The Fort (Aric Davis)

from black, to black and white, to black again. When Hooper opened his eyes, he was lying on his back on the hood of the Dodge, his leg, back, and head screaming. He pulled himself to a sitting position and then slid from the car and collapsed on all fours onto the garage floor.
    He shook his head once to clear it, then tried again. It wasn’t working.
    The last memories he’d had were of Vietnam and being shot, but he was in his garage. Even through the pain, Hooper knew that he had not really just been in the jungle. You’re in your garage , he told himself. You were getting your fishing stuff down from the rafters. Why? The bullet’s strike flashed back to him, but why had he been shot if he really hadn’t been in Vietnam?
    Amy.
    The thought of her brought it all back, and Hooper slowly began gathering his wits, along with the scattered supplies from the tackle box. He kept a neat garage, thankfully, but it still took him a long time to gather the things he needed. When he’d finally located the two small forceps he used to tie flies, he stood, using the car for support. He groaned when he saw the hood. The damage may have been only cosmetic, in the form of one large, man-shaped dent, but it would need to be fixed. There was no way someone like Carl could see the car in this condition and not ask him what in the hell had happened to it. Hooper shook his aching head, thinking about the repair bill—engine work was something he could do, but body work wasn’t—then headed into the house.
    He went to the bedroom first and took the small revolver from the nightstand before limping to the kitchen, where he found the pot of water boiling over. He dropped the forceps into the water and then reduced the heat. After scrounging through the knife drawer, he selected a paring knife with a three-inch blade and held its tip in the water for a few minutes. Then he grabbed a plate and a pair of tongs and used the tongs to retrieve the forceps, which he set on the plate with the knife. Finally, he shut off the stove and dragged his afflicted leg toward the basement, the plate and steaming makeshift instruments in one hand, the bottle of Everclear in the other, and with the pistol tucked into the waistband of his briefs.
    He slid down the steps in the way he was becoming accustomed to, with his body pressed against the wall to take as much weight as possible off of his leg. He made the bottom without dropping the plate or the bottle, though he could feel his underwear was in dire need of hiking up. The pistol was slipping from his waistband, and with his hands full, Hooper was unable to retrieve it as it slowly slid next to and then under his dick, the weight of it tugging down his shorts a precarious couple of inches.
    Amy was just starting to come to, but her eyes widened when he set the plate down and she saw what was on it. “Calm down,” said Hooper. “That shit ain’t for you.” He reconsidered and said, “At least, not in the way you might be thinking.”
    He set the Everclear next to the plate, both of them just out of what he figured would be her reach, then walked behind her. Seeing Amy normally made him hot, but today sex was the furthest thing from his mind. His cock felt small and useless next to the cold steel of the revolver, and Hooper removed the gun and held it next to his leg, happy to have it out of his shorts.
    Hooper set the pistol on the ground and removed her handcuffs, noting the red stripes that were banding both of her wrists from the weight of her bonds. When he circled her again, she was sitting patiently like a good girl with her hands in her lap, so he bent down to loosen the straps, keeping the ball gag in her mouth. “Same rules as last time, Amy,” he said, then plucked the gag from her lips.
    “I need some water,” she rasped. “Please, can I please have some water?”
    “When we’re done,” said Hooper. “You got to help me first, though.” He pointed at his leg but didn’t look at it—he was terrified of what he might see if he did. “You’re going to get that fucking bullet out of my leg, and then I’ll get you more water than you can drink.”
    “No,” she said. “I’ll do it, but I need some water first. My hands will shake too much if I don’t have any, and you’ll just get mad at me.”
    Hooper looked into her eyes. Not steely, that had been taken from her, but she was telling the truth. “Fine,” he said, moving the plate and bottle farther from her