Nightcrawler
Member
10, Part 3
I startled awake. Quickly looking around, it took me a second to verify that I was in my dorm room, not bleeding in the back of a van in French Guiana. ****. It’d been almost two years and I was still having nightmares. I sat up and rubbed my eyes. My clock said it was just after nine, and it was dark in my room.
I was startled again when my cell phone started to ring. I picked it up and looked at the display; I didn’t recognize the number.
“Hello?”
“Michael! It’s Ling. Listen to me very carefully. You’ve got to get out of there right now. They’re coming for you. Do you understand?”
“What? Wait a second, who…”
“Michael there’s no time!” Ling sounded worried, but calm. “You’re in the dormitory at the university, correct? They’re coming for you. They tracked you back there. They…”
“Wait wait wait…how the hell do you know someone’s coming? I…”
“There’s no time. Get ready and meet us in the parking lot. We’ll be there in a few minutes. Be careful!”
“Okay, okay, I’ll meet you in the parking lot.” I hung up. Christ, I thought. She’d better be right about this. Getting out of bed, I retrieved my revolver from under my pillow and holstered it. I turned on the light, and grabbed a backpack that was sitting on the floor in my closet. The backpack was my bug-out kit. It had everything I needed in it, from money to alternate identification. I slipped my laptop into the pack and set it aside. I went back to my closet and found a small lock box that was on the floor in the corner. Entering the combination, I opened it, and retrieved my Colt Government Model pistol and my S&W snubby revolver. I dropped the Colt, which was still in its holster, into my backpack. I stuffed the snubby into my right pants pocket.
I took one last look into the backpack to ensure everything was there. Satisfied, I zipped it up and stood up. I put my jacket on, then shouldered the backpack. I took one last look around my dorm room, then headed for the door. Before my hand reached the knob, someone started to pound harshly on the door.
“POLICE! Open up!” a voice said, muffled through the door. Cops? ****. It was odd, though. The voice had a strange accent that I couldn’t quite place, and…oh, hell… I dodged to the right just in time. Chunks flew off of my blue wooden door as bullets came ripping through it. I crouched on the floor by my dresser and waited. I counted fifteen or sixteen shots before the firing stopped. I stood up just in time to see my assailant kick the door in. Unfortunately for him, I was ninety degrees to his left as he stepped into my room. By the time he saw me it was too late.
The gunman’s head almost exploded as I shot him in the face with a .44 Magnum jacketed hollow point. Blood splattered on the bathroom door behind him as his body collapsed to the floor. He was no cop; the man was dressed in black, wearing a ski mask. He dropped a Walther P99 as he fell; I left it on the floor and leaned out into the hallway to see what was going on. The noise from my gun, fired in my little twelve-by-twelve room, was deafening, and my ears were ringing.
I peeked left; nothing. I peeked right just in time to see another gunman exit the stairwell, about thirty meters away. He saw me at the same time, but I had my gun up first. The powerful .44 bucked in my hand as I snapped off a shot; the gunman had dodged back into the stairwell just in time, and the bullet blew a chunk off of the door frame. I waited for a split second, and he peeked out again. I fired another round, but missed again. The bullet hit the stairwell door.
The gunman then stuck his gun around the corner and, without looking, began to fire randomly down the hallway. I ducked back into my room as shot after shot struck the wall, floor, and ceiling around me. I hoped to hell his stray rounds wouldn’t go through anybody’s door. The firing ceased; I leaned around the corner again just in time to see the man step out of the stairwell, gun held straight out in both hands. I fired before he did. The bullet struck him in the guts and he doubled over, falling to his knees. I put another round into his chest, and he flopped to the floor, dead.
A door burst open behind me. I turned around just in time to see two more shooters exit the stairwell. The first was also armed with a pistol; he fired off two shots. His shots went wide as I practically let myself fall to my right knee, bringing my gun up as I did so. Before the gunman could reacquire me, my .44 roared again, striking him in the chest. The bullet exited out of his back and shattered the window at the end of the hall in a spray of blood. The second shooter jumped back into the stairwell as my bullets hit his compatriot; the one I’d shot fell onto his back, dropping his pistol with a clatter, and didn’t get up again.
