by Adam Smith
Both pistols roared as Max rushed the crowd of stunned gangsters. Bullets tore through the businessmen, and their bodies danced a deadly jig as they collapsed. Gunfire from the television mingled with the gunfight in the room.
Three men died in Max’s charge, but five remained. As they hurled themselves behind couches and crates, Max shot one more gangster in the face. His bloody brains exploded all over the front of the television screen, obscuring the film just as a busty blonde woman in an overburdened purple bikini was using a massive sword to slice open a hulking werewolf.
“Damn!” Max cursed as return fire slashed the air around him and forced him to duck down behind a crate. “I was hoping to catch more of that flick!”
Gunfire rang out from the other side of the warehouse. A man screamed. Max risked a look and saw Kate sliding down the hill of shattered crates, surfing on a long pinewood board and firing with her pistol in a perfect weaver stance to narrow her profile. She was attacking in a pincer movement from behind the enemy cover and had already gunned down one of the businessmen, but her attack left her exposed.
The three remaining businessmen rose to face the new threat, which gave Max the perfect opening. His dual pistols screamed thunder as he charged again. Two more gangster skulls popped like fireworks.
The last thug’s pistol clicked empty as Kate approached. The blonde baker pushed with both legs and hopped off the board as she launched the front end into the air. The momentum of the projectile drove it forward, and the wooden lance impaled the last gunman in the chest. The impact hurled the businessman backward over the couch where he sprawled on his back with the board sticking straight up in the air.
Movie dialogue rang out from the splattered television as one of the undead bikini bimbos yelled, “Wow, girl, I think he got your point!”
Gunfire and feminine screaming continued to blare from the television, but the room was still. Max and Kate searched the dead gunmen to refill their pistols until their pockets bulged with fresh magazines of ammo. As they rushed toward the door underneath the overhang, Max grinned at Kate.
“A blonde surfer girl? You trying to be the stereotypical Cali girl or what?”
“Snowboarder,” Kate corrected him. Her blonde hair was damp with sweat, and she was panting with the exertion of the fight, but she returned his grin. Max decided the expression looked pretty damn sexy on her.
The heavy black door opened onto another hallway almost identical to the one they’d passed through on the floor above. However, the doors on this floor looked better cared for and there was no door at the far end, just an open doorway leading to the next area of the warehouse. Kate pointed at the first door on their left where growling death metal was pouring from under the door and raised her eyebrows at Max in a question. He nodded and kicked in the door.
Inside the room, one of the businessmen was sitting in a flimsy folding chair at a cheap plastic table covered in paper plates. The room looked like a small kitchen and dining area with a fridge, cupboards, and a microwave. Sanitizing lemony chemicals filled the air with a clean scent.
Growling death metal pounded out into the hall as the gangster headbanged to the music. Waves of long brown hair cascaded back and forth as the man shouted the lyrics along with the song: “Fragile ponies, tearing up the seaside! Waves of blood on sparkly hooves! Yeah!”
Max put two bullets in the man’s chest and blew him out of his chair. He put another bullet in the radio which exploded into sparking ruins.
“Kids today got no appreciation for real music,” Max grumbled.
“Hey,” Kate complained. “I like the Fragile Ponies. I listen to them with my nieces.”
Max ignored her and tromped into the room. He emptied the dead man’s pistol and pocketed the magazine but froze with his hand still in his pocket.
On the table, resting on a white paper plate, was a long cylinder wrapped in aluminum foil.
Kate shut the door and hurried to the refrigerator where she plucked out an unopened bottle of water to guzzle down. She hummed in appreciation of the cold water as she rested her back against the wall and slid down to sit in the corner beside the cupboards.
Max approached the burrito with quiet reverence. He set his two pistols down on the table and reached for the cylinder. The aluminum foil felt warm against his fingertips as he lifted the fat object. Steam puffed from the ends of the cylinder as it squished under the gentle pressure of his hands.
