The sound of the door busting open cause Brian and Howie to immediately snap their attention over towards the front door, where they saw a group of six males march into their lodge.
“Honey, I’m home!” exclaimed the first man who walked into the lodge. He glanced over towards Howie, Brian and Kevin. “And these guys must be the lucky souls we decided to intrude on.”
James briskly entered the living room, to which he saw his friends making their way in from the entryway. “Thanks for joining us fellas. Would have loved to have you guys EARLIER when we have FIVE of these FUCK HEADS!” he shouted.
“Where’s the other two?”
“Gee Bobby, if I knew, I’D FUCKING HAVE THOSE TWO BOUND AND ON THEIR KNEES, READY TO BE FUCKING KILLED, EXECUTION STYLE, IN FRONT OF THEIR GODDAMN FRIENDS!”
Bobby shrieked away from his friend’s shouting, “There’s no need to yell dude, we’re here now, I’ll just have Rocky and Dennis go out and look for them. It was snowing pretty relentless out there, so I’m sure they didn’t get far.”
“I don’t want just Rocky and Dennis out there looking for them, I want those two AND Zack and Richard to go out there and find them… and bring them back to me… alive.”
Without turning to address his men, Bobby snapped his fingers, “You guys heard the man. Go out there, retrieve those two, and bring them back here alive.”
Howie and Brian watched sadly in silence as the four appointed men filed out of the lodge in search for their brothers. “I hope those two got as far away as they could from here and will find help fast.” Howie whispered.
Brian gave his older friend a sad look, “Not to be pessimistic, but this is Nick and AJ we’re talking about.”
“You don’t think they’d be capable of bringing back help?”
Despite the unfortunate situation they were in, the thought of his two younger brothers brought a small grin to Brian’s face. “No… I think they’re capable of doing something stupid, like come back for us.”
~*~*~*~
“So, where should we start looking?” Rocky asked no one in particular as the four of them walked out into the frigid snow.
Dennis scanned the area, “All I know for sure is that they didn’t go down this path,” he said, pointing to the road they came up on. “because we would’ve seen them if they had.”
“Meaning the only way they could’ve gone is up.” Zach voiced, gesturing up towards the back of the lodge.
“So, are we gonna split up and look for them?” Rocky questioned yet again.
“Am I the only one thinking you sound mighty incompetent with all your questions?” Richard retorted, to which he received a flipped bird from the curious man. “Just saying, you’re asking questions like you’ve never done this before.”
“No, I’m asking questions because this isn’t something we can afford to screw up! We fuck up with getting those two assholes back to James, we can kiss our asses goodbye!”
“Correction, YOU can kiss your ass goodbye because I’m fitting on finding those two and bringing their asses back here.” Richard corrected as he began his trek up towards the back of the lodge.
Rocky remained rooted to where he stood as he watched his fellow accomplices head off into separate directions in search for their two victims. “I’m guessing we’re splitting up.” he muttered to himself as he started off in one direction.
After five minutes of aimlessly wandering around with no results, Rocky found himself back to where he started. He released a heavy sigh, his breath creating a frosty mist. “This is absolute bullshit that we’re out here, in the fucking cold, looking for two assholes… I swear, once we find them, their asses are fucking out of here.” he grumbled as he began his trek back towards the lodge, but immediately came to a halt when he noticed that someone was standing near the back of the lodge; someone who wasn’t apart of their group.
“Gotcha.” Rocky whispered to himself as he slowly and quietly stalked his way towards the unsuspecting victim. As soon as he got close enough though, the man turned around, revealing a rather shocked expression.
They both stood there for what seemed like forever in a stare down; both of them anticipating the first move to be made. “Where’s your other friend?” Rocky asked.
AJ continued to stare at him, not giving a reply. He glanced around him, looking for anything that he could use as a weapon, but came up with nothing. When his eyes wandered back on Rocky, they widened a bit when he noticed that he was reaching for something in his back pocket. Without thinking twice, AJ quickly swept down and managed to collect a rather large handful of snow and hurled it at the offending stranger.
