JAMESON : N/A
HOUR 0 : 4:10, MONDAY, APRIL 20, 2122
DOCK 2 : HOUSE 1 : JUSTICE
Steph and I were both out of breath when we reached the dock owner’s house, a modest wooden shack built in the middle of the dock itself.
The surly old dockmaster lived all alone out here. But I got the distinct impression that the surliness birthed the lifestyle, not the other way around. Extrapolating my own monthly rent to the dock utterly crowded with boats, the landlord seemed to be doing pretty well for himself.
Less than a foot from the door, I could hear muffled oldie pop music from inside. One of those interchangeable legions of teen idols from around the turn of the millennia.
I knocked three times.
No movement inside.
Three more knocks, each harder than the last, but hopefully light enough not to seem threatening. I proceeded to stare at the door for a second. Then another. Nope, we didn’t have time for this. I’d have to kick it down.
But just as I lifted my foot to challenge the door to a battle it couldn’t possibly win, the music abruptly stopped, clipping the end of an enthusiastic ‘party in the USA’ from the singer. Glancing nervously around, I still couldn’t spot any dock-going audience. So I hesitantly, calmly, slowly lowered my foot in an attempt to make it all look like a stretch.
After a few tense seconds and about twice as many muffled footsteps from its other side, the door cracked ajar. A scratchy, disgruntled voice curtly rasped out of the narrow gap. “What the hell do you-”
I slammed the door the rest of the way open, making sure not to let it slam behind me as I tackled him to the ground.
The man managed half a raspy call for help before I got the pin and cuffed his mouth with my left palm. “HELlfff-”
Maintaining the pin, I just stared him in the eyes while holding his jaw shut and waiting for his plate of apple slices to finish clattering to the floor. “Now… Listen, Frank.” This guy was nothing like dad. But I wished someone would’ve told the shiver running up my spine.
While I got over the trauma of growling my own father’s name into the face of another man, Steph was busy bringing our duffle bag and dolly inside. Not breaking stride, she shut the door, dropped the curtains down over the windows, and let the drapes fall over them before locating Frank’s tablet and turning the music back on. Thank god we drilled for Plan D.
To be fair, the plan never specifically included threatening the guy who owned the place where I parked my boat. Or else I would’ve mentally prepared for it. But how could I not park my boat here? I mean… The ‘Simmons’ Marina? Run by a guy named ‘Frank’? Hilarious! And it’d be the last place they’d seriously look for any trace of me. Or at least that’s what I assumed.
But I clearly had some baggage about my dad. Or at least that’s what I told myself. I just never had the time to deal with it. Or at least that’s what I told myself.
For now, I’d just have to avoid addressing Frank by name as I guided him through this. “Stop struggling.” The more he ignored my advice, the tighter my grip on him got. But at some point, something had to give. And as I preferred not to break the guy’s jaw, I gave the talking thing another shot. “Okay, I’ll level with you. You’ve been a good landlord, Frank.”
I shook my head free of a shiver, doing my best to make the motion disarmingly friendly. “Sure, you’re kind of a dick. But no shady stuff. Just honest, if terse, business. I respect that. I’m even grateful for it. And I want to show you my gratitude.”
In answer, his eyes bulged.
Okay, I could see how that kind of sounded like a serial-killer thing to say. I decided to be more careful about that as I lightly shook him to catch his panicked mind fully up with the present. “But there are some dangerous men looking for us. If they walk through that door, I’m dead.” I gestured over to Steph. “She’s dead.” I looked back into Frank’s eyes. “And now you’re probably dead too.”
I shook my head. “I’m truly sorry about that. But it is what it is. For what it’s worth, no one here wants me to leave you alone more than I do. And as soon as I can, I’ll do exactly that.” I flicked my gaze in Stephanie’s direction. “So will she. And we won’t even rob you or anything superfluous to all three of us getting out of this alive. So it’s in all of our best interests if you stop struggling.” I waited a few seconds. I really wished he wouldn’t ignore my advice like that. “NOW.”
