D.C. RIOTS (Anonymous Justice Book 3)

by Boyd Craven Jr

  “We’re locked in here, right?’ Eric asked.

  “Yeah, for now we’re locked in. What are you thinking?” Josh asked, pacing in the darkened store.

  “Did you get ahold of 911?”

  “Yeah, they said all police are tied up at the moment. I think the riot and the fact that the police cars are getting their tires slashed… Dude, I think we’re on our own for a while.”

  “I don’t like that. I’d like to get out of here,” Eric said. “I just wish there was some way we could have the store stay intact.”

  “I do too, but shit, look, people are already gathering around the front of our store!”

  Both of them heard the banging on the security curtains, blocking the store’s doors and windows. Angry shouts could be heard, and then Josh stumbled backwards in surprise as faces filled the side window, and started banging on it.

  “Oh crap, they saw me,” Josh said.

  “Put the bar in place,” Eric yelled, as he pulled out his cell phone, dialing.

  “Got it,” Josh mumbled, his words lost over the sound of the crowd outside.

  “Calling the cops again,” he said, holding up the cell phone to his ear before cursing. “A circuits are busy.”

  “There’s only one way they’re getting in here,” Josh said. “They’ll have to pry off one of the security curtains, or blast through the side window.”

  “It’s bulletproof,” Eric said, dialing 911 again.

  “The news, look at the news,” Josh pointed to the TV they kept mounted on the ceiling, and in closed captions they both could see what they couldn’t hear over the din of the screams and shouts.

  The vigilante group known as Anonymous Justice is calling for all active members to assist the police in quelling the riots in Washington DC. Twitter and Facebook have been going crazy, and the hashtag #anonymousjustice is trending, just below #dcriots. The mayor has gone on record saying...

  Eric switched to the Facebook app on his smart phone and quickly searched out the group. It had been in the news and they had both joined it, one afternoon, while the sandwiches were being made and they had a lull between customers.

  Both of them had been young when the riots in LA happened, but they remembered the Korean shop owners protecting their businesses from the roof of their shops with AK-47s. If they had guns now, they might not be close to passing out in fright.

  “What are you doing man?” Josh asked, pulling his own phone out and typing.

  “I’m on Facebook, I’m in that Anonymous Justice group. There’s a ton of live reports from people. I’m asking for help.”

  “Good thinking, I’m getting on twitter,” Josh typed furiously.

  A ding on both of their phones had them looking for the update.

  In the Anonymous Justice group:

  [RU American] @Eric: Get to someplace below surface level or above chest height. Things are about to get very loud.

  [Barry Obonzo] On your six RU American. Both Jeb and Ford are coming with me.

  [Terry Baird] Joining in

  [RU American] You’re on your real account. Delete.

  [Terry Baird] They won’t arrest me for helping save the shop owners. Both are friends of mine. If any of the friends of the Coffee Club can help, meet us at The Corner Liquor & Deli. Lock and Load!

  [Barry Obonzo] Groan. Ok, welcome to the party. President masks are us.

  [RU American] Strict fire control. Only one warning. If they run at you, open fire. If they do not… Eric - Firebomb thrown onto your roof. Get that fire out, or our help will mean nothing!

  Eric was reading the updates aloud, and they both stopped and looked at each other with that last message. They couldn’t see or smell smoke, but it was only a matter of time.

  “The chemical extinguishers!” Josh said.

  They had several kinds of extinguishers around the store, due to health and building inspector instructions. One type was chemical extinguishers for grease fires, since they dealt with food. It had seemed stupid at the time…

  “I’ll get the roof access unlocked. Hurry!” Eric hollered, over the shouts outside.

  He raced to the back room, where the ladder was built into the wall, and pulled his ring of keys out of his pocket while climbing. The padlock was a cheap one, but it had always worked well. The key opened it on the first try, and he tried to pocket the keys and lock, dropping the keys. He started backing down, but Josh was there, a red canister in his arms.

  “I got your keys, take this,” Josh yelled.

