by Lee Hayton
In Blain’s memory, the frontage was glass. In reality, a lattice reinforcement protected the windows against a smashed entry.
He cupped his hands to block the morning glare and its harsh reflections, pressing his nose up to the door. Inside, the bottles were lined up in neat rows like soldiers standing to attention. The pharmacist’s dais at the back was an unattainable promised land.
Clipped footsteps marched behind Blain and a hand clamped onto his shoulder. A deep man’s voice growled, “It’s closed, bud. Can’t you read?”
Blain’s head swam with blood. When his unwelcome companion cleared his throat, irritation overtook the pain, and Blain whirled to face him.
“I can read.”
The man pulled his hand back, eyeing Blain up and down, a sneer appearing halfway through the examination. “The methadone clinic is down the street.”
Blain raised a hand to his eye as the morning sun caught the top of his glasses, hot rays piercing through the gap.
“I’m sick, not an addict,” Blain said in a low growl. “I’ve got the flu.”
The man snorted. “Yeah. That’s why you’re at the drugstore rather than at the doctor or tucked up in bed.” He flapped his hand at Blain. “Move along, buddy. Time for you to go.”
Pain crushed in at Blain from every direction. What was this guy’s problem? He just wanted some fucking painkillers, and this guy had to get all up in his business. The heft of the gun in his pocket stabilized him.
Until the man pressed a hand on his chest and pushed. “I said, time to go.”
The gunshot rang out before Blain realized he’d drawn his weapon out and fired. A tiny hole appeared in the center of the man’s face. Black with a dark hint of red. A single teardrop of blood ran down from his forehead, sweeping into the curve by the side of his nose. It forged a trail down to the corner of his top lip and stopped, lacking enough bulk left for gravity to pull it further.
The man’s legs bowed outward, knees headed in different directions. One second, two, and his calves concertinaed underneath his thighs while his torso slumped sideways.
The wound bled another crimson tear. No more. The heat of the bullet had cauterized the flesh, and the man’s heart soon ceased to beat. Blood stagnated in his veins, his arteries, the tiny capillaries mapping his sun-chapped cheeks.
Light reflected off a metallic object hidden under the man’s jacket. Blain took a cautious step forward and used the toe of his boot to prod at the material. When it fell aside, it revealed the stumped barrel line of a sawed-off shotgun.
The man had come into the mall and started a fight with an illegal weapon tucked at his side. Talk about deserving what you got.
The pounding of running footsteps alerted Blain to someone heading his way. He stuffed his pistol back into his jeans and bent down to pluck the shotgun from the dead man’s body. Loaded.
The footsteps slowed. Blain turned to see another shopper with an incongruous weapon at his side. An itchy finger stroking the cocked hammer.
“Hey, man. You all right?” The words were voiced without concern, the speaker tilting his head and raising the handgun a second after he spoke.
Blain smiled.
The memory pain turned sepia in his mind. He pointed his new shotgun and fired, blowing a wound four inches across the shopper’s side. Into the gulf of pain where Blain’s headache had once resided, a rippling sea of pleasure now flowed. Warmth bled out from his crotch, and a tingle ran up the length of his spine to lodge in Blain’s neck. His mouth dropped open with an intoxication of ecstasy.
Shrill voices cried out in fear across the mall parking lot. Blain stood in a tiny strip of shops by the entrance. The full air-conditioned shopping experience lay on the opposite side. The ground between was now dotted with shoppers scrambling to shelter behind the immobile cars, steel grills glinting an evil grin in the sun.
A boy ran toward his mother, sprinting away from the lost allure of a playground of mechanical animals. Blain lined up the shot, one shell left, then hesitated.
What the fuck are you doing, man? That’s a KID!
He lowered his arm and stepped back in horror. His throat swelled, and Blain’s lungs struggled to pull in another breath.
Pain swamped him. Rolled over him in an unrelenting tide. The agony threatened to toss him down and suck him out into a never-ending ocean. Helpless, his conscience stood silently by as Blain raised his arm, in thrall to the beat of his pounding skull. The steel shards in his temples relented as he took aim. Locked in on the kid. Fired.
