by Scott Blade
I ran past the entrance, past the old cop car that was still ablaze, and past the back corner of the building. I stopped dead near the back entrance and lowered myself to a crouch. I raised the Remington and turned the corner where the one cop had been standing.
He was walking back down the side street to his police car to see why the lights were off. I stayed in a low crouch. I wanted to shoot him in the back, which normally wasn’t my style, but these guys needed to be dead and the honorable way wasn’t always the right way. The right way, in this case, was the way in which they were dead and I wasn’t. But I also wanted to retain the element of surprise as long as I could.
I came within twenty feet of the guy without him hearing me. I held the Remington with one hand and reached down and picked up a loose brick on the ground.
I lowered the Remington and raised the brick. I ran at the guy as fast as I could. He heard me at the last second and spun around, but it was too late.
I hit him square in the face with the brick. The brick had been old, but sturdy. The force had shattered the guy’s nose and probably all the bones in his face. He fell to the ground like a ragdoll. He dropped his Glock and reached up with both hands at the bloody mess that used to be his face. He tried to scream, I supposed, but his mouth was completely concave. I doubted that he could make any words. He would need years of plastic surgery to fix the damage that was done.
I thought about stomping his face in with my boot. One good stomp and he’d be dead, but that would be a quick death, a merciful death and I wasn’t sure that he deserved that.
I picked up his Glock and ejected the clip and the chambered bullet and threw it as hard as I could into the sky and over the next building. I knelt down next to him and spun him over with little resistance from him. I searched him and found his handcuffs and cuffed his hands behind his back. I reached into his pocket and dug out his keys and took them.
He was fighting back, but was about as weak as Ryan Saunt had been after he shot himself in the head. He was making sounds that were completely incomprehensible like screams under miles of water.
Chapter 30
ONE DOWN, two more to go.
I returned to the back entrance to the station. I stepped back and looked up at the second floor windows before I went in. The flashlight beams were still there, peeking out.
I went in through the back entrance and swept the room fast with the Remington. There was no sign of life. The cops were upstairs. I could hear them talking and the footsteps creaking above me, but I imagined that they were close to having the upper level cleared.
I looked for the entrance to the lower level and found it. In the back corner, near the backdoor was another door, almost unnoticeable. I went over to it and opened it slowly and quietly. The door led to an immediate set of old concrete stairs that were steep and led straight down.
The lower level was completely black, like looking down into a pit. Suddenly, I wished that I had stolen a flashlight from their car, but I hadn’t and I had no time to backtrack. Their sounds were approaching the top of the second floor landing and therefore were about to head back down.
I looked down the staircase and started to descend. I wanted to go slowly, but I needed to keep the pace up. Luckily, there was a set of windows along the ceiling that went out to the front of the building, where the police car was on fire.
The fire shined some light down there. Light that I didn’t notice until I reached the bottom of the stairs.
As I reached the bottom of the stairs with no problems, I realized something. I had made a critical error. It was pounding rain outside and I had been drenched in the rain and I had been stepping through the mud. My boots were wet and muddy. I was leaving huge footprints on the stairs.
Shit! I thought.
There was a very good chance that the other two cops wouldn’t notice the muddy boot prints from the back entrance because the first level had mostly been covered in old carpet, but they would definitely notice them on the concrete stairs. That’s if they used their flashlights to look down before they started to come down. And they would. Why wouldn’t they?
Shit! I thought again.
It was too late to retreat now. I had to make a stand because I could hear their steps on the first level already.
Chapter 31
I STOOD AT THE BOTTOM of the stairs in the basement and stared dumbfounded at my mistake. Rookie mistake. But in life, when you make a mistake or bad things happen, there’s no sense in sticking around thinking about it, no dwelling on it, no trying to ask why. None of these things will solve anything. You’ve got to move on. Move forward. Think about what the next second will bring.
I had come here to set the record straight. I had come here to see that justice was done. I wasn’t here to do the fair, government type of justice, but rather the kind of justice that made sure that Janey and Ryan Saunt and the other girl and God knows how many others were avenged. I didn’t linger on my mistake. Instead, I thought about Janey, I thought about the dead girl, and I thought about the bones in the barrel.
The fire from the police car outside was still burning bright even in the rain. This wasn’t going to last, but worked well for lighting the basement. I could make out objects and the walls. I got the basic layout of the place. It was one huge room with three jail cells on one side. They were old, but the bars were still standing. The doors on all but one of them were closed and probably rusted shut. I doubt that they would open without a tremendous amount of pressure.
The first cell door was open wide.
Each cell was crammed with one set of bunk beds, the remains of a metal sink and toilet. The cell closest to me still had its mirror above the sink, small and probably a reflective metal rather than glass, to prevent inmates from shattering it and using the shards as a weapon. I had seen similar setups before.
Across from me, a couple of old desks were turned over on their sides. There was a bench that was still upright and a pair of metal filing cabinets, the old kind with big metal drawers that slid in and out on rails, but two of the drawers remained and the rest were gone or on the floor somewhere in the darkness.