Either convinced by my words, or in want of a viable alternative, he finally stopped trying to buck me. Even if his eyes were still full of panic. And denial. And a little too much defiance for everyone’s well being right now.
I needed to nip this in the bud. “I’m sorry to be blunt, but if you insist on causing a problem, I can break your neck to solve it.” No longer filtering anything, I did my best to emphasize how little of a bluff that truly was.
That only made him thrash harder than before.
But my hold was affected exactly as much as then. “Or…”
Apparently giving up any hope of overpowering me, the old man once more went limp and seemed to condense all his defiance into his eyes. Well, at least that meant he was as attentive as I needed him to be right now.
Between those eyes and my own, I raised three fingers. “Or, you can do three things for me.” I lowered a finger. “First… Sit down.” I lowered another. “Second… Shut up.” I curled the hand between us into a tightened fist. “Third…” I adopted as friendly of a tone as I could manage. “Wait.” I dropped the hand to my side. “You’ll just stay in your chair. Totally uninvolved. And you’ll tell the cops that’s just what you did when they question you later. When the time comes, you can honestly say you had nothing to do with us, and didn’t assist us in any way beyond not making us kill you.”
Next, I tried for a genuinely pleasant smile. “And we’ll even pay out our lease once we’re safe.” I considered the inconvenience. “In fact, double it.” I considered the scare we just gave him. “No, triple.”
Frank finally looked more resigned than scared, upgrading his disposition’s equilibrium to primarily resigned and angry. In roughly equal measure. But not much to be done about that. This had to feel pretty emasculating, on top of everything else.
Slowly, giving him as little opportunity as possible to do anything even if he wanted to, I helped Frank to the chair he’d clearly vacated before more or less ‘answering’ the door.
Frank plopped down, still angry, my hand still over his mouth, but now as calm as he was likely to get.
I took a moment to consider how best to phrase this next part. “Now look… I’m sorry about this.”
He made a face like I was crazy. Yeah… Fair enough.
“But I’m going to have to restrain you. If something goes wrong and we’re found out, you looking like a victim might be the only thing standing in the way of being found guilty yourself.” After a moment under the weight of Frank silently calling me out on my bullshit, I relented. “Aaand yes, we need to know you’re not a threat to us. That way, we can focus on leaving without anyone needing to hurt each other.”
Frank seemed to look past his own rage and really consider my words. Eventually, he summarized his feelings with a muffled grunt, single terse nod, and a closing of his eyes. Soon, he was rocking back and forth in his chair, gently swaying to the music. A valiant, if futile attempt to act like we weren’t even here.
I shrugged in a ‘good enough’ sort of way and waited for Steph to finish her work and walk over. Once she was free to supply her own, undoubtedly more welcome hand, I finally took my own off of Frank’s mouth, maintaining eye-contact with him as I got up. I held my gaze until he broke sightlines first. He only glanced back up once after that. And then immediately back down when he realized I was still looking. He stayed that way, at the very least until there was a wall between us.
Searching his kitchen drawers, I found some scissors and a roll of duct tape from the fourth one I tried. Perfect… I glanced longingly at the ripe peaches just sitting there on the counter. Oh that sounded good right now. And after the day I’d had… But no. We’d already horrendously intruded on Frank’s home as it was. I couldn’t quite defend why this felt like a step too far for me. Clearly, far worse lines were crossed before this. But something about eating Frank’s food on top of it all felt somehow worse than the rest.
Walking back, I scrutinized my own moral standards while unrolling a healthy length of duct tape. After binding Frank’s wrists to his chair’s arms with a couple long strips each, I took a smaller one and completely covered his mouth with it. I made sure to leave room enough to breathe before backing up to examine my work. Spotting my mistake, I winced.
The old man was obviously our captive. No reasonable doubt about that. And that was all well and good. But without thinking, I’d completely covered Frank’s mustache and beard with the industrial-strength adhesive. “Oh damn. Sorry… That’s probably gonna be bad later.” After a moment, I decided one more addendum was in order. “You know what? Just for that, let’s quad-” I stopped mid-word as I heard faint running and shouting from just past every wall in the cabin.