Reverential slowness dissolved into hurried motion as Max tore open the foil and peeled back aluminum wings to expose the warm tortilla inside.
“Oh, baby,” Max groaned. “I am so sorry I kept you waiting.” He leaned forward to take a bite.
With a crash, the door exploded inward and slammed into the wall. Two businessmen in black suits with matching short brown hair aimed their pistols at Max. The gangster in the lead shouted at him. “Hands where I can see them! Drop what you’re holding!”
Max froze with his teeth inches from the warm tortilla flesh of the burrito. Despite the danger, his nostrils flared as he inhaled the tantalizing scent.
“Drop it!” the lead gangster roared.
“Come on, guys,” Max said. “I haven’t eaten all day. I’m gonna kill you guys anyway, but don’t ruin my lunch. This ain’t a tactical burrito. Let me set it down on a plate.”
“Drop it now!” the lead businessman screamed.
Sighing, Max gazed at the burrito with regret. With an intense effort of will he forced his fingers to open. The burrito plunged to the floor and landed with a wet smack. Max stared sadly down at his lunch as the two gunmen moved in to restrain him.
When the lead man reached to grab Max, Kate sprang up from her corner and opened fire. Her bullets stitched up the wall as she traced a line of fire from the leader to his buddy, plugging them full of holes. Kate’s first shot tore open the lead gunman’s carotid artery, and he fell over on top of Max in a spray of blood.
Max shoved the dying man off and lunged at the second gangster, but Kate had already shot him through the heart and his corpse lay slumped against the wall. Max glanced back and sighed when he saw his burrito covered in a thick spray of blood.
“I’ve had it with these gangsters ruining my lunch,” Max said. Mental exhaustion dripped from every word.
Kate took another sip of her water, which she’d never let go of. When she finished the plastic bottle she tossed it aside. “You want one?” she asked Max.
“No, I don’t want water. I’m thirsty for blood.”
Scuffling footsteps in the hallway alerted Max to the presence of more guards. A businessman rounded the corner as Max scooped up his two pistols. Max blew his assailant back into the hallway. Voices calling for the escapees’ surrender rang out from down the hall.
With long steps Max strode to the door and glanced around the corner. The doors had all been flung open, and men in black suits sheltered in the doorways. Gunfire rang out and Max yanked his head back to dodge the incoming projectiles. Enemy bullets chewed up the doorway in front of Max and shot painted splinters into the air.
Max glanced at Kate. “Cover me.” Without waiting for a response, he hurled himself into the hallway and rolled into the open doorway opposite the breakroom.
This room was full of cheap cots and a couple of short trunks. Max took shelter in the doorway and returned fire on the men up the hallway. His shots forced them to duck back inside their rooms.
Kate stepped into cover on the other side and opened fire as well. Max heard a man scream as she picked off one careless attacker he couldn’t see.
As Kate laid down suppressive fire, Max bolted up the hallway to the next open doorway. He rushed around the corner and came face-to-face with a businessman holding a pistol. The man looked shocked to see the ex-cop invading his cover, but he reacted quickly and swung his gun around to aim at Max.
Max dropped l
ow and swept the man’s legs out from under him with a spinning kick. There was a crack as the man’s head hit the floorboards, but he was still moving. Max pointed his pistol at the downed man and shot him through the forehead, killing him instantly. He spun back to the door and shot the businessman in the open doorway across the hall as the gangster fired at Kate.
Kate laid down more suppressive fire, and Max ran up the hallway again. He reached the third set of doors with his arms spread wide and fired into both doorways without looking. His dual pistols spat fire, and the men inside the rooms died.
He could hear Kate’s feet thumping on the floorboards as the lethal baker ran to keep up with his charge. Men in the fourth and fifth doorways fired at Max, but he continued rushing forward. He leaped inside the fourth room on his right and crashed into the businessman inside, hurling the man back into the room. As the man rebounded off the wall and staggered to keep his feet, Max fired into his chest. Two shots rang out before the slide on Max’s pistol locked back.
