The interrogation of the old man chained to the radiator continued upstairs. Below Bessie was unconscious on the living room couch, while Jed desperately wriggled working to escape inches away from the scorching heat of the too close to the stone fireplace that roared. The flickering flames cast ugly shadows on the barricaded windows. The grandfather clock has seemed to cease ticking after being crudely repurposed.

Jed stopped moving in his tracks. There were pots and pans loudly ringing out from the swinging kitchen door. The guard assigned to watching them returned licking food off a spoon. While the kitchen door had settled moving most light continued to pass through a cut in the wall divider with the bar facing the living room. The guard sat on a stool and started talking to the back of the house. It didn’t seem any of them were escaping.

Officer Charles was on cooking duty wearing a flowered apron inside the kitchen clanging metal bowls frantically mixing corn flour and eggs. There was half of his ingredients in the bowl and half on the floor before he was frantically jumping back to chopping farm carrots, potatoes, onions and squash on the cutting board. While more frying pans sat on the stove-top bubbling full of hot oil because he needed to get it done on time for the boss. It wasn’t his rodeo cooking tonight but the first with something other than spare canned soups previously mixed over campfires. It was hard to remember most of the manic progression of the last few days. It was only now they had a good moment to remember anything in the fog and mental grime that occurred in battle.

This was the first night setting foot into a proper kitchen in years and he made a lot of noise trying to feed at least some of them. He cooked the three extra meals just to be safe using the recipe books straight from their family. Being a chef was a new double duty for this newly knighted individual used to the nonstop dogged pursuit of criminals throughout the kingdom, then later the empire's most wanted enemies. With so many Knights being purged by Killin Hood due to family relations they had all been Knighted together as a squad but it was long deserved. Only problem was nobody in the unit seemed to care anything at all about knighthood but him. And since Killin Hood’s time in the spotlight was seen as a major blight that ruined everything Edward already had, they had gone back to being treated like mall cops who bounty hunted on the weekends and not professionals with honor and a code.

He who gunned down criminals on the regular in the pursuit of justice (as well as legal cold hard cash bounties) had also previously worked one summer at a restaurant. Thus Charles was assigned intern chef for the unit after the previous cook had been taken out when a space rock exploded on one of their vehicles killing four officers. It was either 48 or 24 hours or less ago he couldn't remember now, but they would have caught up and apprehended the outlaw nicknamed Lead Dead Jed and saved Bessie from his wicked clutches much sooner if the impromptu funerals and graves they had dug like dogs under firestorm hadn’t slowed their advance.

There was the sound of a loud smack from a bedroom upstairs disrupting the atmosphere.

“Do we need to integrate your daughter with the same methods instead of busting your balls?” yelled sheriff Nate Spit in bad cop mode.

There was a loud punch before a sudden pause in the torture. The old house became silent except for the trembling whimpers of its broken elderly owner. As the uncomfortable tension skyrocketed Jed’s heart beat out of control threatening to burst out of his chest knowing he could be next. It all depended on if the Sheriff and his men only used violence when they wanted compliance or just for fun. Finally the slow wheezing started a long stream of information that began to tremble out upstairs.

“Right okey-doke... I've got the initial part written wait hold on go again code 102 buried after the sand grater and lower gravel pit a few miles out?” a faint voice could be heard questioning. “Hey Mr. Medic, stop helping the bad guy and dump your kit for something for use to draw a map on,” Nate commanded.

“Yes sir,” the medic meekly responded.

Jed's neck sharply cracked as he struggled and angled it to get a good look over at Bessie. He was glad she was still truly well sedated for this ugly shit, but was also becoming increasingly worried about her ill health. His stomach gurgled aching badly as the scent of garlic cooking in olive oil wafted through while the rest of his body just hurt. The creaking floorboards upstairs returned his focus to playing dead as somebody soon began descending. Whatever good feelings he'd recently had at being alive even if constrained to a prisoner were starting to itch like poison ivy. Cabin fever already seemed to be setting in and anxiety was killing him by the time whoever had come down those stairs had walked over and stood over him. There just wasn’t a chance of fighting anything with the amount of injuries he had already sustained and amount of bondage he was under. Maybe they should have just died back there if all that was going to happen is being tormented and played with like food by corrupted knights.

He remained tense as the feet walked away towards Bessie’s location.

“Now I don’t believe this one has done anything wrong yet. We shall let her get as much beauty sleep as possible before we leave.. medic would you clean this broad up please,’ he said, gently rubbing away dirt from her forehead with a handkerchief after tucking in the blankets.

Nate turned and locked eyes on Jed leaving the watching medic to return to checking Bessie’s vitals.

“You know there’s no gentle way to tell you this but seeing as you're a soldier killer so phew here goes the brutal truth of matters” Nate Spit lowered over Jed who still resorted to pretending to be dead.

The sheriff made a funny noise with his throat before he spat on Jed then rolled him in it in order to untie his gag from behind.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Alright what you intend to do? haul me when I can’t move, tied up a hundred times to the horse for information I don’t know to end either way in the hanging post no matter what,” groaned Jed, staring him in the eyes until the lawman looked away awkwardly.

“I haven’t decided for right now Jed you are welcome to participate in dinner but first I have something to get off my chest,”.

