Fatally Haunted

by Rachel Howzell Hall

  We can’t predict how we will react to a dire situation. Not the first time, nor the tenth. Extensive conditioning enables military and law enforcement professionals to respond as trained—more or less. That gives them an edge, but even that is no guarantee.

  I’m reacting for the first time in years with a civilian mindset, but I carry my combat training and experience. I’ve seen carnage from weapons like these, so I’m never surprised, exactly. I carry the trauma as well—it’s always a shock.

  Customers and bank officers turn in their chairs to look at the commotion and see the weapons display. A few officers reach under the lip of their desk; unseen fingers probably press silent alarm buttons. Other officers sit up as their jaws drop.

  At the parking lot end of the lobby, one Hawaiian Shirt sports a fake-looking scar on his cheek. A prosthetic. Rifle at the ready, Scar approaches the security guard. “Hand over your weapon, carefully.”

  The guard is nonreactive, attentive and calm. Middle aged, but lean and hard. The way he flicks his gaze at the other gunmen makes me think he would take Scar one-on-one. Not his first rodeo. He unholsters his pistol and gives it to Scar.

  The young Filipina mother covers the baby. Her tiya shields them both.

  I face the tellers, pretending to watch Young Red freak, and pan my gaze to watch everything. Because I’m a lefty, I notice all the Hawaiian Shirts are righties. Each holds their weapon at an identical low ready position. Trained by the same trainer. Yet the way they stand and move says amateur. I find amateurs dangerous in their own unpredictable ways.

  Customers huddle together or stand frozen, alone. A few get on their phones or even appear to take photos or video. The nice men with guns persuade them to give up their phones.

  Scar orders the patrons in the teller area to lie down. Most collapse or dive to the floor. Young Red staggers about, screaming and squeaking, until Scar slams his rifle butt against Young Red’s head.

  Customers gasp and scream. Hawaiian Shirts stomp around yelling, “Shut up. Shut up.” Customers quiet down.

  I feel bad for Young Red, splayed out on the cold marble. I feel bad for everyone here. I think of my wounded and killed Marines, cut down too young. Lives changed, or ended. I brought home as many as I could.

  I want these people to go home today. I look at Kim. I want her to survive.

  I take a deep breath. Be a Marine again. I look around for a weapon. That. I snap a pen off its beaded metal chain and palm it. I scan the bank.

  The branch manager leads Jet-Black into the vault. Watching them from the vault door, a sun-bleached blond with flattop like a bristle brush wields a shotgun. I designate him Bristle.

  Bristle says to a customer, “Sit down. You aren’t going anywhere unless I say so.”

  The Slavic-looking dude positions himself to cover the loan officers and applicants. He taps his shotgun muzzle on a desk, snaps his fingers several times for their attention. I designate him Snaps.

  The Black Irish gunman pulls on his ear lobe. Repeatedly. I designate him Tic.

  Tic tells the tellers, “Empty your drawers, and don’t push any alarm buttons.”

  Horses are out of that barn, buddy.

  Scar apparently thinks Kim is too slow to drop. He pushes her ahead of him away from the tellers. My eyes meet Kim’s as they pass. I needn’t have worried about Scar noticing my attention; he’s focused on Kim’s backside.

  Oh-oh. Red flag.

  I pocket the pen and follow as if ordered, but far enough behind that Scar doesn’t notice. They turn into the hallway. He pushes Kim into a cheaply furnished break room. I stop at the doorway. Scar backs Kim against the far wall and says, “Take off your clothes.”

  For sure I’m not letting this happen. I glide into the break room and pick up a broom leaning against a vending machine.

  Kim keeps her eyes locked on Scar. Good girl. She crosses her arms and juts out her chin. “So you aren’t a professional bank robber. You’re just an asshole.”

  Scar holds up his rifle. “I’m an asshole with a gun. See?”

  Holding the broom handle like a rifle with attached bayonet, I thrust its tip into Scar’s head just above his neck. Scar stumbles in place, out cold on his feet. I leap up, reach over the top of his head to claw at his forehead, and chop a knife hand blow to his throat.

  Scar falls to the white marble floor. Even if he comes to, he won’t be talking soon.

