Cowboy Ending - Overdrive: Book One

by Adam Knight

  We fought and jockeyed for position. I lurched and kicked with my legs, slamming his back again and again into the main bar. Miller refused to let go, pushing with his own legs and sending us stumbling into the room. We swayed in this position eerily enough, locked in a deadly struggle on the fiery remains of the Cowboy Shotz dance floor.

  Our bodies lurched left and right, my eyes beginning to lose focus. Miller’s body language reflected that by tightening up on his grip somehow and trying to position himself higher on my back.

  Gasping and agonized I blinked my dry and damaged eyes clear and tried to look for anything to grab or swing or throw or …

  Fifteen feet directly ahead of us stood the damaged and enflamed deejay booth. Sparks still sputtering out into the smoky gloom.

  The back of my neck tingled faintly, in time with the sparks as they flared.

  Shit.

  I let my body sag backwards then, going loose in the knees. Miller crowed in relief, his body lurching forward over mine in response – not having had a chance to reset his footing. His grip loosening just enough to allow me one smoke filled breath.

  I love you, Mom.

  Reaching up with both arms to trap Miller’s beefy mitts in place I planted my booted feet firmly underneath me and heaved with all my might, straining to stand with Miller’s weight hoisted up high on my back.

  He howled in surprise, kicking his feet and trying to let go.

  My ribs, my knee and my head bellowed their disapproval of this plan. Regardless of their complaints I started forward. First one foot, then the other until I reached a lurching half stumble-half jog.

  We were a six hundred pound staggering missile aimed directly for the open electrical panels sparking directly behind the deejay station.

  Dad, Donald … Save me a seat on the bench. I’m coming home.

  We hit the panels as hard as I possibly could.

  Everything went white.

  Chapter 49

  And then everything snapped back into focus.

  Sharp, crystalline focus.

  Forty thousand volts. That’s what the Cowboy Shotz PR team constantly boasted. How their sound and light system was state of the art. The most powerful nightclub setup in Winnipeg.

  Hitting the supporting wall around the booth with Miller high on my back drove us through the cheap faux wooden frame and into the exposed electrical panels that had erupted after my earlier display of crazy. Cords and open sockets that had been fraying and exposed connected with Miller’s body and mine.

  For a moment I thought I’d been struck blind. My heart stopped for what felt like an eternity as everything from my eyebrows to my toenails experienced that same thrill you get when you press an old nine volt battery to your tongue.

  Only four hundred and forty four times as intensely.

  Coming back to myself was interesting. The back of my neck buzzed like an overloaded beehive that was ready to burst. Life and energy flowed through my veins like molten lava. Searing and sizzling through my nervous system in a wave.

  This time I knew for sure my hair had done a full Einstein. All the hair on my forearms was standing upright as gooseflesh pricked painfully over my too dry skin.

  My ribs and head were still aching, but it was someone else’s pain. The buzzing and lightning in my system was taking precedence. Filling me with energy and clarity.

  I was on my knees in the middle of the dance floor. I don’t know how I got there. Fire was still raging within the club and smoke was billowing madly. Distant sirens began to multiply in number. The faint sound of people scrambling and shouting was muffled, but also becoming louder. The crowd outside. Cops. Fire department.

  Miller.

  My gaze swung back to the remains of the deejay booth. What I saw would haunt my nightmares forever.

  Miller‘s body lay face up in the booth, twitching and smoking as sparks and currents burst around him. He was half buried in the paneling. What was left of his previously burnt face was now charred black. White smoke sizzled up from the cuffs of his shirt, out through his collar and up to mingle with the black cloud above.

  And he smelled like bacon. Over cooked, fatty bacon.

  Yuck.

  I lurched to my feet unsteadily. Energy still flooded my pain wracked body but already it was beginning to fade, leeching out my pores. Whatever charge I had earned apparently wasn’t mine to keep. So whatever I still needed to do I couldn’t dick around.

  As I turned around to get my bearings my feet kicked at something soft. I looked down.

  It was that damned felt hat, now showing scorch marks from the heat.

