A lightning flash of seeing.
He grabbed the belt around the little girl NEVER NOBODY ‘POSED TO and he’s jerking it undone saying: “’Fifty-fifty shot at next to no chance in Hell and Punkin!”
She locked on him as he said: “We got one chance to save anybody!”
Punkin gave him a nod from her bones.
“But you gotta do one thing you’re not ’posed to.”
Punkin didn’t blink.
Condor told her: “You have to say a bad word.”
The shooter paused outside the main doors. To his left were a heap of bodies he’d dropped with his pistol—good fucking shots. Behind him near the top of the ramp was the listless wheelchair full of some dead older guy wearing an Army jacket.
Crucial question: Which gun?
Level up cool. Now it’s your game.
Nothing like a shotgun for close quarters tactical situations.
He let the black military-cool rifle dangle on its sling, wrapped his right hand around the pistol-grip of the black steel and plastic Italian-made shotgun manufactured after America’s 1994 assault weapons ban expired.
And just for a moment, felt regret.
While he loved the high-tech look of his semi-automatic 12 gauge that fed new shells into the chamber after each shot, the ratchet-clack of pumping a fresh shell into an old-school “regular” shotgun was epic. But besides slowing his rate of fire, a pump shotgun made him clumsy, so as much as he appreciated cool, he knew he’d been smart to go semi-auto, out with the old, in with new. Right tool, right job.
Like he expected, he saw no one standing beyond the closed glass doors.
There’s the wall with doors to the bathrooms. There’s that stupid plaque.
‘Good as Bruce Lee, he stomped his discount store black sneaker out to his side, a kick that smacked the circular aluminum door opener pressure plate and like the yawn this place was — used to be, had been until me—the doors gaped open for him.
My turn.
He slid through the open doors like ninja. Blasted buckshot into the Gift Shop where the old Korean lady behind the counter, yeah, she’d ducked somewhere already. Stay down, Honey, I’ll be back. Pirouetted a slo-mo circle until the food court filled his vision BOOM! Buckshot tore through air that smelled like coffee and burnt hamburgers. Like in Slaughter Soldier 2 for Xbox, he grabbed a grenade from the pouch on his hip, pulled the pin with his teeth and made a left handed throw, landed it on the tiles by the health food rip-off place BOOM! Purple smoke mushroomed through the food court.
Hope it won’t hide too much from security cameras mounted in the ceiling.
He combat jumped into the MENS room — looked empty, closed aluminum stalls.
Can’t fool me with that shit. He switched the shotgun for his pistol, punched two bullets through the wall of the nearest stall.
A man screamed and fell off the toilet where he’d been crouched.
WOMENS room. Suburban mom sobbing and pleading, holding up her hands.
Mom got shot right through her palm in front of her crybaby face.
From the entrance to the food court he surveyed his kingdom of Hell.
Purple smoke thicker at the far end where red letters glowed EXIT and that was a lie, nowhere to go, suckers. BOOM he shot that cloud. Some guy charged him throwing coins, made the shooter flinch BOOM cut down that coin-thrower with a shotgun blast that also shattered a window facing the front parking lot.
Crashing glass: he liked the sound so much he blasted out three more windows.
Cool air and sunlight streamed into the purple-smoked debris of the food court.
He wondered who’d discovered that he’d chained the rear doors shut.
Ringing: a smoke detector in BURGER BONAZA as the meat abandoned on the hot grill crackled out black smoke. Theme music as he surveyed the food court.
Moms draped over their kids. Travelers cowered behind metal tables. Dead guy on the floor — must be a bonus score from the first burst sent through the windows. Pools and dribbles of darkness on the red floor tiles, blood from somebody who’d crawled or been carried away, he’d find them in good time.
For a moment he thought about swinging up his wireless tablet to set off the other bombs he’d planted by the roads in and out of this rest stop so he could watch the judging-eyes people in here scramble and scream and break cover trying to escape.
Naw, stick to the plan.
Save the bombs for the wanna-be heroes, cops and firemen who figure a way around the traffic back ups and road spikes for their red lights and sirens.
You gotta do the walk, man.
He switched from the could-be-empty shotgun — in all the excitement, he kind of lost count of his shots. Slapped a fresh magazine into the assault rifle.
Stepped out among them, knowing their desperate hopes that he was looking for someone in particular, specific, for somebody who was the why, for someone not me.
Everybody thinking: I don’t deserve this!
Walk your purple smoke ringing glory and what do you see.
A cash flow corridor of factory food for cubicle fools awaiting coffins.
TVs by the ceiling show talking heads who never say your name.
A lotto screen displays winning numbers for luck you never get.
An ATM machine holds money it won’t ever give you.
Two guys hide behind a condiments counter, not so high school cool now.
Bald guy, white shirt, tie, nametag, hands in the air, so who’s the boss?
College girl, on the floor like a dog, yeah, what do you got to say now, bitch?
Black leather biker with a gut wound by the wall, who’s scared today?
Somebody praying to the big empty that never cares.
So who gets to play this next round of—
“YOU’RE A BIG BOOGER-HEAD!”
He heard it above the smoke detector ringing.
From outside. Through the shot-out windows. The parking lot. A…a kid.
“YOU’RE A SCARED MEANIE!”
Some little girl. Off the bus. Out there hiding amidst the parked cars.
“NOBODY WANTS TO FUCK YOU!”
The shooter cocked his head.
“NOBODY KNOWS WHO YOU ARE!”
He faced that new whine in his skull.
“YOU’RE A TEENY TINY NOBODY!”
Nothing. Just nothing. Just a snotty kid little bitch girl doesn’t know nothing.
“AND YOU’RE WHO DOESN’T KNOW WHAT FUCK IS!”
He squeezed a burst out the window toward that sound in the parking lot.
Food court fading echo of gunshots ringing smoke detector and STILL he heard:
“NA-NANA-NA-NA YOU CAN’T SHOOT NOTHING!”
The shooter thumbed his assault rifle to Select Fire.
Squeezed three shots in a sweep over the visible car roofs.
“YOU CAN’T GET ME!”
Not from in here.
The black robot whirled left, whirled right.
Fifty-fifty choice.
Either the side EXIT on the left and out alongside the building with its purple smoke cloud still so thick the scavenging seagulls floating overhead couldn’t see what they smelled sprawled on the black pavement.
Or back through the main doors to the flat cement slab entryway that would give him a 180 degree-plus field of fire from the purple smoked zone, up to the white gazebo, then the easy sweep all over the whole front parking lot, then toward the right to the distant gas pumps that were destined to be awesome pillars of fire.