by: Kristy Duke

Listening into the heavy silence that hangs within the warm cab of my truck, I quietly glance over at Bo who sits in the passenger seat with his right leg extended far under the dashboard. His head rests back against the back window as he quietly stares out through the passenger window, lost in his own thoughts, his own worries. For a moment, I watch his thin chest heave in and out under his red t-shirt while listening to his audible wheezing before I redirect my attention back through the front windshield. Staring ahead and listening into the silence, I am left with my own thoughts, my own emotions that revolve around Bo and the last month or month and a  half. Only to force myself to begin to wonder once more what I could have done to prevented all of this to happen; to Bo and to everyone. If I hadn’t allowed Shawn to stay at the farm while he was in Hazzard, would he have been so bold as to hide his dirty money in our barn? If not, Bo wouldn’t have been his witness to hiding the money. Would Shawn and his gang have left Hazzard by now, leaving no harm upon us?

Shawn targeting Cooter and Luke as his cover from the law, would bring them within the realms of being a witness to Shawn. Even if they didn’t know anything, Shawn and Landon couldn’t leave Hazzard with the question of what if they knew something. Whether Shawn had known or not, Landon had entered into Hazzard knowing he’d have to kill Luke and Cooter once they were of no use to Shawn and his gang. Only Bo had gotten in the way when he saw Shawn hiding the money to shift their attention upon him to shove Luke into the shadows of their attention with thoughts of killing him once they took care of Bo.

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by: Kristy Duke

Sitting on the floor behind the driver’s seat of the stolen van, Landon finds himself smiling in disbelief at the luck that had helped him and his gang escape from the hick jail. Luck that the local deputy acted as slow and as dumb as he looked. His plan wouldn’t have worked at the state pen or any other jail that was manned by competent and wise lawman, but they weren’t at the pen as of yet nor were they at any other jail. They were in the Hazzard County jail where the law seemed to have a hard time walking on their own two feet as it was not alone to be held responsible for the hardened criminal that was in their jail. Sure, the FBI was there to give them reinforcement, which made it a little harder to manipulate the local law, but it was easy enough once they got out the deputy’s gun and out of the cell.

If that wasn’t good enough, once they locked the local lawmen and their county commissioner into their own jail cells and shot the two FBI agents, they found the pretty little woman hiding out in one of the offices upstairs. Luckily, Landon had thought of searching the upstairs once they had escaped. His first thought was to run out and steal the first car or vehicle they found, the sooner they got outside of those doors, was the better. But instinct told him to do a quick search of the upstairs and he had learned years ago, it is best to follow instincts. And during that search, he had found the woman sitting at a desk, hunched over and whispering into a black dial phone. And now, the pretty little woman is sitting behind the wheel and fearfully driving him and his gang back to their hideout. Better yet, the name plate upon the wooden desk that she had sat at and read Kristy Duke. Garrett’s older sister. He never talked about her or any of his personal life other than his dislike of Bo, but through a bug he had planted upon Garrett’s phone and  through having him followed, he knew Kristy to be his sister. The sister that he was protective of and cared for. And after what Garrett had done to him, Landon had thought it was about time someone was to pay for what he did. That someone would be Garrett himself. Of course, Kristy would soon to pay for his mistakes. After all, they don’t leave witnesses.

“Get a move on it!” he hisses and he feels her tense up through the seat and he presses the agent’s gun tighter against her thigh to hear her hiss in out of fear and perhaps a little pain. “Your brother is going to pay for his stupidity. I’m just sorry it has to be through you!’

Silence flows through the van as he steels a look out of the window and is surprised to find that they are almost to their hideout as his mind washes heavily within him of what he will do once he gets there. Deep down, he knows he should dump the girl and drive his gang out of Hazzard, get as far away from Hazzard as they could get. But he couldn’t let the hick’s brother get away with what he did to him. No one double crosses him like that and gets away with it. Landon didn’t care if it meant bringing him and his gang down once more by the FB or worse to do so.

