The End Has Come and Gone

by Mark Tufo

  BT got out of Meredith’s car, puffing himself as large as possible trying to impose fear. It worked. Officer Gibson took an involuntary step back and placed his hand on the hilt of his holstered weapon.

  “I said the Subaru first,” the officer said sharply.

  “Yeah, they aren’t much in a complying mood!” BT shouted.

  “This isn’t a request!” the officer shouted, putting his microphone down. “We are the law!”

  BT laughed. “Where have you been, man! There IS no law!”

  “I’m going to ask you one more time,” the cop shouted in warning.

  “And then what? You gonna take the law into your own hands?” BT mocked him.

  “This is a checkpoint and we are authorized to search every car that comes this way.”

  “Then I can solve all of our problems, we’ll just turn around and you can search the next citizen that comes along!”

  “I’m not going to tell you again, NIGGER, get your ass on the pavement.”

  “Go fuck yourself pig wannabe,” BT answered, remarkably calm. “I think that went well,” BT told Meredith as he reentered the car.

  Meredith’s eyes were huge. BT was under the impression she didn’t think it went quite as spectacularly.

  “You ready Tracy?” BT turned and asked her.

  “Kids, you keep your heads down,” she said, staring at each one of them until they gave her a sign that they would do what she asked.

  “Meredith when I tell you, I want you to head right for the illustrious Officer Gibson and hopefully we’ll get lucky.”

  "You… you want me to hit him?"

  "Oh no hon, I want you to run his cracker ass over," BT told her with a smile on his face.

  "I think I'm going to be sick."

  "First things first. GO!" He shouted at Meredith and Tracy simultaneously.

  The rear tires on the truck momentarily spun in place before leaving black skids. Tracy's Subaru struggled to meet the initial thrust of Meredith's truck. Meredith started to creep over to the right to avoid the cop car. "Hit him Meredith," BT said calmly.

  Officer Gibson was a doughnut away from becoming road kill. As it was, he was fairly certain his ankle had been shattered as the giant’s girlfriend's car slammed into his door and slammed it into his leg as he dove in a futile attempt to get out of the way.

  “FUCK!” Officer Gibson shouted.

  “You all right Aaron?” the lone male occupant in the back of the car asked, sitting up.

  Gun shots rang out as the two cars sped past the idling cruisers.

  “I think my damn ankle is broken,” Officer Gibson gritted out through his teeth as he plowed through the contents of his middle console. He found the prescription bottle he was searching for and immediately downed three Oxycontins, courtesy of the last car they had pulled over. The occupants of that ill-fated voyage now found themselves lying face down in the grass not a mile from this exact location. The bitch had wailed when Officer Gibson had taken her pills, something about chronic back pain. ‘Yeah, well, now you’ve got chronic face pain,’ he’d said as he drilled her hard in the face with a right hook. The four men he was with had all laughed as Mrs. Pinchant fell to the ground, blood flowing profusely from her split lip and the gap where her tooth used to reside. Her husband cried equally as hard after the third member of the rogue police force lined up and punted his balls up into his sternum. After Mr. Pinchant died from the blunt force trauma, the men proceeded to piss on his body.

  The real ‘fun’ came as they placed his head by the rear wheel of the cruiser. Two of the men held Mrs. Pinchant’s heaving body still so that she could watch as Officer Gibson slowly ran over Mr. Pinchant’s head. The tire gripped the front portion of his face, and his cheek and nose began to pull away from his face under the pressure. For a moment the heavy car started to ‘climb’ up his face, but gravity was not on Mr. Pinchant’s side as bone after bone began to crack and shatter from the pressure. The back of his head started to swell to almost twice its normal size before it burst under the strain. Brain matter shot nearly 30 feet away from the back of the cruiser and the men laughed. Mrs. Pinchant had long since passed out from the strain. The two holding her released her. Her head bounced off the ground teeth first, shattering four or five of them in the process. She regained consciousness five minutes later, shrieking in pain and horror as she was placed next to her husband’s deformed, deflated head.

