ONE HUNDRED AND SEVEN
The step creaked under this weight.
Scott paused a moment, thinking how loud the sound seemed in the silence of the stairway.
He was about five steps from the top now, ducked low, the Smith and Wesson automatic gripped in his fist.
He prepared to move again.
Another creak.
From ahead of him this time.
A sound not of his making.
Scott looked up, saw a shadow. A dark shape crouched there.
He moved down a step.
There was more movement ahead, above.
John Hitch took a couple of steps towards the head of the stairs, the Beretta gripped in his hands.
Scott raised his own pistol simultaneously. There was a thunderous roar as both men fired. The stairway was lit by muzzle flashes so brilliant they could have blinded. The walls shook as the roar of the automatics bounced around, amplified in the stairwell.
Scott felt a bullet blast through his shoulder, blood and portions of bone spraying the wall behind as he fell backwards, but he managed to get off three shots of his own.
One blasted a huge chunk of plaster from the wall, another hit the step Hitch was standing on. The third caught the man in the right shin. The bullet shattered his tibia, the strident cracking of bone audible even above the monstrous discharges of the pistols. A part of the bone tore through the skin and also through the material of Hitch's trousers. He shrieked in pain and dropped to the ground as Scott tried to force his way back up the stairs. His left shoulder was already beginning to go numb but he forced himself to keep a grip on the 459, firing again.
Another bullet hit Hitch in the forearm, but it passed through the muscle without touching bone.
He shot Scott in the stomach.
Scott felt as if he'd been punched by a red-hot fist. The air was knocked from him and the impact almost lifted him from his feet but he remained upright, blood running freely from the wound. The bullet exited through his side, taking muscle with it, spraying the bannister and stairs with blood, but Scott was lucky. No vital organs had been touched by the 9mm slug.
Scott fired twice at his prone foe, who was now trying to drag himself away from the top of the stairs.
The first bullet caught him in the left side of the chest, smashing two ribs as it blasted its way through, punching an exit hole the size of a fist and almost throwing Hitch against the far wall, which was sprayed with crimson and gobbets of lung tissue.
The second shot hit him, more by luck than judgement, in the hollow of the throat, blasting two cervical vertebrae to powder as it exploded from the back of his neck.
His head flopped back uselessly, his eyes rolling upwards in their sockets.
Death was instantaneous and Scott heard the soft hiss as the sphincter muscle relaxed. He smelt the excrement, saw a dark stain spreading rapidly across the front of Hitch's trousers.
Scott stumbled to the top of the stairs, the stench of blood and cordite strong in his nostrils.
He had pain now, but it was everywhere.
His head. His shoulder. His stomach.
He coughed and tasted blood in his mouth. A thick crimson foam dribbled over his lips; streamers of bloodied mucus hung from his mouth. He spat, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
As he reached the top of the stairs, stepping over the body of Hitch, he could see the door to Plummer's apartment.
He moved slowly towards it, ejecting one magazine from the automatic. Scott rammed another in and worked the slide.
He moved closer to the door.
The fucking pain…
He thought he was going to faint.
Not yet.
He was outside the door now.
Not yet.
There was a spy-hole in the door.
He threw himself to one side as a fusillade of bullets tore through the wood, blasting huge holes in it.
Scott landed heavily on his injured side, more blood filled his mouth. He swivelled round, hauling himself upright, and crawled towards the door.
Silence had descended again; only his own wheezing breath was audible in the desolate solitude. Curtains of smoke wafted around, grey-blue smoke flecked with tiny cinders and pieces of wood that settled like dirty snow on the carpet.
He dragged himself upright, smearing blood against the wall. Then he stood beside the bullet-blasted door, steadying himself.
He gritted his teeth.
Now. It was time.
Scott swung his foot at the door with incredible force and it flew open, slamming back against the wall.
He dashed in, firing wildly to cover his entrance.
Bullets raked the apartment; ornaments were hit, blasted into oblivion.
Scott kept his finger pumping the trigger, firing all fifteen of the bullets until the slide flew back, signalling the pistol was empty.
He saw Ray Plummer standing to his left, in the entrance to the bedroom.
Carol was behind him, her face blank, drained of colour.
Scott turned on Plummer, realising that his gun was empty.
Plummer held a 10mm Delta Elite on him.
Scott opened his mouth to roar his rage but the sound was lost beneath the thunderous blast of the Delta.
The bullet hit Scott in the chest, punctured a lung and exploded from his back, chipping the bottom of his left scapula, tearing an exit hole large enough to get two hands in. Portions of greyish-red lung tissue and pulverised bone erupted from the wound.
Scott was lifted, as if by some invisible hand, and sent sprawling over the sofa, blood spraying out behind him.
He crashed into a coffee table, the impact almost making him black out. Then he rolled onto his stomach, his mouth open, his eyelids flickering.
He heard Carol call his name, heard Plummer tell her to shut up.
Footsteps came close.
Through pain-misted eyes he saw Plummer looking down at him, the 10mm levelled.
Scott was lying on his right hand, his fingers within reach of the.357. He felt his shaking digits touch the wood of the stock.
'You should have stayed away,' sneered Plummer. 'Stayed in prison. You came a long fucking way to die.' He aimed the pistol at Scott's head.
Scott rolled onto his back, the.357 now in his hand. He fired upwards, twice.
The first bullet blasted Plummer's nose off, obliterating the fleshy appendage, which dissolved in an explosion of blood.
He screamed in agony but the sound was cut short as the second hollow tip bullet hit him below the chin, tearing upwards into his head, through his brain and finally bursting from the top of his skull, lifting him off his feet.
His head looked as if someone had place an explosive charge inside it. The entire cranial cavity seemed to detonate, blood and brain spattering the ceiling, spraying everything within a foot or so.
His wig was blown clear, flying off to one side like a flattened cat.
Plummer tottered for interminable seconds, his bald dome open to the air, portions of his brain hanging from the riven cavity, blood jetting madly into the air. Then he fell forward across the sofa, his body sliding to the floor, crimson spreading in a pool around him.
***
Carol could only stand mesmerised. Her body shook, her nostrils were filled with the smell of cordite and death, her eyes had been blinded by the muzzle flashes, her ears rang from the thunderous discharges.