Salt Pillars

Chapter 21

The bottoms of Gabe's pants had soaked through with mud and moisture from the wet ground. The rest of his clothing was also damp by the misty air that sprinkled lightly on him. He trounced through the wilderness unaware of the discomfort brought on by the elements around him, but Jessie did not have the luxury of his indifference. She had been stripped of her clothing down to a skimpy under-shirt and panties—stripped of her dignity and faith in humanity.

As the temperature dropped, her shaking grew more intense. The combination of cold wet air was pushing her body to its limits. "Gabe... Gabe." She said as he led her forward by the restraints around her wrists, but he didn't respond. The look in his eyes had gone vacant since he had shot Cole and the others.

"Gabe!" She shrieked, stopping in her tracks forcing him to stop with her. This disruption seemed to agitate him deeply and for a brief moment Jessie feared that he might shoot her for the nuisance.

"Gabe please..." She pleaded, "I'm freezing, we have to stop."

He hadn't really considered her condition until this point as though he was in auto-polite mode, having forgotten that she was even still with him at all, just pulling her along out of habit.

He looked down at her bruised and beaten body, smeared with patches of dried blood and scrapes and dirt, he could see the goose bumps risen on her skin. Gabe also saw the rope in his hand that was binding her bleeding wrists. In his other hand, he still held the gun that he had fired into Cole's chest and those other two girls. It was warm and weighted to perfection.

He sat down on the hill, unbothered by the soggy ground beneath him, and tried to organize his thoughts. What was he doing? What was his next move going to be? Was he in trouble for having murdered three people moments earlier or did nobody care at all?

As dusk began to paint the sky with its fiery orange hues beneath the soot clouds, the sunlight glimmered through the haze, lighting up flecks of mist like fireflies.

"Please... we need to find shelter." Jessie pleaded again, rubbing her arms for warmth. "Or at least start a fire."

"That's good," Gabe replied in a monotone voice, "A fire... let's make a fire." He gathered some sticks and brush, but most of it was too damp to get a flame lit in the wind, always just a few embers before fizzling to smoke.

"Fuck!" Gabe yelled, throwing his lighter at the ground.

"Let me try." She held up her hands to indicate that he remove the restraints.

"You'll just try and run away." Gabe pouted.

"You have a fucking gun. How fast can I really run? Not faster than a bullet." This logic seemed to ease his concerns and he conceded to removing the restraints. The flesh directly underneath the binding was worse than he would have imagined, having rubbed the skin off in a deep red burn.

"I'm sorry," he said instinctively in response to the horrid sight of the injury, realizing the absurdity of his apology as it left his lips.

"It wasn't you... I know that. It was Cole," Jessie said.

James began to cry a little, hiding his face out of embarrassment.

"Hey..." Jessie comforted him, "its okay... you did the right thing. You shot him for what he did." She said this thinking to herself: 'Which you could've done at any time and stopped him you fucking coward. You had a fucking gun!'

He sobbed as she stroked his hair (his greasy disgusting hair), and she felt more disdain for him at this moment then any before. She was the victim here, not him, and here he was bawling like an injured child, making her comfort him. If she could only grab the gun...