The three of us froze, not moving an inch as the noise got gradually closer. And a little louder. And a lot more imposing.
As I heard more people arrive, I added them to my mental count and re-adjusted my escape plan. That lasted right up until I was completely out of ideas. Which happened at precisely 16. 15 goons, we could maybe deal with. If we made no mistakes. And got very, very lucky. But past that? Not a chance in hell. I couldn’t even picture how it’d work. And there were still more coming…
I gestured briskly towards Frank.
He nodded slowly. Hopefully, that meant he got my message that while a living captive was certainly preferable to a dead one, I’d still opt for ‘dead’ over ‘noisy’.
But soon enough, all outside movement stopped. Replacing it, a male voice boomed from just past the front door. “Agent Williams, FBI! We have a warrant for a fugitive who was most recently seen approaching this cabin!” No mistaking it now.
Steph audibly gasped. “Unc-”
I whipped my head over in alarm just in time to see her clap a hand over her own mouth, mid-word. Thank god. We couldn’t afford to verify their assumptions. I knew the law. The slightest hint of a confirmation that we were in here, and they’ll… Woah, hold on. ‘A’ fugitive? Singular?
And Steph sounded genuinely surprised to hear Mikey’s voice. Either she was a far better actor than I thought, or… They didn’t clue her in. She had no idea what was going on. If she did, all she needed to do was say something and this whole farce would be over. So whatever tipped him off, it didn’t come from her personally.
Not that it mattered. The two of us couldn’t run or fight in any case. Not against these numbers. Adding or subtracting a single person wouldn’t have made a difference anyway. The moment that count went past 15, my only hope of getting out of this became them not coming in here.
“If this door is not opened within ten seconds, we WILL force entry!” Aaand that hope was now gone.
I glanced over at the bag with our guns. Apologetically eyeing the now silently sobbing Frank, I mentally prepared for a last stand as I started towards the bag.
“TEN!!!”
I moved as quickly as I dared without too much risk of the floor creaking.
“NINE!!”
Steph did the same, her face telling a tale of equal parts terror and confusion.
“EIGHT!!!”
Too slow. We weren’t gonna make it.
“SEVEN!!!”
I went faster.
“SI-”
The wood squeaked under my foot as I stepped on it just slightly too hard.
At the same moment, Mikey stopped counting mid-number.
I broke into a cold sweat. Hurrying was clearly a mistake. But stopping now would be a worse one.
“TWO!!!”
Wait, that’s cheating! My righteous indignation was quickly replaced with amazement at my own idiocy for assuming there were rules. Let alone with Mikey involved… If anything, I could rely on that Sun-Tzu-quoting asshole taking the most deceptive option available.
“ONE!!!”
Not that I could blame the guy. He obviously beat me with it. Oh. It was over, wasn’t it? Actually, it had already been over. A last stand? Really? Why did I think that was the thing to do? Was I so unwilling to lose that I’d just rage-quit life before it could happen? Pathetic. And too easy. There was only ever one real way out of this.
While I considered how best to surrender, the sound of a distant gunshot cut through the world.
The world answered back with a deafening silence. Steph, me, Frank, everyone outside… None of us made a noise loud enough to be heard over the waves gently crashing against the dock. Like if God hit pause on reality. It lasted for as long as the gunshot’s echoes could be heard over the waves crashing against the dock below.
As though it were meant to signal the start of a race, all noise from outside came back in a moment, only magnitudes louder than before. It redoubled again. And again. None of the people outside were even trying to be stealthy now. But it was too much, and too simultaneous for me to actually make out any words. How many of them were out there? I felt like I was in the middle of an earthquake.
Obviously, neither dock nor house were built to support so much weight or movement at once. Glancing to the side, I could see that Frank was clearly scared.
But he thankfully seemed to accept that he’d be tied to the chair whether or not his house’s shaky foundations could stand up to this kind of abuse. So there was nothing left for him but to remain as still and unobtrusive as possible to at least minimize his own impact on the problem.
