by Mike Ryan
“Pick a spot yet?” Lamb asked.
Dunn sighed, nothing coming to her instantly. “I dunno. Give me ten minutes and call me back.”
“I don’t know how much more time we got here, Stacy.”
“You call me that like we’re old friends or something.”
“I figured it was better than calling you by your last name. Or some other things.”
“Doesn’t matter. Anyway, I need a few minutes to figure something out.”
“I might be running out of time.”
“I know that. Just...give me ten minutes. Call me back, OK?”
“Fine. Ten minutes.”
Lamb pulled up to an intersection and slowed down, preparing to stop at a four-way stop sign. To the right was some type of construction site. It appeared that the building was finished, but there were still some construction vehicles and there was a metal gate that encompassed the entire property. Lamb looked both ways and started moving again when he heard a car’s engines revving, speeding up toward them. He looked to his left, just in time to see the car at the last minute. It was too late for him to avoid the oncoming car, though, and he didn’t even have enough time to warn Brooke and brace her for the impact.
The strange car plowed into the middle of Lamb’s car, spinning it completely around, denting both the front and rear doors. Though temporarily jolted, Lamb looked over at Brooke and stuck his hand out for her.
“You OK?” Lamb asked.
He wasn’t even able to wait for her response as gunfire erupted, blasting the car, putting holes in the metal bodied frame, as well as knocking out the windows. Lamb reached for his gun that he had resting between his seat and the center console and leaned toward the passenger side, shooting at the car that was now directly behind them. He then slid back into his seat and hit the gas pedal, but the car wasn’t moving.
“Crap,” Lamb whispered, slapping the steering wheel with the palm of his hand.
He tried to push his door open, but it was wedged shut as a result of the crash. He looked over at Brooke again and slid over to the passenger seat while she was on the floor with her hands covering her head.
“You OK?” Lamb asked again.
“Yeah. I think so.”
“We’re gonna have to get out of here.”
Lamb continued shooting out the back window at the other car as they returned fire at him. Breathing heavily, and trying to weigh their options, he took a peek out the passenger window to see their surroundings and figure out what to do from there. The construction site seemed like the best option. Probably because it was the closest. He didn’t think they’d be able to make it all the way across to the other side of the street. Maybe he could, but Brooke wasn’t fast enough to outrun the bullets that would surely be following them. Before telling Brooke of the plan, he fired off a few more rounds
“OK, here’s what we’re gonna do,” Lamb said. “We’re gonna run into that construction site over there. See it?”
Brooke looked around him and nodded. “Yeah.”
“OK. Do not run until I tell you and you stay directly behind me when you do. Do not run in front of me, you understand?”
“Yes.”
Before leaving, Lamb reached into the back seat and started digging through his black bag. His fingers felt the Glock pistol and took a firm grip on it, removing it from the bag and putting it inside the belt of his pants. He fired a few more rounds at the car behind them, trying to buy as much time as he could. He knew eventually they’d start moving toward them, or they’d soon be joined by a few more friends. In either case, Lamb knew they had to go. But he wanted to make sure Brooke would know what to do in the event that he didn’t make it.
“OK, I want you to listen to me,” Lamb said. “No matter what happens out there, you do not stop, you do not slow down, you hear me?”
Brooke nodded again. “Yeah.”
“If I go down, you do not stop, you do not check on me, and you do not turn around under any circumstances.”
“But what if you’re hurt?”
Lamb shook his head. “You do not worry about me. If I go down, you run into that construction site and you keep on running until you run into someone you think can help you.”
“I’m scared.”
Lamb nodded, understanding her fears, and tried to put on a smile, though it was hardly noticeable. “You ready?”
Brooke nodded again, though she looked terrified at what was about to happen.
“Remember, you stay behind me for protection. And whatever happens to me, you do not turn around.”
Lamb fired a couple more rounds through the back window, then pushed the passenger door open. He got out first and stayed low to the ground to stay out of sight and not make himself a target. He then helped Brooke out of the car. Lamb checked with her one more time to make sure she was ready. Any slips or stumbles by either of them, and it’d likely be the last move both of them made.
Lamb sprung up from behind the car and darted into the open space, Brooke keeping her hands on his back to make sure she was clinging to him tightly. He immediately fired, unleashing round after round at the car behind theirs. Lamb’s main purpose was to keep their attackers ducking for cover, to give them enough time to get into the construction site, though he certainly wouldn’t have minded if he shot one of them. It worked for a few seconds, with Lamb and Brooke getting about halfway to their destination. The other gunman started returning fire once Lamb stepped onto the curb and sidewalk. Lamb periodically looked behind him out of the corner of his eye just to make sure Brooke was OK and still following closely behind him.
The two parties continued swapping gunfire as other cars started driving by, though most stopped, not wanting to get caught up in the exchange. Lamb saw that they were pretty close to the entrance of the site and fired furiously at the other men, hoping to get them to back off. A couple of bullets glanced off the concrete curb and sidewalk, and he heard the buzzing of a few bullets that went past his head. Once they got to the entrance, he turned around quickly to tell Brooke to run toward the front door of the building.