The second man inside the room punched Max in the side. The kidney shot sent pain lancing through Max’s body and he screamed in agony even as he spun to face the attacker. A tall man with shoulders and chest bulging through his black suit reached for him. Max recoiled and raised his second pistol, but the giant batted his hand away and knocked the loaded gun across the room.
From the room across the hall, Max heard more gunshots crash as men screamed in death. Kate’s voice sang out, “Max, you okay in—” Loud gunfire from the fifth room drowned out the rest of her question.
The huge man swung at Max again and cracked him across the side of the face. Max spun halfway around and stumbled over one of the army cots before sprawling across the floor, and his unloaded pistol flew from his hand. He rolled over and pushed himself to his feet as the big man kicked the cot aside and moved in with his fists raised.
“You’re up next to try and kill me, huh?” Max asked. He wiped blood from his mouth with the knuckles of his left hand. “Get over here and do it, you big meaty bastard.”
The brute threw a jab, then a hook. Max dodged both and returned with a powerful swing of his own, but the hulking gangster blocked it and stepped in for another punch. Max blocked the hit as he backed away, then rushed forward and lashed out with a hard uppercut. The blow pounded the huge man in the solar plexus and he staggered back, gasping like a fish, but kept his guard up high.
Max tried to circle, but the room was too small. The huge man took advantage of Max’s mistake to gasp a couple of quick breaths.
With a roar of fury, Max rushed the man. He rained down blows against the massive businessman’s defense. None got through, but the musclebound gangster was struggling to breathe, and the effort of blocking so many attacks in rapid sequence weakened him quickly. He stumbled and fell to one knee as he continued to gasp for air.
Max slammed down with multiple hammer blows, sweeping aside the enormous gangster’s feeble defenses and pounding his head and shoulders. The giant collapsed on the floor. One quick step took Max to his loaded pistol, and he executed the fallen giant with one shot through the back of the head.
The unloaded pistol had slid under another cot. Max retrieved it and reloaded both guns just as more gunfire rang out.
Through the storm of bullets, Kate came barreling into the room. She looked at Max and the two dead men. “You done playing with your friends? We’re in a hurry here!”
“Fine,” Max growled. “Next time, you wrestle the giant.” He brushed past Kate as he stomped to the door and poured fire down the hall. As the men in the last two rooms ducked back inside, he charged forward. The floorboards shook as Kate charged with him.
“Go right!” Max roared. He reached the doorways and spun on his heel to fire into the left-side room. Bullets tore through both businessmen crouched inside the room and painted the walls with bloody spray.
At his back, Max heard Kate pouring death into the enemies behind him. He spun around just in time to see both men collapse in a heap. Kate’s tense shoulders relaxed and she stood up straight, turned to Max, and flipped her blonde hair back over her shoulder in a casual motion.
“You are one hell of a woman,” Max told her.
Kate frowned at him in disapproval, but he saw the corner of her mouth quivering as a smile tried to break through.
Automatic gunfire ripped through the open doorway only ten feet away from them at the end of the hall. The bullets streaked in at an upward angle, and the storm of metal death chewed the walls and ceiling to shreds in moments.
Kate and Max dropped to the floor and Max sheltered her with his own body as plaster and ceiling tile rained down on them.
Even as they were sheltering under the rain of debris, Kate dropped her pistol’s empty magazine and slammed home another. “Last one,” she told Max.
Max reloaded both his pistols. “Same. We don’t really have time to go fishing through the men we chewed up. We need to push forward. Come on!”
The gunfire let up, and Max shoved himself to his feet, yanking Kate up. The two of them bolted through the doorway in a crouching run with their guns sweeping for targets.
The next room was a nearly exact copy of the previous large room with overhanging walkways and catwalks crisscrossing above a cavernous warehouse full of pinewood crates. The same sloping cement ramp led down from the third floor to the second. The only difference was this room had no lounge, and there was a large freight elevator with metal grate doors pulled shut against the far wall hundreds of feet away. Businessmen down below were pouring fire from their automatic rifles upward at the two escapees.
