The Short Takes

by James Grady

  Condor said: “Shiny metal where the coffin should ride— Think they’re bins.”

  “Bins?”

  “The bus driver pulled black steel stars out of his tires. Caltrops. Tactical steel road tire spikes. State troopers and Army ambushers scatter them on the highway.”

  Somewhere in the parking lot a woman screamed like a fleeing banshee.

  Malati shook her head. “What does that have to do with bins and where would—”

  The machinegun roared.

  No more banshee screaming.

  “Maybe he got the spikes on Amazon,” said Condor. “Get lots, rig metal bins in the coffin space. Cut holes in the back of the hearse, driver-controllable lids on the bins. He drove every stretch of road every direction out of here, probably weaving lane to lane to cover all drivable asphalt, picking his release spots just past or just before the rest stop exits and entrances, dropping, what, couple thousand of those things. A few flat tires, cars crashing into each other, stopped, and it’s the mother of all backups every way in or out of here, walls of steel. He’s isolated his kill zone. Stalled any rescue or escape.”

  BOOM! The robot switched to his shotgun.

  Malati waved her arm: “When he’s shooting the other way we can make it across the parking lot toward the Turnpike! Short fence, hop it, run, hide—”

  She saw where Condor was looking.

  The empty school bus.

  She said: “All those kids.”

  He said: “All us everybody.”

  Machinegun bullets cut a line over their heads like the contrail of a jet on its way across this cool blue sky.

  Her spine tensed. Her mind pushed against her forehead.

  He said: “Cell phone!”

  Pressed against her ear. “911 is … Due to a high volume—”

  “Half the people here. Unless he’s got a jammer.”

  “You can buy those?”

  “You tell me, you’re the one from the real world.”

  Car windows shatter. Bullets whine.

  Why now? Why here? Why me?

  Why not.

  Her eyes were welded wide. “Where is he? Is he coming— Wait!”

  Malati swooped the screen of her cell phone. Eased her cell above the car. Camera app, the phone like a periscope lens scanning the sounds of gunfire.

  Like a movie.

  “He’s moving toward the main doors!”

  Standing tall, man, striding toward the funnel for the fools—Whoops: fat guy in parking lot, where’d he pop up from, pulling at the passenger door on that green car bullets’ burst and he’s dancing and spraying red and sliding down to dead, motherfucker.

  The side fire door of the rest stop facility flies open.

  Half a dozen people charge out.

  Crying tires as a silver SUV lunges out of its parking lot space.

  Malati’s cell phone showed the shooter drop flat on the pavement.

  He fumbled with the book-sized computer thing lashed to his belt.

  Silver SUV slows for six people running to its—

  FLASH! by the green dumpsters then came the BOOM! of garage-mixed explosive gel shelled by ball bearings and old nails as the paper sack bomb exploded.

  Take that, Columbine motherfuckers! The shooter keyboarded the tablet lashed to his waist so it was re-primed to send a wireless signal to any of his other planted bombs.

  Windshield blasted glass slivers blinded the silver SUV’s driver, an engaged office manager/volunteer at a Paterson, New Jersey, soup kitchen.

  Bomb shrapnel hit three of the runners, bodies crashed to the pavement. The other three runners staggered—arm, the blast blew off the arm of a mother-of-two lawyer on her way to a deposition, she crumpled, bled out.

  Like a cat person on TV, the shooter rocketed off the pavement.

  Saw two targets staggering beside a drifting silver SUV.

  Sprayed them with bullets. Nailed one, the other, ah fuck him, let him stagger away, maybe he’s hit, certain he’s damaged.

  The shooter tossed like a rock toward the FIRE EXIT side of the facility.

  Pop! Purple smoke grenade, rescue me surplus, that store off the Interstate.

  “The grenade’s to scare us,” said Condor. “Keep the people inside.”

  Death’s robot faced the stairs and ramps up to the main doors.