The second shooter appeared again, some kind of short-barreled shotgun in hand. I rolled to the left, back into my dorm room, just in time to avoid catching a load of buckshot. I landed on top of the first gunman’s body, blood and brains staining my clothes, and rolled onto my back. My right hand flew into my pants pocket, grasping the grip of the little .38. The snubby cleared my pocket just as the shotgun-weilding assassin appeared in my doorway. I fired two shots from hip level; the bullets hit the man in the stomach, and he stumbled back, dropping his shotgun. As he stumbled backwards, I extended my arm, drawing a bead, and shot him between the eyes. His body slumped against the wall across the hall from my door.
I finally had a second to breathe and reload. I stuffed the snubby back into my pocket and got up. Leaning back into the hallway, I scanned both sides of the corridor. As I did so, I saw students opening their doors and peeking out into the hallway.
“GET BACK IN YOUR ROOMS!” I screamed, ears still ringing. A few students just looked at me wide-eyed. God damn it. I stepped out into the hallway, holding up the three-inch .44 in my hand. “DO YOU SEE THE ****ING BODIES ON THE FLOOR? GET THE **** BACK IN YOUR ROOMS AND LOCK YOUR ****ING DOORS!” With that, the last of the wide-eyed spectators complied with my shouted command, and the few open doors slammed shut. It was time to go. The cops would be there any minute. I hit the cylinder release on my revolver, and pushed the cylinder out with my right thumb. Grasping the gun through the frame, I ejected the empties and reached to my left hip, where I had a pouch with a spare speedloader. As the empties hit the floor, I realized that there was someone behind me.
“STOP!” the man screamed. I turned my head slightly and saw him pointing an MP5 at me.
“Put your ****ing hands up! Drop the six-shooter! NOW!” There really isn’t much you can do when you’ve got an automatic weapon pointed at the back of your head. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Dropping my revolver, I slowly raised my hands over my head, mind racing. On the plus side, he was taking me prisoner, and I still had my snubby in my pocket. I had a chance. On the minus side, one of his friends could show up at any second, and I’d be pretty much screwed. I decided to act; if these guys captured me, eventually they’d be able to extract everything I knew about EXODUS, and then they’d kill me. **** that.
Keeping my hands in the air, heart pounding above the ringing in my ears, I slowly turned around to face the gunman. Like the others, he was dressed in black and wore a ski mask. He held the submachine gun on me as he spoke into his radio.
“I’ve got him. The others are down. Get up here. Now.” He took a couple steps towards me, and my heart rate slowed. The calm overtook me, and the fact that I thought I was about to die bothered me less. Sooner or later, this guy would have to put his hands on me. When he did, I’d pull the snubby from my pocket and use the last two rounds to kill him. I’d likely be shot by one of his friends a second later, but I wasn’t going to let them take me alive.
In the instant that these thoughts were racing through my mind, I noticed a door behind the gunman slowly open, without making a sound (at least not one that I could hear after all the gunfire).
Oh no. Austin, no… I kept my eyes focused on the gunman as Austin stepped out of his dorm room. At the last instant, I shifted my eyes over to him. Seeing this, the gunman went to turn around, but it was too late.
The bat struck him squarely between the shoulder blades. It was one of those short aluminum ones they use for T-ball. The gunman lurched forward, almost losing his footing, and dropped his weapon with a grunt. As the little submachine gun clattered to the floor, the gunman stepped forward and tried to draw a pistol from his belt. I couldn’t move fast enough to intervene. His gun cleared its holster, and the gunman tried to turn around. He wasn’t fast enough. Austin’s bat struck him in the side of the head with a sickening ding! The gunman inadvertently fired his pistol as he was struck, but the bullet went into the floor. Austin swung again, this time hitting the other side of the man’s head. The shooter went down as my friend raised the bat yet again. Austin viciously clubbed the man in the abdomen, twice, before I could get to him.
“Austin! AUSTIN! HEY!” Austin’s eyes snapped up, focusing on me. He looked like he was in shock. “HEY! I think you got ‘im. Austin? You with me?”
