Rise of the Liberators (Terrafide Book 1)

by Ryan Hyatt

  There were more gun shots, and Chuck and al-Hakim watched as the officer drew her pistol. She glanced at them and screamed, “Get out of here!”

  There was another gun shot, blood splattered on the glass, and she was gone. Chuck dropped the magazine and stood. His legs felt wobbly. He wanted to break free from the facility, run and run and keep on running until the witness protection program or some damn government agency saved him, but something held him back. Somehow he felt drawn toward the violence, not away from it, like the pull of gravity. In his mind, he saw Sara. She was too young to be a victim of such nonsense.

  “What are you waiting for?” al-Hakim said as he pulled Chuck’s arm toward the front door.

  At that moment there was a thump against the counter door. It swung open, and the female officer landed on the lobby floor with a thud.

  Al-Hakim and Chuck screamed.

  “Call the police!” al-Hakim shouted as they scrambled onto the bus.

  “What the hell is the matter with you two?” Alonso said, and he turned down the classical music playing on the radio.

  Libby, in his lap, awoke from a nap and barked.

  “Wait a minute!” Chuck said, and his hands waved frantically in the air until he managed to point a finger out the front windshield. “The police are in there!”

  “And they’re getting their asses kicked!” al-Hakim said.

  “We’re on our own!” Chuck said.

  “We have to get out of here!”

  “No, we have to stop him!”

  “What the hell are you guys talking about?” Alonso said, and his co-workers ignored him.

  There were more gun shots, and with the music turned down, this time Alonso heard them. He didn’t ask any more questions.

  Al-Hakim and Chuck paced nervously on the bus, not sure what to do next. Sara’s nom de plume for Chuck as “Chicken Man” gave him an idea, and he was glad he brought his good luck charm. He began rummaging through the cabinets where the sales team kept demos of the gadgets they sold. He opened many doors and flung one product after another onto the floor. Alonso watched from the driver’s seat, bewildered, and finally focused his energy on trying to calm down Libby, who ceaselessly barked at the police station. All the while the camera dangling from al-Hakim’s hand kept filming.

  “What are you doing?” al-Hakim asked.

  Chuck glanced at him with a conviction al-Hakim wasn’t used to seeing.

  “You’re going back in there, aren’t you?” al-Hakim asked. “You’re going to try and save them?”

  “Someone has to.”

  There was more gunfire, and the three men watched through the front windshield as another officer flew through the front door of the station, his lifeless body landing on the walkway, white snow turning red around him.

  Chuck ripped a rectangular metal hot plate from the kitchenette and punched the frame with his knuckles. He winced in pain and said, “This ought to do.”

  Chuck continued scouring the bus for items as if he were on a scavenger hunt. He found an empty trash bag, flung it open, dropped the hot plate inside, and handed the bag to al-Hakim.

  “What can you do?” al-Hakim said as he took the bag. “They’re probably dead already.”

  “I don’t think so,” Chuck said. “Whoever is in there has something bigger planned.”

  “It’s a blood bath in there, are you crazy?”

  “There are easier ways to kill people than attacking them at a police station,” Chuck said. “Whoever is in there is here to make a point. He’ll kill them if we don’t stop him, sure, but he hasn’t made his point yet.”

  Chuck disappeared toward the back of the bus, yelled that he found what he was looking for, and returned with his duffel bag. He dumped the contents onto the floor. The largest was his Charles the Chicken suit. He turned away and unlocked the safe. He withdrew several bundles of cash and stuffed them into the duffel bag.

  “Whoever’s in there, he’s a maniac,” al-Hakim said. “I don’t think he can be bought off.”

  “I’m not trying to buy him off,” Chuck said. “I’m just trying to buy us time. We need a distraction. I want him guessing before I shoot.”

  “Since when did you become a cowboy?”