As he turned back around to face the shooters, a bullet penetrated his leg, and he fell over briefly. Lamb landed on his hands and knees, but kept his wits about him, and didn’t let the pain affect his judgment. With the battle going on, he didn’t have time to worry about his injuries or let himself feel the pain. He got back to one knee and continued his barrage on the car, shooting out a window and putting a few holes in the passenger side door. As the two men ducked behind the cover of their respective doors, Lamb stumbled back to his feet and ran into the site entrance.
Lamb’s leg was bleeding badly as the blood started rolling down his pants, staining the dark fabric red. He ran towards Brooke’s position by the front door of the newly constructed building as fast as he could in his present condition, though he was limping considerably. About halfway there, his two assailants had made their way to the entrance and started firing at him, causing Lamb to turn around and fire back at them. He continued making his way to Brooke, who noticed him limping and saw the blood on his pants. She looked horrified at his condition as she thought the worst was about to happen again. She thought she was about to lose another person in her life. After another minute, Lamb finally made it to the door, somehow evading the bullets that had his name on them.
“Are you OK?” Brooke worriedly asked.
Lamb took a few deep breaths before responding and tried to keep her calm. “Yeah. I’m fine. I told you...it takes a lot more than this to keep me down.”
“What are we gonna do?”
Lamb continued taking a few shots at the entrance to try to keep the shooters away. With it being a fairly good distance to the door, the two men weren’t too keen on trying to get there too quickly. Not with Lamb standing there, waiting for them to move closer so he could pick them off. Plus, there wasn’t much in the way of cover. They weren’t sure it’d be too wise of a move to be hasty and try to rush the sit
uation. Though it still looked like a construction site and had wood and boards all over the place, most of the vehicles had been taken away, and the entrance way had been cleared off.
Lamb took a quick look around, not liking their situation a bit. There was really nowhere else for them to go at the moment. If they moved from their current position, they’d been easily seen from the entrance by the two shooters. And considering Lamb wasn’t moving too swiftly, he thought that trying to dodge some more bullets was a losing proposition.
“There must be a back entrance,” Lamb said.
“The doors are locked,” Brooke said, already trying to open it when she first got there.
Lamb pulled on the glass door as well, but just as Brooke said, the doors were locked. It seemed easy enough to get in, though.
“Here, get behind me,” Lamb said, grabbing Brooke’s hand and pulling her in back of him.
Lamb took his gun and took aim at the door, shooting through the glass multiple times. The glass shattered and fell to the ground in tiny pieces.
“That’s one way to open it,” Lamb said.
Lamb grabbed Brooke by the arm and gently led her through the door, making sure she wasn’t cut by any remaining pieces of glass hanging on the frame of the door. He stood behind her for protection from any incoming bullets. Brooke spun herself around as she looked through the hallway of the newly constructed building, not knowing what to do.
“Where do we go?” she asked.
Lamb walked through the newly opened door and quickly looked to both sides of them, sizing up the building. He didn’t have time to see exactly how many floors the building was, but he guessed from the size of the outside that it was six to eight floors. It seemed to be a pretty large building, hopefully big enough to get lost in. But in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t really matter how many floors it was. They only needed to find an exit, which would obviously be on the ground floor. His only hope was that if their attackers followed them inside the building, that they’d have to search each floor before moving on, giving Lamb enough time to slip away. He also had to hope that there was a back entrance to the site of the property. If there wasn’t, they’d have to improvise again.
“Which way?” Brooke asked again.
Lamb took another look in each direction and sighed, hoping he’d pick the right way. Of course, it was always possible that there was a back exit no matter which way they went, or maybe both ways intertwined, also making it irrelevant no matter which way they went. Finally, Lamb pointed to their right, making a decision.
“We’ll go this way,” Lamb said.
He took Brooke by the hand and started running down the hallway. Though he was still limping and bleeding, he wasn’t paying much attention to it. He barely even noticed it. The adrenaline of the situation was blocking the pain from entering his mind. Once they got to the end of the hall, they made a left-hand turn and continued sprinting down the hall. When they got to the end of this one, instead of making the turn, Lamb stopped and hunched over. He was breathing heavily and starting to feel the effects of the gunshot wound in his thigh.
Brooke looked at him, very concerned. “Are you all right?”
Still hunched over, Lamb picked his head up to look at her and simply nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be fine.”
Lamb looked down at the wound and worried that he was starting to lose too much blood. He was going to have to stop the bleeding soon or else he was going to have another problem. It was going to be hard to save Brooke if he passed out from blood loss somewhere along the way. Though the building was largely done, there were still some items left for the crew that was putting the finishing touches on the inside of it. There were a few pieces of plywood, some electrical cords, paint cans, and some sheets lying along the floor against the wall. Lamb saw the sheets and assumed they were using it to prevent the paint from dripping down onto the floor.
“Can you grab that white sheet there?” Lamb asked, pointing to it.
