Chapter 6.A

He pushed through a final wall and hit sunlight. He slammed on his breaks hard using his forward momentum to get the bulk of the debris stuck all over his dozer to fly forward. Hank heard a scream from somewhere behind him in the slowly collapsing building. His rational mind thought good another corrupt bureaucrat bites the dust, but his Arbiter intuition had other ideas. His whole body screamed that he needed to go back. Against his better judgment he decided to give this Arbiter Intuition thing a solid try. He grabbed his sledgehammer and hopped out of the dozer. He felt a different pull in the direction of the road that ran behind the Townhall, the road his bulldozer was now pointed at. His body was pulling him back the way he had come and forward at the same time. The feeling behind him felt cool and calming, the feeling ahead of him felt hot and angry. Those descriptions weren’t exactly accurate, but there were the closest things Hank could come up with to describe the feelings.

He scanned the street ahead of him until he saw what his body was directing him towards. It was Eugene and his last security man getting into a police car. He started walking toward Eugene and began to draw the 1911 from the holster at his waist, then the feeling behind him flared up again and he heard a woman scream “HELP!” very clearly. He had to choose between helping an innocent or killing Eugene. Hank stood there and stared as Eugene got into the police car and drove away “FUCK!” he couldn’t leave someone behind. He spun around and darted into the building. The screams were coming from somewhere above him, the woman was on the second story.

She screamed again and Hank heard the building groan in protest, he must have taken out way too many load-bearing walls. This thing was coming down. There was too much rubble, he couldn’t find a way to get to where he was guessing the stairwell was. He ran back outside and looked for a way to climb up the ornamental bricks and he just didn’t see one. There was a small decorative ledge that would be a great handhold but it was at least 13 feet up. His bulldozer was still parked just outside the building though, he thought he might be able to jump from the top of his bulldozer into one of the windows on the second floor. The building groaned again, he was out of time. He scaled the dozer with his sledgehammer in tow. He didn’t see a way he could jump across with it so he threw it through the large window closest to his parked dozer. The glass shattered and left sharp edges everywhere. Hank didn’t have any gloves, the woman screamed again…

He made the jump knowing it was going to hurt. The glass cut into his hands as he pulled himself through the window. He picked up his sledgehammer and headed toward the door that he thought his Intuition was pointing him towards. He saw the problem right away, it was some kind of security door and the frame was warped because the building was collapsing. The door was probably jammed in there impossibly tight.

“HEY IF YOU CAN HEAR ME IN THERE, STAND BACK!” he shouted.

He reared back and used all of his strength to swing the sledge at the top part of the door where it looked like it was lodged into the frame the most. The door shifted and screeched, Hank could see he had gotten that particular piece unstuck and it was even bent backwards into the room a bit. He swung again this time directly at the door handle. His hit landed true, the door handle and the deadbolt exploded into the room and the door popped open. He ran inside and noticed the floor was at a slant, that’s not good. There was a woman crying in the corner, it was the Latina woman from the parking garage earlier. He ran over to her and crouched near her, he waited for her to meet his eyes.

“Mam, listen closely to me, we have to leave. Is there any other good people in the building?” The woman started babbling nonsense and then switched to Spanish.

“MAM!” she got quiet. “Listen carefully, is there any other GOOD people in the building?” That time something clicked and she understood, though she looked slightly confused while answering.

“Si, uh yes, Tim next door.” she pointed at the wall that Hank assumed went to the next office over. Hank stood up and hefted his sledgehammer over one shoulder. He ran at the wall and took a long downward swipe through the drywall careful not to overextend his swing. He didn’t want to hit someone who might be standing just on the other side of the wall. He peeked in through the new opening and he did see a man slumped over on his carpet just behind his desk. Hank pushed himself through the drywall and went to the man. He pulled him up by his shirt and the man’s eyes snapped open.

“Where am I? What’s happening?” the man was confused.

“It’s okay, we are leaving, this building has to be evacuated. Can you walk?” asked Hank.

“Yes I think so. I’m embarrassed to admit I have narcolepsy I was just taking a small nap. What’s going on?”

“It’s not safe here, just follow me.”

Hank walked back through the hole he had made in the drywall and helped the Latina woman get to her feet. She was favoring one leg and it seemed like she may have twisted an ankle. She kept her arm around one of his shoulders and they walked back the way Hank had come in as the building continued to groan.

“Sir your hands are bleeding quite profusely,” said Tim.

“It’s okay, I'll take care of it when we are safe.”

They got to the window and both of the people with Hank looked stunned and worried. “Sorry to tell you guys this but the stairway is destroyed. This is the safest way out. Jump to the bulldozer down there, it’s only about a three foot jump across, the rest is just falling down. It’s not hard.” The male town hall employee who the Latina woman had referred to as Tim looked confused and put his hands on his head with his hands interlocked and took a few paces around the hallway then seemed to come to the realization that this was the only way as he looked around and heard the building groan and shift some more.

“Okay, I’ll go first, and then I’ll stay in place to help you two,” said Tim. Hank was glad he saved him, this was a good guy.