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Blessedly, God seemed to turn down reality’s volume just after unpausing it. The noise was all still there. It was just happening further away now.
We were… Safe? But why? Mikey got me. His victory wasn’t just assured. He’d already won. But then he just kind of… Left?
I looked at Steph.
She looked back at me, seeming almost as lost as I felt. Guess she made the same connection… But then her expression changed. Scared one moment, she plastered on a determined look the next. As Steph moved, I felt a swell of pride for the girl. Of course, there was only one thing to do in this situation. And for once, she realized it before I did.
Half-a-pace behind her now, I kept going for the guns. If we were screwed, then we were screwed no matter what we did. But if there was any way out of this, and if we didn’t arm ourselves right now, then we’d only be screwing ourselves in the end.
After a subjective eternity of deceptively-safe-seeming silence, we made it the scant few steps over to our gun bag under the window sill. The same one facing the direction of that gunshot. Maybe we should find a way to look out the window-
But Stephanie was already using Frank’s scissors to carve a pair of eyeholes in the curtain. Damn, she is on the ball right now… Just when we need it, too.
“Good thinking, Steph.”
Even in this abysmal lighting, I could make out her blush as she finished cutting the hole on my side of the curtain.
I bent down to look through and finally see what we were really dealing with here. And what I saw was… Nobody. Why was there nobody? Mikey wouldn’t… No, of course. Looking closer, there were a handful of black figures left squatting discreetly in a half-circle around the cabin’s singular door. The rest seemed to have vacated the premises, swarming like ants around a boat the next row over. So that must be where the gunshot came from. The boat in question had a familiar crane practically welded onto its back-left side. But… The gunshot… Why would a gunshot have come from my boat?
And looking over that way… Yep, there’s Blondie standing a bit down the dock. He’s clearly trying to balance some sort of long, awkward… Is that a goddamned sniper rifle? How the hell did Mikey pull that off? It took nearly two years to traverse the bureaucracy for my own semi-automatic rifle license. Let alone the rifle itself. I couldn’t even imagine… Oh right. He said ‘FBI’ earlier. So that’s Mikey’s actual day job? Wow. Holy shit. That was real? Wait… These are real FBI agents?
Am… Am I a wanted man now? I can’t run to the next state, from the federal government. Even with what’s left of them after The Collapse… There’s no way. Oh my god, we’re in this so deep. And what’ll happen to Jessica? How do I…
I felt dizzy as I threw Steph a wide-eyed glance.
But she looked just as confused and worried. What? Wasn’t Mikey supposed to be her uncle or something? Did she seriously not know about his job?
Did he join the bureau recently? But then why would he be leading those men?
In any event, Stephanie was clearly the least distracted of us right now. “Jason, let’s go.”
I mentally slapped myself for violating one of my main rules. No blame-games in anything but safety. Not ever. Who’d been trying to drill that into who this past year? Taking a calming breath, I shook my head without any calm to speak of. “We can’t.” Tempting as Steph’s optimism was, there was no way we could make it back to the pier without being spotted by every one of those… Actual government agents… Looking specifically for me.
Oh what? Was I feeling lonely in my life’s trip down this toilet? No. That was stupid. More importantly, I was better than that. Time to cut her loose from this sinking… House? “But you can. They’re looking for me. Only Mikey is looking for you. Avoid him seeing your face, and get to the bar at the end of the dock. It’s called ‘Charlie’s’.”
Can Frank hear me? Well, it’s too late now if he can. “Just say you’re with me. She has undocumented basement access to a sewer maintenance tunnel. That’s where we were going in the first place. She’s ready and waiting to get us out. And ‘us’ could just as easily be ‘you’. Well, not just ‘you’. Not ‘me’ is the point.”
Stephanie seemed to deflate as I told her to leave, almost immediately re-inflating with a jolt of inspiration. “Wait, let’s call Steve.”