“Go,” said Jed, putting all the snarling menace he had remaining behind a single word.

“Man to man you should know It was I who ran down your old partner in crime that you split like a banana from abandoning long ago in the jungle,” he paused to grab his wide brim hat and held it solemnly at his chest. “Anyhow they gave us a half a million royal coin after the corpse was deposited,” finished Nate, almost instantly snapping out of his awkwardness in order to study Jed’s next reaction like a shark.

“Fred went mad from the war long before we became separated, it’s been so long ago now but I assure you I'm the victim of a mix-up here. Sigh it was an extremely messy campaign where I was just a fresh grunt thrown into the grinder now the memories sit in a hazy bad dream I wish simply best not remember. Long story short, while me and Fred were friends due to me being assigned his assistant in the first place I did nothing wrong other than getting lost from the unit in the chaos of war and his brutal backstab that I have just learned of, " pleaded Jed.

“Well he went probably crazier than anybody we ever dealt with.. I rode in with him already resisting arrest from the first Knight to discover him strangling them with his hands and trying to eat the face off through the helmet's visor with his mouth… Easiest shot of my life killing the former Knight gone mad Fred Smith,” he said matter of factually while looking at the floor and holding his top hat in his hand.

“I assure you I only killed what I thought were a few bandits once in self defense not knowing his allegiances to Killin company and thus the kingdom I hadn’t even realized was empire until tonight and beyond being a threat to my own life, Killin Hood even met us and said it was all cool I swear” Jed protested.

The truth was he had gone ham on being a one man army with the help of his supernatural super powered stead that was long gone shape shifted away without a trace of evidence tying it to anything.

“That’s what they all say besides in the eyes of the law when you killed those Killin company troops they were considered a part of our branches,”

“It is crazy unlucky how what appeared to be a two bit backwoods mob operation we originally ran into turned out to be an empire affiliated company but makes sense how their equipment and number of troops rapidly upgraded as our encounters increased from scythe slashing peasants to fully geared commandos in APCS,” mused Jed.

“We?” questioned Nate, raising his eyebrows while leaning in listening intently.

“Me and my Mule,’” explained Jed.

“Oh I thought you had suggested Fred,”

“No sir get the timeline right damn man how long did it take for you and your dogs to catch and kill pour Fred anyhow,”

“Many months with the jungle so thick it was like looking for a needle in a haystack,”.

There was a loud banging in the other room as something crashed to the floor. Sheriff Nate jumped into action with his pistol drawn. He crept forward towards the back of the house where there was a bedroom next to the basement door.

“Don’t shoot, I accidentally knocked over this clumsy wooden barricade I was trying to hammer,” a flustered voice yelled.

“Ricky I want you to go and hammer and break it up into individual boards. Actually I bet there's nails down there in the basement, I order you to go down there and check it out after dinner for supplies. I think we are staying put till tomorrow noon when everything is organized for the road,” Nate ordered.

“Gulp yes sir can I take somebody down there with me,” replied Ricky.

“What scaredy cat are you a scaredy cat?” scolded Nate.

“Gulp course not just figured it will be like looking for nails in a cluttered dark basement full of who knows traps or something,” stammered the man.

“Nonsense if there were traps anywhere on the property we would have run into them already. Now you can go down there and explore in a heated building while we retrieve the fuel several miles away after dinner or join us, understand?”

“Yes Sir, thank you,” Said Ricky.

Sheriff Nate Spit returned to the living room holstering his weapon.

“I won’t shoot you in the back mate, " he said, extending a helping hand. “It's time we eat and I insist you must join our feast seeing how the other hosts remenan incapacitated,”.

The dining room table was maxed out with chairs to accommodate everybody for supper. Jed was sandwiched in the middle of two officers. He had his arms freed to eat but in return his legs were still bound and his torso became tied to the chair he sat.

“Eat well because we set out for the liquidized crystal fuel for our vehicles right after super now please pass the salt,” said Nate Spit, digging into his vegetables at the head of the table.

“Good thing for bringing those spare gas cans in our vehicles to bring it back with,” replied the lanky officer next to him, dropping off two shakers labeled S. and P.

“I really do strive to honestly enforce the law in the people's lands but at the same time I can be merciless when it comes to punishing those who continue disobeying that's the first part of the speech I have started writing,” monologues Sheriff Nate, holding a piece of hot baked cornbread crumbling all over table from his clenching fist.

“Ha” laughed Charles, getting up and walking away.

Five minutes of small talking with full mouths later and without being offered dessert the prisoner was picked up and thrown shockingly close to the fireplace again. Jed squirmed like mad for a more comfortable position while the guy guarding them was in the bathroom.

“Unfortunately the girl is still drugged by our doing but I think she will make it alive she stays here a few days, if she is transported tomorrow she dies,” said the medic.

The medic had reentered the room from a trip to grab more medical supplies from outside he immediately began an IV drip. Bessie lay filthy on the couch with a huge pile of spent alcohol wipes that had only partially cleaned off the soot and filth of their intense trial in the vast wilderness then the apocalypse situation of a moon going kaput to boot.

“Alright boys there’s seven of us and me and three will go out while three more will stay. I want you watching her Charles.. Ricky will stay in the basement where he can keep his hands to himself, ” said Ned spit, walking towards the door, pumping his shotgun.