I stayed where I was and scanned the farthest corners, using the dim light as best as I could to see. I spotted another room that looked like a small closet. I looked in and squinted my eyes. It had a cage that was wide open. I could see the top of the wires for it. I guessed that it must’ve been where the cops from Despair stored evidence or weapons or both.
There weren’t a lot of hiding places down here, but there was plenty of square footage for a small-town police station.
I started to walk, slowly and carefully over to my right, toward the overturned desks, near the light. I made sure to step so that my boot prints could be seen clearly. I made my way over to that side and walked behind the closest desk. I sat down on top of it and leaned the Remington 870 against the wooden top. I peeked back over my shoulder and listened.
The two cops were talking in low voices and still looking around upstairs on the main level.
I pulled the rain poncho over my head and then left it under the desk. I slipped off my boots and left my socks on. I hid the boots on the floor behind the desk drawers and I picked up the shotgun. I crept back the way I had come, making sure not to smear the boot prints that I had left. I tiptoed back to the first cell. It was the only one where the door was open and it was the darkest out of the three because it was farthest from the light.
I went in and crouched down on one knee with my back to the wall between the sink and the toilet. I raised the shotgun and jammed the stock into my right shoulder. I elevated the barrel and took aim and waited.
I heard Crocket and the other guy at the door to the basement. They opened it and started to come down. At first, they were speaking in normal voices, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Then they started to whisper and then they froze near the top of the stairs.
Flashlight beams appeared in the stairwell and shined across the floo
r on the bottom.
I watched.
The beams crossed and moved and shifted along each step and then they both froze on the muddy boot print trail that I had left.
They were seeing the boot prints, whispering, and easing themselves down each step, carefully. Even though they appeared to be following the trail that I’d left for them, I wasn’t going to underestimate two state-trained police. I would have to be faster.
I waited.
I saw the flashlight beams get brighter and brighter. My neck muscles flinched and my arms were growing weary from holding the same position for so long. My hands tightened and my finger slipped inside the trigger housing.
I waited.
Then the two flashlight beams changed to one and moved closer to the bottom. And then the beam went off completely. I watched, eager to shoot.
One foot stepped on the bottom step and then on the floor. I saw a figure crouched down close to the floor, scanning the basement with his Glock.
I waited. I didn’t want to shoot until I had them both.
The figure looked right, in the direction that I wanted him to look, and then he looked straight and then looked left, straight at me.
The second cop came down after, loud, without a concern for silence any longer. The first cop stepped to the right and the second stopped cold and faced left, my direction. He swiveled, slowly in a cone of a forty-five-degree angle, while the first cop swiveled to the right. They stayed back-to-back.
They held their ground for a long moment.
I stayed quiet and still. They couldn’t see me, not without their lights on.
They kept the flashlights off, but as soon as they went on, I would fire.
The one on the right, facing the other direction, spoke out loud.
He said, “We know that you’re down here.”
It was Crocket’s voice, no question.
I stayed quiet.
Crocket said, “We just want to work this out with you.”
I said nothing.
Crocket said, “We just want to get our guys and dispose of them. That’s best for all of us here.”
Silence.
Crocket said, “There’s no need to be scared. Just come out! We won’t hurt you! Promise!”
I said nothing.
Crocket said, “Think about it. If we get caught, chances are that you get caught. With that money.
“We just want to compensate you. Help you along your way. Isn’t that what you want?”
I stayed quiet.
I tilted my head and stared down the sights. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness much better than theirs were because I had been down there longer, but the moment that those flashlights came on I was in trouble. They would have the advantage.
Then they rose up and Crocket said, “Lights.”
I squeezed the trigger and the shotgun BOOMED!
The cop facing me didn’t switch on his flashlight and he didn’t fire his gun because I had fired first. The Magnum shell blasted through the cell. The flash lit up the cell around me like a Christmas tree. The guy never fired back because the round traveled about twenty feet and removed his gun and the hand that held it.
Blood splattered everywhere as far back as to the wall to my left and the bars around the open door. I imagined that it was even on my face, but was too preoccupied to be sure.
His bulletproof vest must’ve absorbed some of the shot, but not enough to save his life. His left hand had been out in front of him, holding the Glock. It was completely gone. Where? I had no idea, but his torso had taken the rest of the blast and he went flying backward toward Crocket.
Crocket had his flashlight on and was fast, much faster than I had expected because he had only heard the blast and he jumped to the left and spun. He was a well-trained cop and the blast from a shotgun was unmistakable, especially when it was one of their own.
I racked the slide and the shotgun CRUNCHED!
It was loud, even with the booming from the blast still ringing in my ears. I aimed in the direction of the flashlight beam, but Crocket was very fast. He had the beam shining in my direction, which blinded me, but I didn’t flinch from it. Flinching is just a faster form of second guessing and second guessing will get you killed in a gunfight. Sometimes, instincts weren’t our friends.