  “Kim,” I whisper. “Help me get him out of sight.”

  We drag Scar into a janitorial closet. I find zip ties on a bottom shelf and hogtie his wrists to his ankles. Back in the break room, I point at a table. “Okay, Kim, you sit there. Face the closet with your hands up like he’s covering you.”

  Kim nods. She stares wide-eyed at Scar bound on the floor.

  Listening for any approach, I pick up Scar’s AR-15. I move the safety switch to the safe position—with great care. A buddy accidentally discharged an unfamiliar rifle by flipping a badly designed safety switch too far, so I’m careful with any strange gun.

  I drop the magazine and find it full. I rack the slide to ensure no round is in the barrel. I shake the rifle; the sling swivels rattle. I find duct tape, DIY best friend, and silence the swivels. I slap in the mag, rack again to put one in the pipe.

  Good to go. I flip the safety down to the fire position. I’m glad these are true civilian weapons. Full automatic fire is imprecise, best used for suppression. Here in the bank, full auto bursts could wound a lot of people.

  I push the door away from the wall a bit to hide behind, but I also position myself beyond the swing so it won’t smash my face or weapon. I stand in high ready position.

  Kim gives me a look.

  I respect her skepticism, but I say only, “It’ll be okay.”

  A man’s deep voice booms out in the hall. “Dude, we don’t have time for your crap.”

  Kim raises her hands.

  Tic enters the break room, sees Kim. “What are you doing? Where’s…that guy?” He almost says a name.

  Kim remains silent, stares at the closet. Tic keeps talking, advancing toward Kim. He pauses to pull on his ear.

  I step out behind him and clock him with the rifle butt. Tic face plants on white marble.

  Kim and I drag him into the closet and lay him beside Scar.

  I unload Tic’s ammo into my cargo pockets, hide his rifle inside a low cabinet against the opposite wall, and we reset. I can tell by the way she fidgets that Kim is having a hard time with the adrenaline surge.

  Snaps cautiously enters the break room. I see his face react when he catches a glimpse of me through the gap at the door hinges. As he swings his shotgun around I step out firing the AR-15. My first round whizzes over his shoulder. The next two hit his torso, center mass.

  The sound of Snaps’s shotgun blast echoes off the hard floor and walls, ringing in my ears. His buckshot hits the marble and several pellets bounce up into my shins.

  I ignore the pain and shoot him through the cheek. No flak jacket up there.

  Brain matter flies out the back of his skull and his breath shudders.

  I step over the corpse and stick my head out into the hall. Bristle is coming with his shotgun. I pull back, my pulse banging in my head.

  Bristle’s shotgun fills the hall with heat and buckshot. My ears begin to hear again—customers are screaming with each gunshot.

  I pop out and send three shots in return.

  Bristle ducks behind a corner.

  I pull back into the break room as his next blast flies by.

  Trapped. Have to stay ready to hit Bristle if he rushes me, hold out for the cavalry. I glance around quickly.

  “What are you looking for?” Kim stays crouched behind a chair.

  “You got anything in that huge bag of tricks I can use as an extendable mirror?”

  Kim fumbles in her purse, attaches a compact mirror to her selfie stick. “Here.”

  “Wow,
cool.”

  We tilt a table onto the floor and I return to the doorway with the mirror.

  Kim gets behind the table and peeks over. “You’re bleeding.”

  “Uh, gee, thanks for the reminder.” I feel the hot metal now, each ball of buckshot searing its own hole into a shinbone.

  I flip down the light switch to darken the break room. I ease Kim’s mirror just out the doorway near the floor, steady as I can so it doesn’t grab Bristle’s attention. To see him in the mirror I have to face away from him, so I plan out where to place my feet to spin and shoot.

  Empty corridor. He could be staying around either corner where the hall spills into the lobby.

  Faraway sirens get louder. Cops should be here soon, to surround and communicate, or maybe just crash.

  A small caliber handgun fires. Jet-Black’s .44 Magnum booms. More shouts and screams. In the mirror, Bristle’s blond head and flower shirt bob away.

  I set down the mirror, spin into the hall. My feet slide on buckshot as I sprint to the lobby.