The snowball hit Rocky full force in the face; the sudden and brute force of the balled up snow causing him to stagger backwards. He shook himself from the sudden shock and the broken ice crystals. His eyes connected with AJ once more, glaring with such ferocity.
“You’re fucking dead.” Rocky growled as he whipped out his gun and aimed it at AJ.
AJ’s eyes widened, but quickly flew shut to blind himself from the impending bullet and onslaught of pain that was sure to come. It was quite though, no sound of a gun going off, no painful feeling of a bullet entering his body, nothing. He peeked one eye open to see the once-armed man in a crumpled heap on the snow covered ground and Nick standing behind the unconscious man, holding a rather large and thick branch.
AJ smiled in relief upon seeing his friend, “Took you long enough.”
Nick gave him a pointed look, “A fucking snowball AJ?”
“Do you see any weapons laying around here? Cause if so, please point them out to me so I can use them next time you decide to use me as bait.”
Nick gestured towards the large branch he had used to knock one of their tormentors unconscious. AJ scoffed, “Like I had time to run up to a tree and break off a branch.”
Nick tossed his makeshift weapon down at the unconscious man’s body. “One down, three more to go.”
“They all went off in split directions though.”
“So, we either go after them or wait for them to come to us.”
AJ chuckled, “Do you know how crazy you sound right now? How crazy we are? Kevin would fucking kill us!”
Nick gave a slight smirk, “I’d rather die by the hands of Kevin then the hands of these men.”
“I don’t know about that…” AJ slurred off when his eyes glazed over towards the shed off in the distance and caught his attention. “Hey… would you say that shed is fairly large?”
Nick nodded, “Fairly large, filled with chopped wood and other shit.”
“I think I have an idea.”
~*~*~*~
“So… I’m guessing we’re all coming back empty handed?” Dennis asked no one in particular as he approached Richard and Zach, who had since regrouped.
“Those assholes are here, I just know it.” Zach voiced. There’s no way they could’ve made it out far in this cold, so their either still close by or they’re far out, dead somewhere.”
“Speaking of assholes, where the hell is Rocky?” Richard asked, being the first to notice that one of their own was missing.
“He probably managed to get himself lost.” Dennis cracked as he rolled his eyes, “Zach, go and look for Rocky, and when you find him, meet us back here.”
Zach frowned, “Wait, why me? Where the hell are you guys going?”
“We’re gonna continue looking for those two. Whether they’re dead or not, we’re gonna find their bodies and bring them back here.”
Releasing a huff, Zach turned and began his quest of looking for their missing partner. “These kids have a lot to learn.” Dennis noted as both he and Richard walked out in the opposite direction, continuing their search. “I swear, what ever happened to respect?”
Richard nodded in agreement; both Zach and Rocky were the youngest in their group, followed by Adrianna. “One would think these kids would listen to the very people who’s been in this game for quite some time.” Richard added. “But I tell you, respect and chivalry is dead.”
“You can say that again. Even with James in there… he decides to send out the two dinosaurs to search for these two fucking kids in the cold.”
Richard shook his head, “I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that he directed us to come out here to look for two kids or the fact that he sent us out here WITH two kids to look for two kids.”
“I’d have to say the latter.” Dennis chuckled.
Before they could say another word, the sound of a gun going off had rendered them to remain silent and immediately looked off towards the direction where they heard the gun go off. Dennis quickly drew his gun out, “You think he found the two?”
Richard shrugged as he too took out his gun, “I don’t know. Where exactly did the sound come from?”
Dennis gestured over towards the shed off in the distance. “Sounded like it came from that direction.”
Richard gave a slight nod as both he and Dennis cautiously sauntered over towards the shed. While Dennis scanned the area to make sure no one was closing in on them, Richard slowly approached the closed door of the shed. He held the gun high with his left hand, steadily aimed while his right hand grasped the shed’s door handle and he cautiously opened the door. When he realized there was no one in the shed that would be a threat to him, he swung the door open all the way, revealing one of their unconscious partners.
