It was dark and it was quiet. Crickets chirped once in a while to break the silence. He was focused. He could see nothing in the dark but kept his eyes alert for any movement at all. The clouds obscured the moon and brought with them a cool breeze from the northwest. He tried to figure out how he got into this mess he found himself in.
It was a hitchhiker on the previous day. The weather was turning colder and he spotted a soldier walking backwards with his thumb stuck out begging to have someone gives his feet a rest as he went to his destination. He had always admired the men and women of the military for putting it all on the line for a country that had shown in the past that it didn't appreciate the sacrifices of these men and women. Men and women? They were more like kids. Kids that were playing a game when they went to basic then found out about life and death in strange countries as they fought to survive.
He had slowed his car and gently pulled to the shoulder of the road. He saw the soldier walk up to his car in his mirror and noticed that he was a very serious looking young man. The soldier had leaned his head in the window and asked if he could get a ride to White Point. He had told that young serious face that coincidentally he was heading to White Point himself. The soldier set his bag on the front floor board, got into the car setting his feet on either side of the bag. He pulled back out onto the road and brought the car up to speed as the soldier sat silently staring out the window at the soft landscape of Indiana. He tried a little small talk but received very little response from the soldier. He noticed the patch on his uniform search that indicated his name was Delmar. Private Delmar was not going to talk and he so accepted the fact that it would be a quiet ride into White Point for the next two hours.
It was about five miles outside of White Point when the situation began to unfold. Private Delmar reached down between his legs into his bag and pulled a bright silver handgun and and looked it over while rubbing his hand on it. The Private then ordered him to pull over next to a grove of woods. He looked nervously at Delmar and asked him what was up. Delmar explained that the country had been invaded slowly but surely by terrorists since the September eleventh terror even in New York City and Washington D.C. Delmar looked at him and rubbed the barrel of the gun against his top lip staring at him and seemingly deep in thought.
Then Delmar began to talk quietly with a steady cadence, explaining that his driver looked an awful lot like one of those terrorists he had seen on television. Those terrorists that had placed him in a desert halfway around the world where he had seen six of his best friends killed without warning. It was payback time. It was time to truly protect the country by getting rid of the terrorists already in the United States instead of killing hundreds of terrorists in the desert. Delmar leaned forward a bit and told him that he didn't really look like he was from Chicago. Delmar then lowered the gun from his lip and pointed it in the general direction of his driver.
He was instructed to drive into town to the Burger King that was on the main road. He nodded his head and began to drive into the small town of White point, Indiana. Private Delmar began thinking aloud to himself. Thinking about how those terrorists who owned and ran the Burger King in White Point were going to pay for their treason of the United States. Terrorists in the very town where Delmar had grown up and went to school. The terrorists were not going to get Delmar's home town, he was going to make sure of that.
As he drove into town and came closer to the Burger King sweat began to dampen the collar of his shirt and he noticed that his hands were shaking. He pulled his car into the parking lot of the Burger King and came to a stop. Delmar got out of the car very deliberative and slow. He watched Delmar walk up to the doors with his handgun down at his side. As Delmar stepped into the establishment he raised his arm and began to fire again and again. He could hear screams between the popping of the guns. His self survival kicked in and he threw open his car door and ran as fast as he could into the little clump of trees off to the side of the parking lot and held his breath, trying to make as little sound as possible.
He saw Private Delmar walk out of the doors and head to his car and raise the gun at the windshield. Delmar stopped and looked around realizing that the head of the cell and main witness to the act of war he had just committed was gone. He watched as Delmar walked across the parking lot slightly away from him and disappear into the dark. He let out a small sigh of relief and then began to stare into the darkness of the woods around him, listening for any twig that cracked or any noise that would serve as a warning sign. It had been about a half hour when he heard the twig snap behind him. He froze and he heard a split second of a gunshot as he drifted off into nothingness.
Delmar stood and stared at the body that had brought him home to save his town while he himself was destroying the town of White Point from the inside. Delmar turned slowly and walked off into the direction of the high school where he had graduated. Delmar walked out onto the football field and dropped on his knees around the thirty yard line. He looked around at the darkness and listened to the silence. His mission had been completed.
Mrs. Clancy was lying in bed trying her best to fall asleep when she heard the shot. Her house was on the back side of the school on the other side of the football field. She walked quickly to her window and saw the form of a body lying curled up on the field With shaking hands she dialed the police to come investigate.
Over the next two days the police had searched Private Delmar's home as well as all of the Victim's homes that he had defended the country from. There was no sign of terrorists activity at any of the locations.
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