Shot Girl

by J. A. Konrath

  As we approached, the elevators doors opened, and panicked people shoved their way in.

  “Hold the door!” I yelled, then slowed and turned to Agmont. “Put my mother into my lap.”

  He hesitated, then nodded, getting a grip under her armpits.

  In the elevator I heard an argument, and turned to see an orderly and a male nurse in a shoving match. Several patients got involved, and I realized what was happening.

  The orderly was jamming on a button, trying to close the doors.

  “Not enough room! They can take the next one!”

  “We have to wait for—”

  And the nurse was pushed to the floor, and the orderly smashed the button over and over, but I knew we had time, knew those buttons were placebos and didn’t control the mechanism, knew we had a few more seconds to—

  The doors closed.

  One more thing I was wrong about.

  The other elevator was at the opposite side of the L shaped building. Which, according to Agmont and the last gunshots we heard, was the direction the active shooter headed.

  In the middle of the L was a staircase. Agmont could carry Mom, and I could slither down on my hands and ass, but that left me without a wheelchair.

  Still, beat dying.

  “What do you want to do?” the doctor said.

  “My lap. Put her in my lap. We’ll go to the stairs.”

  BBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!

  Louder than before. I realized why when I heard the screams.

  The shooter was directly beneath us. Killing everyone in the elevator.

  “Hurry.”

  My mother, dead weight, awkwardly dropped onto me, and I cinched my hands around her waist like a seatbelt.

  Below, the gunfire and screaming stopped.

  For a moment, silence. Dr. Agmont tried to push the chair, and one of Mom’s legs dragged and she began to pitch forward.

  I held her, but Agmont couldn’t keep us level, and the chair toppled sideways.

  Agmont appeared terrified, and I would have told him to run and save himself but I couldn’t leave Mom like that.

  Dr. Agmont, however, showed the same grit he must have employed climbing Everest, because he muscled the chair upright and set Mom back in my lap, this time making sure her feet were on top of mine on the footrests.

  Then I heard a BING and we all watched, horrified, as the elevator began to ascend to our floor.

  “I do not accept that we cannot find a common sense way to preserve our traditions, including our basic Second Amendment freedoms and the rights of law abiding gun owners, while at the same time reducing the gun violence that unleashes so much mayhem on a regular basis.”

  BARACK OBAMA

  “You’ve got to have defense, too. You can’t just be sitting ducks.”

  DONALD TRUMP

  GAFF

  EARLIER

  A hurricane.

  A real live hurricane.

  Lit.

  When I rolled into Florida, the rain rained upwards, bruh.

  Literally.

  No shit.

  WTF.

  Wind so thic it blew water into the air, like mashing the rewind button. I had to keep both hands on the wheel because I kept getting pushed around by gusts that got under my car and made it bounce and skid.

  Shook.

  Literally.

  Unreal sound. Like demons screaming.

  Crap visibility.

  #UnsafeConditions.

  It was so hard to see that I almost gave up and turned back, but I pulled over at a truck-stop to fill up and buy a hammer (actually found a schweet 10lb sledge and a one-meter crowbar) and gas station bruh told me to put water repellent on my windshield. I bought a bottle for ten bucks and it hella worked. I could drive above the speed limit, water bouncing off my window like little BBs, while n00bs pulled over on the side of the road, freaking out.

  Long day, lots of driving, cray tired, but I tweaked on energy drinks, sucking down so many that when I stopped @ a rest area my piss fizzed.

  Some roads were closed and blocked, and I had to use the car GPS to get to the Darling Center, which still worked even though my cell phone lost its signal. Wasn’t worried about Moms tracking me via GPS satellite, because she gave me the car.

  Real hard to see, but the retirement complex still had its lights on. Eight buildings, with six floors each. I knew from the website that one of those buildings was the hospital clinic where all the sickos were, one was the memory care unit for the demented, and the others were apartments.

