by Sean Platt
Boricio was cut off by the sudden screeching of monsters, clicking in deafening waves surging toward the still-screaming cars and crashing through the center gate of the warehouse, which the dead bikers had left open.
“Ramblers, let’s ramble,” Boricio said, pointing to the Boriciomobile.
A whole lot of pants must’ve been meeting a whole lotta shit from behind the warehouse walls, judging by the way the bikers started pouring out the open bay door. And they were armed a lot more elegantly than Boricio expected: Agrams and Bruggers and Hecklers; expensive foreign shit Boricio hadn’t expected to see in the sticks.
Boricio gunned the engine and rolled down the ravine, smashing through the chain link fence surrounding the warehouse before plowing into the warehouse door, which crumpled like a beer can beneath a boot.
“Well, how about that!” Boricio screamed. “They sure don’t build shit like they used to.” Boricio laughed to himself, slapped his knee, then revved the engine in reverse, running down a pair of the monsters, tearing their leather with a sickening THWTHWIIIPSH.
“The fuck you pureed pussy meat waiting for?” Boricio yelled. “Shoot some fuckers!”
Vic and Charlie lowered their windows and fired their guns, barely taking aim. Monsters and soldiers dropped into piles while Boricio continued to laugh, firing the side machine guns until they were empty, then launching a missile into an adjoining garage just because he could. He would’ve sent the missile sailing straight into the warehouse, but he didn’t know if there was a prize inside the box and didn’t want to ruin it if there was.
“Stop!” Charlie yelled, pointing out the window to a huddle of three women and several more children hunched low and moving fast behind the smoke to count. They were headed toward the tree line. “There are children out there,” he said. “We don’t kill kids. We can’t kill kids.”
“Kids ain’t nothing but future adults waiting for pubes. That makes them early bird fucking specials.”
Charlie said nothing. Boricio ignored the huddle, parked the truck, and jumped from the cabin of the Boriciomobile. The three of them stood, guns raised, waiting for more men to come pouring out of the warehouse, which was now burning. Dark smoke began to billow out, and Boricio smiled. “That ought to drive the rats out.”
A figure appeared in the smoke, then rushed out of it and toward them.
It was an 8-year-old boy, rushing the three of them, waving a Beretta in the air. Boricio, without hesitation, pulled the trigger on his .45 and sent the 8-year-old into a bloody skid along the cement floor. He turned to Charlie. “See that shit? He was gonna shoot me! There’s your fucking kids for ya.”
Boricio went back to the car, fished out his megaphone, turned it on and spoke into it.
“Bring me One-Eyed Willy or I’m gonna shoot every one of you fuckers in there. And I ain’t gonna save you a trip to the Pearlies just because you ain’t voted or you happen to be wearing a pussy in your panties. My bullets will fuck your shit up with equal opportunity, and that’s as real as the cousins you think about while fucking your brothers.”
Flames licked the warehouse walls, causing many of the monsters to flee the warehouse and run back into the woods.
“You’re running shy on time,” Boricio said. “There’s only one way out that ain’t got monsters waiting, and that’s the front door. And I’m gonna shoot every last one of you fuckers unless you send One-Eye out. You got to the count of three! One . . . Two . . . ”
A bald guy in his late 40s, with an eye patch, came out of the smoke, hesitantly.
“And circle gets the square!” Boricio said, smiling.
One-Eyed Willy stood in front of Boricio, shaking. Boricio kicked his feet from under him, sending the bald man to his knees. Vic and Charlie tied the man’s ankles and arms while Boricio sang nursery rhymes, starting with Itsy Bitsy Spider.
Boricio threw One-Eyed Willy into the back of the van while flames spread and smoke billowed out of the warehouse.
“Okay, we got what we came for,” Boricio said into the megaphone. “Olly-olly oxen free, you can all come out now. If I see any guns, I’m gonna assume you’re hostile and will shoot you. So come out, with your hands up, if you want to live.”
Men, women, and children poured from the warehouse, hands up.
Boricio, Charlie, and Vic kept their guns aimed and ready.