“Y…yeah…yeah…” he said, his intense gaze softening. I slapped him roughly on the shoulder, turned around, and picked up my .44. I twisted the speedloader into the cylinder and snapped it shut. Holstering the revolver, I picked up the gunman’s MP5 and pulled the charging handle back slightly to make sure he’d had a round chambered. I then reached down and pulled the two spare magazines from the gunman’s jacket and stuffed them into my right back pocket. Suddenly Becky appeared behind Austin, grabbing him by the arm. She looked down at the gunman, whom I was pretty sure was dead, and then over at me. I stayed focused on Austin.
“Thank you,” I said. “You saved my life. I gotta go now.”
“What?” he asked, still half in shock.
“Yeah. There are more of these guys. Get back in your room and lock the door. Call the cops. Just tell ‘em what happened. Tell ‘em you think I shot these guys, but didn’t know I had a gun in my room. Oh, and hide that ten grand. They probably won’t search your room.”
“Wait…where are you going?”
“There’s no time. I’ve got to get out of here. This is all my fault. They came for me. You guys are in danger…look, just go, alright? I’m sorry.”
“Are you leaving?” Becky asked.
“Yeah. You probably won’t see me again. Thanks for everything.”
“Just like that?” he asked.
“Yeah, bro, just like that. Sucks, don’t it? Austin, you marry this girl.” I shook Austin’s hand and gave Becky a hug. Stepping back, I smiled at my friends one last time, and turned for the stairwell. I didn’t look back. As I started down the stairs, I heard someone running up the other way. Switching the weapon to my right shoulder, I leaned over the railing and waited. I had to be careful; I didn’t want to shoot the wrong person.
A second later, I saw the man coming up the stairs. He was carrying a Kalashnikov and was wearing a ski mask. Probably not a cop. He saw me just as he hit the second floor landing and raised his weapon. I fired off a long burst, but he jumped back out of sight. A second later I was the one who jumped back as he opened up at me with his assault rifle. The chatter of the AK was deafening in the narrow stairwell, and pieces of cinder block and plaster flew through the air as the rounds stitched up the wall and ceiling. There was a brief pause, then rounds began to rip through the stairs I was standing on. I tumbled to the landing between the second and third floors as half a magazine’s worth of rifle rounds ripped up the staircase.
Somehow, I made it to the landing without dropping my weapon or being shot. The gunman stopped firing; his magazine was empty. I rolled and twisted to my left, bringing the MP5 to bear on him. Firing through the railing, down towards the lower landing, I emptied the rest of the magazine into the masked shooter. Gunfire tore up his body from his stomach to his throat as I put at least fifteen rounds into him. His ventilated body slumped against the wall and slid to the floor; blood was splattered everywhere.
Pushing myself to my feet, I felt a throbbing pain in my right ankle. Limping down the stairs, I guessed that I’d twisted it. I pulled the charging handle back, ejecting a round, and locked it open. I then removed the magazine, and replaced it with a fresh one from my pocket. I slapped the charging handle down, chambering a fresh round, and continued to limp down the stairs, weapon at the ready.
On the first floor, I peeked out into the lobby and saw no one but terrified looking students. Taking a gamble, I dropped the subgun and the spare magazine, and stepped into the lobby.
“Mike, what’s going on?” someone hissed from behind the front desk. She peeked over it a second later.
“I think they’re terrorists. Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Where are the police? I called them already! I heard gunfire from the stairs. Did you see anything? What’s going on?”
“Just stay there. I’ll go check it out.” I took a right and hobbled down the hall. Not seeing any more gunmen, I made my way through the TV room and out the back door. I stepped into the cold night air, into the parking lot, as police sirens wailed from the other side of the building.
Taking a deep breath, I allowed myself one last look at Spanner Hall. As I turned to limp down to the lower parking lot, I realized that I was turning my back in my life as well. Decker had always told us that you can’t get settled, can’t get comfortable, not in this business. That something could happen at any time, and you always had to be ready to bounce. He said that you had to be ready to drop your life and walk away without a second thought.
I felt tears welling up in my eyes. At the time, I didn’t know why.