His hips jutted forward in orgasmic release as the blood and matter sprayed.
Chapter Four
Frankie
With her ear pressed against the wall, Frankie heard the faint echoes of gunfire. She and five other pupils—three girls, two boys—crouched in the dubious safety of the teacher’s lounge off the English room.
Desperate to evade the gunman’s reach, the small group had fled upstairs. While avoiding the spray of bullets lying in wait on the lower landing, the choice soon left them separated from the building’s exits when a series of explosions collapsed half the main stairwell.
Twenty minutes ticked by while they panicked, then Frankie took charge. Edging up to her fifteenth birthday, she was the eldest.
Behind her, a girl sniffed. Without turning around, Frankie knew it was Angela. Angela’s daddy drove a big car, and her daddy had a big house, but daddy’s money couldn’t buy any of them out of trouble right now.
“Shut her up,” Frankie ordered. She still didn’t turn, knowing Becca would take care of it. Their long-term friendship lent them synchronicity.
One more shot from the gun. Frankie screwed her eyes tight as she strained to hear something—anything—more. The squeal of a door opening, a crash as the handle hit the wall.
Her eyes flicked open and she turned to the group. “He’s just left the science wing. He’s heading this way.”
The broken door stopper at the exit of the science block was only a few rooms away.
“Teacher’s Lounge” was a fancy name for three rows of shelving, a sink, and a kettle. A deluge of boiling water in the face would give the gunman pause. Frankie’s nails dug deep into her palms as she assessed the scenario. A couple of minutes to boil. Out of the question.
“Manda,” she whispered to a mousy girl behind her. “Bring that chair over. We’ll try the air-conditioning ducts.”
The English room was the last doorway down this hall. Crashing through the windows would get them outside, but from the third floor it could spell their deaths in a crumpled agony of breaking bones. The door would lead them straight out into the gunman’s path.
Going up gave them a chance.
“I won’t fit,” Becca whispered, her voice shaking with worry.
Frankie ignored the query. Her best friend not fitting into the air-conditioning tunnels couldn’t concern her yet. She concentrated instead on stepping onto the wooden chair without making it creak.
The ceiling panels were gypsum drilled with an even pattern of holes. Frankie lifted the panel with her fingertips and shifted it sideways. A cloud of dust sifted down, twirling and dancing with devastating grace in the shaft of sunlight from the side windows.
As Frankie breathed in, gritty particles lodged deep in her lungs. She clapped a hand over her mouth while her chest heaved to expel them. A cough now would draw attention. Attention would bring death.
Tears flooded down her face as she stepped off the chair and waved at Manda to clamber up first. She was the tallest and the skinniest.
As Manda’s legs disappeared upward, Frankie stole a sip of air through clenched lips. A small cough forced its way out of her mouth, and she pinched her trachea hard to stop another.
Breathing must wait.
Manda shuffled around overhead, then her thin arms reached down through the ceiling gap to grasp hold of Angela. As Frankie moved away, tears still streaming, Becca trailed her and thumped her between the shoulder blades.<
br />
Next up was Andy. Boyd shoved the short-ass up high enough for Angela to grab hold. Before he went, Boyd shot a panicked glance at Frankie, but she waved him upward.
As his foot moved out of sight, desire won over logic and Frankie’s cough erupted from her chest. Although she immediately pushed her mouth against her inner elbow, the spasm dug deep into her lungs. It pulled forth fluid and remnants of dust in a hacking bark that echoed a bout of bronchitis she’d suffered through, at age four.
While Becca gave her another series of thumps on the back, Frankie stared in horrified fascination at the door. As her urge to cough retreated, they both heard footsteps. Slow. Deliberate. The shucking of a shotgun. The steps could only be a yard away to hear them so clearly.
Becca ran toward the door while Frankie’s eyes widened in alarm. Visions of her unarmed friend confronting a dual wielding gunman flickered in her mind. Instead, Becca bent and tugged open a cabinet along the wall. It was blessedly empty.
