The pair slowly entered the parking lot and started to look around.
“Do you think you could hit the killer from here if we see him first?” I asked Jack.
“No,” Jack replied, “and I’ve already said that we don’t want to be attracting people here.”
Bernie had been right. This was a fuck-up.
“Come on, come on. He’s behind the car. He’s behind the car,” I caught myself murmuring aloud.
It looked like the man sent the woman around the back of the car, while he approached the passenger window. I took a deep breath.
We saw the man slump backwards onto the ground with both arms outstretched as the delayed sound of a shot echoed up to us. The woman was still crouched behind the back of the car when we heard the second shot. The woman ran around to check on her partner and knelt next to his body. I looked down and closed my eyes.
“What do we do now?” Jack said.
Bernie looked at me.
“Those two shots will have attracted even more interest than the music. It’s going to be dangerous down there,” he said.
I had to do something.
“You two stay here and keep a look-out; I’m going to get her. I’ll look this way when I get down there. Direct me if she moves Jack, if you see a killer nearby, then hold your rifle above your head with both hands.”
Before Bernie or Jack could argue, I ran for the stairs and quickly descended them.
Once outside, I ran towards the parking lot. I knew from our first trip that it was around three minutes away, and was hoping that the woman would still be there. It seemed unlikely that she would stay, but I knew that finding her once she went into hiding, would be difficult and dangerous — especially on my own.
Just before I reached the parking lot, I looked up at Bernie’s apartment block. Jack was holding his rifle above his head with both arms.
I waved an acknowledgement and cocked the Glock, Jack pointed towards the trees that the first killer had approached from. I was suddenly confused, as I gave the instructions in a rush before heading down the stairs. I didn’t know if Jack meant the woman had gone towards the trees, or if that was where the killer was. I thought of what I would have done in his shoes and decided he was pointing towards the killer.
I moved quickly into the parking lot and saw the woman kneeling about twenty yards away, over the body of her partner.
“Lea Ash?” I whispered loudly.
Her head shot up, “Who the fuck are you?”
She raised a silver Beretta and pointed it at me.
I put my finger to my lips and gestured towards the trees to the left of the parking lot.
“Shhh. There’s somebody coming to try and kill us.”
“Stay the fuck back,” she shouted. “How do I know that you aren’t the one trying to kill me?”
“We’ll have to do this quickly. Look up there. You see my brother holding a rifle above his head? That means he can see a killer,” I said.
“That could be a dummy for all I know. They’ve tried to fool us before.” She stepped towards me, keeping a two handed grip on her weapon.
“A dummy with two mechanical arms?” I snapped.
I looked back up at Jack who was now waving frantically.
“Look,” I said, “you can kill me after if you still don’t trust me, but for now, there’s danger coming our way and I would rather not die. Get behind the car.”
I picked up my weapon, held it by my side in a non-threatening way and walked behind the car. The killer was slumped against the door with an entry wound in his temple. I took the revolver out of his limp hand; it was empty of rounds, so I quickly discarded it.
“Hands up,” the woman screamed from the other side of the car.
“Get around here or you’ll be dead in a minute. I could have shot you by now if that was what I wanted,” I shouted.
I looked back up at Jack who seemed to be aiming his rifle just to the left of the parking lot. Using my moment of distraction, the woman ran around the side of the car and put her Beretta against the side of my head.
“How do you know my name, are you one of them?” she asked.
I couldn’t blame her for acting like she did, we were in a crazy world. I needed to convince her quickly, to improve our situation.
“We were the ones on twitter,” I said. “Can I pick up my Glock now? There’s somebody coming.”
“Were you watching when Chris was shot?” she shouted at me again. I ignored the question.
I could now hear footsteps coming towards us. I turned and looked at the left-hand side of the parking lot. A large man in a dirty white vest, holding a steel pipe, came around the corner and walked towards us.
“Don’t trust that man, missy, he killed my friend,” he shouted.
He must have heard some of the argument and was trying to use it to his advantage.
“Is this true?” she said, and pointed her weapon at my head again.
I was starting to think I might have to shoot both of them; the time for being reasonable was over.
“If I am the fucking killer and I killed his friend, why didn’t I kill myself straight afterwards?” I snapped.
“Okay, I believe you,” she said.
She backed away from me, pointing her Beretta in my direction.
“Will you help me kill him?” she said to the newcomer.
What was she doing?
“Don’t do this, please,” I said, shaking my head.
As the man got within five yards of her, he raised the pipe behind his head. I raised the Glock, but before I had a chance to fire, Lea span around and shot him in the face. The round passed through his cheek and he collapsed backwards, before making a strange snorting noise. We both looked at each other, I went over to where the snorting man who still held the pipe was lying, pointed the Glock at his forehead, and pulled the trigger.
“There, are you happy now?”
There was no time to hang around, my trap had been effective, but I was standing in the middle of it. There were three fresh bodies on the ground; the problem was that one of them hadn’t been a killer.
“We need to get out of here. The music and the shots will attract more of these people. We’ve an apartment a short distance away that’s been safe so far. Are you coming or not?”
“I don’t see what choice I have,” she said.
As we made our way to Bernie’s, I considered giving her more reassurance, but we were still in the open and the threat level was high. We reached the entrance door that I had foolishly left open and I led her into Bernie’s basement apartment.
“Wait here, I’ll go and get the other two guys.”
“Don’t leave me on my own here, please.”
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” I replied. “Nobody can get through the door once you lock it from the inside, and the windows are not visible from street level. We’ll knock three times so you know it’s us.”
It was impossible to be completely reassuring in our current environment, but it was the best I could do. I closed the door and ran upstairs to where Bernie and Jack were waiting.
“Where’s the girl? What happened down there?” Bernie said when I arrived on the roof.
I explained what had happened and thanked Jack for the warning.
“I was going to take a shot at him if you two didn’t start paying attention,” he said. “I wouldn’t have hit him though, so it’s a good job you managed to convince her.”
“I don’t think we can let Lea know they walked into a set-up,” I said.
“Why not?” Bernie asked. “We were only trying to draw in killers. Our intentions were good.”
“We don’t know the relationship they had or what they have been through. We told them to come to Elmhurst and our trap has just killed one of them. How do you think she would feel about us if she knew?”