  Near the vault, the guard holds a small hideout pistol—a standoff with Jet-Black holding a vault bag of loot in one hand.

  Twenty yards from them, Bristle fires a round and his buckshot sprays the guard and some customers. Jet-Black fires away at the falling guard.

  As I draw a bead on Bristle’s head, the now prone guard returns fire, hitting Bristle’s body armor. The low-caliber bullets let Bristle to stay on his feet, but make him stagger out of my sight picture. I align my iron sight on his head again and squeeze twice.

  Bristle goes down.

  Jet-Black fires a wild shot past me, swings back to the guard as he rolls up to a half kneeling position. The guard’s next shot clips her ear and her shades break into flying fragments. She grunts, drops her vault bag to use a two-handed grip and shoots the guard in the shoulder.

  I put my front sight on her reddening ear. Customers and staff fill the bottom of my sight picture, a shooting term for what I see around my front sight. Got to take the shot. I drop one knee to the floor, elevating my shot angle enough toward the ceiling to miss innocents.

  I hope.

  I squeeze the trigger.

  Jet-Black, her exposed eyes manic, blinks in the light. She swings her arms around to bear on me.

  Front sight, front sight. Forcing myself to be gentle, I squeeze again.

  “Felix. You need to hold this.” I shove the AR-15 beneath the guard’s arm resting on the floor.

  “Huh?” The guard is lucid, we’ve been talking as I staunched his bleeding, but he doesn’t know why I’m talking about the rifle.

  “I can’t be holding weapons when the cops enter. They’ll shoot me for sure.”

  “The robbers are all down.”

  “I don’t want the cops to shoot me.” My voice shakes a bit. I force myself to breathe.

  “Right. Disarmed. Good idea.” Felix grimaces in pain.

  I fold my jacket under Felix’s head for a pillow. I apply pressure to the gauze pad I hold on his entry wound and recheck the gauze on his exit wound.

  “Besides,” I say, “there’s the Vietnam vet thing. I had to deal with old Marines sometimes, and not all of them loved Vietnamese people.”

  Felix focuses on me. Sparks fly from his gaze. “Loved? They hated Vietnamese. Everyone they shot was Vietnamese. Everyone who shot at them was Vietnamese. They saw all ARVN as unreliable, no matter how many competent soldiers fought alongside. They saw all civilians as hidden Viet Cong, no matter how many they met.”

  I change the dressing on Felix’s shoulder. “You were there?”

  “No, I was Philippine Marines—busy fighting Moros. But lots of veterans told me how they felt. And other guys told me how in basic training and boot camp they got stood up front. Trainers and D.I.s pointed at their faces and said, ‘This is what the enemy looks like.’ Called them every vile name they learned In Country. That continued for years after the last U.S. troops pulled out.”

  I go very still. I’ve been called some of those names.

  Felix mumbles something in rough Tagalog, including expletives. He glares again. “They came home and saw all Asians as the enemy.”

  A bullhorn at the front door: “This is the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. We are entering the bank. Put your hands on your head and stay perfectly still.”

  I sit on my heels next to Felix, face the front door and put my hands on my head.

  “Hey, don’t worry, Cat, all Vietnam vets retired now. Veterans who are cops now, they want to shoot Arabs, Afghans, Pakistanis. Sikhs because they wear turbans. They don’t shoot us. We don’t look like Omar Sharif.”

  “Who?”

  Felix rolls his eyes and drops his head on my jacket. “You’re too young.”

  A dozen deputies swarm in, sweeping their eyes and weapons across everyone in the bank. White, black, Hispanic—and Asian. I believed Felix, but only now do I breathe easy.

  Each cop starts to check every person. Once cleared, people keep their hands on head and move toward the front door.

  Kim rushes out of the hallway. She carries the rifle and shotgun like a pair of fresh-caught salmon, grasping their muzzles like gills. “There are more robbers back there.”

  A bunch of guns point her way. My heart stops a moment.

  “Customer!” I yell. “She’s a customer!”

  Déjà vu.

  A big male voice calls out, “Put the weapons down! Now!”

  Kim yells out, “Don’t shoot!” She drops the guns and points back toward the break room. The guns hit the floor, bounce and flip into the air like giant dancing sticks of dynamite.