Frankie ran to join her, panic making her push at Becca so hard she yelped. Backing in next to her, Frankie hooked her legs close to her chest, wriggled her butt across an inch further, then leaned out to grab the door.
The handle was on the outside only. She used the edge of the wood to pull it as far closed as she could, then dug her fingernails into the plastic clasp and tugged it further. One of her nails bent back, lighting a matchhead size fire of pain.
Just as the gunman kicked the room door open, Frankie wrenched the cabinet door into place.
Every limb was twisted painfully in the compartment’s awkward angles. Becca panted shallowly, the bend in her waist compressing her chest. Already the enclosed area was thick with condensation from their joint breathing.
Frankie tried to still each cell of her body into motionless quiet. The cabinet was pitch dark as though all light had died.
After the powerful kick of his entrance, the room outside grew oppressive with elongating silence. Deprived of stimuli, Frankie’s mind envisaged a thousand horrors, all ending with gruesome deaths.
A desk leg scraped, so loud that Frankie jumped. Her chest felt starved of air. Bright stars burned into supernovas in her retinas. She blinked, eyes now adjusting so she could see the faint outline of the cabinet door.
A tuneful whistle. The soft pad of a footstep. Another desk leg shrieking against the wooden floor.
Frankie’s heightened senses broadcast such an overload of information that she couldn’t tell if it was closer than the first.
The blast of a shotgun. A catastrophe of noise that engulfed their cramped, confined space. Frankie jerked and hit her head on the roof of the cabinet. More lights spun in comet tails across the dark night sky of her vision.
The shucking of the barrel. Another blast. A pause that seemed to eat up hours. Two more blasts.
In the silence that followed, Frankie’s blood pulsed loudly in her eardrums. She sucked shallow breaths in through her nose and felt her chest muscles contract as her cough struggled to return.
Frantic to stem the noise, Frankie lifted a hand to her mouth. Her elbow hit the plastic clasp she’d so recently pulled closed, and she watched in horror as the cabinet door swung open.
Robert
“Can you pick up some saltines on the way home tonight? Just for backup in case anyone asks.” Annabelle stood from the breakfast table and walked into the kitchen.
Robert looked over at his wife’s retreating back. She’d shuddered when she said the word saltines. He clamped his lips together as he buttered his toast.
The dinner party Annabelle had hosted last month had been a roaring success—until Patsy Marbourgh from three doors down asked for a salted cracker. After turning her nose up at Beluga, Patsy had already struck herself from Annabelle’s future invitations. The further request had just insulted her pride.
Even though Patsy would never darken their door again, Robert guessed Annabelle was hedging her bets. She’d never had a guest ask for something she couldn’t provide before. At this evening’s shindig, every eventuality would be covered.
“If you like, I could skip work today and help out.” The offer shot from Robert’s mouth even with his lips compressed into a thin line. As the pause stretched out, he realized he could hear his heartbeat in his ears. Thump. Thump. What would she say?
“Don’t be stupid, Robert. You’re needed in the office. Besides, you’d just get in the way.”
Annabelle loaded her plate into the dishwasher, the door disguised as just another inlaid cabinet panel. After two slices of pear and a spoonful of yogurt, Robert would be starving for an actual meal. Annabelle looked content with the serving.
“If you don’t have time to pick them up, that’s okay. I just feel silly ordering one item from the market for delivery.”
She plucked the plate from in front of him, the faint curl of her lip briefly visible before she turned away. Robert ate the rest of his toast in two bites. “I have time. I’ll pick them up on the way home.” He brushed the crumbs from the table in front of him.
“Not onto the floor, Robert,” Annabelle said. She raised a hand to rub at her forehead as though wiping away the wrinkles from her frown. “Now I’ll have to vacuum again.”
“I’ll do that if you like,” he offered, standing and sending another cascade of crumbs onto the hardwood floor. “Before I go to the office.”
“You’re already running late, and you never do the corners right.” She sighed. “I’ll do it—you get going.”
