by Mike Leon
Freddy Mercury is taunting him.
“Nobody’s answering,” Melissa says.
“They’re probably a little busy on account of terrorists and collapsing buildings,” the Player says.
“Terrorists?” Melissa squeaks.
“How long do I do this?” Nick says. “Shouldn’t I breathe into his mouth?”
“Actually, with adult subjects compression-only CPR has the same success rate.”
“Which is?”
“About eight percent,” the Player says. “Good luck with that.”
“Come on, Stephen!” Nick shouts.
“Well this is terribly cliché,” the Player says. “You should slap him and yell ‘Don’t let the bastard win!’”
“Fuck you!”
“Oh, you’re angry? Good. Now push harder.”
“Fuck you!”
“Come on, you superstitious nitwit! If I don’t hear bones cracking you’re doing it wrong!”
Nick bears down on his son’s chest with all his weight, flexing his biceps to the limit and groaning through gritted teeth. He hears a sharp crack under his palms.
“Again!” player yells.
He does it again.
“Keep doing that! Don’t you fucking stop!”
BEEP BEEP. The android phone emits a double chirp to inform them all that the battery is about to die.
“What was that?” Nick says.
“Just keep going!” the Player says. “Melissa. What’s your phone number?”
“Uh,” she stammers. “Five three oh seven six five nine.”
“Nine one six area code?”
“Is he going to be okay?”
“Nine one six area code?!”
“Y-yeah.”
“There’s a middle school one block North. You know the one?”
“What? Yeah. I… Yeah.”
“Run there! Now!” Player says.
The girl pulls herself up using the freezer handle and hobbles down the hallway, scraping her shoulder against the wall for support. Her cell phone begins to ring as she goes.
“What are you doing?!” Nick shouts, never halting the excruciating process of compressing his son’s chest.
“Just keep up the compressions.”
“How long until they work?”
“They won’t. You’re just buying time.”
“For what?”
“For Melissa to get back.”
“We need to get him to a hospital!”
“The nearest hospital looks like a riot! I’m watching it right now!”
“This is a dumb idea!”
“I know it’s a dumb idea!” the Player retorts. “It’s the dumbest idea!”
“We’re gonna kill him!”
“He’s already dead!”
“You don’t even know what you’re doing!”
“I read all the stuff on Wikipedia really fast.”
“That’s not comforting at all!”
“No paper! No paper!” screams the blathering idiot Nick left under the soda fountain, only now he’s towering over Nick, his soiled white underwear bulging at the end of Nick’s nose. “NO PAPER!”
“No!” Nick shrieks as he feels the frothing lunatic’s fingers close around his neck. He stops the compressions for a second to shove the man away, but he comes back swinging, thrashing at Nick’s head with his fists.
“What’s happening in the—” Player says as the phone chirps again and then cuts out with another slightly different chime for shutdown.
“NO PAPER NO PAPER!” the lunatic smacks Nick in the head and shoulders wildly. He tries to continue the compressions with one hand, while swinging back in his own defense, but it simply isn’t possible.
The underwear clad maniac jumps on Nick’s shoulders and pulls him to the floor. Legs that stink of piss wrap around his head as he tries to turn the lunatic over and shove him away. He digs his fingernails into the pale hairy thighs, but they just squeeze harder, increasing the pressure against the sides of his head.
Nick forces himself up to his knees and then strains his legs to the limit, picking up the lunatic as he stands. He still doesn’t come free. Out of other ideas, he rotates. Struggling to maintain balance, he revolves once, twice, then swings the lunatic against the nearest wall. He still won’t budge.
“NO PAPER!” he yells, biting into Nick’s hand.
“AAAAGGH!” Nick yells as warm red wetness rolls down his fingers. He swings the lunatic into the wall again. It does nothing for his cause.
It does succeed in putting the lunatic closer to the machine gun. His eyes light up like a cat at the sight of an open tuna can. He reaches out and takes hold of the gun by the stock.