  I decided to start with the hospital, then kill my way to the Alzheimer’s folks. Working my way through the alphabet, A through G. Pregame with some sitting ducks, get bonked AF with the door-to-door condos, then chill with the braindeads, and donezo.

  #ShouldBeFun.

  #GaffTripleDigits.

  The Center was one of those gated communities, with a keypad entrance for the fence stretching across the driveway. But Hurricane Harry had done me a solid, the iron-barred door wide open. Didn’t even need to eff around with the crowbar.

  I drove up to Building A, the clinic, looked around for a parking space, avoiding the handicapped spots bcuz I didn’t want to get in trouble, and found one near the back of the lot.

  Then I dressed for success.

  Gloves: check.

  Vest: check.

  Hoodie: check.

  Helmet: check.

  Rave mask: check.

  Glasses: raining, so I’d put them on inside.

  Earplugs: hells yeah check. My ears still hurt from killing Franklin.

  Merican: check. Full drum mag, one in the spout, giggled to AUTO.

  Gun bag: check. Five full drums, two full mags, and a few hundo rounds for reloading.

  I got out of the car and stuck the sledgehammer and crowbar on opposite sides of my belt, which I loosened to accommodate their width.

  Then I flicked on my green laser dot, shouldered my bag, and walked through a sick poppin fire high-key hurricane.

  #TotesWindy.

  Having to crouch so I didn’t get blown off my feet, I managed to get to the front door of Building A.

  Not even locked.

  According to the floorplans I saw on line, all eight buildings had the same layout. They were L shaped, elevators on either side, staircase in the middle @ the juncture. In Building A, the security office was 2 the right of the cafeteria, on the first floor.

  I put on my shooting specs and headed there to say hello.

  I walked past the empty café, looking for people and cameras, seeing neither. Through an office window I saw a security bruh, feet up on his desk, watching TV.

  He didn’t notice me until I walked in.

  The twinges got me all shook.

  “Hands up.”

  Dude immediately raised his mitts. White guy, chubby. Nametag said EARNEST.

  “Gun on the desk.”

  “Only got a taser.”

  “Put it on the desk, Earnest.”

  He did.

  “How many security guys on duty?”

  “Two. Justin is making rounds.”

  “He armed?”

  “A taser, like me.”

  “Got any cameras?”

  “What?”

  “Security cameras.”

  “No. No cameras.”

  Dope.

  “Can you contact Justin?”

  Earnest nodded. “Radio.”

  “Tell him to come here, quick. Some old guy acting crazy. Say that exactly. If you say anything else, any number codes or shit like that, I’ll kill you.”

  He picked up his radio and said, “Justin, come here, quick. Some old guy is acting crazy.”

  “Put the radio on the desk.”

  He did. Like the best game of Simon Says evah.

  “Where’s the vault?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “The money, with all the gold.”

  I couldn’t read his expression, but it was prob
ably funny as hell.

  “There’s… there’s no gold. This is a retirement community.”

  “I know, bruh. Just messing with you.”

  I shot him about twenty times.

  Much quieter with the suppressor all wet from the rain.

  #AblativesRule.

  Earnest didn’t cling to life like Franklin. Security bruh str8-up died. Caught him in the mouth and his jaw split in half like a Predator.

  Lit.

  By the time I got my blepharospasms under control, Justin showed up. Another white guy. Apparently this place didn’t comprendo diversity.

  He walked in, saw his dead partner, and I stepped out from behind the door and shot him until my mag ran out.

  Epic.

  The blood didn’t look like movie blood. It was darker, and there wasn’t as much as I expected. Also, people died ugly. Earnest had both eyes open, his mouth exploded, arms and legs bent all weird, and for some reason the scrub had a hard-on. His buddy Justin pissed and shit himself, stank AF, and his hand continued to twitch even though his chest stopped moving.

  #Freaky.

  I stared for a moment, twinging.