Robert opened his mouth to offer again. Since his retirement three weeks ago, he’d just been waiting for the right time to mention it to his wife. In the meantime, he filled his days skulking around movie theaters and sitting in his car in the park opposite the junior high school. The chance of seeing a squirrel there—his favorite of all the pests—outweighed the possibility of embarrassment if someone mistook him for a pervert preying on young teenage girls.
But Annabelle moved him aside to fetch the vacuum cleaner from the cupboard. After she’d switched the machine on, the noise made it impossible to talk.
“See you later, dear,” Robert yelled. He leaned forward to kiss Annabelle, but she swept the vacuum dangerously close to his legs. Jumping back a step, he mimed the action instead.
“Don’t forget the saltines,” she yelled after him as he picked up his empty briefcase and snagged the keys off the hook.
I’ll tell her tomorrow when she’s not stressed by the party.
Robert smiled as he backed down the driveway. He waved a hand at the gatekeeper seated inside his glass-enclosed room. Tim, or Tom, his name was—Robert’s hearing was no longer capable of catching the difference. It took a full minute for the gate to rise—the poor guy looked sick as hell.
He’d sit down and talk to Annabelle tomorrow morning. Stay home and help her clear away the detritus of their dinner party. Yes, talking to his wife tomorrow was a much better plan.
Frankie
Becca stretched out her hand and touched the plastic catch, stilling the door’s swing. Silently, Frankie applauded her restraint as Becca left it at that and retracted her hand. To pull the door back into place would draw attention.
The gap allowed her to view a sliver of the front of the English room. Empty desks, empty chairs, an unmarked blackboard.
The barrel of the shotgun crept into her eye line then jerked back out of it. Dirty high-top sneakers walked into view, leading up to khaki cargo pants and a gray T-shirt fraying along one side. The angle of the cabinet cut the gunman off at mid-chest.
As he moved out of sight, footsteps marked his progress to the door, where he paused then fired again, making them both jump. A hysterical laugh issued from him a moment before the door slammed shut.
When Becca made a move, Frankie held out a warning hand to Becca’s arm to restrain her. Wait. Only when she heard footsteps from the corridor outside did she nod and watch her friend scramble out of the cupboard.
The tickle in her throat grew into ano
ther compulsive cough. Still inside the cabinet, Frankie held her lips closed and pressed her hands against her mouth to silence the sounds further. Tears streamed down her face again, but the attack ended sooner this time. Once she was sure it was over, she followed her friend and clambered out into the room.
Becca stood by the door to the teacher’s lounge, staring up at the ceiling. Frankie dragged her footsteps as she moved to join her, one arm clutched tightly across her stomach.
For a moment, she could only stare at the floor. Scuffed and curling periwinkle linoleum tiles, newly decorated with Jackson Pollock splashes of darkest crimson. Then she looked up, her neck creaking in protest.
Blood dripped from the ceiling panel, the sluggish liquid falling from large holes torn by the shotgun blasts. A hand flopped down through one, its forefinger curled in a forlorn beckon. Lifeless. The painted nails encrusted with silver stars belonged to Angela.
Another shot rang out, and the girls jumped, grabbing at each other. When Frankie worked out it had come from far away, she relaxed. Becca gave a small giggle and stifled it with her hand, eyes wide. Frankie jumped onto the chair and stood on tiptoes to peer into the air-conditioning tunnel.
“Anyone alive up here?” she whispered.
The only response was the continuing drip of blood onto the floor.
A slideshow of memories tightened Frankie’s throat—Angela shooting spitballs at Mr. Laramy’s neck, gifting her change for a candy bar when Frankie had spent her allowance—and she forced them away. They’d escaped this round, but unless they could get out of the building, they’d soon face another.
At the window, Frankie stared out at the empty landscaping along the side of the school. Police should be stationed out there now. She’d heard the first shots soon after class started at nine. Her watch showed the time was now closing in on ten o’clock, yet the cavalry still hadn’t arrived.
“He’s going floor by floor, ground to top.”