I startled awake. Quickly looking around, it took me a second to verify that I was in my dorm room, not bleeding in the back of a van in French Guiana. ****. It’d been almost two years and I was still having nightmares. I sat up and rubbed my eyes. My clock said it was just after nine, and it was dark in my room.
I was startled again when my cell phone started to ring. I picked it up and looked at the display; I didn’t recognize the number.
“Hello?”
“Michael! It’s Ling. Listen to me very carefully. You’ve got to get out of there right now. They’re coming for you. Do you understand?”
“What? Wait a second, who…”
“Michael there’s no time!” Ling sounded worried, but calm. “You’re in the dormitory at the university, correct? They’re coming for you. They tracked you back there. They…”
“Wait wait wait…how the hell do you know someone’s coming? I…”
“There’s no time. Get ready and meet us in the parking lot. We’ll be there in a few minutes. Be careful!”
“Okay, okay, I’ll meet you in the parking lot.” I hung up. Christ, I thought. She’d better be right about this. Getting out of bed, I retrieved my revolver from under my pillow and holstered it. I turned on the light, and grabbed a backpack that was sitting on the floor in my closet. The backpack was my bug-out kit. It had everything I needed in it, from money to alternate identification. I slipped my laptop into the pack and set it aside. I went back to my closet and found a small lock box that was on the floor in the corner. Entering the combination, I opened it, and retrieved my Colt Government Model pistol and my S&W snubby revolver. I dropped the Colt, which was still in its holster, into my backpack. I stuffed the snubby into my right pants pocket.
I took one last look into the backpack to ensure everything was there. Satisfied, I zipped it up and stood up. I put my jacket on, then shouldered the backpack. I took one last look around my dorm room, then headed for the door. Before my hand reached the knob, someone started to pound harshly on the door.
“POLICE! Open up!” a voice said, muffled through the door. Cops? ****. It was odd, though. The voice had a strange accent that I couldn’t quite place, and…oh, hell… I dodged to the right just in time. Chunks flew off of my blue wooden door as bullets came ripping through it. I crouched on the floor by my dresser and waited. I counted fifteen or sixteen shots before the firing stopped. I stood up just in time to see my assailant kick the door in. Unfortunately for him, I was ninety degrees to his left as he stepped into my room. By the time he saw me it was too late.
The gunman’s head almost exploded as I shot him in the face with a .44 Magnum jacketed hollow point. Blood splattered on the bathroom door behind him as his body collapsed to the floor. He was no cop; the man was dressed in black, wearing a ski mask. He dropped a Walther P99 as he fell; I left it on the floor and leaned out into the hallway to see what was going on. The noise from my gun, fired in my little twelve-by-twelve room, was deafening, and my ears were ringing.
I peeked left; nothing. I peeked right just in time to see another gunman exit the stairwell, about thirty meters away. He saw me at the same time, but I had my gun up first. The powerful .44 bucked in my hand as I snapped off a shot; the gunman had dodged back into the stairwell just in time, and the bullet blew a chunk off of the door frame. I waited for a split second, and he peeked out again. I fired another round, but missed again. The bullet hit the stairwell door.
The gunman then stuck his gun around the corner and, without looking, began to fire randomly down the hallway. I ducked back into my room as shot after shot struck the wall, floor, and ceiling around me. I hoped to hell his stray rounds wouldn’t go through anybody’s door. The firing ceased; I leaned around the corner again just in time to see the man step out of the stairwell, gun held straight out in both hands. I fired before he did. The bullet struck him in the guts and he doubled over, falling to his knees. I put another round into his chest, and he flopped to the floor, dead.
A door burst open behind me. I turned around just in time to see two more shooters exit the stairwell. The first was also armed with a pistol; he fired off two shots. His shots went wide as I practically let myself fall to my right knee, bringing my gun up as I did so. Before the gunman could reacquire me, my .44 roared again, striking him in the chest. The bullet exited out of his back and shattered the window at the end of the hall in a spray of blood. The second shooter jumped back into the stairwell as my bullets hit his compatriot; the one I’d shot fell onto his back, dropping his pistol with a clatter, and didn’t get up again.
