Malati held her cell phone above their parked cars cover.
“He’s turning toward—I think he’s going to go into the building, the food court!”
Risk it:
Condor peeked over the car. Saw the black robot at the facility’s main doors. Saw the dead vet in his wheelchair. Saw bodies heaped at the bottom of the ramp: bus driver who smoked, women. Saw the food court’s bullet-holed tinted dark windows.
He glared at the little girl with the big brown eyes. “What’s your name?”
“Phyllis Azar seven years old live at—”
Create focus.
“You’re here. Now. With us.”
The seven-year-old girl nodded: The silver-haired guy sounded like a principal!
Empower your asset to gain their trust.
Condor said: “What do you want me to call you?”
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Paced steady rhythm shots hit the building.
Suppression fire as the black clad shooter neared the main doors.
“Daddy calls me
Punkin
.” She shrugged at the orange plastic pumpkin bucket she’d looped to herself with her belt
special
so
no way
would she lose it.
“Punkin, I’m—
Condor
,
Vin
, doesn’t matter, she’s
Malati
.”
A bullet ricocheted off a car roof.
Punkin said: “We going to be OK?”
The big girl woman nodded
yes
as Mr. Silver Hair said: “We might get hurt.”
“Might get
dead
.” Punkin shook her head. “That would suck.”
Malati watched her cell phone: “He’s standing at the main doors!”
In the canyon of car metal next row over: a side mirror of an SUV dangled upside down, its cracked glass captured the reflection of a trapped man, woman, child.
Malati inhaled that sight of yesterday, today, tomorrow.
“Condor!” yelled Malati: “Smell that
oh my God!
Why didn’t it it’s going to—”
Like a piano chord
exploded the meds’ weight on his mind.
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.
Main doors.
He’s there. Elbows the shiny steel plate automatic door opener. Rifle up, alert position, gun butt by his shoulder. Just like SWAT guys on TV. Staring over the barrel. Focused. Sliding past the heap of dead men blocking his way down one ramp. Past the Army jacketed meat slumped in a wheelchair nearly blocking the stairs by the top of the second ramp where the shooter had pushed it.
Stairs are tricky while aiming over an assault rifle, so he SWAT glides down the second ramp to the heap of bodies, women on top
fucking bitches
.
“YOU CAN’T FUCK!”
Two quick shots at that
in the parking lot
sound.
The shooter lowered his rifle, the better to see.
Gunshots ringing in his ears, the ringing smoke detector back in the food court: he doesn’t hear the whirr of rubber tires on cement as coming behind him, the wheelchair bearing Army-jacketed meat rolls
rushes
down the ramp.
Splashing
hits his left side and back, head, stings his eyes. That splash hit him from off the ground and the heap of dead women.
Stinks, what
—
SMACKED in his face with an empty plastic orange bucket pumpkin.
Eyes burning, the blur of some woman swinging a pumpkin to hit him again/
feint
, he knew that was a feint, blocked her true attack kick with the assault rifle and knocked her down
Why do I smell?
His gun barrel sought the
her
to kill.
In the shooter’s new
behind him
:
Warren’s blood smeared on his forehead.
Warren’s Army jacket worn for Trick Or Treat.
Condor launched himself from the rolling wheelchair.
Yelled so the shooter whirled.
Tossed the ‘bucks cup full of
wet
into the shooter’s face.
Tripped with inertia from his wheelchair leap.
Condor crashed to his knees, heard the
falling on concrete
of that cup.
That paper cup he’d stuck into the stream spewing out of the bullet-punctured steel tank under a car that sheltered him and Malati and a child who wanted to be called Punkin and nodded all the way down into her bones that she
could
she
would
she’d do what she had to do even if she wasn’t ‘posed to.
The ‘bucks cup he’d used to bail that spewing stream into Punkin’s pumpkin bucket. Bucket full, he filled the cup to carry with him. Crouched low so the robot shooting inside the rest stop facility couldn’t see him as like in some
don’t spill
Fourth of July picnic contest, he frog-ran to the level concrete right outside the main doors. Purple smoke mushroomed inside the food court. Condor set the cup down.
Don’t spill!
He pulled the Army jacket off Warren. Got his black leather jacket on the dead vet. Smeared blood from Warren’s third eye on his own forehead. Grunted the body onto the heap of corpses blocking the other ramp. Plunked himself into the wheelchair.
Malati, careful not to spill the liquid from the pumpkin she carried, fumbled where Condor’d told her, the throat-shot bus driver’s shirt pocket—
Got it!
Tossed a tumbling glint of silver to the man in the wheelchair.
Malati draped herself over the murdered teachers.
Punkin yelled like she was ‘posed to.
Death stalked down the ramp.
Got ambush doused with gasoline.
That stinking wet killer jerked Condor off his knees.
Condor pushed the bus driver’s open silver cigarette lighter against the shooter and thumbed the wheel.
WHUMP! A fountain of fire engulfed the man who’d come to kill and die BUT NOT LIKE THIS!
Screaming
. A human torch blazed the morning.
Dropped between the burning man’s wobbling feet, Condor jerked the combat knife from its ankle sheath—slammed the blade up into the crease of shooter’s groin.
Blood sprayed Condor, wiped on the Army jacket as he scrambled away.
The burning man staggered.
Collapsed in a flaming heap.
Sickening sweet stench of baking crackling flesh and gasoline.
Condor, hands and knees scrambling up the ramp past the overturned wheelchair to where his black leather jacket clad the body of Warren.
Helicopters
.
Chopping the air, racing in low, fast and hard to kill or capture who’s crazy.