  “Job! Shut her up!” Officer Gibson said as he cupped his hands over his ears. “She’s louder than that stupid Cockatoo my wife just had to have.”

  Job walked over to her and placed one round through her right ear. He stared for a few seconds longer before commenting, “I guess what they say is true,” then turned and walked away.

  “What’s true?” Kyle, the third member of the gang asked.

  “That the longer a couple stays married the more they start to look alike,” Job said with a wicked grin.

  Kyle walked over to the dead pair and tried to find any similarities. “I don’t see it Job.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Officer Gibson, the man in charge said. “Drag these two off the street and let’s see what this car has to offer.”

  Kyle did what he was told, studying both people as he did so. When the task was finally complete he went over to a lounging Job. “I get it now, it’s because both of their heads are blown up.”

  Job winked, clucked his tongue and tapped his head.

  “I knew it!” Kyle said, happy he had figured the puzzle out.

  “What now, Boss?” Wes, the fourth of the deadly horsemen, asked as he piled up the belongings of the Pinchants’ car into the trunk of the cruiser for sorting, “This is sure easier than going house to house looking for stuff.”

  “And funner,” Job added.

  “Now we wait,” Officer Gibson said, getting back into his car. He slowly rubbed his temples as one killer of a headache began to let its true intentions be known. “And find me some damn aspirin!” he barked.

  “Even better Boss!” Wes said as he shook the bottle of pain pills in front of the quickly blurring vision of the officer.

  “Give me those,” Gibson said, grabbing the bottle out of Wes’ hand before the rattling noise threatened to split his skull. “And stop calling me ‘Boss.’ You’re not on a Southern chain gang!”

  “You got it Bos… Aaron,” Wes said as he left before Aaron could let lose a tirade.

  Wes was already forgotten as the officer opened the bottle of meds. He couldn’t see clearly enough to make out what the medication or the dose was, but he figured two seemed like a safe amount on top of the three somethings he had taken earlier. Little did he know that there weren’t enough pills in the bottle to cure the true cause of his pain, arteriovenous malformation, unless of course he took ALL of them at once. The good officer’s head was leaking internally and without some serious medical attention he would be dead in three weeks. The pain pills did what most good pain pills do; they allowed him to drift off into a pain free sleep environment. But even his sleep was haunted with pain, pain of a different kind, but pain nonetheless.

  * * *

  “Hey hon, I’m home. Left a little early, that friggen’ headache was starting to come on. We got any liquid pain killer?” This was Officer Gibson’s joking way of referring to beer. “Hon?” he asked as he placed his duty belt on the hook by the door. The house was quiet. That wasn’t too unusual, his wife Wendy was often out with their 4-year-old son Aaron Jr. But he could hear the television in the family room and the kitchen light was on. Wendy was very particular about conserving power, her contribution to the green movement. She would even admonish him if he stared into the fridge too long without grabbing something.

  Cops are nothing if not paranoid, and that quality had saved more than one during their careers. Aaron grabbed his 9mm Walther out of his duty belt. He quietly chambered a round and slowly walked towards the family room. He attempted to regulate his heartbeat as he moved past t
he kitchen, but this wasn’t some punk perp’s house, this was his home. Wendy and AJ were his world; he was a cop so he could do his part to make the world a better place for them. But if the scum of the planet had somehow made way into his private sanctuary, hell would not have enough in its coffers to pay the note.

  “Wendy?” He asked softly, barely loud enough to be heard past his mouth. The sound waves would never make it down the hallway, much less around the corner and into AJ’s bedroom where more light was spilling from. He decided to forgo the family room and check AJ’s first. “AJ?” Aaron’s heart was now threatening to rupture through his rib cage. His cop sense was pegged out; all was not right. He slowly maneuvered down the hallway, keeping his pistol in front of him. Silently he moved his feet forward, hoping he would find Wendy rocking their child to sleep, instead of the images of so many crime scenes that kept flashing through his head.