  Son of a bitch.

  I scooped up the hat and jammed it on my head as I staggered out to the main hallway.

  The entrance was impossible to see clearly. Black smoke billowed out the doorway in a constant stream, heat following the flow of air racing away. I could make out the occasional flicker of a police light through the gloom if I looked closely enough.

  Truth to tell, I wasn’t ready to leave.

  I turned my gaze to the marble staircase.

  At the top of the stairs I noticed a few odd things. First, it was surprisingly cool and smoke free up there. Since the fire had begun in earnest the damned old converted bank had been hot as an oven, trapping all of the heat within its stone walls. Weird.

  Second, the mini hidden camera that I’d discovered in the doorframe was no longer there. Not covered up or burst in a million pieces like the other electrical devices that had been destroyed in my initial rampage. Just simply gone.

  Someone had intentionally removed it.

  Again. Weird.

  But not important at the moment.

  I stepped through the doorway.

  Honestly, I had been expecting more.

  Course it had probably looked a lot nicer before the building caught fire.

  Thick plush carpeting. Wide expansive hallways lined with oaken trim along the base and ceiling of the stone walls. Lovely wood furniture and settings. A few side hallways leading to more private entertaining rooms. Lots of lovely mirrors in huge oversized frames. A mini kitchen and wet bar in one room.

  Yeah, still real nice. Just not as blow away nice as I’d imagined.

  But the main party area made up for the rest. Paintings and wide lounging couches. Lots of places to relax. A giant, wall mounted entertainment unit complete with an Xbox and a sixty inch flat screen. Little settees where bottles of wine or champagne could sit in chilling racks in between service times.

  This is where the party would’ve happened. At least when the room wasn’t on fire and with a big hole in the back wall.

  What had once been a floor to ceiling length window was now black char, staining the stone a good three feet into the room. The carpet and curtains there were smoldering despite the torrential rains pouring into the gap. This is where the smoke was escaping, pouring out into the cool night through this gaping opening.

  Parise was on his phone screaming at someone while facing into the night, a revolver in his left hand. Wind billowed at his suit coat and his words were lost to me.

  Aaron lay back on one of the loungers, his head lolled back with eyes staring up into space. As I got closer I saw the gunshot wounds in his chest and the blood pooling down at the base of the couch.

  Shit.

  I stalked closer to Parise, shouting his name into the wind.

  He turned then, seeing me for the first time. His face twisted at first with rage and then with sorrow. Parise slowly lowered the phone from his ear, his lips moving soundlessly from this distance. I have no idea if he was talking to me or to himself.

  I continued to advance warily, my eyes never leaving his gun hand. The charge buzzing at the back of my neck was faint now but I had a firm grip on it, ready to fly into full throttle at the slightest twitch of Parise’s trigger finger.

  Turns out I didn’t need it.

  Parise glanced up to meet my eyes. Defeated. His cell phone and revolver dropp
ed to the ground and he raised his hands up, lacing his fingers behind his head.

  I blinked in shock.

  In no scenario that ran through my head did I picture Parise surrendering.

  Shit.

  Now what the fuck do I do?

  Blood spurted forward and sprayed me in the face. Something hot and frantic buzzed by my ear, nearly knocking my hat off my fool head.

  The expression on Parise’s face was stunned. He had enough time to glance down at the huge exit wound that had blossomed in his chest before his knees buckled under him and he collapsed to the plush, burning carpet.

  I stared at his body for a brief moment, completely shocked. My nervous system once again flushed with frantic energy. I grabbed my hat off my head and swiped at my ear, marveling at the fresh blood there.

  “What the fuck …”

  Instinct sent me hurtling aside and out of the line of fire. At least one more bullet blasted through the massive opening but I didn’t bother looking back. I merely leapt into motion off to one side.

  Wood shattered off its hinges as I bulldozed my way through a side door from the party room. I landed awkwardly on the floor again. The rush of energy evaporated after that sudden overuse leaving behind a growing fatigue, dozens of body aches and the familiar gnawing hunger.

  My head spun.