  Chuck mumbled about something he once saw in a movie, and then he grabbed the shotgun. He checked for shells. Loaded. He opened a drawer and pulled out masking tape. He placed the shotgun against his right leg, so the barrel’s head rested at the bottom of his foot. He taped the shotgun securely to his thigh and shin, and then he walked around the bus and tested his footing. His right leg moved stiffly as if in a cast, but he could still walk, and it would do.

  Chuck removed his jacket and took the trash bag from al-Hakim and draped the ties over his neck, so the hot plate inside rested against his chest. He asked al-Hakim to knot the ties firmly where they were. Soon, the armor was in place.

  Chuck found a ball of string and cut off a piece. He tied one end of the string to the trigger of the shotgun and the other end to his right index finger. He stretched his arm out slowly, gauged how far he would have to extend to fire.

  “Perfect,” he said.

  Chuck donned his Charles the Chicken suit. He used to wear it frequently during children’s readings at bookstores, classrooms and libraries. It was over a decade since he did so, and he never imagined it serving a violent purpose.

  Finally, Chuck grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled a note that said, “MONEY FOR HOSTAGES.” He folded the note in his right hand and grabbed the duffel bag with his left. He stepped before a mirror. Al-Hakim and Alonso stood alongside and marveled at the transformation.

  Charles the Chicken was ready for battle.

  Joe G. was on the phone with Alonso, begging for Chuck to speak to him, but Chuck refused to consider any alternatives.

  “I can’t have a dead girl on my conscience,” he said, and he kicked the bus door open. The man in the chicken costume hobbled forth, down the steps, into the cold. Al-Hakim kept a comfortable distance, but followed with the camera.

  Alonso screamed into the night, “If you want to die as fools, then good luck and God bless you!”

  Libby barked in his arms, and he slammed the bus door.

  It was a troubling situation, but a comical sight. The oversize chicken spun on the ice several times, sliding to the rescue.

  Chuck stepped over the first corpse, a young white officer, and he proceeded into the lobby. The lights were bright, but the scene wasn’t as sterile as it had been before. The magazine rack was toppled, and its publications littered the ground, soaked in blood. Bullet holes riddled the walls. The black female officer’s body kept the counter door ajar. She appeared to be breathing, but unconscious. Chuck stepped into the interior offices of the police station, trying to avoid stepping on broken glass.

  Al-Hakim quietly followed.

  The man in the chicken costume entered a processing area with rows of benches surrounded by cubicles, strewn with more bodies and blood. Chuck saw three hallways leading left, right, and toward the rear of the building where the jail cells were located, as he recalled. Some of the lighting fixtures were shot, leaving that way dark. Chuck figured that was where the assassin was hiding with his captives. He crouched forward and into the dark depths, his hand right hand guiding him along the wall as he listened for activity. He heard muffled sobs and the scuff of slick shoes scurrying on linoleum, down the hall, where he couldn’t see. Trying to play hero in a chicken costume, with two holes punctured in his mask for eyesight, was becoming a frustrating experience for Chuck Shaw that he hoped he would never have to repeat.

  The offices in this part of the building were separated by partitioned windows, many of them broken or busted from gunfire. Chuck trained his eyes on a faint glow at the end of the hall, where he spotted three figures. They were about one hundred feet away. He saw the profile of Dee and Sara seated next to each other in a jail cell. The assassin was just outside the cell, hunched over a desk, fidgeting
with a computer and apparently some kind of small, portable satellite dish.

  Chuck tried to get a decent look at the culprit. The police hat was removed, and he had dark reddish hair, sleek and illustrious, bunched in a ponytail. His hair had a brittle and unnatural veneer, and Chuck intuited this was likely because the assassin already had dyed it many times over his budding career. As the figure darted back and forth between the computer and satellite dish, Chuck saw the thin shoulders and taut jaw line, and he realized Dee was right. The killer really was a boy. Eighteen, nineteen, maybe.

  The thought of harming someone so young caused Chuck to rethink his predicament, and he wondered if something so insane could really be happening. He glanced backward, to get his bearings, and saw al-Hakim filming behind him. He stood on a bench in the processing area, surrounded by carnage and destruction. He gave Chuck the thumbs up. The man in the chicken costume interpreted this as a good sign, and he found the courage to continue.