“Is that everyone?” Boricio asked, speaking through the megaphone at the 25 or so people in front of them.
A chorus of heads nodded yes.
“Good,” Boricio said, and turned to Vic and Charlie with a smile.
“Kill the men.”
Boricio and Vic opened fire as the women and children screamed, helpless.
A woman scooped up a young girl and headed to the tree line. Vic trained his rifle on them and took aim.
Charlie stepped in front of the rifle, “What the fuck?!”
“Outta my way, boy!” Vic screeched.
Charlie stepped aside. As Vic took aim, Charlie pressed his pistol against Vic’s head. “Let them go.”
With all the men now dead, Boricio turned his attention to the scene brewing between Charlie and Vic and smiled.
Boy had balls; was just takin’ a bit longer for them drop was all.
Vic’s eyes were bulging, rage coursing through him as he glared at Charlie. “You best put that fucking gun down.”
“Now, now,” Boricio said, “Can’t Daddy leave you two alone for a second?”
“You said just the men,” Charlie said, looking back at the woman and child running into the woods. “He’s trying to shoot them.”
“Let ‘em go, Vic. They won’t last five minutes once they run into monsters, anyway.”
Vic smiled at that, and Charlie swallowed, putting his gun down.
Vic refused to break Charlie’s stare.
“Come on, boys, we’ve gotta head back home,” Boricio said, putting an arm around Charlie’s neck and leading him back to the truck. Vic sat in the back with the prisoner and Charlie took the passenger seat up front. As they drove away, Charlie stared into the rearview as fire engulfed the warehouse.
Back at the compound, Boricio marched One-Eyed Willy into the kitchen at gunpoint where Adam, Harry, and Callie were sitting at the table, drinking.
Boricio dropped the man down in a chair and then went to the butcher block, retrieved a large knife and slid it across the table to Adam.
“Give him a second smile, right there below his chin.”
The bald man’s eye widened, and he cried out something incoherent behind the rag stuffed in his mouth and taped over.
Adam’s lip quivered, then he shrunk back. “I can’t do that, Mr. Boricio,” he said.
“Do you think this fucking summer camp, boy? This is Camp Boricio, and fun time is over. You created this problem. You end it. I’m getting a bit goddamned sick and tired of having to be the only one around here with the guts to do what needs to be done.”
One-Eyed Willy started to cry.
Adam looked at Callie and Harry who were both staring at the prisoner.
Boricio turned to Charlie who was standing at the entrance of the kitchen.
“Well, if Adam can’t do it, maybe you’ll pull the tampon out long enough to take care of business.”
Vic snorted a laugh. “Yeah, right.”
Charlie stomped over, grabbed the knife from Adam, pulled One-Eyed Willy’s head back, his eye widening into shock, then slit his throat.
Charlie left his hand under the man’s throat as blood pumped out in hot spurts. He glared at Boricio and then at Vic, then shoved the blade deep into the bald man’s skull, and stomped out of the room.
Seven
Ryan Olson
Ryan watched the front end as the post-dinner rush died down and nightfall turned the parking lot black. They’d be storming in any minute now, guns drawn. He might not be able to do anything about it, but he could at least minimize the risk of shit going bad.
He glanced a
t Clarissa, the youngest of the cashiers. She just turned 16 two weeks ago; she landed the job on her birthday. She was nice, cute, bubbly, and the kind of cashier that made his job easier. She showed up on time and actually did her job, unlike a lot of the high-schoolers who either acted like they were too good to work at the store or had attitude about having to work at all.
He walked up to her register, looked back, and saw she had only one other person in line, a young woman with a small basket of stuff. He clicked off her lane light and said, “Take your 15 minute after our next guest, okay?”
“OK, Mr. Olson,” she said, smiling.
Ryan glanced up and down the front end. Three other cashiers on: Gladys, who was as old as the hills and twice as slow; Billy, a 25-year-old drama queen who’d not dream of stopping a robbery; and Ellen, a 28-year-old woman who was just kinda there most days and was far too self-concerned and lazy to get involved in anything that didn’t immediately involve her.
