by HJ Lawson
But next I see a sight I wasn’t expecting. Russel carries on walking into the building, with his hands above his head and a blade at his neck — a butcher’s blade. And another face edges around Russel. Hacker. What the hell is he doing here? I think, panicked. He’s meant to be out of town! We’re properly screwed now.
Blood starts to slowly drip down from under Hacker’s knife. He’s cut Russel’s neck.
I look to Rob; he looks back at me, as surprised as I am. But which side is he going to go with?
“Now what do we have here?” Hacker says, pushing Russel inside. It’s a real-life nightmare. Hacker’s not on his own; his goons (minus Rob) are with him. The two goons tower over Hacker and make Russel look tiny, like the kid he still is.
“Wait. Before you introduce yourself, let’s clean up the witnesses,” Hacker says. And before anyone can answer, the old man drops to the floor with a bullet wound to his head. A scream escapes from the young girl as she dives to cover the kid in the stroller. Hacker points the gun at the pair.
Russel nudges Hacker, knocking the gun away from the young family, but the blade pushes further into his neck. He gasps in pain.
“We’ll deal with her later,” Hacker says, as his boys lock the door behind him. Paul looks at me in shame, knowing that he had one job and still screwed it up. “Girls, leave,” he adds politely to the counter girls, as if he hadn’t just killed someone. They don’t hesitate, fleeing through the same door Rob used.
“Liam. Your uncle told me you would be here,” Hacker says. I nearly drop the gun in shock.
“He what?” I say, taking off my mask and allowing much-needed air to cool my face, as I try to make sense of what he’s saying.
“Did you really think he’d let you get away with what you did to his son?” Hacker says.
“But I’m family.”
“Not anymore.” He points the gun at me, and I point mine back at him. “You’re as loyal as your dad.”
“Don’t bring Dad into this,” I say, waving my gun at him.
“Ha. Dad. Yeah, whatever you want to call him. I remember you coming in here with him, following him everywhere he went. Then when he left, you came here looking for him.” Hacker shakes his head. “Kid, you can’t even be loyal to your mum, can you? He beats her nearly to death, and you go search for him, like a kid looking for his lost puppy. Your uncle, on the other hand, dealt with your dad in the correct manner. That’s the difference between our generations. Mine is loyal to our family.”
Sweat pours into my eyes. I try to wipe it with the back of my hand. Glenn killed my dad. No wonder he told me to stop looking for him. Yeah, he was a piece of crap, but he was my dad. All these years of wondering why he never came back — he couldn’t; he was dead. I hated him for not coming back, but how could he? He was murdered by his own brother-in-law.
“Hey, Rob, hands up where I can see them. Glenn told me all about your plans,” Hacker says to Rob. My hands start to tremble as I hold my gun out. Stop it, I tell myself.
“Uncle, I’ve been shot,” Jonesy shouts from behind the counter.
“Shut it,” Hacker shouts back at Jonesy. “Kids today have no respect for their elders. Your uncle understands where I do my business and where he does his. Seamus the smackhead, and Rob the rat had other ideas. Time to wipe out the rodents.”
I throw the sawn-off shotgun at Rob, who grabs it with one hand and flips it in his other. “This is for Shirley,” he says, firing bullets at Hacker. Russel slides out of the way, gripping his neck, as blood squirts through his fingers. Hacker’s slit his throat.
I duck behind the counter as return fire flies in our directions, but Rob doesn’t. He never stops firing.
Screams of pain echo between the gunshots. The kid, the little lad, he’s still out there, trapped in the middle of the gunfire. As well as Paul and Russel.
I scramble along the floor, kicking the bags of money in a haste and notes scatter everywhere. The stroller wheels are the first things I see, and Paul’s body draped over mother and kid, serving as a bloody shield. Hacker or one of his men have shot Paul in the back. The young kid’s screams are muffled, but he’s alive.
Hacker has taken a shot to the shoulder, and ribs, but he doesn’t stop shooting. His men lie on the floor beside him. Russel is face down on the ground, lifeless. They’re all dead.
The gunfire only stops when the former best friends run out of bullets. “Was it worth all this for a woman?” Hacker asks, as he props himself up against the blood-stained curtains.
“It’s always worth it,” Rob says, as blood splutters from his mouth. He staggers sideways against the wall, then slides down to the gory-stained tiled floor.
Hacker also drops to the ground, pulling the curtain with him, letting the darkness of the outside world soak inside. “They are, aren’t they?” he laughs.
I lean forward with my gun and watch Hacker. He pulls a cigarette out of his pocket and lights it, drawing in the nicotine slowly, as if he were just sitting in the bar, not at a murder scene.
The room falls silent except for the muffled cries from the little kid. I push Paul off him. My best friend’s lifeless body slumps to the ground, revealing a blood-stained head of blonde-streaked hair: the young woman. Her arm moves; she’s alive.
I pull her up. Her body is heavy, then it lightens — she’s been playing dead. She smacks me across the face, knocking me backwards, and yells, “Get off us!”
“Yeah, women are always worth it,” Hacker laughs, as the kid cries and his mum tries to shield his eyes from the nightmarish scene.
“Will you just die already?” I say and point the gun at him.
“Go on, then, just do it. Or are you soft like your dad? Getting your woman to do the dirty work for you.” He smiles at me with teeth stained by tea and cigarettes.
I crook my finger around the trigger. Rob calls, “Liam, don’t. Get them out of here. I will do it.”
“It would only be right,” Hacker says, blowing smoke rings.
Rob reaches for a bag handle that’s peeking around the counter, and throws the bags towards me. I catch it, surprised by its weight. There must be ten grand here.
I stuff my pockets with around two grand and pass the bag to the young mum. “For you and the kid.” She looks down at it, hesitates for a moment, then takes it.
“She’s not taking the money. Neither are you,” Hacker says.
“You don’t need money where you’re heading,” I say, as we walk past Hacker. I glance back at the scene. Paul’s body on the ground, with a pool of blood spreading around him. Russel and Dean have the same pools. They are all dead.
“Don’t worry, kid, you’ll see them again soon. You know Glenn won’t stop until you’re dead, till we all meet in hell…”
AUTHOR NOTE
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