  “They’re both asleep,” he said softly, his right foot moving ahead of the left. “He was cranky and just needed a nap.” His left foot pushed past his right. “And Wendy was tired also.” His right foot came to rest by the entrance to AJ’s bedroom. “So she took a nap too.” He took a big breath to try and quell the panic that threatened to overtake him. Small sounds were escaping through the doorway. They were not the comforting sounds of Wendy’s heavy sleeping breaths or the mumbling chatter that AJ sometimes made during his naps. It was a clacking noise that reminded him of the old toy monkeys that would crash the little cymbals together. But that wasn’t it exactly, that noise was too tinny. This had a sound more like two dice crashing together. Officer Gibson took that final step from the hallway into the threshold of the bedroom and out of the realm of sanity forever.

  “AJ?” Aaron asked. His 4 year old son was standing with his back to his father over the prone body of his mother. Wendy was lying face down on the floor; an ever expanding pool of blood encircled the pair. The fatherly part of Aaron wanted to put his gun down and rush to the aid of his wife and son. The cop part of him hesitated. “AJ?” he asked again. AJ acknowledged his father’s presence this time. He turned, his face bathed in blood, strips of flesh hanging from his mouth. His hands were covered elbow deep in gore.

  “AJ, what did you do?” Aaron asked his son. AJ took a step towards his dad. Aaron backed up until his back was against the far hallway wall. AJ kept coming. “AJ, please. Please stop,” Aaron said, his gun shaking wildly. AJ teetered a step, almost losing his footing in the slick liquid that coated the flooring. “That’s a bad boy,” Aaron said. AJ was beyond caring about his father’s approval and relentlessly pressed on.

  Aaron closed his eyes as he sprayed the immediate area with three pistol shots. The first shot popped into the doorframe sending a shower of splinters into his child’s room. The second shattered his son’s left leg and the third completed the deed. The round entered to the left of the child’s nose and exited at the base of his skull. The sound of the bullets being shot could not compete with the solid thud of impact as AJ’s body met the floor. Aaron spent a few more seconds looking past the lifeless body of his son to that of his wife. There would be no recovery from the 3 inch wide, 2 inch deep wound in his wife’s neck; blood had already ceased to flow.

  He shut the bedroom door, walked down the hallway, grabbed a beer out of the fridge and sat down in his favorite chair. His headache had begun to crystallize into a white hot inferno of pain. He pressed the cold container against his head before taking long pulls to quench the sickness that begged to issue forth. Within minutes he had fallen asleep. When he woke, Aaron Gibson, respected policeman, loving husband and doting father would never view the world in the same way again. The bleeder in his head, his dead wife and the son he killed would never allow it. He didn’t remember lighting his house on fire, but as his police cruiser pulled out of the driveway and he took one last glance at his house, it sure did seem like the right thing to do.

  * * *

  “Company!” Wes said, startling Aaron out of his drug coma.

  “Why they sitting there?” Kyle asked.

  “Because they’re smart,” Officer Gibson replied as he took out his binoculars and looked at the car and truck that were a quarter of a mile or so away. “Looks like they got plenty of stuff in there too.”

  “Any women?” Wes asked.

  “Hell,” Job said. “If you were so horny why didn’t you hook up with that lady?” he asked, pointing to the approximate location where Mrs. Pinchant’s body rested.

  “I’ve got my standards,” Wes said sardonically.

  “What about the women’s standards?” Kyle asked, laughing.

  “Shut up. All of you,” Officer Gibson said. The constant talking got to him sometimes, but when his head was throbbing like it was now he couldn’t take any of it. “It looks like there’s at least two of them and plenty of stuff from what I can tell.” His vision had cleared somewhat since his nap but it wasn’t the 20-20 he was used to.