  #Wet.

  After I memorized every detail, I grabbed both their taser guns, and took a minute to reload the drum I emptied.

  Going through rounds too fast. I switched back to SEMI.

  Then I hit the reset button on my legacy.

  Marko? A warm-up.

  The Line Cutter shooting? A test run.

  Franklin? Practice.

  Time to go for the high score.

  Darling Center Massacre Total: 2.

  So far.

  #JustGettingStarted.

  I walked back into the hall and checked out the cafeteria. No one around, so I went through a door labeled EMPLOYEES ONLY.

  I twinged when I did.

  Going somewhere off-limits, somewhere I could get in trouble, provided a thrill similar to murder.

  I was doing something I shouldn’t. Which was something I did a lot.

  But never with this sense of liberation. This sense of pure independence.

  No authority could stop me. No adult could control me.

  For the first time evah, there were no consequences.

  For the first time evah, I was master of my world.

  I went into the kitchen, didn’t see any employees, and opened up one of the coolers. Seeing bins of frozen bagels made me realize how hungry I was. I grabbed two, sticking one in my vest and gnawing on the other, and left the café to explore the rest of the first floor.

  No one around. Deadzo.

  #Disappointing.

  I checked out an arcade. Lots of cool retro games, including a Hunt Master 7 cabinet with a plastic rifle.

  Schweet. But I got the real thing, yo. And I ain’t shooting deer.

  I passed an empty meeting room, a few empty offices, then found an elevator. I took it to the second floor, and immediately saw a male nurse in blue scrubs.

  When he noticed me, he froze.

  #Doubletap.

  The gunshot got the attention of a few other staff members, and three came into the hall to see what was going on.

  I switched to AUTO.

  BBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!

  Dropped two, missed two.

  I chased them and one screamed as I caught her in the back. The other, a tall good-lookin’ dude, took off so fast I missed. Bruh moved like his life depended on it, which it did. I considered tracking him down, but another nurse poked her head out of a door right next to me, and I lined up the green dot perfectly with the center of her forehead.

  BBBRRRTTT!

  She went down in a poofy blood cloud, and I retraced my steps as I changed drums, putting a few into the ones still breathing.

  Darling Massacre Total: 7.

  Hype.

  Then I did a door-to-door, checking on patients.

  Paging Dr. Gaff. Code Lead.

  First guy was a bajillion years old, on oxygen, didn’t even find the unravelling events exciting enough to try and defend himself. Bruh just stared at me, all sad-like.

  But points are points. I switched to SEMI not to waste rounds.

  Next room, an elderly woman was struggling to get up.

  Struggle no more, grandma.

  After her, I moved on to a room where the guy actually managed to push his bed against the door.

  Barricade. Smart.

  But I watched him do it through the room window. Stupid.

  Rather than fuss with the door, I flipped to AUTO and let him have it through the glass.

  He did a funny little dance, like he’d been electrocuted, b4 he went down.

  The gunfire had gotten louder. In the next room I took a bottle of water from the patient’s bedside, poured it on and into the compensator.

  “Why?” the old dude asked me.

  He wouldn’t understand, but I didn’t try to explain it. I wasted him, forgetting to switch back to SEMI and making a real big mess.

  #CallHousekeeping.

  The other patients had managed to get out of their rooms, four of them shuffling down the hallway, a few of them whimpering.

  A gaggle of old prunes in hospital gowns, flashing their wrinkled asses, lumbering for their lives.

  I went through the rest of my drum, taking them all down. Then I walked over to check.

  Darling Massacre Total: 15.

  Double digits. We’re getting there.

  The channers couldn’t beeatch about me missing this time. Fake news couldn’t call this massacre “failed.”

  And I was just getting started.

  I exchanged magazines, and some little voice in my head told me to turn around, look back @ the elevator.

  Stopped on floor 3.

  The same hunch that made me look made me go back and press both call buttons.