Steve, huh? That’d be nice… But no. “Steve could get us out of here. If I knew we could count on him, I wouldn’t even be worried.” I met Stephanie’s eye. “But do you really think he’d side with us against the goddamned Government?” I shake my head. “No… I can only think of two people who might help if we asked. Neither of them are Steve. And neither could do anything about this. Both, however, happen to be waiting for us at that bar.”
But Steph clearly had another plan locked and loaded. “Or what about this?” By now, I was pretty sure she defaulted to throwing out the first thing she could think of, only to finalize her real scheme while I babbled about why her distraction-idea wouldn’t work. “If we can get evidence of all these FBI guys waving their guns around in public like this…” She lifted her phone, pointing to its camera. “And if we post it online… No, we livestream. With the right tags and-”
My eyes widened as I actually considered what she was saying. “And then whoever shows up… Media, cops, whoever, we can use them as cover to run for it. If we’re lucky, anyway. If we’re both lucky and careful, we might even get away unnoticed. Amazing idea, Steph.”
Her face visibly brightened at the admittedly rare compliment. Unable to hide a dopey, self-satisfied grin, Steph lined up her phone. As she fiddled with livestream settings, she had another great idea. “Actually, let’s both do it. If it’s just me, people might think it’s fake. But two separate videos of the same scandal?”
Taking out my own phone, it finally dawned on me. “Wait, Steph. No. The instant one of them finds out about the livestream, they’ll just look at the camera angle and come straight for us.” I looked forlornly at the camera facebook. Right next to the telephone-Woah! I had a lot of missed calls. Almost as many voicemails. And more texts than both of them combined. Dozens, even. Every last one from the same number.
Apparently done with yelling warnings up at it, the suits finally stormed the boat itself, about half of them surrounding it from the outside to eliminate blind spots. Is that how they were set up around us a minute ago? Wow, we really were hopelessly-
Steph chose that moment to yell. “Fuck!”
Tensing up, I immediately looked to make sure that… Oh thank Christ, the suits camped around the door hadn’t moved. Confirming that, I threw Steph a severe look. We could not afford that kind of noise right now.
She looked back at me and presumably winced at the same realization. But after a moment, she continued in a whisper. “Remember when I dropped my gun on the boat?”
I nodded.
She winced again. “I forgot to pick it up.”
My heart dropped when I realized we only had the assault rifle left. The only sidearm between us was still on the boat. That was bad for a few reasons. Not the least of which being that with the pistol registered to Stephanie, any court that wanted it had an open-and-shut case on her murder of… A homeless guy? That’s right… I was so groggy. And then immediately thrown into fight-or-flight mode. I nearly forgot… “Steph, what in the hell happened while I was aslee-”
Another gunshot rang out as the boat’s cabin lit up with the muzzle flash. None of the men on the dock seemed alarmed in the least. But those on the boat were scurrying all over. Searching for something? Searching for me, probably.
Stephanie looked and sounded disturbed for some reason. “Did they just pull a coup de grâce on a fucking kid?”
What in the hell was she on about? Steph had tried to ask me something on the boat. But I was too busy trying to leave. What’d she say? Something about ‘Who’s the girl’..? What ‘girl’?
My world imploded as it all clicked. I knew why the dead man on my boat looked familiar. The dead woman… On my boat… The dead… Girl… On my boat… The stupid… Pigheaded… Insane dumbass girl… On… My boat…
This didn’t add up. “No…” Why would she have been there? “No, no, no…” Why then? All those notifications… “Why..?”
{ Today - 2:34 : Hey James. Charlie can’t make it today. He’ll drive me to your place tomorrow. It’s a straight shot from here to Charlottesville, so he said it’s fine }
Oh no…
{ Today - 2:39 : James }
Oh god no…
{ Today - 2:40 : James }
No…
{ Today - 2:45 : James }
NO…
{ Today - 2:50 : James }
NO.
{ Today - 2:51 : Motherfucker }
NO!!!
{ Today - 2:52 : Pick }
NO!!!
{ Today - 2:53 : Up }
NO!!!
{ Today - 2:54 : Fucktard }
NO.
{ Today - 2:55 : Retard }
No.