“Wait!” The woman shouted. “A madman was driving that bulldozer and attacking the building, that’s why this place is crumbling. We can’t jump onto his roof he might be down there waiting to kill us.” Hank knew he couldn’t tell these people that he was the madman.

“Oh he is gone, he fled the scene. We have to move!” Hank’s point was taken seriously as the building groaned once more. Apparently that was Tim needed to hear because jumped out the window narrowly avoiding the broken glass. Despite being in his forties with salt and pepper hair he made it to the roof of the bulldozer with ease. The Latina woman with Hank looked out the window and turned back to him with fear on her face.

“Mister I can’t jump that and you can’t throw me that far.” Hank decided to check as well. He COULD throw her that far, but not without injuring her.

“I’ve got an idea to get you safely across,” said Hank.

He took his sledgehammer and scraped all of the remaining shards of glass out of the frame of the window. It was a skinny and tall window, and it started only about a foot off the ground. Hank looked out the window again and threw his sledgehammer near the driver’s side area of the bulldozer’s cab on the ground. He didn’t want to lose that one, it felt lucky for some reason. He picked up the Latina woman in a cradle carry and before she could protest he jumped out of the window and landed on top of the bulldozer. He almost lost his footing, but Tim had stood by his word and waited for them. Tim was able to stabilize Hank before he slipped. Tim helped Hank get the woman safely to the ground.

Right about this time two police cruisers pulled around the back of Town Hall, there was probably two or three times as many out front. Officers jumped out of the vehicles with pistols braced over door frames aimed at Hank.

“What the hell are they aiming guns at us for?” shouted Tim.

“Well Tim, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but I’m the one they are looking for. Anyway thank you for helping me, and would you please stand back away from the vehicle. It looks like I have to leave now and I would hate for the police to shoot you nice folks on accident.”

Tim looked confused and hurt as he partially realized what as going on, and Hank felt a pang of guilt he couldn’t quite explain at Tim’s betrayed expression. He felt he had to say something. “I promise I had a good reason for this, you may not understand it now, but I was protecting people today.” Tim didn’t respond he just stared at Hank as if he couldn’t trust him and helped the Latina woman get a safe distance away from the bulldozer. Hank took a step towards his Bulldozer and a round landed at his feet. One of the officers reached into the patrol car and quickly pulled out a megaphone.

“SIR IF YOU TAKE ONE MORE STEP TOWARDS THAT VEHICLE WE WILL KILL YOU!”

Hank couldn’t get caught up here. Eugene was still out there and Hank knew Eugene had the money to drive the narrative of the story of what had happened today. People wouldn’t know that Hank was destroying evil and protecting a small town under siege from a megalomaniac sociopath. Hank would get painted as some kind of anti-government nut and locked in a cell to rot. Fuck that, he would rather die. Sure, maybe Dractus and Cerulean would come for him, but he couldn’t count on them. For all he knew they had some kind of rule about not interfering with the local constabulary. Besides they were busy dealing with a demon, whatever the hell that meant. Hank was on his own.

He bolted, pushing his legs like never before. Hank hated cardio, in his opinion cardio was for weirdos and women having a midlife crisis. He had entertained the idea of laying down his own covering fire during the run but he couldn’t bring himself to shoot at police, especially when his Arbiter intuition was telling him that both of them were pretty nice guys. The sound of the incoming gunfire definitely gave Hank the motivation to most faster, but it wasn’t enough. He felt searing pain fly through his left calf, and then another line of pain across his back. He jumped pushing off on his right leg aiming for the cab. He pulled himself in like his life depended on it, because it did. He yanked the cab door shut and threw the rudimentary crossbar he had installed to keep it locked.

He could feel blood filling his left shoe, that’s not good. He yanked his work boot off and rolled up his pant leg. He had absolutely taken a round to his leg. A clean through and through, he could touch the exit wound and tell it was serious. He broke open the old med-kit and found some gauze that was so thin it had to be over two decades old. He would just have to wrap a few more layers on. He pressure wrapped the wound as best as he could for now, knowing that if it kept bleeding he would have to tourniquet the leg. That would not be good. Once he had tended to his leg he pulled off his yellow tank top that was now partially drenched in his blood. He reached behind himself and used the tips of his fingers to assess the wound on his back. He couldn’t tell exactly what was going on but it felt like a long superficial gash, the kind that bleeds a lot but isn’t too serious, he hoped… His hands were still torn up and weeping blood as well, but that was also small fries compared to the hole in his leg. He used a knife to cut off the parts of his shirt that weren’t already covered in blood. Then he cut that same blood free section in half. He wrapped each half around his hands. Best he could do for now.

He had been so consumed with his first aid activities he hadn’t realized he was surrounded. He saw in his monitor that there was cops everywhere. Multiple teams of cops had riot shields in front of each group of raiders that were approaching his vehicle on all sides, and one particular brave cop had even started tugging on the door of his cab. SHIT, he thought as he slammed the bulldozer into the lowest gear and started a slow roll to throw them off a bit and buy himself some more time. His Arbiter Intuition was going crazy, half of these cops were genuinely good people and the other half were throwing all kinds of strong evil vibes. Those must be the ones that were on Eugene’s payroll. Hank couldn’t afford to hurt the good ones, he didn’t know what to do.