“No!” Nick yells. He drops to the floor and seizes the muzzle of the gun in both hands as the lunatic attempts to point it at his face. He pushes at the barrel as hard as he can. Nick is not a strong man, and the drug addled twerp seems to possess a Herculean might in his current state. Fire and powder erupt from the gun in fully automatic bursts of lead death. Nick’s hands burn and blood sizzles against the barrel as he struggles to hang on.
The gun cycles viciously, discharging past Nick’s left ear and tearing apart the ceiling as it swallows the belt of shells up from the floor and spits hot brass all over both of them. Chalky bits of dusty tile rain from the ceiling, dropping onto Nick’s back and the lunatic’s face and mouth as he screams about paper.
“Bleh, bleh,” he spits a mouthful of cheap insulation out on the floor. “Paper no paper!”
Nick uses the opportunity to wrap his hands around a part of the gun that doesn’t feel like a panini press, but as soon as he gets there the gun eats up the last of the cartridges and goes silent. He gets a heel in the face for his trouble.
The lunatic rolls away with the gun as Nick falls backward clutching his jaw. It’s already numb.
“No paper no paper no paper.” The lunatic charges forward, swinging the gun wildly. Nick backs out into the store to avoid being cracked in the cranium. He pulls a canister of WD-40 from the automotive aisle and throws it at the lunatic’s head, but his insane adversary bats it away. Nick looks around for something better and picks up a blue plastic scraper with a long black brush jutting out along its spine.
Nick raises the ice scraper just in time to stop the machine gun from coming down on his head. The butt of the gun smacks into the bristles on the back of the scraper with a hairy chafing noise. The impact forces the scraper into his burned palms and it feels like a soldering iron jabbing against his flesh. The lunatic swings again without hesitation. Nick deflects the blow as he runs away, deeper into the store.
Nick swipes packages of toilet paper from the shelves as he goes, dumping them in the path of his insane pursuer. The lunatic jumps over them, howling and poking at Nick with the end of the gun like a battering ram. Nick runs around the corner of the aisle and past the rows of glass refrigerator doors that line the rear of the store. He looks back at the lunatic and as soon as he turns his head, he feels his feet slipping out from under him.
Nick smacks down on his butt at the back of the store. As he tries to get back up his hand slips in something wet and slimy—soda pop. There’s a large puddle of it underneath him.
“No paper!” the lunatic screams, brandishing the machine gun over his head to bring it down on Nick with all his might. “NO PAPER!”
WHACK! A loud thump sounds somewhere above and the lunatic stops screaming. He flops into the tile beside the soda coolers, crunching his nose so hard that blood squishes from it like a waterlogged squeeze toy.
Nick looks back and sees Melissa standing over his him holding a black nylon case that looks like a lunch box with a zipper running all the way around it. In her other hand are the blood dripping remnants of a forty ounce bottle of malt liquor.
“Piece of shit,” she says, kicking the unconscious lunatic in the face. “Come on.”
Melissa runs back toward the front of the store as Nick struggles up from the puddl
e. The familiar voice of Player barks commands from her cell phone.
“You called two phones at the same time,” Nick says. “How?”
“I’m watching you from a top secret next generation spy satellite that can see back in time. I know how to use call-waiting,” the Player answers as Melissa sits the box down next to Stephen’s body and unzips it. “You need to connect the pads, one on his right shoulder and the other on his lower left chest. There should be diagrams on the pads.”
“Got it,” Melissa says. She pulls away a plastic cap that holds the pads in place and looks at the diagrams on them.
Another robotic voice comes from the box on the floor.
*Begin by removing all clothing from the patient’s chest.*
“Nick, you can stop the compressions now,” Player says.
*Cut clothing if needed.*
“I had to stop,” Nick says.
“What? What the hell for?”
*Look carefully at the pictures on the white adhesive pads.*
“I had to fight a maniac with a machine gun!”
“Melissa, you need to hurry.”
“I’m hurrying,” she says. She plants the pads on Stephen’s chest and looks back at the machine for further instructions. “What now?”