That left the stock guys, who he had unloading pallets in the back; produce, who was likely hanging out shooting the shit; the bakery and deli departments, who never left their sections in the back of the store; the pharmacy, which was already closed; and of course, the customer service desk. That was where his real problem could emerge. There were two cashiers on duty, both older women who had been there longer than him. One of them wanted his job so bad he sometimes felt he should check to make sure his lunch wasn’t tampered with.
Customer service was trained to hit the silent panic button the minute they sensed anything. After that, they’d be cooperative, but they might also try to trick the robbers. Tell them they didn’t have access to the safe when they did, had less money on hand than they did, or anything else that might make the robbers pissy.
Of course, the robbers were the biggest variable in the robbery. Ryan’s only instructions were to cooperate and make the entire thing quick, easy, and painless. If someone did something stupid, surprised the robbers, or tried to play hero, then this could all get scary. Ryan didn’t know who would be staging the robbery. He figured that it wouldn’t be too bad if it were only Pete and one other person. Though he didn’t like Pete, he knew Pete wasn’t likely to turn a bad situation worse. But if Viktor got some fucking meth heads to pull a robbery, all bets were off.
Ryan glanced back to Clarissa’s lane to see that she had allowed a fat family with a cart full of at least $400 worth of stuff to get in line behind her last customer. And, of course, the woman had a purse stuffed with so many coupons they threatened to spill out in a sea of paper when she opened the purse.
What the fuck?
That order would take five minutes, easily, assuming the coupon queen didn’t want to sit and argue about half the coupons that would likely be expired or for different items. Coupon people could be nearly religious in their fervor and rage when they felt entitled to something not stated in the coupon.
Ryan hated customers who took advantage of his cashiers. Whether it was the assholes who crowded the 10 items or less lane with a cart full of shit, or the ones who jumped into a closed lane, the customer knew the cashiers wouldn’t give them a problem. That whole “customer is always right thing” gave assholes license to treat cashiers, and the customers behind them, like shit. Finding people who wanted to work for the shit pay the store offered was hard enough. Expecting them to take mounds of abuse from the customers was another hurdle altogether.
Ryan raced over to the lane before the woman took the first item out of her cart, and said, “I’m sorry ma’am, this lane is closed.”
“Excuse me; I’m already in this line, and I’m not getting into another. Your cashier should’ve told me that when I got in line.” The woman hoisted a case of soda from her cart and slammed it on the conveyor belt in a silent fuck you.
Clarissa glanced at Ryan, eyes wide, not sure what to do.
“Ma’am, there are three other lanes open, and nobody in line on lane four, let me help you ... ”
“What’s the problem?” the woman’s fat husband said, pushing his way toward Ryan. The guy was big, bald, and mean-looking. The two made a lovely couple. Their obese son with an unfortunate haircut and a face smeared with chocolate cookie from the bakery watched with anticipation.
“It’s okay, Mr. Olson, I don’t mind,” Clarissa said as Ryan’s eyes locked with beefy baldy.
Ryan sighed, “Okay. Thank you, Clarissa.”
“Yes, thank you,” the woman said, glaring at Ryan.
Ryan held his tongue. The taste of shit was familiar in this job; no use spitting it out now when he was about to assist a heist. Just keep things humming along. Ryan turned, reluctantly, and headed back to the front of the store.
That’s when all hell broke loose.
Three men in black ski masks and matching outfits rushed through the front doors, armed with shotguns.
“Everyone on the fucking floor! You, take me to the safe!” one of the men yelled, staring straight at Ryan.
Screams erupted along the front end as customers and cashiers alike stirred, confused, and were slow to fall.
“Now!” one of the men said, firing a shot overhead. The shot punched a hole in the tiles, sending a rain of white dust to the ground. The cashiers and customers hit the ground. Ryan took some pleasure in seeing the annoyed and panicked looks on the couple he’d just argued with. Then he caught Clarissa’s face, struggling not to cry, and his stomach turned.