  When Chuck stepped forward, glass crunched beneath his feet. He stared at the assassin to see if he noticed. The boy stopped and listened for an instant, and then he resumed what he was doing.

  Again Chuck hobbled forward, silently and painstakingly, approaching the glowing goal. His feathery figure took refuge behind the wall, and then he stepped into the doorway. Directly before him Dee and Sara were gagged and seated. Their hair and cheeks glistened with sweat and tears in the cell’s fluorescent light.

  Their terror was palpable, and instead of drawing him closer, this time Chuck’s heart beckoned him to flee.

  The assassin pivoted into view opposite of the doorway, pistol raised to the chicken’s chest. Chuck flew backward from the blast, slammed against a wall, collapsed on the floor. His vision went black, but as his eyes were closed, he heard another gun shot, and although his chest reeled and he couldn’t breathe, he had a vague sense that second bullet wasn’t for him; the assassin hit another target.

  By the time Chuck’s eyes fluttered open, the boy was adjusting his satellite dish, unconcerned with him or al-Hakim. Chuck realized his note was gone, as was his duffel bag, situated next to the killer.

  So much for my ruse, Chuck thought. Besides the pounding of his heart, he heard the muffled sobs and soothing whispers of the mother and daughter he was trying to save, but he couldn’t see them. His mind wouldn’t let him. They appeared as a blur beyond the cold callous figure of the boy. Hopefully Sara with her strange, strained eyes can’t really see what’s happening, either …

  Chuck realized he was lying on his back, his right foot where it needed to be. He managed to breathe, and by doing so, he gave himself away. He felt as he often did in his nightmares, unable to move fast enough, watching the assassin turn, grinning with his gun. Chuck channeled his will and yanked his arm. The shot rang out from his right foot, and the assassin flew into the air and crash landed on the satellite dish on the desk.

  Chuck glanced down the hall and saw blood dripping from the bench where al-Hakim last stood.

  “Al, you alive?”

  “Barely.”

  Chuck stood and slowly came to his senses. He was numb, and he rubbed the bullet lodged in the hot plate on his chest. He examined the assassin. His arms and legs were a bloody mess, but there was no sign of injury to his chest. Either Chuck missed, or the little prick had a bullet proof vest beneath his uniform, too. Chuck grabbed the perpetrator’s pistol, not wanting either possibility to prove correct.

  The jail cell was open, and so Chuck untied Dee and Sara.

  “Chicken Man!” Sara said, and she buried a face full of tears into Chuck’s feathers.

  “Cock-a-doodle doo,” Chuck said, thoughtlessly, and Dee hoisted Sara into her arms and down the hallway the trio fled toward the station’s processing area.

  There were sirens outside, and they found al-Hakim leaning next to a bench, bleeding around his left shoulder. The camera was in his hand, filming.

  Chuck heard the scuffing of linoleum, and he turned in time to see the phantom assassin disappear with the duffel bag out the back door of the building.

  More police arrived.

  CHAPTER 13

  Dee and Sara suffered no physical injuries, perhaps only psychological ones, and Chuck, thanks to the hot plate, felt fortunate to leave the scene of the grisly crime in only a silly costume. At least it wasn’t a body bag. Six police officers died during the shootout with the perpetrator. Four more were critically injured, and the senselessness of the violence was something that would linger in Chuck’s memory for years after the incident. Al-Hakim was treated for his gunshot wound at a local hospital, and the roadshow resumed on time in Phoenix.

  The Flagstaff episode featuring Chuck’s heroic stand against the assassin ran at the end of January, and it earned the highest ratings for the season. Following that airing, Chuck and his team continued to make their way around the country, but within weeks viewership began to decline.