The second shooter appeared again, some kind of short-barreled shotgun in hand. I rolled to the left, back into my dorm room, just in time to avoid catching a load of buckshot. I landed on top of the first gunman’s body, blood and brains staining my clothes, and rolled onto my back. My right hand flew into my pants pocket, grasping the grip of the little .38. The snubby cleared my pocket just as the shotgun-weilding assassin appeared in my doorway. I fired two shots from hip level; the bullets hit the man in the stomach, and he stumbled back, dropping his shotgun. As he stumbled backwards, I extended my arm, drawing a bead, and shot him between the eyes. His body slumped against the wall across the hall from my door.
I finally had a second to breathe and reload. I stuffed the snubby back into my pocket and got up. Leaning back into the hallway, I scanned both sides of the corridor. As I did so, I saw students opening their doors and peeking out into the hallway.
“GET BACK IN YOUR ROOMS!” I screamed, ears still ringing. A few students just looked at me wide-eyed. God damn it. I stepped out into the hallway, holding up the three-inch .44 in my hand. “DO YOU SEE THE ****ING BODIES ON THE FLOOR? GET THE **** BACK IN YOUR ROOMS AND LOCK YOUR ****ING DOORS!” With that, the last of the wide-eyed spectators complied with my shouted command, and the few open doors slammed shut. It was time to go. The cops would be there any minute. I hit the cylinder release on my revolver, and pushed the cylinder out with my right thumb. Grasping the gun through the frame, I ejected the empties and reached to my left hip, where I had a pouch with a spare speedloader. As the empties hit the floor, I realized that there was someone behind me.
“STOP!” the man screamed. I turned my head slightly and saw him pointing an MP5 at me.
“Put your ****ing hands up! Drop the six-shooter! NOW!” There really isn’t much you can do when you’ve got an automatic weapon pointed at the back of your head. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Dropping my revolver, I slowly raised my hands over my head, mind racing. On the plus side, he was taking me prisoner, and I still had my snubby in my pocket. I had a chance. On the minus side, one of his friends could show up at any second, and I’d be pretty much screwed. I decided to act; if these guys captured me, eventually they’d be able to extract everything I knew about EXODUS, and then they’d kill me. **** that.
Keeping my hands in the air, heart pounding above the ringing in my ears, I slowly turned around to face the gunman. Like the others, he was dressed in black and wore a ski mask. He held the submachine gun on me as he spoke into his radio.
“I’ve got him. The others are down. Get up here. Now.” He took a couple steps towards me, and my heart rate slowed. The calm overtook me, and the fact that I thought I was about to die bothered me less. Sooner or later, this guy would have to put his hands on me. When he did, I’d pull the snubby from my pocket and use the last two rounds to kill him. I’d likely be shot by one of his friends a second later, but I wasn’t going to let them take me alive.
In the instant that these thoughts were racing through my mind, I noticed a door behind the gunman slowly open, without making a sound (at least not one that I could hear after all the gunfire).
Oh no. Austin, no… I kept my eyes focused on the gunman as Austin stepped out of his dorm room. At the last instant, I shifted my eyes over to him. Seeing this, the gunman went to turn around, but it was too late.
The bat struck him squarely between the shoulder blades. It was one of those short aluminum ones they use for T-ball. The gunman lurched forward, almost losing his footing, and dropped his weapon with a grunt. As the little submachine gun clattered to the floor, the gunman stepped forward and tried to draw a pistol from his belt. I couldn’t move fast enough to intervene. His gun cleared its holster, and the gunman tried to turn around. He wasn’t fast enough. Austin’s bat struck him in the side of the head with a sickening ding! The gunman inadvertently fired his pistol as he was struck, but the bullet went into the floor. Austin swung again, this time hitting the other side of the man’s head. The shooter went down as my friend raised the bat yet again. Austin viciously clubbed the man in the abdomen, twice, before I could get to him.
“Austin! AUSTIN! HEY!” Austin’s eyes snapped up, focusing on me. He looked like he was in shock. “HEY! I think you got ‘im. Austin? You with me?”
