Read Online The Last Rebel: Survivor by William W. Johnstone - Free Book Online Page B

room.
    “There are two couches, “Jim pointed out. “All you have to do is turn the cushions over, torn-up side down. I don’t think that either of us feels like making up a bed.”
    “You got that right,” Bev said. “I’m going to sleep. See you in the morning.”
    They looked on each other for one lingering moment before they went to their separate couches. Jim sensed that it could have been a one-couch deal, but something inside told him not to. Bev had been through hell, losing her father, being pursued by the Rejects, had seen her friend Ida raped and murdered, had a pack of beasts after her. Jim knew that, beneath the laughter, she was in a very vulnerable state emotionally, and that making love to her wouldn’t be difficult. But he couldn’t do it, just like he wouldn’t hunt an animal with one wing, or an elk with a game leg, or fight a man with one arm. It was unfair, and he knew that being fair was a super-important thing in life. If you weren’t fair, somebody somewhere would have a bone to pick with you, and one day they might. Oh yeah, what goes around definitely does come around.
     

 

 
    FIVE
     
     
    Jim had a backup security system with him when he went to sleep: Reb the dog had come in to lie next to the couch that Jim was on. Jim was also a very light sleeper, and he was ninety-nine percent sure that nothing would surprise him as long as Reb was around. Dogs were hundreds of times more proficient than people when it came to hearing and smelling. Like his grandpa once said about his dog Brandy, “That old dog can hear a flea pass wind at a hundred yards. And smell it.”
    Jim kept his firepower close, the AK-47, the tommy gun, and the Glock. He also made sure that Bev had her TT-33 nearby when she settled in on the couch across from him.
    Jim had, additionally, formulated various scenarios before going to bed. He had reconnoitered the back of the house as well as the woods on the fringe of the open area, and had both front and back doors locked. If someone tried to come in the back way he would just stand his ground in the living room, to exit via the front door to the HumVee in the woods across the road.
    Finally, he had found some Christmas decorations with bells that actually tinkled, and he had nailed these just above the doors so the bells lay against their tops. If someone succeeded in compromising the locks and opened the doors they would go tinkle-tinkle—and he would go boom-boom.
    It was nice going to sleep on a couch. When he was traveling down from his home he would sleep in a tent, and once, when he was very tired, he had slept in the cab of the HumVee, but just to be in a house, on a couch, and with another person around was good.
    Jim woke up three times during the night because of noises. But they turned out to be nothing. Once it was just the sound of the wind coming through the trees, once it was the occasional plink of the shower faucet in the downstairs bathroom, once it was because Bev was snoring, and she stopped when he awakened. Two of the times he was back to sleep within a minute. The third time he didn’t go back to sleep for at least five minutes.
    He spent the five minutes looking at Bev, who was clearly visible thanks to the moonlight coming through the window. She was sleeping on her stomach, and he couldn’t help but notice her butt. In fact, he found himself focusing on it, but after a while he stopped looking at it because the sight was increasing his heart rate and it was taking him down a path that he didn’t want to go.
    All told, except for the three times he awoke, he slept very soundly, and when he awakened at dawn he felt deeply refreshed.
    He checked out Bev, which was a mistake Now she was lying on her back, her sheet and blanket had slipped down past her waist, and her shirt had hiked up a bit, exposing a flat bare belly including her belly button.
    Jim felt himself about to sneeze, something weird given that it was what he always did when he