  “Let’s play this cool.” Job told Wes. “And maybe you can fuck a live woman this time.”

  “She was still warm,” Wes said in his defense.

  At one time Officer Gibson would have just put a bullet in the degenerate’s head. Now, he just didn’t care. The world was anarchy and he was doing his part to keep it that way.

  * * *

  BT had tried to place some well-aimed shots in the second cruiser as they passed it by but Meredith had nearly lost control of her car after she slammed into the police car.

  “Okay, I know you act a lot like your uncle, do you need to drive like him too?” BT half wailed as he pulled the rifle back in.

  “Sorry,” she replied softly. “I… I just tried to kill a cop.”

  “No you didn’t, you tried to save our lives. Now drive faster!”

  Tracy had passed on the left as Meredith fought to regain control. The two cars came close enough that sliding anything thicker than a folded piece of paper between the two vehicles would have been impossible.

  Dizz’s eyes had grown to twice their size as he watched BT get closer and closer. “That would have been bad,” he said as Meredith slid further back.

  “I think I crapped myself,” Sty revealed.

  “Please tell me he’s trying to be funny?” Tracy asked as she pressed harder down on the accelerator.

  “Not so much!” Ryan yelled as he pinched his nose closed.

  “Sty pooped himself!” Angel said happily from underneath the dashboard. “Poopedy-poop!” And then she went into her own made up song that was drowned out by the sound of the wind whipping through the car as all four windows were opened to capacity as they sped down the highway.

  It took five full miles, but even at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour the ‘cops’ soon caught up to their prey and they were pissed.

  Shots began to ring out but at these speeds nobody was in a rush to stick their head out for too long and take a well-placed one. Meredith had scooted so far down she looked like a 99-year-old osteoporosis sufferer.

  “There is no way you can actually see where you’re going,” BT told her.

  “I can see enough,” she answered, her hands almost above her head on the steering wheel.

  “Meredith, BT! This is Ron, what’s your status?” blasted from the radio.

  BT reached his arm over the bench seat to grab the handset. He took the cue from Meredith that maybe a low profile was a good idea.

  “Hey, Ron!” BT yelled over the noise of the road and the percussions of the bullets. “We’ve got two very angry cop cars on our ass, we’re topped out at about a hundred and five and I don’t think their cars are even laboring. We won’t be able to do this for very long, her heat gauge is already starting to move up.”

  “How far until you get to Route 3?” Ron asked.

  BT looked over to Meredith.

  “Twenty minutes Dad!”

  Ron’s heart dropped as he listened to the anguish in his daughter’s voice. “When you get to Route 3 remember to keep going straigh
t, but you’re going to have to slow down, I’ll never be able to catch up.”

  “Speed is the only thing keeping us in the game, Ron,” BT explained. “How far are you from there?”

  “22 to 25 minutes,” Ron said. Even over the airwaves BT could hear the rev of Ron’s truck tach up an extra thousand or so revolutions.

  “What if we start to slow down now?” BT asked.

  Ron immediately grasped the implicit meaning.

  “Ambush?”

  “You got it.”

  “Dad, hurry!” Meredith threw in at the end as if that wasn’t already a foregone conclusion.

  “I’m coming honey,” Ron reassured her.

  “Ever watch Nascar?” BT asked.

  “Are my front teeth missing or something?” Meredith shot back.

  “Okay, point taken. Listen, I want you to drop down to around 70 or so. When you do that, Tracy is going to start to pull away and I guarantee you that one of those cop cars is going to try and get her.”

  “Uh-huh,” Meredith said slowly, taking in the information.

  “You’re not going to let them though.”

  Meredith stole a glance over towards BT as if to see if he was bullshitting her, “Um, how am I supposed to do that?!” she fairly cried.

  “Well, see, if you watched car racing you’d know,” BT said with a smile he didn’t feel.

  “Um, excuse me, you don’t look much like a Nascar follower yourself.”