  Malati stared at the huddled-beside-her silver-haired man in the black jacket who knew, who had to know: “What are we going to do?”

  “Be crazier.”

  “—easy for you to say.”

  The robot of death. At the bottom of the ramp where the bus driver sprawled over another smoker’s corpse.

  Marching out of the main doors: Two women. Teachers. Marching down the ramp straight toward the shooter. Commanding: “Stop! Stop this!”

  Behind them, running down the other concrete ramp:

  Kids, scared, crying, stumbling down to the parking lot as the young man from Teach For America and some other citizen urge the twenty-one children forward, go, run, run!

  The main doors whir open.

  Out rolls Warren.

  Wheelchair. Army jacket. Fuck you face.

  Ready to charge. Ready to be diversion. Ready to take it to you, motherfucker.

  Keep going kids! Run, run!

  The shooter’s stopped. Standing still. Assault rifle hanging on its sling.

  Two teachers close on him, the maybe maybe prayer on their faces.

  The robot drew his handgun Bam! Bam-Bam!

  Schoolteachers collapsed in a heap atop a bus driver.

  Tidy you want me to be tidy you want tidy I give you tidy!

  Warren yelled and spun himself charge onto the ramp.

  Bam! A third eye blasted into Warren.

  The shooter aimed two-handed toward the main doors where Teach For America and some other guy lined up in the V front sight of a 15-shots semi-automatic pistol.

  Count five blasted rounds into those two bodies, dropped them in a pile, tidy.

  Wheelchair, carrying dead Warren, obeying inertia, rolling down the ramp—

  Stopped as the shooter slammed his gun bore on the ribs under the Army jacket.

  Why waste a bullet on this Army jacket guy with a red mush forehead?

  He shoved the wheelchair. His force sent it freewheeling up to the flat landing outside the main doors. The burdened wheelchair spun sideways, stopped.

  As twenty-one children stampede amidst parked cars.

  The assault rifle sprayed zinging lead toward them.

  But kids are short.

  Bullets crashed through cars’ windows, punched into steel chassis.

  The shooter dropped to the ground.

  Stared under rows of parked cars. Undercarriages of mufflers and pipes. Tires propped the cars at least six inches off the pavement and made a slit of scenery.

  There—few rows away: running children’s legs and feet.

  The assault rifle fired a long sweep of bullets under the cars.

  Zing ripped out from the under the metal that hid Condor and Malati, cut right between where they were crouched, right past the knocked-over ’bucks cup she’d only God knows why just let go of. Slugs slammed into another parked car, punched a hole in one door and out the other. A tire blew. Bullets ricocheted off parking lot asphalt.

  Is that smell—

  Two kids. Frozen in the lane between parked cars. Bullets zinged past their legs—one wore brown cords his mom picked out, one wore her favorite blue jeans.

  The girl pushed her classmate away from the shooter: “Split up!”

  She turned to run the other way than the boy so the bad guy couldn’t—

  Saw two crouching-down adults waving their hands.

  Ran between the cars, into the arms of
the Grampa guy.

  “Got you!” he said as she burrowed her face into his leather jacket.

  No wet no red she’s not shot. Condor saw a Halloween pumpkin bucket looped through the belt on her blue jeans, a red jacket, white blouse. “It’s not a dorky costume!” she’d insisted that morning as she did what she was ’posed to and ate her scrambled eggies: “It’s the idea of the flag and it’s ’posed to make you think!” But that glitter on her seven-year-old face? That, she said, “that’s me.” Didn’t notice her mother not cry.

  Machinegun roars sliced the air.

  The second grader looked back to where she’d been.

  Whispered: “Run, Johnny.”

  The shooter slapped fresh ammo into the assault rifle. Seen it. He’d seen running snot-nosed kids scramble onto the shutdown school bus across the parking lot. You can’t hide from me. He machine-gunned the bus. Bullets banged through the yellow metal.

  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 MEN’S 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.

  WOMEN’S 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.

&n
bsp; 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.