“The machine will tell you what to do!”
*Stand clear of the patient.*
“Where did you get that thing?” Nick says.
“It was hanging in the school, like a fire extinguisher,” Melissa says.
“I guessed they would have an emergency AED on site,” the Player says. “Lucky guess.”
“How long does it take?”
“A few seconds!”
*No shock advised. Begin CPR.*
“What does that mean?” Melissa says.
“Uh…” Player groans in an uncharacteristically human way. “Asystole is not a shockable rhythm.”
Nick doesn’t know what that means, but he doesn’t need to. His eyes burn as hot tears form in them and a lump crawls up the back of his throat.
“No!” he says. “No! There has to be something else we can do!”
“You can keep doing CPR until the paramedics get there.”
“Oh God,” Melissa cries. “Stephen…”
Nick crawls closer to his son’s still body. He rises up to his knees and plants his hands on Stephen’s chest. He snarls viciously as he presses down with his palms.
“Come on! Come on!” he screams.
Melissa leans against the wall, her eyes filled with hopelessness. She begins to sob.
“Come on, buddy!” Nick yells. “You can’t die on me!”
He presses over and over until his knees bleed through the fabric of his pants from chafing against the floor.
“Please God,” he cries at the sky. “Please. Don’t take him away.”
Tires screech loudly outside the store. The sound of an engine rumbles as doors slam shut and boots clap on the pavement.
“Is that the ambulance?” Melissa says. It is not.
Glass crunches under heavy footfalls as someone steps through the shattered front door. He’s tall and bearded and wearing a white cap that Nick has seen recently. It’s Imam Safwat.
“Imam!” Nick shouts. “Thank God. Help us, Imam. We need to get to a hospital!”
Safwat grins at him as another man steps through the destroyed door, this one small and boyish. He carries a rifle that looks outlandishly big in his little arms. It is tipped with a glinting steel bayonet. Then Nick notices the Imam is holding an Uzi.
“There is only one Imam, al-Qa’im, who will rise to conquer the unjust. I am not him.” The imam grins. “My name is al-Kilij. It means The Sword.”
“You…” Nick is at a loss for words. “You have to help me. Please…You have a religion of peace.”
“HA HA HA HA!” al-Kilij laughs to his small comrade. “Yes. The peace that comes after all the infidels are dead.”
“No!” Nick yells. “Get away! Get away from us!”
“Who—” Melissa starts as al-Kilij snatches her by the upper arm and pulls her toward him. He jabs the muzzle of his oily black gun into her cheek and yells at them through his long beard as the man behind him points a big rifle at Nick.
“Now, Nick. Where is the Beast?!!” the al-Kilij shouts. “Where is Kill Team One?!”
“He’s dead!” Nick yells. “You killed him! He’s already dead!”
“Where is he? Tell me now or I execute this girl!”
“I told you, he’s dead!” Nick screams as he continues forcing his hands down against Stephen’s chest. His wrists feel like breaking. “Why are you doing this?! We didn’t do anything to you!”
“A horrendous lie, you stupid pig!” barks al-Kilij. He furrows his brow angrily. “When you took Srebrenica, they murdered my family, raped the women, cut the throats of babies as their mothers wept and they waved the flags of your two headed eagle, pravoslavna!” al-Kilij spits a slimy wad of phlegm at Nick. It splats against the floor at his knees. “Fuck you! Fuck your country! You pigs will-”
CRASH! The front of the store bursts into a million crumbles of broken glass and bent aluminum as an orange compact car sails through the windows. The crash mutes al-Kilij’s angry diatribe with a cacophonic explosion of thrash metal that also drowns out the scream of the rifleman as he is rammed by the front bumper and smashed into the first aisle of the store.
The driver’s side door opens and out comes the blood red skull face of the godless murder machine Nick spent most of his day accompanying.