But Crocket didn’t just have his flashlight out; he also had his Glock and he fired it.
A Glock was a much faster firing weapon than a shotgun. That was just simple. That was just a matter of fact.
Everything had slowed to that slow motion that followed intense gunfights.
Crocket fired once! Twice! Three times!
I heard the brick next to my head splinter and shatter. Pieces of it ricocheted off my head.
The second and third bullets got me dead-on center mass, but I fired and he kept firing.
His fourth bullet nailed into the metal sink and a metal sound echoed into the darkness, but I had also fired and that echoing metal sound was overridden by the second BOOM from the shotgun.
His flashlight went dead and he stopped firing. I thought that I had gotten him, but I wasn’t sure.
I fell back off my knee and sat against the wall. There was a tremendous pain in my chest and abdomen.
I felt it surge through my flesh and bones.
It was like my front torso was on fire.
I couldn’t breathe.
I dropped the Remington and slumped over onto my side and then my back. I stared at the ceiling and tried to get my breath.
Had he got me through the vest?
I felt the air was gone from my lungs. I felt dizzy and my heart pounded.
I waited. Tried to breathe.
Nothing.
I tried to inhale, deep.
Nothing.
I waited.
Then, finally, air rushed in through my mouth and I felt the pressure on my lungs subside slowly. I stayed still and concentrated on breathing.
In. Out.
The ringing in my ears slowed to a low humming and I twisted my head and looked over at Crocket’s position. The room was too dark to see any details and the flashlight had stained my vision with black spots. I closed them tightly and waited. I just breathed in and out.
I opened my eyes and could see better. The spots were fading.
I looked back over at him. I saw a heap of bodies in the darkness.
My hearing started to return and I heard my own gasps for more air.
I heard heavy breathing that wasn’t mine. It came from Crocket’s position. It might’ve been him or it might’ve been the other guy, but there was only one guy breathing.
I tried with all my might to move. I struggled and pushed and felt the blood pumping at high speeds to force my arms to move. I lifted my hands up to my chest and felt around.
There was heat—lots and lots of heat. I smelled smoke coming from my chest. I felt around more and found no blood.
I sat up and felt a searing pain shoot through my back and my hips and then my legs. I hurt everywhere.
I reached to the side and undid the vest. I jerked the other side and ripped it away from the Velcro straps. I jerked the thing over my head and patted hard at my chest and shirt. My clothes were wet, but that could’ve been from the rain. So I pulled my shirt halfway up and felt my skin and chest. There were no bullet holes. Then I felt around my abdomen and my pelvis. There was nothing but my skin.
I had had the wind knocked out of me and my chest hurt something fierce, but the bulletproof vest had been bulletproof after all.
I grabbed the Remington and pumped it.
CRUNCH! CRUNCH!
The sound was again the loudest thing in the room.
Whoever was breathing hard started to breathe even more heavily and started to whimper. I heard clear sounds of distress and worry and possible crying.
I stood up, slow, not out of want, but rather because I was still dizzy and weak and in great pain. If Crocket had been strong enough or fast enough, he could’ve
shot at me with the rest of the bullets that he had, but he didn’t. Therefore, I had hit Crocket.
I stumbled, more or less, over in his direction.
I stepped on something and reached down. It was one of the flashlights. I picked it up and flicked the switch. It came on and lit the room. It must’ve been the first guy’s because it seemed unscathed by the shotgun blast.
I pointed it down at the heap of bodies.
First, I looked over the closest one, which was the guy with his hand missing. I found the hand. It was a bloody thing, still gloved, and still with the fingers gripped on the Glock, but there was no arm attached, only half the wrist.
I followed the trail of blood to the first cop. He was dead—no question.
He faced straight up. His face was splattered with blood and he had lifeless eyes.
There was blood and there were holes throughout his bulletproof vest—giant holes. I guess that it hadn’t worked for him.
I turned the flashlight and the Remington to Crocket.
He was about five feet farther away than he had been standing, but his boots weren’t. They were still right square where he was standing when I shot him. The force of the Magnum round had removed him from his shoes.
He was curled up in a ball. Just like the first cop, he had taken the brunt of the Magnum round in his center mass and in his bulletproof vest. And like the first cop, there were large holes riddled through him—his upper legs, his pelvis, and his bulletproof vest.
His face was in tears from the pain.
His left hand was completely broken. His fingers were spread out and bent in all kinds of awkward positions like the end of a ripped thread. His right hand was trying to pick up the Glock, but he was having trouble. Then I saw why as I got closer.
His right forearm was missing, not the entire thing, but a significant portion of it was torn away. Flesh was torn and blood vessels were ripped open like broken pipes.
I stomped my foot down on the Glock and slid it back and kicked it far away.
He said, “Who? Why?”
I said, “Doesn’t matter who I am.”
He asked, “Why?”
