Free Chatter by Kurt Horning

three men easily and returned to cover. Trina wasn’t a good shot and succeeded in missing all her marks. Meg had only a pistol and shot undead as they crept behind her friends.
                  Cade had been moving forward quickly. He wanted the foreman’s blood so bad he could taste it. Vick was right behind with Dwayne, shooting four of the foreman’s men. This left only one man plus the leader in the group’s way.
                  As Vick popped up from behind cover to aim the last man got lucky and fired. The impact took Vick to his knees, and then fell backwards onto his back. Dwayne yelled for help and the others came as quickly as possible to see what the commotion was about.
                  Blood was pouring out of Vicks stomach. “God dammit we have to get across now!” yelled Cade. “Hold on man we got you.”
                  The women pressed on his wound with Cade’s removed shirt to ease the bleeding. “Dwayne you’re my damn cover, we’re going now.”
                  With that he jumped into action and sprinted towards the foreman and his man. The savage had come out again. Dwayne tried to keep up but found it impossible. Cade threw his gun down and slid over the hood of a car landing on the other man. He swiveled and kneeled cutting the man’s Achilles tendons, then behind the knees, finally twist stabbing his stomach.
                  Cade looked up in fury, blood covering his body at the foreman, “It’s just you and me. NOW!”

 
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 16
     
    "The end of the line," said the foreman.
    "You killed her in cold blood, she did nothing to you," yelled Cade. 
    The two men stood face to face, walking a circle, sizing one another up. A happenstance meeting had turned into a blood feud with no chance of both surviving.  One had lost a potential love, the other some good men. 
    “Are we going to fight or dance boy," chuckled the foreman.
    Cade lunged in for a stomach shot but his opponent dodged swiftly like a matador facing a bull. He stumbled and turned as the foreman sliced a deep gash across his back. Blood streamed from Cade's shirt but he kept his cool. 
    Knives clanged together in a strange figure eight pattern. They moved so fast that one false dodge could end it. Cade kicked the knee out from under the foreman and dove onto him as he fell to the ground in a thud. His knife was at the man’s throat pushing closer and closer. The foreman gasped and grabbed gravel and soft dirt from the bridge and flung it into Cade's eyes. 
     
    Cade dropped his blade to the ground as he rubbed his eyes and face to clean it. Tiny pebbles and grains of sand had lodged in his eyes. The foreman picked up a pistol from one of his dead men and walked over to Cade. He was still rubbing his eyes and squinting his vision helplessly.
    "All you had to do was piss off boy," the foreman said with anger.
    "Some of us are survivors and some, well, are like you."
    Cade sat on his knees in a helpless position. "Kill me then, before I kill you."
    "Very well," answered the foreman.
    He lowered the pistol to Cades forehead, cocked the hammer, and pulled the trigger. Click, click, and click.
    The gun was empty. Hearing the empty gun Cade swept his leg around cutting the foreman off at the knees and knocking him down. 
    The foreman stood as Cade rushed in giving him a foot to the stomach. Both men exchanged punches' back and forth. The foreman’s left eye began to swell and Cade looked to have lost a front tooth. 
    Both were exhausted from the long drawn out fight. Finally the foreman had backed Cade up to the guardrail, punching him violently. Cade was then held out over the water seconds from falling to his death. 
    Bang!
    Cade pulled himself back onto the bridge. The foreman had let go of him and looked at his chest instead, falling over the guardrail to the water far below.
     
    Vick stood behind with a rifle smiling, then