Chapter 12

the last stand

It seemed like an eternity before the transport busses arrived to ferry the

refugees from their burning world.

The team watched as one by one the houses fell, flaming dominos, until

the whole block was one huge fire. The residents had to be held back several

times, wanting to risk their very lives for the sake of retrieving a few

personal items.

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 Danny thought that at this stage of their lives, memories were all they had

left…and now the flames had claimed those.

As he watched the last of them board the bus he reached for his lapel mike.

"Team three thirty two, we’re complete here. Notify the responding fire

crews that at least nine structures are involved in the fire at this time."

The four of them returned to their car, mentally exhausted and emotionally

spent. None of them spoke as they headed to their next call. Not surprisingly

it was a code three call.

Several medical workers were trapped in a clinic near the Lunsford

Towncenter Plaza, the site of the team’s earlier victory over the looters.

En route to their call they passed by the Kingman Arms, still billowing

smoke and flames. Buses had removed the inhabitants of the Arms to safe

havens somewhere outside the central city. The gangster that had killed the

fireman still lay in the street. The body had been stripped of all jewelry and

clothing and stray cats prowled over the body, having already chewed off

several of his fingers.

Willie couldn’t help but stare at the macabre sight, knowing that this was

the end result of his work. He bit his lower lip to keep it from quivering.

Further down the street lay two more bodies which had also been stripped

of their earthly possessions. Three small children gathered around the

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corpses and poked at them with sticks. Danny thought about how he had

poked at dead birds when he was a kid and wondered if anyone in his right

mind would consider this progress or evolution.

Team three thirty two finally arrived at the Plaza. As they screeched into

the parking lot, groups of looters dropped their bounty and scattered, still

remembering the dose of gas they had gotten earlier.

Danny drove past the scurrying cockroaches toward the clinic, which was

set apart from the rest of the strip mall. Shadows darted through broken

windows carrying computers, coffee makers, paper shredders. The team

waited for the last of the figures to disappear before exiting the car.

Normally they would have fanned out, surrounding the building and

evaluating the perimeter. With no radios to keep them in contact though,

they were forced to maintain constant lines of sight. They would all go in

through the front and whoever ran out the back...see ya’ wouldn’t wanna be

ya’.

"I’ll go in first." Chad said volunteering to be the point man. Nikki

handed him the shotgun and her last box of shells.

Willie, still in a dark funk over the youth he was forced to shoot, was

more than glad to bring up the rear. Chad chambered a round into the

shotgun, clicked on the barrel-mounted flashlight and waited for Danny to

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open the door.

A slight tug on the handle showed the door to be unsecured.

Everyone's eyes darted from face to face, hesitating for just a second

before they began entry. They each wondered what horrific sights awaited

them inside the clinic, each call having topped the last in carnage.

Once they had gathered their wits, Danny swung the door open, dislodging

the mini blinds from their brackets, sending them crashing to the floor. Chad

flattened himself against the wall along with everyone else, evaluating the

situation and, most of all, making sure he didn’t pee himself.

"It was just the fucking blinds!" he said forcing a chuckle. There went the

element of surprise.

Once again Danny pulled the door open and Chad stepped away from the

wall, getting a good angle to illuminate the left half of the room while still

presenting as small a target as possible. Seeing no one there, he slowly slid

to the left, exposing the room to the flashlight beam a small segment at a

time, ‘cutting the pie’ they called it. As he swept from left to right he could

plainly see reflections of the hidden walls in the picture glass across the

room. No one behind the doorframe.

The team entered the room with their weapons at low ready still mindful

that someone could be hiding under a desk or crouching behind a file

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cabinet.

"This is the Police! Is anybody here?" shouted Chad

They all held their breath and listened...no reply.

Now that the room was cleared they could fan out within its walls and

check down connecting hallways.

"Look at this." Nikki said drawing the team’s attention to a fire escape

chart that was hanging on the wall.

The chart showed two main hallways leading from the reception/waiting

room area off of which were four or five examination rooms. Both of those

hallways then emptied into a maze of cubicles and storage rooms to the rear

of the building.

"Let’s clear the right hallway first." Chad said, feeling somewhat in

command of the situation.

The team flanked the hallway, Willie and Nikki on one side and Chad and

Danny on the other. Chad cut the corner, shining his light down the hallway

just in time to see a hand and a gun poke from behind a plant and fire off

three rounds.

Dust and drywall chips exploded into the room. Danny flinched back,

tripping over a chair in the waiting area sending him sprawling on his back.

He struggled to get to his feet, keeping the barrel of his gun pointed in the

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vicinity of the hallway in case a gunman followed the bullets.

"Fuck me!" Willie yelled pushing Nikki closer to the wall.

Two more shots were fired sending more wood and drywall flying. The

team was pinned there, realizing full well that drywall was no protection

from a flying bullet. The gunman had the distinct advantage of not giving a

shit where he fired or whom he shot. The team, on the other hand, was

forced to hold their fire, not knowing if there were hostages in the adjoining

rooms.

Another shot exploded...more dust and confusion.

"I’m going ‘round the other side and see what I can see." Willie

whispered to Nikki.

"Willie, no!" But before the words had left her mouth, Willie disappeared

around the corner.

Danny and Chad looked at Nikki in disbelief and all she could do was

shake her head. She broke for the corner as if to follow Willie but Chad and

Danny shouted out in unison.