As soon as they were through the door, Max spotted a man in a black suit aiming a rifle at them from one of the catwalks. Max dropped the man with a flurry of shots, and the corpse tumbled over the railing of the catwalk to smash into the floor below. The rifle clattered to the metal catwalk.
Kate rushed past Max and fired point-blank into a businessman on the left side of the door in Max’s blind spot. Her pistol’s slide locked back after only three shots, but that was enough. The gangster reared back and fired his submachine gun up into the ceiling, his finger curling over the trigger in his death throes. Bullets rang against the metal rafters. The weapon clicked empty as the man crashed down onto his back, and Max cursed at the wasted ammunition.
But Kate wasn’t finished. The blonde baker charged forward and hurled herself into a slide along the catwalk. Bullets ricocheted off the walkway’s underside. Kate scooped up the rifle and clicked it from automatic fire to single-fire. She lay on her back clutching the weapon as bullets continued to smash against the catwalk beneath her.
To relieve the pressure on Kate, Max ran at another catwalk halfway down the room. Automatic fire from across the room pinged against the wall behind him as Max ran, but he reached his target. Just like in the previous room, wooden crates were stacked high enough to almost reach the web of catwalks.
Without stopping, Max vaulted the short railing and plunged to the stack of pinewood crates below. He impacted hard and rolled off the top of the first crate before smashing into a second. The lid of the box crumpled inward and he lay in the wooden bowl for a moment, waiting for enemies to appear.
Two businessmen ran around the corner of the stack of crates with automatic rifles, scanning the floor for Max. Still up on his perch, Max fired at the two men and cut them down before they could spot him.
More men in suits came rushing around the corner again as Max dropped to the floor. He unloaded both pistols into the swarm of men, and when his pistols clicked empty, Max scooped up one of the fallen businessmen’s automatic rifles. The gun screamed a symphony of death as Max poured bullets into the onrushing crowd of gangsters.
A round metal object jingled as it hit the ground beside Max. His brain took a moment to register what the object was: a grenade. He hurled himself away just in time to avoid a deafening expl
osion which blasted through the narrow aisle of stacked crates and tore the wooden boxes to splinters.
He glanced up and saw Kate taking careful shots. Only her rifle’s barrel was visible over the edge of her catwalk cover.
Max charged through the shattered aisle of broken crates. Under his feet, bloody puddles splashed as he hurdled gangster corpses. Another grenade came sailing in from around the corner ahead of Max and clattered against the floor. Without breaking his stride, Max kicked the green explosive on a return trajectory to its owner. The grenade hit the wall ahead of Max and bounced back around the corner, and a horrible scream rang out but was cut short by an explosion and a thick, moist splatter.
Max skidded through a puddle of blood as he took the corner at top speed, then had to leap over a pile of shredded corpses. Four businessmen had been stacked up at the corner to ambush him, but the grenade had torn them to pieces.
More businessmen lurched out into the aisle ahead of him and opened fire. Max returned fire as he wove back and forth to throw off their aim. With no cover to duck behind, Max’s only hope was to gun his enemies down before they killed him.
Max’s rifle finally clicked empty, but one enemy remained. His automatic rifle fire tracked closer to Max, but a lone shot rang out and blew off the top of the man’s head.
The ex-cop snagged the dead man’s rifle as he blazed past.
The path split into two ways, left and right. Max stopped at the edge of the stacked crates and looked left. Seeing no one, he spun around the corner and aimed to the right. Six businessmen reacted instantly. The wooden crates around Max exploded into kindling as automatic fire chewed them up, and Max hurled himself back behind cover.
Single shots lanced out twice. Trusting Kate, Max leaned around the corner and unloaded with his rifle. Screams echoed up and down the aisle as thugs died. Max lunged around the corner and fired into the survivors, finishing them. He dropped the rifle and scooped up another just to save time on reloading.