  Eric wasted no time pushing the hatch style access open. It swung open noisily, on rusty hinges, audible even over the jeering of the crowd. He reached down and grabbed the cylinder, pulling it up as he got to the roof. Right away he could see the dancing light of flames near the edge. Keeping his head low he ran forward, pulling the pin on the extinguisher and shot the foam towards a liquid pool of fire.

  The tar and gravel coated flat roof of the building was on fire and, if given long enough, the tar underneath the gravel would catch as well as the substrate of the roof. It was hard to stay concealed behind the three foot lip of the wall, but Eric did his best, and hosed the flames until they were mostly out. He stomped on what little was left.

  A thumping sound behind him had him turning, and he saw another extinguisher getting tossed through the hatch, next to one that had already been dumped there, by Josh no doubt.

  “What are you doing?” Eric yelled, as he ran to the hatch. “I got it, it’s out for now.”

  “Hold on, keep an eye peeled,” Josh replied.

  A plastic shopping bag of empty 2-liter pop bottles came flying up and out of the opening next, with Josh following close behind it. He was carrying a long sheet of deli foil and a jug of industrial bathroom cleaner under one arm.

  “What are you…”

  The shouts below got louder, but they were different somehow. More authoritative. Despite the danger, Eric moved to the edge and risked a peek down, to see what was happening. The sight almost made him lose what little food he had in his stomach. The rioters were now centered in the street, directly in front of their building. People were running and crashing into, and kicking at their steel security curtains. Some threw rocks, some threw bottles.

  Coming down 4th St directly toward the rioters, a row of figures advanced, shoulder-to-shoulder. About a dozen of them. Most of them wore masks of past Presidents, but from the few who didn’t, it was obviously a racially diverse group. What really surprised Eric was the fact that none of the rioters seemed to be paying any attention to them. They were too busy yelling, “Fuck the police,” or “Burn it down,” to be bothered.

  When the row of figures got about fifty feet away from the nearest rioters, a man in a brown leather bomber jacket and a Nixon mask, holding a slim handgun in his right hand and a bullhorn in his left, took two steps forward, and raised the bullhorn to his mouth.

  “Move away from the liquor store and disperse. This is your only warning,” he announced. “Again, move away from the liquor store and disperse. This is your only warning!”

  That got the attention of some of them, and they turned to see who dared give them such orders. Most immediately recognized the trademark of Nixon and the men on either side of him, who wore masks of past Presidents of the United States. All of them carried shotguns, with the exception of Nixon. The rioters fell momentarily silent, debating their next move, when an explosion behind them down the street made all turn to look the other way.

  Josh crawled over to the edge, where Eric crouched, watching this scene unfold. As soon as it became apparent that a police car had exploded and gone up in flames, the rioters cheered and resumed what they had been doing, ignoring the Presidents. That was a big mistake.

  Nixon dropped the bullhorn to his left side, on its tether, and raised his pistol. The soft, steady popping sound it made was hardly noticeable over the din of the rioters, until the men in line on either side of him opened fire with their shotguns. Rioters who had been bea
ting, and kicking the security curtains, and throwing debris at the store, fell in bloody heaps at the first volley of fire.

  “Holy shit, they’re mowing them down!” Eric whispered loudly in Josh’s ear, in a horrified voice.

  “There’re too many rioters, the past Presidents are going to be overrun,” Josh said.

  He uncapped a 2-liter bottle that he’d brought up from the recycle bin, and started pouring handfuls of gravel from the roof down the neck of it.

  Eric watched in utter confusion. “What the hell are you doing man?” he asked, but turned back to look over the edge before Josh answered, due to a change in the sound of the voices below.

  The rioters had all turned, and were running towards the Presidents with various war cries, while hurling rocks, bricks, and even Molotov cocktails at them. Those that had pistols raised them above their heads to shoot over the crowd at their assailants, but none of them even came close that way. Most figured that their superior numbers would bring down the gunmen. They were wrong. Dozens fell in bloody heaps, some dead, some screaming in agony as they tried to stop the blood flowing from their ragged wounds. One unlucky shirtless bastard sat on the ground determinedly trying to put his innards back inside his body, where a load of buckshot to his abdomen had spilled them on the pavement.

