After this Paul Greggo guy steals my bag, I get out of the car and start looking for him, but like he so rudely (and horribly) typed in my journal, it was still dark and raining. I couldn't do much else but go back to the car to get out of the rain, but the back driver's side window was broken, so it wasn't really safe. I was just hoping that whoever took my bag was happy with what they got and wouldn't bother coming back to the car.
I didn't sleep at all. I just laid down in the back seat listening to the rain pound on the roof of my car, pissed off at how stupid I was to be victimized like that. As you read in the entry he wrote, I made a vital mistake by using the tablet in the dark. As the rain let up, the sun also rose. I wasted no time trying to find him.
Fast forward several hours and I have no idea where I was. I just sat by the creek taking a breather when I heard a tree branch snap. I turned around and there Greggo was, running at me and swinging the bat. It was all I could do to get my arms over my head, where the bat connected to my elbows with a clang and me yelling out in pain. I stood up and he swung again, but I ducked. The next swing, I turned my body and let my back take the blow while I brought my arm around the bat. Before he could do anything, I twisted my waist to the right to throw him off balance and did a left kick to his temple where he let go of the bat completely.
He went down hard, but of course, he tried the old grab a fist full of dirt and toss it to blind tactic, but I turned my head away as I raised my shoulder, bat already primed, and swung backhanded to connect with his jaw. The sound of a jaw breaking is one of the most painful sounds I've heard. I then swung at his head again, coming down right on top of his skull, but not hard enough to kill him. I just wanted to knock him out, and I succeeded.
He's tied up now. He had 20 feet of extension cord coiled around him. My guess is that was intended for me. We're in his hut right now, and it's actually pretty impressive for an improvised shelter. Like he wrote, it blends right in with the surroundings and even has a fire pit where smoke rises through a PVC pipe in the ceiling.
Spent most of the afternoon and evening talking with my new best friend Paul Greggo. He's from New Jersey, done time for stealing cars. That would explain his penchant for pilfering, but I can't really hold that against him. I could have very easily resorted to thievery myself. Who enforces laws these days? I just happened to not lose most of my morals when the world lost all of its sanity.
I made him answer my questions through a broken jaw. Whenever he didn't want to talk, I cut his forehead with my pocketknife. I know, it's torture, but when you need to get information out of someone and they won't cooperate, you're left with little choice. He only has three cuts in his forehead so he's being cooperative, for the most part.
I asked how many more of him there were, and he said at least a hundred, but he could be embellishing. I don't doubt there are more of him, but a hundred was stretching it. In fact, I actually doubt there's more than a few. I covered a lot of ground looking for him, and didn't come across a sign of any other people in this forest.
But you know the worst part of having someone tied up? The smell. He said he needed to go to the bathroom, but I told him he could just go where he was. I instantly smelled urine when he finally decided to go, but that's the price I'm willing to pay to ensure that he stays where he is and doesn't try to break free when I help him go.
I of course asked him about Kat, what direction the car went when the driver picked her up after hitting her, and he wouldn't tell me. He knew that I cared about her and really needed to know, so he was going to be as defiant as he could. So I pulled out the pocket knife and he laughed, saying he doesn't care about being cut anymore. I had to get creative. I dragged knife over his face and ran it under his nose, inserting the blade in his nostril enough to tickle hairs and cause him to sneeze. He made sure he sneezed on me. For that, I instantly poked at his crotch, stopping just before the knife plunged into his pants. That got a reaction out of him. He tried to scootch back away from me, and then he started whimper. He finally told me he saw the car traveling west, and swore that's all he knew. Then my nose scrunched up as I smelled the odor of shit. Great. I have to deal with that, too.
Most of my food and water's gone. He must have stashed it somewhere else, but he's clammed up now. Paralyzed with fear of what I'm going to do to him. Yeah, some "tough son of a bitch" he turned out to be. Bet you he'd be a pushover as a zombie too. Ah well, no big deal. I've found food and water before and I can find it again.
I actually want to stay the night in his hut, but I have one obvious problem. How am I going to trust him? He is tied up, but he is a thief after all, and I'm not going to underestimate his ability to wiggle free and kill me in my sleep. What I'm going to do is bury him neck high outside. He won't have any leverage to break free that way. Plus, if a zombie comes along, he'll be one less problem to deal with.
I'm going to try to figure out tomorrow where the car that took Kat might be going and then head out. I also don't want to spend another night in this hut just in case there are others and they decide to pay him a visit and find me in it.
Until tomorrow, if there is a tomorrow. (I have to agree with him, though. It's time to find a new sign off)
No comments:
Post a Comment