Cooper grabbed a cart and entered the store. The relative calm outside was replaced by a flurry of chaos inside. People were rushing through the store, looking for what they’d come for, or anything else they could find. He heard a clang of metal carts crashing into one another and an exchange of obscenities. He heard a man shout at an elderly woman, “Stay away, keep your distance, you’re too close,” as he poked his hand back and forth at her, motioning her away.
Cooper moved through the store, methodically and with solid purpose. He kept his distance from others—merely to keep them from becoming agitated—and kept Jake locked to his hip. He made short work of the bulk foods, which most people were ignoring. Flour. Rice. Pasta. Oats. He grabbed the heaviest bags of each that he could find. He quickly loaded up at the aisle for spices and salt. He grabbed an armload of boxes of matches and dumped them into the cart. Next, he found some candles and a half dozen cans of camping fuel. The batteries were already mostly gone, but he scavenged what he could. He had saved the canned foods aisle for last. He was just about to turn the corner when he heard shouting from the back of the store.
“Damn you! I know you have some canned stew hidden in the back! Go get it right now! Don’t you see this? It’s called a gun,” a loud, but nervous voice yelled. “Now, go get it!”
The bellowing voice rang throughout the store. Scattered screams of panic responded. Around him, many fled to the front of the store. The quickly clearing canned foods aisle beckoned to Cooper, ready for the picking. Instead, he turned his body towards the angry voice, and looked at Jake, “Get on the floor and stay here. If I’m not back in two minutes, go to the truck, lock yourself in, and call Dranko on my phone.” He handed Jake his cell phone. It was not the last time that Cooper would see rank fear in his son’s eyes, but he complied. Jake slowly collapsed to the floor and cradled his head in his arms.
With that, Cooper moved in a half-crouch toward the disturbance. He pulled his pistol from his belt, pulled the steel slide back to ensure a round was chambered, and welcomed the odd comfort of the familiar polymer grip and the solid weight of a loaded pistol in hand.
He heard the quiet protest of the store employee, her voice throttled by fear. Around the end cap filled with Doritos, he could see the pair. The employee was a woman, mid-forties, overweight, and just a smidge over five feet tall. She wore a dark blue uniform and light blue apron. Her brown hair, streaked solidly with gray, was pulled up into a haphazard ponytail. She wore latex gloves and a surgical mask. Must be the new addition to the dress code. She cowered with her hands upraised and her head tilted toward the ground.
The man stood opposite her, the pistol a few scant inches from her head. Cooper was afraid he was thinking about pistol whipping her. He stood over six feet, well-built, with thick, strapping arms, and a healthy beer belly. Construction worker, heavy machinery. He wore a red flannel shirt, blue jeans, and tan work boots speckled with mud. The pistol looked to be a .45 semi-auto, 1911-style. Stainless steel and shining brightly from a high sheen polish finish. I hope that means he hasn’t used this thing much and it was just a showpiece until today.
“Don’t lie to me, bitch! I know you have it back there. I heard you guys talking about keeping some there for yourselves. Now, go get it! I’m going to give you just five seconds! One…”
Cooper readied himself to move like a cougar, first shifting his weight backward, preparing to pounce. His finger slid into the trigger guard and found perch on the trigger.
“Two!” Cooper leapt forward. He was acutely aware of a myriad of smells around him: fear mixed with the man’s heavy cologne, fresh fish from a refrigerated case down the aisle, and the sharp sting of urine, most likely from the store clerk.
“Three!” The clerk’s face reacted to Cooper’s movement by shifting her gaze to him, her eyes flew wide open, and the slack look of surprise blanketed her face. Damn it!
Silence greeted the space where “four” should have been shouted. The woman’s movement had betrayed Cooper. The man spun to his left, just as Cooper barreled in. The man’s eyes widened as he saw Cooper coming at him and he frantically tried to bring his gun to bear. Cooper was only a few feet away. He could see and smell the sweat dripping down the man’s face. The man’s pistol loomed large, the bore swinging around.
Cooper didn’t hesitate. He fired twice, the pistol spitting flame from its barrel, both rounds hitting the man in the chest. True to his training, Cooper saw nothing except the front sight of his pistol. The sound was deafening. The man was knocked backward and fell to the ground in slow motion. Blood back-splattered onto Cooper, speckling his face, hands, and chest. Cooper loathed the coppery-taste of blood and reflexively spat. Cooper maneuvered the pistol to keep aim at the man as he fell.
He heard a sharp chink of metal hitting metal. From the corner of his eye, just at the edge of his recognition, he saw the large bore of the .45 aimed directly at him. Somehow, after being shot, the man had held onto his pistol and aimed it directly at Cooper’s head. The man’s face widened in surprise at the pistol’s failure. A half second later, Cooper pulled the trigger and the man’s face disappeared and gore splattered the floor behind his head. Most likely he failed to chamber a round or maybe he’d never had the expensive Colt look-alike worked on. Some 1911’s were notorious for their need of good gunsmith work before they were reliable. The man’s body collapsed back onto itself and lay sprawled on the ground. A quickly-spreading pool of blood engulfed the body where it lay.
He breathed deeply to calm his adrenaline-pumping body and right his rapid, shallow breath. The pungent smell of blood mixed with the trailing smoke of cordite from his pistol assaulted Cooper’s nose.
The woman, who had been threatened with death a moment ago, sank slowly to the ground, her knees buckling, now that death had indeed come, but not to her. A hand clutched her mouth and she let loose a long simper of painful relief, like a long lost puppy who finally finds its home. Sobbing, her body shook back and forth, while her hand covered her mouth.
Despite the impulse, Cooper wasted no time in comforting the shaking woman; he knew he had to leave, and now. The police might be ignoring speeding on the highway; he had no inclination to find out how they’d respond to a shooting in a grocery store. With Elena at home ill, he could not allow himself to be questioned or detained by the police. Without a moment’s hesitation, he merely nodded gravely at the woman, pivoted firmly on his right foot and went to retrieve his son.
He found Jake curled up on the floor underneath one of their two shopping carts. Nervous eyes peered over his arm that he was using to cover his head. Jake’s eyes flung open wide when he saw his father, blood-spattered, come wheeling around the corner. Cooper saw his son’s eyes fixate immediately on the pistol that he still clutched in his right hand. He re-holstered it in response. Cooper glided swiftly to his son’s side, kneeling next to him when he arrived.
By then, Jake was sobbing the deep tears of relief that his father had returned unhurt and unharmed after two shots of gunfire. Cooper rubbed his shoulder furiously, “It’s alright, boy. I’m OK. Everything’s OK.” Cooper pulled his son’s chin up so they could look each other in the eye, “See, look at me. I’m OK.” Cooper smiled and did his best to put a twinkle into his eye. Jake looked back, surprised, and unsure. Cooper pulled into a brisk hug and Jake’s sobbing abated. Cooper seized the opening.