“Come out of there, hands up!” a gunman shouted at the two cashiers at the customer service desk.
The two women came from behind the counter and stepped to where the gunman was pointing, a front-row seat at the head of the express lane. One of the cashiers, Carolyn, caught Ryan’s eyes and nodded slightly, as if to indicate she already hit the panic button.
Fuck, not much time now.
“What do you want?” Ryan asked.
“All your fucking money!” the man said, shoving Ryan toward the office, just past the customer service desk. “Tell your people to cooperate, and nobody gets hurt.”
“Do whatever they say,” Ryan said to his cashiers as one of the gunmen went to the cashiers with a black sack demanding they fill it up. “Remember your training. Your life is more valuable than any dollar amount the store will lose. So, just give them what they ask for.”
Well, that sounded stupid.
“Let’s go. Hurry!” the gunman yelled at Ryan, leading him through the door to the manager’s office.
Once inside the manager’s office, the gunman said, “Open the safe.”
Ryan realized then that it was Pete behind the mask.
Ryan hoped like hell Pete would keep his mask on, or not say anything stupid, as there was a security camera just above, filming their every move and sound.
“Okay, okay,” Ryan said, as he removed the keys from his pocket, inserted it in the safe, then punched the security code into the safe’s keypad.
“It’s gonna take 90 seconds to open,” Ryan warned as red numbers on the digital display began the countdown from 90.
“Fuck, you didn’t tell us we’d have to wait!” Pete said.
Ryan’s heart nearly stopped dead. He pursed his lips and glared at Pete, hoping what the idiot had said so far wasn’t enough to implicate Ryan’s part in the robbery whenever the cops reviewed the security footage. Ryan couldn’t believe Pete could be so fucking stupid. He had to alert Pete to the camera’s presence before the fucker started using names, removed his mask, and invited Ryan to meet for drinks later.
“Don’t shoot me,” Ryan said, “There are cameras in here, and they’ll catch you.”
Pete glanced around, then found the camera above them. He looked back at Ryan, eyes narrowed, then said, “Just hurry.”
The clock read 20, 19, 18 ...
Ryan’s heartbeat raced as he hoped to God that the cops wouldn’t arrive before he was able to give the men their money and get them the hell out of the store.
14, 13, 12 ...
The clock
is taking forever!
Finally, it hit zero, then read, “SAFE OPEN.”
Ryan turned the thick metal handle, pulled the safe open, reached inside, grabbed all three of the deposit bags, then handed them to Pete.
“Anything else?”
“Nothing of value,” Ryan said, pointing at the receipts and lotto tickets.
“Thanks,” Pete said, turning around and leading the way out of the office.
Just as he stepped through the doorway, gunshots erupted. Two quick ones from a shotgun. Then a third, deafening blast from another gun.
Shit just got bad.
“You stay here,” Pete said to Ryan. “We’ll call you when needed.”
Ryan stayed in the office listening to the volleys of gunfire from the other side of the wall, which were rapid at first but gradually slowed to a few scattered inconsistent sounding pops, then finally to nothing.
Ryan crept from the office and into the chaos of the now mostly empty grocery store. Shelves were overturned, cans rolled along the linoleum, and cereal carpeted the floor, causing Ryan to detour around Aisle 7 so he wouldn’t crunch the sugary grains under his feet.
What the hell happened?
Pete and one remaining officer were the only men standing, pistols in one another’s faces. Ryan stepped back, trying to make his way to the back of the store so he could escape unseen. As he was backing up, his foot slipped on something and fell backward, right into a display of glass Ragu jars that fell to the ground in a crash.
He looked up as the officer turned, startled by the noise. The punk made the most of the cop’s split second distraction, pulling the trigger and splattering the cop’s brains out the front of his skull.
The officer fell as Ryan screamed.
Pete said, “Shut the fuck up, Pollyanna, and go make yourself at home in the back of the Lincoln. Otherwise you can join Johnny Law on the floor.” He waved the gun in the air. “So, what’s it gonna be?”