  “I have an idea--” Josh began.

  “Look out!” Eric shouted. He turned quickly and tackled Josh, knocking him out of the way, just as another Molotov cocktail landed right where he had been crouched. The fiery liquid splattered as the glass bottle shattered, some of it splashing onto Josh’s shirt and the hair on that side of his head. Eric tried to roll him over, and used the fire extinguisher on his shirt, then hugged Josh’s head in order to smother the flames in Josh’s hair with his own body.

  Both men were burnt and blistered. Josh had mostly lost the hair on the right side of his head and had some superficial burns. But Eric had moved fast enough to save his friend from a horrible death.

  “I’m tired of this shit,” Josh cried, through gritted teeth.

  He rolled up an 8” long tube of tin foil, twisted it, and shoved it inside of the 2-liter bottle half filled with gravel. He repeated that twice more. After three of them were done, he handed the jug of cleaner to Eric.

  “Pour this,” Josh said. “Don’t let any get on you. Fill it about one third of the way up man.”

  “I don’t know what you’re doing with these,” Eric wailed, sickened and panicked by what he’d seen below on the street.

  Eric had to force himself to not lock up, and poured as quickly and steadily as he could. When the first bottle was a third of the way full, he stopped, as told. Josh quickly capped it, shook it up, and tossed it over the side.

  “Pour,” Josh demanded, holding the prepared second bottle in front of him. At one third full, he again stopped. Another volley of gunfire below made Eric look over the edge. An angry black man who held the side of his head with one hand, reached down and picked up the curiously swelling first bottle Josh had tossed over, screaming obscenities at the past Presidents while drawing back to throw it at them.

  “Pour,” Josh demanded for the third time.

  The first bottle exploded. Not with a fiery flash, but more of an instant release of a great, great deal of pressure. The gravel shot out in all directions. The man who had held it in his hand was writhing on the ground, and most of his face was gone. Everyone who’d been close to him was falling down, slapping at bloody wounds which were burning from the chemical cleaner.

  “Throw this!” Josh said, shoving the second capped 2-liter into Eric’s hands.

  Seeing what the first one had done to the man below, Eric threw it fast and hard, right into the thickest mass of the rioters below, and Josh followed with a third bottle a moment later. His heart pounded.

  “I’m going to be sick,” he said, looking at the growing stain on the pavement below them.

  Most of the rioters were running away, but there were still a few hardcores left. Several held bottles of alcohol or gasoline with rags stuffed in the top, already lit. One of them threw his bottle, only to be immediately mowed down by the rapid fire of Nixon. Eric watched the bottle arc up towards him.

  His hands ached and he didn’t want a repeat of the burns they both had received just seconds before. Seconds? Everything felt like it had been hours. Days. He reached his hands up to swat the bottle back but Josh was there first. He reached out and picked it right out of the air, before it could land. He held the bottle up and started screaming incoherently.

  The men directly below them had started prying at the metal shutters with a long pry bar, undeterred by the gunfire, smoke and Drano bombs that had been dropped. They were probably coming for revenge, not the liquor or the famous deli sandwiches the partners were known for. Josh threw the bottle straight down, hitting the top of the security curtain above them, making the glass shatter. The liquid ignited and doused the men. All four of them were coated from head to shoulders with the burning liquid. The smell hit their noses at the same instant that they started shrieking, and more gunfire opened up.

  A searchlight lit up the two men on the roof and they turned to see a police helicopter was shining it on them. A news helicopter was off in the distance, lighting the burning men below.

  “You bring fire to our doors?” Josh screamed, his burned face and scalp hideous looking, “We’re tired of self entitled assholes, who loot and burn our cities. We’re tired of self entitled assholes who tried to take our store, and our lives. Guess what? Obviously we’re not the only one sick of this shit! You bring fire to us? We give it back to you!”