{ Today - 2:56 : You fucking retard }
No.
{ Today - 2:56 : PICK UP }
No…
{ Today - 3:01 : Bump }
{ Today - 3:11 : Bump }
{ Today - 3:21 : Bump }
{ Today - 3:31 : Bump }
{ Today - 3:41 : Bump }
{ Today - 3:56 : 6980085420 }
What is that last num-Oh. It’s ‘69’. Then ‘BOOBS’ spelled with numbers. Followed by ‘420’. She chose that on purpose. But why ten digits. She was just telling me about something to do with ten digits. What was it? Those stupid remote control spider toys… Their passwords were all ten digits long, weren’t they? Oh. God, no… Please God, no.
My hands trembled as I opened the proprietary facebook she made me download when she bought them. There was supposedly a password for viewing and a password for controlling. Two of the three menu items were grayed out. That meant they were in-use, right? The third item was all that was left. With everything else disabled, this one looked to be highlighted.
It was labeled ‘Brock’.
Brock, at least, I remembered. That was the one we fought about. I had no idea how she got something like that. Of course, she never showed it to me. I would’ve confiscated it if she did. Which she knew. She was always too clever and defiant for any real discipline to stick. She only told me what it meant in case…
I also knew what she wanted from me. She told me after all. Over and over. Until my voice was hoarse from screaming ‘no’ into her stupid, stubborn face. I’d never let her use it. I told myself that, even as she showed me how to access it. But why would she resort to…
“Oh.” Bullet holes… HOLES… “Oh God.” Multiple. “Oh God.” My face was wet for some reason. “Ohgodohgodohgod.”
As calmly as I could, I looked directly into Stephanie’s eyes. “Did you shoot her?”
She recoiled. Whatever Stephanie saw in my gaze seemed to frighten her. Well let’s see… Maybe that was reasonable. “Did… You shoot… Her?”
After a subjective eternity, Steph vehemently shook her head.
My shoulders didn’t so much relax, as allow for any movement at all. At least there was that. “Change of plans, Steph.”
Her eyes moved to my gun. Then to the swarm of suits outside. Then to my face as I reloaded my rifle’s half-empty magazine. “No. Jason, stop.” She reached a hand for my gun.
I slapped it away.
She lowered it. Because what else could she do? “I-” She clearly didn’t know why the plan just changed. But she just as clearly knew there was nothing she could say to dissuade me. Not that I blamed her. I didn’t need a mirror to know what I looked like just now.
With as much purpose as I could muster, I turned the safety off and growled three words. “Get the dolly.”
As though shouldering the weight of the world, Stephanie visibly resisted her instinct to do something else. The tension grew. But then she slumped and practically dragged herself over to the hand cart. Good. This was personal. Between me and whichever one of them killed my sister. Stay uninvolved, Steph. You could still get out of this.
I couldn’t. And she was right to want to stop me. I knew that. I was about to do something very, very stupid. I knew that too. Stupider even than she thought. But the stupidity of it wasn’t important anymore. I would’ve sooner died than do anything else. I knew that most of-
Stephanie seemed to have reconsidered by the time I made it to Frank’s front door. “Jason, please. Whatever you’re doing-”
Neglecting to turn around, my voice became louder than we could really afford just now. “SHUT UP.” Even to me, I didn’t sound like myself. I gave suggestions. Always. But that was an order. Nothing about it even remotely implied a request.
And she seemed to hear the lack of one.
Leaning a bit on the door for balance, I took my phone back out. Back to the stupid toy facebook. I selected ‘Brock’ and entered the password. Every digit was painful to type. And all of them together were incorrect. Wiping my eyes, I tried again. Incorrect again. So I found the last text she sent me. The last text she’d ever… I could hardly see the screen anymore. I copied whatever the blurry mess said.
Back to the toy. I should’ve never even had occasion to open it. Why now? Just as I’d finally… Pasted it in. Most utility facebooks didn’t support that. Of course, this one just had to work. And of course there were no controls. Other than the ‘back’ arrow, there were no buttons of any sort. Only a two-digit number occupied the entire display. I stared into the blurry, bright, wet screen, just trying to make it out. But I couldn’t. Then reading it proved unnecessary as the number of digits was cut in half.
