by Dez Burke
“North Carolina,” I lie. “The North Carolina mountains.”
Bardsville, our home town, is a mere fifteen minutes from the North Carolina state line, so I’m only fibbing a tiny bit. Georgia…North Carolina. Not much of a difference really.
She’s already focused back on Sam, who is practically bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet in his eagerness to do this.
“So what do you say?” she asks him.
“Sure, I’ll do it,” he replies. “My wife will love it!”
Hell no she won’t.
Sam’s wife is the most guarded, secretive person I’ve ever met. I can’t imagine Lila would enjoy having her name splashed across the news any more than I would. She’s a computer hacker turned federal agent turned back to hacker. Once she hooked up with the Steel Infidels, she crossed over to the dark side and never went back.
“Terrific!” Maggie says, as if she knew all along that he would agree to be interviewed. “And what about your friend here?”
She turns to look up at me. The top of her head barely reaches my shoulder. She’s petite and just the right height to wrap my arm around her shoulder, tuck her under my arm, and hold her close against my side.
Too talkative for me though.
“What are your big plans for tonight, big fella?” she asks me. “Dinner? Dancing? Maybe cooking dinner for your lady?”
“Nothing,” I answer more gruffly than I mean to. “As I said before, there’s no lady.”
She blinks at me and seems a little surprised at my short answer then shrugs.
“Okay, well, we can still fit you in too. I’ll tell the viewers you’re available. Our phones will be ringing off the hook. All you need to do is stare deep into the camera with those soulful blue eyes. What do you think, Bill? Where would be the best spot to set up the camera to interview these two? Maybe over this way a little bit?”
She scoots out of the way of the line of pizza customers piling up and keeps talking to her cameraman about us as if we’re not standing right there beside her.
“Wait a second,” I say. “You misunderstood. I’m not doing an interview.”
Maggie waves her hand at me dismissively.
“Oh, you’ll be fine. Don’t worry or be nervous. It’s a short segment.”
Sam snickers and shoots me a look. I know what he’s thinking. That I’m letting this little slip of a girl steamroll right over me.
And he’s right.
The situation caught me by surprise, that’s all. It’s not every day that a news team sticks a camera in my face. Meanwhile, Maggie is babbling on about camera angles and background shots while I wait for a chance to interrupt her without seeming overly rude.
It occurs to me that I don’t particularly like her very much. She’s abrasive and aggressive. Soft and pliable is more my taste.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Flint stand up and start walking our way.
Good.
He’ll put a stop to this craziness.
“Let’s move down a little toward the doors,” she tells her cameraman. “That way you can get the wide angle of the food court behind us.”
Maggie places a manicured hand on my upper arm and starts tugging me along with her to an empty wall beside the pizza place. Motioning for Sam to join me, she lines us up so that our backs are to the dining tables.
“Make sure to get a wide shot of the shoppers behind them,” she says to her cameraman. “Is my hair and makeup okay, Bill? Let’s get this over with so we can go back to the station.”
She smooths down her white blouse and flips her long hair back over her shoulders.
“Beautiful as always,” her cameraman replies before hoisting the camera onto his shoulder and backing up a few feet.
She turns to Sam. “What are your names?” she asks quickly. “I almost forgot to ask. We’re running short on time.”
“I’m Sam,” he says.
Thank God he didn’t give his last name. I don’t answer. Not that she notices. She is focused on her mission.
Taking a deep breath, she puts on a bright smile and holds up the microphone. “Five seconds,” she says to us before counting down to one.
Seriously? She’s doing this right now? What an obnoxious, pushy woman.
I look over at Sam. He shrugs his shoulders at me and grins.
“Good evening,” she begins, talking straight into the camera. “This is Maggie Turner reporting live from Northside Mall in downtown Atlanta. I have with me two gentlemen who have driven all the way from North Carolina to do their Valentine’s Day shopping.”
She turns to Sam and waves a hand at the pink shopping bag he’s carrying.
“I see you’ve already made a few purchases. Are you impulse shopping today or were you searching for something specific for your sweetheart?”
Sam starts to give her one of his bullshit answers. Knowing him, there is no telling what’s about to come out of his mouth.
Suddenly, a loud noise rings out and we all flinch.
A gunshot?
No, it can’t be.
Maybe a truck backfired in the parking lot right outside the glass doors. I’m dreaming things up again. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard imaginary gunshots that turned out to be nothing.
I hate this PTSD shit.
Always thinking there’s an improvised explosive device in every pothole or bag of trash on the side of the road. Jumping at every loud noise.
Then another pop explodes, louder this time.
Definitely gunshots.
Fuck!
The cameraman drops straight down to the tile floor right in front of us. His camera slides off his shoulder while blood gushes from a wound, quickly soaking through his shirt.
I can’t tell where he’s been hit. I hope the bullet missed any vital arteries. I’m not a medic, but it doesn’t look good from where I’m standing.