“Y…yeah…yeah…” he said, his intense gaze softening. I slapped him roughly on the shoulder, turned around, and picked up my .44. I twisted the speedloader into the cylinder and snapped it shut. Holstering the revolver, I picked up the gunman’s MP5 and pulled the charging handle back slightly to make sure he’d had a round chambered. I then reached down and pulled the two spare magazines from the gunman’s jacket and stuffed them into my right back pocket. Suddenly Becky appeared behind Austin, grabbing him by the arm. She looked down at the gunman, whom I was pretty sure was dead, and then over at me. I stayed focused on Austin.
“Thank you,” I said. “You saved my life. I gotta go now.”
“What?” he asked, still half in shock.
“Yeah. There are more of these guys. Get back in your room and lock the door. Call the cops. Just tell ‘em what happened. Tell ‘em you think I shot these guys, but didn’t know I had a gun in my room. Oh, and hide that ten grand. They probably won’t search your room.”
“Wait…where are you going?”
“There’s no time. I’ve got to get out of here. This is all my fault. They came for me. You guys are in danger…look, just go, alright? I’m sorry.”
“Are you leaving?” Becky asked.
“Yeah. You probably won’t see me again. Thanks for everything.”
“Just like that?” he asked.
“Yeah, bro, just like that. Sucks, don’t it? Austin, you marry this girl.” I shook Austin’s hand and gave Becky a hug. Stepping back, I smiled at my friends one last time, and turned for the stairwell. I didn’t look back. As I started down the stairs, I heard someone running up the other way. Switching the weapon to my right shoulder, I leaned over the railing and waited. I had to be careful; I didn’t want to shoot the wrong person.
A second later, I saw the man coming up the stairs. He was carrying a Kalashnikov and was wearing a ski mask. Probably not a cop. He saw me just as he hit the second floor landing and raised his weapon. I fired off a long burst, but he jumped back out of sight. A second later I was the one who jumped back as he opened up at me with his assault rifle. The chatter of the AK was deafening in the narrow stairwell, and pieces of cinder block and plaster flew through the air as the rounds stitched up the wall and ceiling. There was a brief pause, then rounds began to rip through the stairs I was standing on. I tumbled to the landing between the second and third floors as half a magazine’s worth of rifle rounds ripped up the staircase.
Somehow, I made it to the landing without dropping my weapon or being shot. The gunman stopped firing; his magazine was empty. I rolled and twisted to my left, bringing the MP5 to bear on him. Firing through the railing, down towards the lower landing, I emptied the rest of the magazine into the masked shooter. Gunfire tore up his body from his stomach to his throat as I put at least fifteen rounds into him. His ventilated body slumped against the wall and slid to the floor; blood was splattered everywhere.
Pushing myself to my feet, I felt a throbbing pain in my right ankle. Limping down the stairs, I guessed that I’d twisted it. I pulled the charging handle back, ejecting a round, and locked it open. I then removed the magazine, and replaced it with a fresh one from my pocket. I slapped the charging handle down, chambering a fresh round, and continued to limp down the stairs, weapon at the ready.
On the first floor, I peeked out into the lobby and saw no one but terrified looking students. Taking a gamble, I dropped the subgun and the spare magazine, and stepped into the lobby.
“Mike, what’s going on?” someone hissed from behind the front desk. She peeked over it a second later.
“I think they’re terrorists. Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Where are the police? I called them already! I heard gunfire from the stairs. Did you see anything? What’s going on?”
“Just stay there. I’ll go check it out.” I took a right and hobbled down the hall. Not seeing any more gunmen, I made my way through the TV room and out the back door. I stepped into the cold night air, into the parking lot, as police sirens wailed from the other side of the building.
Taking a deep breath, I allowed myself one last look at Spanner Hall. As I turned to limp down to the lower parking lot, I realized that I was turning my back in my life as well. Decker had always told us that you can’t get settled, can’t get comfortable, not in this business. That something could happen at any time, and you always had to be ready to bounce. He said that you had to be ready to drop your life and walk away without a second thought.
I felt tears welling up in my eyes. At the time, I didn’t know why.
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don't get a swollen head ) now.