  I hold my breath until the guns stop bouncing.

  The attempted robbery felt like hours, but the entire incident lasted only twenty minutes. With a sheriff’s station right in Diamond Bar, the first few LASD deputies arrived within ten minutes of the alarms. They barely had time to cordon off the street before all the shooting. Took a lot longer for the deputies to sort out these witnesses and conduct preliminary interviews.

  The first team of paramedics does triage. Since I’m walking, they’ll deal with me after the guard and customers suffering from worse wounds. More paramedics arrive to put those folks on gurneys and rush them to the hospital.

  Kim and I comfort each other with a hug. Kim looks down at Jet-Black, collapsed just a few feet away. “Is she alive?”

  An EMT bandaging Jet-Black looks up at us. Her nametag patch reads CHEN. “Knocked out. The bullet bounced off her skull. Amazing it didn’t penetrate.”

  I shake my head. “She’s hard headed.”

  EMT Chen moves off to patch a wound on a nearby bank customer.

  I feel the pen in my pocket and pull it out. I dangle its broken chain like a lizard’s stumpy tail.

  Kim looks at the pen. “What’s that doing in your pocket?”

  I chuckle. “Took it off the counter. Weapon of last resort; glad I didn’t need it. Guess they’ll charge me for it. Hey, hope they don’t call it theft.”

  Kim cackles. “That would make you a bank robber.” We laugh together, louder than the joke deserves, but it feels so good. What a relief.

  EMT Chen returns to Jet-Black, says to her partner, “Thready pulse. Shooting one CC of epinephrine to keep her from going into shock.” She thumps Jet-Black’s vein by flicking a fingertip. She slides a syringe needle in, and pushes the plunger. She sets aside the syringe and lifts Jet-Black’s eyelid, checks pulse again on the throat. “Should respond soon. When do we get a gurney here?”

  Jet-Black abruptly sits up like a puppet on a string and knocks aside Chen’s hands. Jet-Black blinks her eyes several times. The EMTs, Kim, and I all stare. I look around—deputies working all over the bank, all busy.

  I turn back to see Jet-Black palm strike Chen to the face. She sees me and says, “You!” She pulls off her belt buckle to wield a push knife between fisted fingers, a two-inch double-edged blade. S
he crawls and lunges out from her knees.

  I sweep Kim to the side. Jet-Black thrusts the knife at me.

  I pivot off-line and parry. I bring my pen hand up and over Jet-Black’s arm, thrust the pen into her throat, then tackle her facedown to the floor.

  She twists her wrist to slash at me. A hardhead indeed.

  I pound hammer fists on a pressure point near the crook of her elbow, numbing her fingers. I grab her knife and toss it to the floor.

  I get one of her arms into a surfboard wrestling hold and press my bodyweight on her upper back. Jet-Black tries to roll, but I counter. She pulls the pen out of her throat and blood gushes as she tries to stab me. Applying a wristlock I disarm her. Jet-Black bucks under me a few times more and goes still.

  Holding her bruised cheek EMT Chen cautiously approaches us. She checks Jet-Black’s pulse, drops her shoulders. She looks at me and shakes her head. Only then do I sit up.

  Chen says, “You okay?”

  Am I okay?

  Yes.

  No.

  Maybe.

  Weak-kneed and exhausted, Kim and I limp out of the bank. We hunker down on a concrete bench near the parking lot. The team that worked on Jet-Black finds us and finishes triage. After pronouncing Kim intact, Chen treats my buckshot wounds.

  Chen’s male partner says, “No running for a while. Once you get home keep your feet elevated.”

  Chen holds up a small plastic jar. Inside: bloody buckshot pellets that had been lodged in my legs. “I would give you a souvenir, but this is crime scene evidence.”

  We also see white shards she extracted. Kim says, “What are those white things?”

  Chen gives a wry grin. “Slivers of the bank floor.”

  Bank floor. Reminds me. “Hey, how is the bank guard?”

  “Felix. Tough dude. He lost some blood, but your first aid helped. The buckshot stopped shallow, the bullet went through and through, missed bone. He should be fine if there are no complications. He’s in top shape, especially for his age.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Sixty.”