and shoots back.'

   But as I tried to convince myself to do it I struggled.

   When you own a gun and people ask would you be willing to shoot someone to protect your family, you say yes, sure you would do the heroic thing with no hesitation, and you feel good about thinking of yourself like that, as the great protector.

  But you never think of the fear, and the instinct that tells you to run, go out the window, and defend yourself. That self-preservation that all living things have that we have to overcome for things worth protecting.

   I was cursing in my head as I heard this man a few steps away before i thought of what they probably did to my father, my mother, and maybe my brothers, and that's what did it.

   It wasnt just the bravery of protecting my family I was feeling, it was rage at them for even thinking of taking something I love.

   So as the man was a step away from rounding the corner to my door I leaned out and fired two shots into this man in the front, causing him to hit the ground from the force of the high power cartridge loaded with hallow points.

   Then I fired three more shots into my parents doorway, seeing the shadow I was shooting at fall over as well.

   Pulling the trigger again, nothing happened, the small J frame is only big enough to hold five shots. But I forgot in the moment of adrenaline struck next to my door, through the wall, and window.

   'Shit shit shit! I need to reload! Speed loaders, in the drawer!'

   So I quickly ran to my bedside again and grabbed a belt pounch of two speed loaders. I didn't hear a thing as I unloaded the shells and shoved all five fresh cartradges at once into the cylinder using the device, fumbling to twist the end to release them. All the while more shots showed themselves as holes in the wall and muffled bangs.

   Crawling I went back to the door, determined to hold the hall and not let him head back down the stairs, when I noticed the door to the second room the mentioned earlier was open.

   It was the bathroom and its door was perpendicular to mine, allowing me to see the full length mirror in the darkness, in which was a red dot.

   'It smells like cigarettes! He must have been, and still is smoking! So I waited watching it the mirror, hidden in the darkness.

   'Holy Corey Motherfucking Taylor my head hurts!' Were my thoughts as I realised the downside of shooting a gun, let alone a high powered revolver indoors was that the report was our, loud enough to make your ears ring and have a small disorienting concussive effect.

   But I kept my groans to myself watching that little red dot, sometimes brighter, sometimes just a dim glow.

   We both were on our toes, him focusing on holding his line of fire and me looking for an opportunity to kill this coward, or make him run off.

   Then after what felt like an eternity he came into the hallway slowly, and started creeping down the stairs. I waited until he rounded the corner of them before walking out and down the hall, stopping at the bannister at the top of the stairs, I heard the front door slowly open, so I popped up and fired all five rounds, hearing another scream as a reply.

   Backing away from the bannistar I reload with the second speed loader, ears ringing but hearing a distant groaning.

   Slowly making my way down the stairs I kept the dark sights trained on the groaning mess in the snow.

    Finally making my way to him I tried to turn on the porch light, but the power was still out. I resorted to using my phone flashlight to look the man over.

   He was facedown in the snow with a hit to the right thigh and another to the right shoulder. After taking the gun away and rolling him over I saw that both sides on his torso had holes in the clothing, but upon further inspection, I found that he had on some ballistic vest that had caught two rounds, probably saving his life.

   The man seemed to be barely conscious, and losing a fair amount of blood based on the red snow around him.

   'What do I do with this fucker.' was my first thought.

   'I felt my thumb cock back the hammer again, but as I stood there and the adrenaline weared off a bit, I realised that the right thing to do was to try to keep him alive, and call 911, and check on my family who I was now worried for even more.

   'I'll check on them, then deal with the police and this guy.'

   So I de-cocked my gun and checked the man for more weapons. After deciding he was not waking up anytime soon I raced up the stairs, worried that I hadn't heard from my family.