"Nikki, stop!"

She looked at the two of them, then at the corner around which Willie had

just gone, then back at the two of them...then she disappeared around the

corner.

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 "Shit!" Danny said slapping the wall with his palm.

As if that was his cue, the gunman fired off three more rounds peeling off

more of the wall. Danny and Chad crouched down below the level the

bullets had been hitting.

"What the hell do we do now?" asked Chad.

"Hell, I don’t know." Danny replied. "You wanna cross that hallway?"

"We gotta do something!" Chad said, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

"Fuck it, I’m going!" He took three quick Lamaze style puffs and darted

across the hallway. Two shots came his way but went wide of their mark,

knocking a ceiling panel to the floor.

Danny crouched low and ran like a constipated duck across the killing

zone. He turned to face the hallway entrance, waiting for the son of a bitch

to follow, but he didn’t. He continued to walk backward until he bumped

into Chad waiting at the entrance to the left hallway. Chad cleared the corner

with Danny glued to his back and they slid down the hallway wall like they

were joined at the hip.

Now they had one more thing to worry about. Not only did they have to

watch for hostages and a trigger-happy thug, they now had to worry about

shooting (or being shot) by their own team members!

Danny wished he had never left art school.

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 Danny and Chad flipped lights at random hoping to illuminate the dark

maze of examination rooms and cubicles but the power was out to the whole

building. The only light was provided by their own flashlights and the

battery operated exit signs. They both made mental notes of where those

signs were in case they had to bail out in a hurry.

Every few feet the two of them stopped to listen for footfalls. Danny

hoped he could tell the difference between a crook’s footsteps and a cops.

He compared his tennis shoe footsteps to Chad's combat boots and

determined that he couldn’t.

One by one they cleared the rooms, every so often whispering out Willie

and Nikki’s names. They still flipped a random switch or two knowing full

well that nothing would happen. Now they stood at the opposite end of the

hall, the end that emptied into the cubicles. Nikki and Willie had to be in

here somewhere. There was no place left to go.

Once again Chad rounded the corner and was met by a hail of bullets.

This point man thing was for the birds!

"Willie, Nikki, you in there?" Danny shouted.

"Yeah we’re here!" he heard Willie yell from the other side of the room.

"Are you shooting at us?"

Danny got his answer as three more rounds flew in their direction.

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The gunman lurched from cubicle to cubicle closing the space between

himself, Willie and Nikki.

"He’s moving toward us!" Nikki shouted. "Hold your fire!"

Chad and Danny felt totally helpless. Chad started from behind cover just

as another shot came his way. It struck a cubicle wall sending foam pieces

floating into the air. The slug also struck the cubicle’s metal frame slicing

off a shard of lead, which caught Chad in the side of the face. He stumbled

to the floor, blood already obscuring his vision.

"Danny, I’ve been hit!"

"How bad?" Danny asked starting to feel a strange sense of deja vu.

"I think it just grazed me!"

"Can you move? Where were you hit?"

"In the face! Danny I can’t see!"

"Holy fuck!" Danny thought "Now what?"

The gunman kept firing on Willie and Nikki’s position. Danny could hear

the thug moving across the room and knew they couldn’t hold out much

longer.

"Chad, stay here!"

"No I’m okay. I just got blood in my eyes. I can see okay now!"

Danny didn’t have time to argue...or think! He slowly rose from behind

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cover and snaked his way toward the sound of the gunfire. The gunman

seemed focused on Willie and Nikki so Danny got what he guessed couldn’t

have been more than fifteen feet from him.

The gunman continued to fire as he advanced on the two trapped officers.

Danny thought that he seemed to have a never-ending supply of

ammunition. Just then, Willie felt forced as far into the corner as he was

willing to go. Danny saw him kick the cubicle wall in front of him causing it

to crack at the joint and sending it crashing to the floor in a swirl of papers.

Willie fired twice at the gunman missing both times. The gunman returned

fire, striking Willie in the shoulder.

Danny watched in horror as Willie spiraled in slow motion to the floor.

Nikki and Danny fired simultaneously on the gunman's position, never

having a clear target. They put bullets through the cubicle dividers and sent

them ricocheting off the floors and walls. The gunman stood from behind

cover, blood running from his chest.

Just then Chad jumped up from the floor, leveled his shotgun at the

gunman and let a round fly. Pellets and wadding flew through the air but

never reached their intended target.

Willie, having only suffered a flesh wound, rose to take revenge on his

attacker. As he did so he caught the full force of Chad’s shotgun blast in the

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back of his head. A sickening red spray washed over the gunman, mingling

with his own blood as he slowly sank to the floor.

"Oh my God!" Chad choked out, letting the shotgun slip from his hands.

Danny and Nikki rushed to Willie who was laying face down on the floor.

Danny reached down and turned him over. Nikki’s eyes filled with horror

and she ran to the corner and started throwing up. Danny himself suppressed

the urge to vomit as he looked at his friend. The flesh on the side of Willie’s

face hung in tatters and his eyeball lay on his cheek still attached by a few

strands of muscle. Danny turned the body gently back over.

He walked over to the gunman who lay gurgling his last breaths and

began stomping on his head. He stomped and stomped until the gurgling

ceased. Danny then doubled over and puked on the corpse. This was far

more respect than the cocksucker deserved.

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