The loud boom! boom! boom! of several more shots ring out. The sound echoes off the walls around us.
Jesus Christ!
A woman screams on the other side of the food court. The display case of a Chinese food takeout place next to us shatters in a shower of glass.
Maggie is standing there in shock, still holding the microphone up in front of her like she’s expecting her cameraman to get back up and continue filming.
“Get down!” I yell. “There’s a shooter!”
Sam runs four big steps to the pizza counter and leaps over.
In a split second, I assess the situation. Maggie is wearing a short skirt and high heels. There’s no way she can make it to safety behind the counter on her own.
It’s too risky.
I grab her with both hands and throw her under the nearest table. Diving on top of her, I cover her body with mine as much as I can. She’s short and I’m able to tuck her head, arms, and most of her legs underneath me.
“Don’t move,” I whisper in her ear. “Stay down, keep your head covered, and don’t make a sound.”
Her body is trembling, but to her credit she doesn’t let out even a whimper. I’m hoping she’s tougher than she appears.
I’m not betting on it.
With any luck, she can keep her shit together and not draw any more attention to herself.
A surge of adrenaline quickly kicks in.
And a dreadful sense of familiarity.
As bad as the situation is, it feels like home to me.
I hate it.
When I left Afghanistan for the last time, I thought this crap was behind me.
The joke is on me.
As always.
Hell never gets left behind.
I reach for the gun in the side pocket of my leather jacket and carefully slide it out. When I tucked it into my pocket earlier this morning, I never dreamed I would need to use it today.
Well, maybe at the gun trade since there’s always a chance those deals can go downhill in a hurry. Just not in a food court surrounded by a bunch of investment bankers who are c
rapping in their pants about now.
The shots continue to come, along with more screams and sounds of confusion. A baby is crying. He sounds more scared than injured. I try not to think about the casualties and injuries that no doubt must be mounting up.
All I need to do right at this moment is concentrate and focus on locating the shooter. The same thing I’ve done countless times before in Afghanistan.
The Marines called me the Guardian Angel.
I watched over my platoon through the crosshairs of a special rifle like a Border Collie guarding sheep. My buddies depended on me to keep them safe.
Kill or be killed was my motto.
Anything to keep my buddies alive.
I lift up my head slightly and glance around the food court.
Where are the damn shots coming from?
And where is Flint? The last time I saw him, he was walking across the food court toward us.
I glance up at the second floor overhanging the food court and see a man standing by the railing in a baseball cap and heavy winter overcoat.
The shooter.
I hope to God he’s alone.
Something tells me he’s not.
2
Maggie
I’m struggling to catch my breath and am on the verge of a full-blown panic attack. At least two hundred and fifty pounds of hard, packed muscle is on top of me, pressing my body down flat on the floor. My head is tucked under the biker’s chest. I can feel his heart racing like mad through his flannel shirt.
What just happened?
One minute I’m standing there interviewing two tattooed bikers for another trivial news spot and the next my cameraman is shot right in front of me. My brain can’t wrap its head around the situation. It’s too much to comprehend.
When the shot rang out, I was turning around to ask a question and didn’t see anything except Bill fall to the ground out of the corner of my eye. Before I had a chance to react, the biker was throwing me under the table and piling on top of me.
Thank God he had enough sense to step in and protect me. I was standing there like an idiot, frozen in fear and confusion.
As a reporter, we always prefer to think we’re prepared during emergencies. That we’ll be cool under pressure. Stay calm and get the story.
What a joke! That’s all baloney.
I’m not a war reporter.
I do human interest stories about animal adoption events and pumpkin festivals. Not any real news. My station manager told me when he hired me that my job was to smile and be pretty. To pay my dues until my time came along. So that’s what I’ve been doing the past five years. Biding my time until I get a chance to report on something big.
Not that I haven’t tried to do more. I spend most of my free time tracking down leads on interesting stories. Hoping that someday, somehow, a news story I discover will take off and make me a star.
Now the big story has found me.
Hopefully I can live to tell about it.
I close my eyes and concentrate on pacing my panicked breathing. I’m scared. Terrified actually. I can’t stay here doing nothing while waiting for the shooters to come closer. That’s never worked out well for other people caught in terrorist situations.
My mind goes back to the past incidents of high school kids hiding under tiny desks while the shooter goes classroom to classroom or bar patrons crawling under cocktail tables in a gay night club.
The stories never have a happy ending.
Hiding and waiting isn’t a good plan.
A plastic dining table won’t stop men with guns or even slow them down.
A sob threatens to rise out of my throat. If Bill doesn’t make it, I’ll never forgive myself. There was so much blood spilling out of the wound in his chest. He has a loving wife and kids waiting for him to come home tonight. The whole family was going out for pizza for Valentine’s Day because that’s what his wife wanted. For the family to be together instead of the two of them going out for a romantic meal. He was working late because I asked him to help me out. Otherwise it would’ve been one of the less experienced cameramen tagging along behind me today.
