Weasel had gotten the pistol out of his shorts by now and was lifting it towards me while Larry appeared to be digging furiously in his butt (I supposed at the time that he was going for his own weapon). I instinctively kicked out with both feet in an attempt to get away, like a kind of jump reflex. This propelled me backward two or three feet and landed me on my back with my feet pointed towards the attackers. This most likely saved my life as the first shot from Weasel’s gun passed over me and through the glass double doors of Pep Boys. On my back, I spread my legs to avoid shooting my own feet off and pulled the trigger.
I nearly soiled myself as the M4 came alive in full automatic fury, stitching a line up and down Weasel, with little dusty penetrations appearing all over his torso and thighs. In the movies when you see someone shot, you always see copious amounts of blood splatter flying all around the screen. Well, the movies are full of it. I saw puffs of dust rise off the impact points, and his clothes rippled about as holes appeared. If there was any blood, it was in a fine mist, and it was too fast for me to see. The guy didn’t start bleeding until after he hit the ground.
I whirled my muzzle over to Larry, who was still in the process of losing a tug of war battle with his keister and pulled the trigger. I recall very clearly how hard he flinched as the first few rounds hit him. He pulled his head way back, squinted his eyes nearly shut, opened his mouth, and stuck out his tongue while putting his hands out in front of him. He looked like nothing so much as an awkward schoolyard bully trying unsuccessfully to fend off a haymaker.
As Larry went down, I heard a snap very close by (I would have to place it just above my head, were I forced to guess) and something sharp and hot stung my cheek. I rolled over onto my left shoulder to look in the direction of whatever chaos was breaking loose down the street. As I did, I just noticed some mass peaking around the side of the building at the corner while, at the same instant, two more ear-shattering explosions detonated a few feet away, now to my right with my new position. The mass at the building corner disappeared and was replaced by a kicked out foot.
I rolled to my back again and looked at both Weasel and Larry, confirming that they were no longer moving. When I rolled left to look up the street again, Billy was out from between the van and truck. He was walking quickly to the outstretched leg. He was bent over, and I felt a moment of sick panic when I thought he had been shot. When he reached the end of the building, he swiveled left, and I realized he was just bent into his shotgun. He discharged it at the ground behind the building where I couldn’t see. It was at this point that I finally realized the explosions I heard were Billy’s 870. I was completely shocked; I had not realized a pump action shotgun could be fired as quickly as Billy had managed. He was walking back towards me, thumbing new shells into the magazine. As he neared me, he stopped abruptly and said, “Hey, are you okay? Did you get hit?”
I looked myself over, patted the length of my torso. “I don’t think so,” I replied.
“Your face…”
I reached my hand up to my face and felt wetness. It came away streaked with blood. “Awe, Jesus…” I said and levered up to my knees to look at my reflection in the shop window. There appeared to be a nasty cut under my left eye, and it was running red all down my cheek. Billy came over and turned me by the shoulders to get a look at it.
“That’s not a graze or a hit of any kind. You just got nicked by something.” He stuffed a hand into one of his pockets and pulled out a green handkerchief. “Here, dab that up. It’s fine,” he said, “I don’t blow into that. Just use it to wipe off sweat.”
“Lovely…” I said and began to wipe at my cheek. The cut wasn’t too bad; it was already clotting up.
“You got damned lucky,” said Billy. “I don’t know what it was that cut you, but that could have been your eye.”
I nodded and handed the kerchief back. He crammed it back into its pocket absentmindedly.
I looked back towards the end of the building where that ominous leg was sticking out. “Just how the hell did you know he’d be back there?”
“Didn’t,” Billy stated. “Was afraid he might be. I figured you had the two assholes covered well enough. That was really the only direction someone could have used to sneak up behind us. Seems like that was their idea, too.”
He came around the truck bed and had a look at what remained of our assailants. Whatever blood that was in them was oozing out freely by this point—two fat rivers of the stuff were running out from under both of the dead men, joining together and disappearing under the vehicles.
He said: “Jesus, that’s messy. Did you really have to go full Rambo on the Mario Brothers?”
“It wasn’t my intent. I had an issue with the safety lever.”
“You mean they had an issue with the safety lever. Damn!”
“Have it your way,” I sighed. “Can we get out of here now before any more of them show up?”
“Sure, sure, keep your shirt on, Kemosabe. I just want to go over them and see if they have anything worth having.”
“Oh, Christ’s sake,” I moaned, looking up and down the street. “That’s really morbid, man.” I conveniently left out that I had acquired my Glock in the same fashion. I wanted to get out of there at that point and was arguing over anything.
“They’re not using it anymore,” he said, totally unashamed. He had a look at Weasel’s gun, held it up, and sighted down the length of the barrel. “Hi-Point,” he muttered. “Eh, screw it…” he decided and slipped it in his back pocket. He moved over to Larry and rolled him over onto his stomach. What we saw stopped both of us in our tracks.
The front of each man that I killed was relatively undisturbed, with little pin-prick bullet holes dotting the surface area at various points. When Larry was rolled over, we could see that the whole back of his shirt and most of his jeans were soaked through with dark red blood. The surfaces of both articles of clothing were torn and perforated. Billy squatted down and pinched the tail of Larry’s shirt between two fingers and lifted. Some forty percent of his back had been reduced to a mutilated crater, as though an explosive had been set off just under his spine. The whole area looked like nothing more than raw, ground up hamburger with bits of spine and ribs exposed. Smaller racket-ball sized craters surrounded the main focal point of damage.
“God damn,” said Billy, letting go of the shirt.
“I thought you said they were just .22 rounds?” I asked him. “I’ve never heard of a .22 round doing that to anything.” I felt queasy from what I had seen.
“Evidently, I was wrong.” He sat there on his haunches for several seconds simply shaking his head. Finally, he said, “I’ve never seen anyone shot by a 5.56 round before… or maybe it has more to do with him being shot by an M4 on full auto or something. I don’t know. I’m going to have to rethink this whole carbine versus shotgun thing.”
I must admit I was a little taken aback by Billy’s attitude to the whole situation. Having learned that his assumptions were incorrect, he became curious and inquisitive. He levered the body back up on its side so he could get another look at the entry wounds, set the body back down, and attempted to lift and separate the leg of his jeans to get a look at the damage done to the rear thigh.
I looked away. My initial viewing of the mass crater in the man’s back had been a shock to my system; I felt the same sensation in my stomach that you undergo when you suddenly feel the bottom drop out from under you (similar to a roller coaster ride). Subsequent looks just made me feel sick. This was the first time I had examined anyone up close after shooting them with the M4; the first time at Whiskey Pete’s had been in near total dark. I walked to the truck and leaned against the bed with my forearms draped over the top of the tailgate, breathing deeply. My attention was drawn back to Billy only a few moments later.