  Then I took a few steps back and raised the Merican.

  About thirty seconds later, the elevator stopped and the doors opened.

  Eight sitting ducks. Three literally sitting, in wheelchairs.

  They screamed when they saw me.

  I laughed when I shot them.

  Actually laughed.

  #GreatestDayEvah.

  Darling Massacre Total: 23.

  On another hunch, I pulled out the bodies blocking the elevator door and then stepped inside.

  The ‘vator took me back to Floor 1, then I hit the button for Floor 3.

  Had a feeling there were more patients in the building.

  Be a damn shame to leave stragglers behind.

  “Guns are our friends because in a country without guns, I’m what’s known as ‘prey.’ All females are.”

  ANN COULTER

  “There’s no question that weapons in the hands of the public have prevented acts of terror or stopped them.”

  SHLOMO AHARONISKY

  JACK

  Dr. Agmont hauled ass.

  We were going so fast when we hit the L corner in the hall that I didn’t think we’d make the turn without crashing. But Agmont knew some kind of wheelchair-fu and barreled us through without knocking us over or letting go, and I managed to hold my mother without either of us slipping out of the seat.

  In our wake, I heard the elevator BING once again.

  The shooter. On our floor.

  Agmont raced for the opposite elevator, and I tried to brace myself best I could for the burp of the automatic fire, the irony not lost on me that if I got shot, once again it would be in the back.

  We reached the lift, and though Agmont came to an abrupt stop and I kept a grip on Mom, her knees bumped the elevator doors and I heard her moan in pain. The doctor hit the down button, and I craned my neck around, watching for the killer’s inevitable approach.

  Agmont stepped behind me, ready to push, his eyes focused ahead of him, on the elevator.

  My eyes focused behind me, waiting to see the shooter turn the corner.

  Seconds crawled past like drunk turtles, and then I
heard the BING! the same moment I saw the killer.

  The first thing I noticed was the balaclava, and my first instinct was; The Cowboy had come for me.

  But the shooter was shorter than the Cowboy, and stouter, and instead of a skull face mask, this mask had pointy teeth; a character I recognized from the game City Warriors.

  I also recognized the killer from television. The Line Cutter. The one who shot up the line at the VideoTown in South Carolina.

  He didn’t manage to wrack up a body count there, so he came to hide in Hurricane Harry.

  Smart.

  And horrifying.

  Agmont hit the gas, ramming us into the elevator, hitting the B button. It didn’t light up, because beneath it was a keyhole.

  The basement was apparently key access only.

  I pressed 1 to get the lift moving, and the first shots came, so loud and sudden and terrifying that I almost pissed myself. The shots went high, hitting the ceiling of the elevator, blowing out a lighting fixture just as the doors closed.

  I wasn’t hit. Mom wasn’t hit.

  Agmont didn’t appear hit either.

  “Key!” I yelled at him.

  He turned to me, his face slack, and then he figured out what I meant and dug a key out of his pocket, jabbing it under the B button.

  The lift stopped on 1, and the doors opened, and I held my breath, knowing the shooter couldn’t have run down the stairs that fast, but also not knowing if this was a lone wolf, or if more than one player was in the game.

  The doors closed, and again we descended, coming to the basement level.

  Agmont pulled us out of the lift and turned us around. We were in a service hallway.

  “Can he get down here?”

  “What?”

  “The shooter. You used a key. Can he get to this level without a key?”

  “Not in an elevator. There are stairwells. Locked. But he’s got a crowbar. What do we do?”

  A damn good question.

  “Is there any sort of announcement system? Any way to alert all of the tenants what’s happening?”

  He shook his head. “No. No intercom. We’d have to call each of them, or knock on every door. I could run to each building, pull the fire alarms.”

  “Bad idea.”

  A bunch of old, confused people, all gathering in their lobbies, would be like shooting fish in a barrel. And where were they supposed to run? Into a hurricane?