I need to check on him to make sure he’s still alive. I owe him that much. Pushing up with my arms, I try to wiggle out from under the heavy man crushing me so I can turn my head to see Bill.
“Dammit!” the man above me curses before curling a huge, muscular arm tighter around me.
A large tattoo of a magnificent lion runs down the length of his bicep. I’m momentarily fascinated by the lion’s eyes. They’re staring at me, looking straight into my soul. I wonder if I’m in shock.
“Do you want to die today?” he asks in a gruff voice. “Be still and be quiet. Don’t draw attention to yourself. I’ve got you. Keep your head down flat. The shooter is above us on the second floor.”
“What about my cameraman?” I whisper.
“Don’t think about him right now. There’s nothing you can do. Concentrate on keeping your own pretty little head alive. Your man is still breathing. That’s something.”
Thank God! Bill is still alive.
It occurs to me the biker might only be telling me that to keep me calm. For the time being, it’s working. I need to trust that he’s being honest. The other possibilities are too horrible to think about.
“How many shooters are there?” I ask. “More than one?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “Now hush!”
When he talks, his deep Southern drawl rumbles through his chest. Stupid as it might be, I feel safe underneath this big old biker in his leather jacket and tats even if I can barely breathe.
At least for now.
Who is this guy?
I didn’t even get his name.
3
Toby
Damn!
The girl is going to be trouble.
I can already tell.
If she had any sense at all, she would be still and stop wriggling around. I’m almost afraid to loosen my grip on her long enough to steady my gun. She might be stupid enough to try to crawl back over to her cameraman, putting herself right in the line of fire again.
The shooter on the upper level is too far away to see his face clearly, though the shape of his assault rifle is hard to miss. He’s taking his time and leisurely picking out random targets in the food court below him.
Is he alone?
I can’t tell.
He casually reloads and fires another fast round toward the front counters of the cinnamon roll shop on the other side of the room. Glass sprays everywhere, along with chunks of dough and sweet icing. I’ll never feel the same about the smell of hot cinnamon rolls again. It’s a shame because I love those damn things.
The random way he’s shooting makes me think that his goal for the moment is to instill terror and fear rather than to rack up a quick body count. He is stalling, biding his time for some reason.
If so, this also means he has a plan.
I lift my head slightly again and scan the food court. Everyone is either lying on the ground or under tables. Whether they’re dead, injured, or playing possum, I don’t know. From where we’re hiding, I can’t see the whole room clearly.
When the shooter stops to reload again, gunshots ring out from another direction.
Fuck!
There’s another one.
I figured as much.
The attack didn’t feel like the work of one person. Shifting slightly, I turn to see if I get a better look. Where is that second shooter?
“Now you’re the one moving!” Maggie whispers in a panic. “What are you doing? I thought you said to be still.”
“Shhh….” I say and tuck her head back under my chest. “Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.”
I turn my head around and glance back over my shoulder to see if I can catch sight of Sam. He’s crouched behind the corner of the shattered pizza counter. As soon as we make eye contact, he holds up three fingers and points toward the glass doors at the exit.
Oh shit!
There are three of them?
I turn the other way. Two men in hats and heavy coats are blocking the exit at the double glass doors. I wonder how many guns are hidden under their coats. Or god knows what else.
What a fucking nightmare!
We’re all trapped here in the crowded food court waiting to be mowed down by bullets. I’ve never missed my rifle so much.
The words of the Marine’s creed is playing over and over in my head like an old album that’s skipping.
Without my rifle, I am useless.
I must fire my rifle true.
I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me.
I must shoot him before he shoots me.
I will.
Today my rifle isn’t with me. My handgun will have to suffice. Improvisation under pressure is my specialty.
I take a closer look at the two guys near the exit. With their knit caps and scruffy beards, they seem almost familiar to me. They could be one of my old high school classmates or even a Steel Infidel on a bad hair day.
The men are around thirty, maybe not even that old, and white. They’re not the typical stereotype of what I would expect a terrorist to be. They’re cool and calm. Methodical with their movements. Nobody is running around yelling “Allahu Akbar” or acting delusional.
Which scares me even more.
Homegrown terrorists, they’re called. Who knows what their agenda is or what they’re aiming to prove? It could be anything these days. When their explanation for the attack comes out in the news, it won’t make sense to anyone.
Another senseless shooting is what the news will say.
I wonder if they have bombs strapped to their chests. The heavy coats they’re wearing could be covering up suicide vests. The thought makes me uneasy. If I get a chance to take a shot, it has to be to the head. Otherwise, if I hit their chest and they’re wearing explosives, we’re all going up in flames.
One of the men standing by the exit doors motions to the other then starts moving slowly in our direction.
“Oh shit!” I mutter. “They’re heading this way.”