  Some media experts attributed the failure of Buyer’s Best to the way it was edited, formatted and produced. Each episode occurred in a different location, and this hit-and-run approach to a reality series, instead of keeping the audience engaged, seemed to put it off. Those buyers who were read by Chuck appeared in each half-hour segment with little back story about them except what the Radicals provided, and there were no follow-ups to determine whether customers were satisfied with their purchases. Thus, there was little insight into how Chuck might have helped those thousands of Americans who sought out his advice from week to week.

  While the roadshow aimed to reveal the products that were best suited to individuals, the fact that the show never highlighted customers’ responses after their purchases seemed to only exacerbate the alienated message of capitalism the show sought to change, according to critics. This drive-by approach to each episode might have helped keep production costs low, for example, but in the final analysis, the method proved ineffective at wooing viewers through one full season of Buyer’s Best.

  Even noted Eco-Socialists expressed disappointment with the roadshow. Dominic C., a geography professor with yet another long last name Chuck struggled to pronounce, indicated his concerns during an interview on BoobTube. “Buyer’s Best branded itself as providing spiritual sustenance to a populace long in need of it, and thus I was eager to see what fare it offered that could possibly sate the national appetite. Once our basic needs are met, it’s generally agreed the greatest human desire is to find meaning in this existence, and yet this important quest was never realized in the show, despite its hefty pledge to the contrary. Instead, we saw over the course of several episodes the repackaging of the same old trite American promise that buying more stuff will somehow make our lives better – albeit with a trendy ‘green’ feel – and yet there was no significant attempt by the characters to understand the source of this void that the people of this nation feel they must fill in the first place. The result: Buyer’s Best left me feeling empty and unsatisfied, like so many millions of other viewers.”

  According to surveys, Joe G., brainchild of the series, was also the character liked least. Overall, his vision and eccentricity were perceived to be endearing qualities. The environmental and economic concerns he espoused, however, seemed to dwarf in comparison to his own appetite for money and power. Viewers were disenchanted with his penny-pinching squabbles with employees, and they felt his relationship with Rocket & Gamble, considering his political views, was contradictory at best. For these reasons, viewers complained of being frustrated with Joe G.’s ‘complex’ personality, and more than half the audience regarded him as a charming hypocrite.

  Attitudes about the media mogul’s underlings might have been equally detrimental to Buyer’s Best. Apparently it was difficult for a general audience to sympathize with the show’s staff members who sometimes locked themselves out of their hotel rooms because they were so intoxicated they lost their key or missed an important meeting because they were too hungover to wake up on time to attend. In an era of epic unemplo
yment, viewers found the sales staff’s behavior to be ‘pathetic’ and ‘inexcusable.’ Instead of providing the public with inspiration during a period of great economic duress, the superficial trials and tribulations of the characters on Buyer’s Best fell flat, and thus, so did hopes for a second season.

  The exception was Chuck. The majority of the show’s audience believed him to be a gullible but respectable individual who tried to do right by others. No greater example was the Flagstaff episode, in which Chuck saved a mother and daughter from certain death, both of whom he only met an hour before they were taken hostage. In fact, the Flagstaff episode became the climax of the show’s first and only season. The steady decline in viewer ratings following that unforgettable airing led to the program being taken off the air prematurely by the time it reached Kansas.

  The sales bus was in the outskirts of Topeka when Chuck heard the news. Despite beautiful April weather and the lush farmland of America’s heartland, Chuck was not looking forward to his arrival in that city, well-known for its intolerance. Geographically isolated, and with a residential demographic that was predominantly rural, conservative and churchgoing, Topeka to Chuck’s mind was far from the liberal paradise folks in California hoped to create, nor even a bastion of freedom and fairness an Arizona native could at least appreciate.

  Just because Chuck considered himself apolitical didn’t mean he considered himself a hater, and the messages spewing out of Topeka the first decades of the twenty-first century scorning gays, Jews, Muslims, Atheists, Buddhists, Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, Environmentalists, Socialists – pretty much anyone outside the Topeka city limits – Chuck considered a blight to the nation and people of America as a whole. The city seemed to symbolize a culmination of ignorance he preferred not to have to experience firsthand.