Brooke quickly grabbed it and brought it back over to him. Lamb took out the knife from his pocket and started cutting up the sheet into a thinner strip. Once he was done, he placed it around his leg, near the wound, and tied it together tightly.
“That should do it,” he whispered.
“Are you OK?” Brooke asked, still concerned over his well-being.
“As good as new.”
Lamb stood up straight and took a deep breath, feeling a little better. He looked down the hallway and saw another glass door sitting in the middle of the wall. He took Brooke’s hand again and made their way to the door. Brooke was about to open it, but Lamb gently pulled her back.
“No, not yet,” he said.
“Why not?”
“We wanna make sure no one’s out there waiting for us. You don’t wanna walk into something.”
Lamb looked out the door to see if he noticed anything strange, but he couldn’t really tell much from that position. He slowly pushed the door open and inched his head out the door to take a peek. As soon as he did, a shot rang out, piercing the glass door. Lamb ducked his head and pulled his body back inside.
“Well, that answers that question,” Lamb said.
Brooke looked dejected and sighed, thinking this would never end. She looked down the hall and her eyes widened as she saw the trouble that was coming their way. She tugged on Lamb’s arm to get his attention. Lamb looked down at her and saw her pointing down the hallway. He looked at what she was pointing at and saw two men who had just turned the corner. The two men fired at them, bullets glancing and ricocheting off the walls. Lamb quickly returned fire, but knew they couldn’t stand there and engage in a firefight. They had no cover standing there in the middle of the hall. He had to quickly make a decision on where to go. Either retreat and roam around the building and wait for a better opportunity to leave, or go outside and take their chances on whatever was out there. He also figured the police would be showing up soon with all the bullets that were flying on the street.
After briefly debating it with himself, Lamb finally figured it was best to take their chances on the outside. He thought if they retreated back into the building, there was a good chance they’d eventually get surrounded or cornered. The men who were chasing them could station people at the elevators, stairs, doors, they could make it almost impossible for Lamb and Brooke to escape. The longer they stayed in that building, or any building, it gave their enemy a better chance to contain them. No, they had to keep moving. He just had to hope there weren’t that many of them outside yet and that he could handle whoever was.
Lamb took a few more shots at the two men who were coming toward them and then slipped out the door with Brooke behind him. With men and bullets flying at them from different directions, Lamb worried about keeping her safe. He wasn’t sure he could completely protect her under the present conditions. She was going to be exposed to somebody.
“Stay behind me,” Lamb said, firing his gun as they stepped outside.
There was a man at the corner of the building shooting at them. Lamb quickly saw where the shots were coming from and returned fire. He did a three-sixty to identify any other potential targets, but didn’t see any, and they weren’t taking bullets from any other directions. He continued exchanging shots with the man by the corner, neither of them hitting any body parts. Lamb and Brooke were backing up as he kept firing away.
“Keep your eyes open,” Lamb shouted. “Let me know if there’s anything behind us.”
“OK.”
As soon as he said that, the other two shooters took up position by the glass door. Though the glass hadn’t shattered from the first shot through it – there was only a single hole showing – they made sure they had an easier shooting path. They used their guns to knock out the rest of the glass. Lamb took his aim off the man on the corner and fired at the two at the door. A crackling barrage of gunfire then erupted as all four men were continuously shooting their guns at the same time. After a minute of that, one of the men by the
door slumped to the ground, seemingly knocked out of the picture.
Lamb and Brooke kept moving away, looking for something else to hide behind for cover. Lamb knew there was only so long he could stay out in the open before another bullet hit him. He fired a few more rounds before seeing a stack of piled wood that they could get behind. As soon as Lamb turned to move, he felt another sharp pain by his left shoulder. It was the one that got shot back at the Swanson house. This time, the bullet entered through the back of it. He immediately went to the ground, but still had the sense to roll over and keep on firing, wanting them to know he wasn’t dead and was still dangerous.
Lamb got back to his feet and hurried around the pile of wood. He let out a sigh, feeling like his shoulder was on fire. He pressed his head forward against the wood, hoping the pain would ease up soon. Brooke put her hands on her face, concerned about Lamb’s condition.
“Please don’t die,” Brooke said.
Lamb looked over at her, not sure what to say at first. He then smiled. “I promise.”
He hoped it was a promise he wouldn’t break, but it wasn’t looking good for him. With their heads tucked down, the man from the corner of the building broke away from it and started running toward them. Brooke thought she heard something and slightly lifted her head up, peeking over top of the boards.
“Eric!” she screamed upon seeing the man.
Lamb instantly sprung up and started firing, locating the running man right away. They both exchanged fire, pieces of wood splintering in front of Lamb’s face, dust rising into the air. After a brief encounter, the man dropped to the ground. He wasn’t moving and Lamb assumed he was dead, but he wasn’t taking any chances of having him suddenly pop up later in case he was playing possum. Lamb fired a few more rounds at him, hitting him dead on. The man still wasn’t moving. Now Lamb knew he was dead.