“What the fuck?” Richard muttered as he bent down towards Rocky’s unconscious form, checking him over.
“Is everything okay in there?” Dennis asked as he made his way into the shed, though still standing guard for the outside.
Richard released a sigh of relief when he found his immobile friend’s vitals to be okay, aside from being unconscious. “Well, I found Rocky. Only problem is he’s knocked out for the count.”
Dennis glanced around the dark shed, “So, where the fuck is Zach?”
All of a sudden, they heard a gun cock, and Dennis felt something cold being placed to the back of his head. “Don’t move.” the voice warned.
Richard looked up to find Zach being held captive by one of the men they were sent out to look for and retrieve. The man had an arm wrapped around Zach’s throat and a gun placed to his head. He glanced back at Dennis, to see the other man they were looking for standing behind Dennis, holding a gun to the back of his head.
“Look…” Richard tried to reason, but AJ swiftly cut him off.
“Don’t you fucking move!” AJ warned as he took his gun off the back of Dennis’ head and trained it on Richard. “I want you to walk further in and sit next to your friend.” he instructed Dennis.
Without hesitation, Dennis walked further into the shed, being stripped away from his gun before doing so. Dennis rose his hands slightly in surrender as he made his way over towards Richard and sat himself next to him.
“Give me your gun.” AJ demanded. When he noticed that Richard made no move to hand over his gun, Nick tightened his grip around Zach’s throat, causing him to gasp out in surprise and pain. With a glare, Richard quickly tossed his gun on the ground in front of AJ.
His eyes still locked on Richard and Dennis, AJ slowly walked forward to claim the tossed weapon. He now trained the two guns on both Richard and Dennis, “Now, give me the car keys.”
“The fuck I will!” Richard scoffed.
AJ cocked the second gun, “The fuck you won’t.”
If eyes could kill, AJ would have been dead on the spot with the way Richard was glaring him down. Not taking his eyes off of AJ, his reached into his pocket and fished the car keys out, tossing them to the ground. Again, AJ bent down to grab the keys. Nick loosened his grip around Zach’s throat and shoved him towards Dennis and Richard.
AJ proceeded to walk backwards towards the shed‘s door, guns still trained on the group of men before him. He allowed Nick to walk out of the shed before him and he quickly followed suit, immediately closing the door behind him. They both broke off into a mad dash for the car, the accumulated inches of snow unfortunately slowing them down a bit. When they finally reached the car, AJ quickly unlocked and opened the car door with unsteady hands, tossing the guns in the back seat.
Nick climbed into the passenger side, staring forward in shock and silence for a while, “I can’t believe we just did that.”
AJ chuckled, “We can blame it all on this.” he said as he gestured to his injured head.
“Speaking of which, where the hell did all that come from?”
“Where did all of what come from?” AJ asked as he started the car.
“You know… the whole bad ass thing with the two guns drawn on the dudes. I mean, to go from hurling a fucking snowball to aiming guns. That was pretty bad ass.”
“I’ve always been bad ass Nick. As for the whole gun thing, it was either I learned how to hold those bad boys convincingly or shit my pants. Lets just say I didn’t opt on the latter.”
Nick laughed and shook his head. His eyes wandered over to the lodge as they began to reverse out of the driveway. “Do you think they’ll be okay?” he asked softly.
AJ glanced the lodge over, “Of course. I mean, this is Kevin, Howie and Brian we’re talking about. If anything, and I don’t mean to sound like a pessimistic, but we won’t be okay Nick. They’re looking for us, and they won’t stop looking for us until they have us back in captivity in the lodge. I honestly think the further we are from them, the better; not only will it kill time, but it’ll give us time to get help for Kevin, Howie and Brian.”
It pained them both to drive away, leaving their four brothers behind, but they knew this had to be, in order to save them. “God, I hope you’re right.” Nick whispered.