  Just as Josh was finishing his tirade, the men on the ground raised their shotguns as one, and fired into the men writhing on the ground in flames. Nixon made a magazine change with the pistol and started to walk amongst the fallen men, some alive, some dead, some moaning, leaving the men with shotguns to advance on the rioters who were breaking and running.

  A popping sound rang out, and Eric looked to see Nixon firing single shots into the heads of those still moving on the ground. The gun held an impossible amount of ammunition and Eric didn’t hold back his gore this time. He leaned over the edge and threw up.

  “I don’t feel so good,” Josh said, slumping to his knees next to his friend.

  “You’re probably going into shock,” Eric said, heaving over the side again.

  “You, men on the roof, on your knees, and put your hands behind your heads, now!” a voice through a bullhorn ordered. Dust, dirt and small particles of gravel flew up all around them as the chopper hovered closer.

  Eric looked up to see an assault rifle pointed at them by a uniformed man who was crouched in the side door. When the chopper was only a couple of feet above the surface of the flat roof, another uniformed man jumped out, pistol in hand. The door gunner still crouched behind some kind of armored plate, right beside the searchlight.

  “Hands up!” the man shouted.

  Eric and Josh glanced briefly at each other, as they immediately put their hands up.

  “Are you rescuing us, or arresting us?” Josh asked.

  He got his answer in the form of a thick white zip-tie cuff set being tightened on his wrists as soon as he climbed into the chopper.

  * * *

  “Tell me you got all that?” Julie asked Kat, incredulously.

  They were on the second floor balcony, on the backside of Julie’s apartment, where they’d had a perfect, unobstructed view of the whole ugly scene, just caddy-corner across 4th Street.

  “Yep! I got it. I’m not sure exactly what all I got, because it was happening so fast, but by God, I got it all.”

  Her voice was seriously shaky though. She felt pretty well sickened by the carnage they’d just witnessed. “You know that was Josh from the Deli on the roof, right?”

  “And Eric, the one that works there at night. I hope they’re ok! It was cool that the helicopter rescued them! That was crazy dangerous though. Hey, do you think we’
re safe, staying put right here?” Julie asked, reaching back to touch the pistol under her jacket for comfort.

  “I don’t know... They seem to be running straight away from us, to the east,” Kat said, releasing her video camera from its tripod stand. “I really don’t think we should go outside of the building anytime soon though.”

  “Agreed, so let's go inside and get this cleaned up, to see what you got! You’re going to upload this to your Facebook, right?”

  “Yep,” she answered, “and yours, but it’s pretty graphic, so it’ll probably get reported and taken down really quick.”

  “That’s alright, it’ll give some people a chance to download it and share it. My guess is, it goes viral immediately. Too bad we couldn’t make out what Josh was screaming down at them, after Eric put him out, when his shirt was on fire.”

  “Maybe we can. Let’s try cleaning up the video a bit, and see if we can isolate the sound. What do you have for video software on your laptop?” Kat asked. “We might as well embed a link to Anonymous Justice right in it, along with our names while we’re at it. Talk about for-sure acing our class!”

  “Awesome!” Julie said.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, both girls were in front of Julie’s laptop. It hadn’t taken much cleaning to make what Josh was shouting discernable. When he’d thrown the fire bomb back down on the men who threw it at him, a big hush had fallen over the crowd, surprised by the catch and retaliation.

  “You bring fire to our doors?” Josh screamed, his burned face and scalp hideous looking, “We’re tired of self entitled assholes, who loot and burn our cities. We’re tired of self entitled assholes who tried to take our store, and our lives. Guess what? Obviously we’re not the only one sick of this shit! You bring fire to us? We give it back to you!”

  “Oh wow!” Kat said. “That’s gonna to go over well on Anonymous Justice’s page.”

  “This is too good to just give away on social media! We should make three videos from it. One of the whole thing, one of the monologue where you had the camera focused on Josh, with audio enhancements, and another of the helicopter rescue,” Julie suggested.