“We’re there,” Kristy states as the van comes to a halt and Landon peers out, once more surprised to see they are there.

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by: MacSas

“Luke, I need to know”

Luke shook his head and walked a few steps away.

No, this was not something he wanted to get into. There was no way he was going to have this discussion in the middle of nowhere. No way he was going to tear his heart out and throw it on the ground so the woman he’d loved forever could see how cold and black it truly was.

No, no, no, no.

“No” he finally said out loud. “No, I can’t do it Shawna. I just … no”

Shawna watched him pace in front of the willow tree, amazed at the change in his demeanour. He was waging a war within himself, lost in a time and place that he had fought daily to never recall again. She could see the pain etched on his handsome features, the frustration in his clenched fists. His eyes no longer saw her or the creek in front of them. She was sure that all he saw now was the bloodshed, horror, torture and endless pain that haunted his past.

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by: Kristy Duke

A heavy and thick silence continues to linger above us as the FBI agent quietly follow’s Cooter’s instructions as he drives us to the local hospital where the ambulance had taken my nephews several minutes ago. Sighing heavily, I slowly glance away from my closed backseat passenger window to look over at my niece who rests her head against the door window, her red and swollen eyes stare blankly down at her feet below her. Her eyes red and swollen from the tears she has cried in fear and in horror of what she had just lived through, of all that she had seen, and tears for her cousin who rests in between life and death; struggling for his life. Fighting back tears of my own for my youngest nephew, I slowly reach over to place a caring hand upon her bare shoulder and she slowly looks up at me and the look of sadness and horror that remains frozen across her pretty face sends more sadness rippling through me. “It’ll be OK, Daisy,” I try to comfort her, hoping that I’m right, “Bo’s tough and stubborn. He’ll be OK.”

She gives me a questionable look before she blinks back more tears and nods at me before she unbuckles her seatbelt to scoot over to the middle seat. She refastens herself as she leans her head upon my shoulder and I briefly bend down to kiss her on top of her head, smelling her shampoo and sweat, before sitting back up. “I hope so,” she states as she hugs onto my arm.

I glance up at the front seat as Cooter gives the agent another instruction and the agent nods before he flips on his blinker before he turns left. I glance up as the old hospital quickly comes into sight to send my memory rewinding through the past of all the times I had rushed here; either to visit Bo or to rush Bo into the hospital room. Luke and Daisy has been here and in the ER a time or two due to an accident or a fight, but Bo had been in and out of here throughout his first few years of his life due to his asthma. As he had aged, his lungs had gotten stronger, but even so, throughout his childhood and into being an adult, he had been rushed to the ER due to an attack several times. Just not as often as he had been throughout the first few years of his life. And also like Luke and Daisy, he had a time or two been rushed to the ER from an accident or from a fight.

But looking up at the agent who is driving us, my flashback vividly falls upon a year and a half ago when Bo and Luke had been kidnapped, Luke had been shot while Bo was forced to help the gang rob and things the gang wanted in order to keep  Luke alive. Of the horror and fear that they both had lived through and the several days they both had been kept in the hospital after they were rescued from their captors. Luke had kept it mainly to himself, seeming to put it behind him, while Bo clammed up and had been too afraid to talk about it at first. Of the harsh nightmares that had kept him up at night for weeks after being released of the hospital. Nightmares that he still yells himself awake from on occasion  yet. Now to be added onto by this.

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by: MacSas

“Shawna”

She turned at the deep sound of her name, but at first saw no one familiar. Then, the sea of people in front of her seemed to part.

And there he was.

Lukas. K. Duke.

Marine sergeant, war hero, car builder and general all-round good guy.

He never did tell her what the ‘K’ stood for.

He seemed to pause for a moment, taking in the sight of her, as she was of him. The years had been kind to him. His lean frame was still well muscled, his hair still the colour of night, his eyes still that sharp blue. And his smile, well …

He came towards her.

“Hi” he said simply.

“Hi” she replied with a smile. What should she do? she thought. Hug him? Shake his hand? Kiss his cheek? All or none of the above?

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