INT. FOOD STOP - DAY
Sid sees a hostile holding a small woman hostage as he steps out of the orange Chevy Volt in the middle of the convenience store. He has no interest in bargaining through this situation. He snaps away the 9mm Uzi the man has pressed against the girl’s face and picks the fumbling douchebag up by his oily white mop of hair. He jams the muzzle against the Islamist’s throat and holds down the trigger until there isn’t enough neck left to keep his body suspended. It flops to the tile below and blood pours from the stump under the disembodied head as the jaw continues to gulp like a beached fish, terrified and helpless as its last seconds tick away. Sid tosses it over his shoulder and it thumps against the hood of the car as the only good thing he has ever heard come from a radio assaults the air around him. It is the last thing that severed head will ever hear.
“What is this?” Sid demands of the sobbing girl on the floor next to the headless corpse.
“I—I… What?” she cries.
“This.” Sid points with his thumb back to the car with its screaming stereo.
“Uh,” she quivers. “I think it’s Lamb of God.”
“It’s amazing,” Sid says. He stomps toward Nick, who cowers at the mouth of a little hallway over the still body of a skinny black boy, tears streaming down his face like a simpering baby.
“This is your fault!” Nick squeals. “This is all your fault! He’s dead because of you!”
“Get up, you pussy!” Sid screams. He winds up with his clenched left hand and directs it down into the boy’s broken chest with the fury of a thousand Viking berserkers. “I don’t have time for this!”
Stephen coughs and sputters to life with a look of confused horror. He spits up blood and bile, flailing his limbs and choking.
“Stephen!” Nick shouts, trying to calm his son. “I’m here now.”
“Dad?” the boy says. “Wh-Everything hurts.”
“He shouldn’t try to move,” Player says.
“Pick him up and put him in the car,” Sid says. He pries an AK-47 from the cold dead hand of the man pinned under the Volt. It is equipped very puzzlingly with a bayonet. “A bayonet? Who still uses those?”
Another Islamist waits behind the steering wheel of the red GMC Savana outside, staring blankly into the store with a cigarette dangling from his gaping mouth. It falls just before Sid blows his brains out with the AK. He fires a few more shots into the grill of the van just to make sure it can’t go
anywhere.
“How?” Nick says. “I saw you get blown up in that truck.”
Sid sneers. “I jumped out,” he says. He doesn’t know why anyone is surprised. It wasn’t that big of a deal. “Move him faster. More of them are coming.”
“Melissa,” Nick says, slapping Melissa in the shoulder. “Get his legs!”
The girl shakes away a dazed melancholy and wraps her hands around Stephen’s knees. Sid yanks open the rear driver’s side door of the Volt and the others pull the boy into the car, laying him out across the back seat. Nick gets out on the other side and then gets back in to sit in the front.
Sid sits down behind the wheel and hands Nick the AK. He pulls back the lever to put the car in reverse and then slams down on the accelerator to exit the convenience store. As he stomps down on the brake and executes a J-turn into the parking lot, the car whips around and brings into view a multitude of speeding vehicles roaring toward them.
“VBIEDs everywhere! “ Nick shouts.
“What’s a veebid?” Melissa says.
“Vehicle borne improvised explosive device!” both Sid and Nick shout back simultaneously.
Sid drives the car out into the street and screeches around a bend. The Volt drifts easily, but it is not building enough speed to lose the legion of death mobiles.
“We need that cell phone now!” he yells.
“Stephen!” Nick says. He twists around and yells to his son over the center console. “You took a cell phone from the house when you left! A brand new iPhone! Please tell me you still have it!”
“It’s,” Stephen coughs. “In my pocket.”
Nick props the rifle on the center console and reaches over the seat to dig into Stephen’s pants pocket. He fishes the little device out and returns to his seat. “Got it!”
Sid sees something disconcerting in the rear view. It’s a beaten police interceptor, much like the one he stole hours ago, a fast car. Bullet holes pepper its windshield. One headlight is smashed in. Its siren is silent. Its lights are dark. A bearded man occupies the passenger’s side with a pistol in his hands. The burned wraith behind the wheel screams for vengeance. Fatimah.