Jason couldn’t hear the shots, but he saw intermittent flashes in the distance. Someone was in big trouble. It was probably whoever was on the other end of Davis. He wasn’t going anywhere near there. He still resented him for manhandling Wren and kidnapping him. Jason wasn’t sure what his motives were or what was going on with the big dude, but he’d rather not run into him again.
He’d forgotten what it was like to be held against his will and tortured. His time free in Cannon Beach held more value. It was strange how the mind worked sometimes. Pain and affliction seemed like a fleeting memory once it was all over. It wasn’t like a happy memory…those you kept forever. Or like the loss of a loved one…those stayed with you. He’d once heard that if mothers remembered the extensive pain of childbirth, they wouldn’t do it more than once. It was only when Jason felt the stinging burns along his arms that he flashed again on the torture room, and Hyde, and the hell he endured in there.
But that was over, and this was now. Jason scanned the streets up and down. Blue truck, blue truck…that was all he could think of now. Finding the blue truck and the man who drove it. None of the other guards that he saw wore a hand-held radio but that guy. Someone had to be on the other end of that thing, but it wasn’t a walkie. It was a genuine radio, with longer distance capability. He needed to find one and get word to Sloane quick, because something was going down here.
A few more streets over and Jason had to take cover behind a vehicle as guards ran by. He was about to run to the next building when he turned back suddenly. He’d spied through the window a residential house across the darkened street and in the driveway was the blue truck Ivan drove that day.
Jason stood straight up despite the chaos. Hmm, maybe he’s home. Despite the dangers around him, Jason ran over to the truck and tried the handle. It was locked. Dammit. He looked inside the darkened cab, but the radio was either not inside, or perhaps it was inside the house with its owner?
Across the yard, Jason began to walk up to the front door as if he belonged there, thinking of the song The Man Comes Around by Johnny Cash. The house was like something out of the post-war era. It was in desperate need of repair but looked comfortable. There were several things flung in the yard; he couldn’t really make out what they were in the dark. A few figures ran from one direction to the other across the street. They didn’t seem to mind him. He wasn’t who they were looking for, apparently. Davis was the person they were seeking at the time, he suspected. That could change, though; he needed to complete his mission and get out of there.
Jason put his hand on the doorknob and expected to find it locked but when he twisted it, the door opened with a creak. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He assumed Ivan was out helping Davis. This was probably a good place to hide for a while. He scanned the darkened living room for any radio equipment, figuring it was like a drone…you couldn’t have just one. You had to have a couple of different models, right? One was never enough. But there were limited supplies for a radio head at worlds end.
The kitchen. That’s where everyone put their stuff. They dumped their change, their keys, their junk mail all over kitchen counters. Nodding to himself, Jason headed to the kitchen that he figured was down a short hallway. When he rounded the corner to a short galley, Cash’s music suddenly ceased. What he didn’t find was any radio equipment. What he did find was a set of eyes staring back at him, and they were from someone half his size.