Why’d she have to be so damn… Herself..? Always wanting to help. Always refused. Always doing it anyway. Always stupid. Always genius, always selfish, always selfless. And always, always, always defiant. Always… If she was just normal… If she… Was… If she… Was…
I couldn’t see anything but vague shapes and colors anymore. I wiped my eyes again. It didn’t work again. Wiping them more vehemently, it barely made a difference. Both hands trembling now, the phone cracked in my grip. But even without seeing, I knew when the timer ran out.
That’s when my boat exploded.
On that mark, I threw open the door and saw six men in suits silhouetted by the explosion they were all looking at.
Raising my rifle, I took a deep breath. I held it, trying to remember my method. But there were no questions. Or if there were, they didn’t matter. Nor did the answers. What I did next would define the rest of my life. I knew that even now. I just didn’t care.
Twist, steady, fire, confirm. Shift. Steady, fire, confirm. Twist. Steady, fire, confirm. Pivot. Steady, fire, missed, fire fire confirm. Shift. Steady, fire, confirm. Turn. Steady, unload. Reload.
Just after all six in front of the house dropped dead, the noise and light from the explosion died down as well.
Only silence remained. And only then did I absorb the scene before me. All the agents aboard my boat had been simultaneously burnt, sliced, and crushed by far more fire, shrapnel, and force than could reasonably be summarized as ‘fatal’.
The agents standing next to where the boat was docked didn’t fare much better, even before the rest of that magazine finished them off. The same went for the dock. The faux-wood plastic was melted in splotchy chunks where the burning shrapnel hit it. What it lacked in lasting damage, it more than made up for in smell. And at the center of the blast…
When a scream from behind broke me out of my trance, a hot gun barrel was cooking my thigh. I didn’t jerk it away. Not enough feeling left for that. I simply started walking. No taking in the finer details. Just the warmth of my hands and right leg. The cold of my left. The smell of all the corpses. With their little black jackets. Littering the area around… My whole world. All burning to the ground. And me with it.
Turning in a haze at the dock’s main stretch, I noticed Steph was suddenly lying behind me, whimpering and cradling the bloody hole in her ankle. The cart was gone. Spilled over the side of when she was shot. Not by me, of course.
That honor was Mikey’s. I could barely make out the blondish blackish blur lying just beyond a sniper rifle with half its tripod missing. He was otherwise sprawled out in shambles on the disfigured faux-wood planks. One hand staggered upwards above the gun even as it thunked into the half-melted plastic of the dock. “I surrender!” He waved at me with that same arm, his other one the next best thing to dismembered. He’d clearly been through hell.
Slowly lowering my gun, I began to rigidly walk over. I ignored the still-miles-away coast guard boats blaring sirens and closing in from all sides.
Mikey was visibly relieved. “Oh thank heavens! Good decision, Jameson. There are people coming for me. Just take my keys, take my car, take Stephie, and get out of-”
As soon as I got close enough to see all his features clearly, I raised the assault rifle up and forward. Straight at Mikey’s center mass. Then the screaming began. I pulled the trigger on my heavy semi-automatic gun. Again and again. Each pull was answered by a bullet. All of them buried themselves into the man at my feet.
Time passed. I didn’t know how much. I was still pointing my gun at the sticky red-and-black paste that used to be Mikey. My gun was empty. And I was still screaming. Screaming since the start. Screaming at Mikey. Screaming at the world. Screaming at the only ray of hope I had left. All gone now.
My mouth hung open. Still screaming. But my voice was shot. No sound escaped. I pulled the trigger. Again and again. Each pull was answered by a muted click.
Eventually, my arm fell. I kept pulling the trigger though. I kept hearing the clicks.
Eventually, the bullet-ridden planks gave way. What used to be Mikey splashed into the water below. It immediately went from transparent, to completely opaque. Like a bucket of black paint dumped into a swimming pool.