  So much had happened and I was so damned tired. This splintered door propped against the wall of this plush sleeping room seemed like a good place to nap didn’t it? The cops were just outside. The fire department was on their way in. Everyone that needed to be safe was safe, or at least close enough right?

  Somebody coughed off to my left.

  I turned my head wearily.

  A young woman lay on the double bed against the wall. She was still kinda dressed in a fancy party outfit, minus most of her top and only one high heeled shoe. Her blonde hair was a disaster from having passed out while still loaded with hairspray and other products. Her nose was bloody, though it didn’t look like she’d been hit. Probably just too much partying and nose candy.

  Her coughing got stronger as smoke filled her barely conscious lungs. Her eyes were only half open. Pupils dilated.

  High as a kite.

  And helpless.

  Shit.

  I sighed and pushed myself back to my feet, slapping my hat back on my aching head.

  This hundred pound girl felt like iron in my arms as I carried her out of the room and down the marble staircase. Her weight actually taking me a bit off balance as I stumbled along.

  The smoke was beyond thick now. It watered my eyes and made it damned near impossible to get a decent breath. Stepping onto the staircase was like walking into a blast furnace, simultaneously breaking my body into a sweat and then feeling it evaporate away. A scary combination of too hot and too chilly at the same time.

  I kept my chin tucked to my chest and stumbled down those fifty steps as quickly as I dared, my legs trembling as we neared the bottom. The girl in my arms had stopped coughing which I figured was a bad sign. Once I made it to the floor I ignored the unsteadiness in my feet and picked up the pace, trotting as fast as possible to the smoke funneled front entrance.

  Nothing was easy to see. But noises. So many noises.

  “Stop right there!”

  “Ma’am you have to stop screaming.”

  “Who authorized that shot? I demand to know …”

  “What the hell is going on?”

  “Look over there!”

  Sirens. People wailing. Rain hammering the street in a steady drone. Thunder booming.

  Rain splashed haphazardly off the brim of my hat, cooling my steaming flesh and dampening my shirt. People approached me as my eyes began to clear, two firemen in full regalia with face shields and breathing apparatus. They took one look up the stairs at me and froze, clearly not expecting my presence.

  I coughed weakly, motioning the girl to them. My arms were burning with fatigue.

  One of the firemen stepped forward and took the girl from my arms as the other stepped up and took me by the arm, starting to pull me forward.

  That’s when my brain cleared and registered the things my eyes had been trying to tell me.

  Cameras. Lights.

  Just behind the police tape line and the wall of officers were reporters and camera crews. One from each TV station. A few from local radio and photographers from both local newspapers.

  Bulbs flashed and more noise exploded as I was drawn out of the smoke into the clear air.

  I panicked.

  Despite the fatigue and agony I spun on the balls of my feet, breaking the heavily gloved fireman’s grip and bolted back into the smoke and fire billowing out of Cowboy Shotz. The only direction I had to get away from the crowds and attention. People cried out behind me, the sound quickly lost to my ears as I passed back through the entranceway.

  Gotta get away.

  The building wasn’t in good shape. Support beams over a hundred years old were now on fire and threatening to cave in on themselves. I brought the neck of my tee shirt up over my mouth and nose, blinked frantically to try and get some moisture to my painfully dry eyes as I trundled into the main bar area. The brief dampness from the rain already evaporating in the heat.

  The fucking ceiling was on fire.

  All of the liquor stores behind the service bar were either in flames or about to burst from heat induced pressure. The inferno blurred my vision again. My mind whirled as I spun in place.

  Where?

  I saw Mackie’s body near the main bar in the same position I’d left it in, slowly becoming engulfed in flames. Never to hurt his family or another woman again.

  I saw the charred remains of Miller’s body still jammed into the deejay booth but no longer twitching. Fire had completely consumed that area and would soon devour him whole.

  Forgive me, Mom. I almost made it.

  Frantic.

  You’d better treat Cathy right, Captain Max. She deserves the best.

  Panicked.

  God, why didn’t I ask Tamara out when I had the …

  A memory flashed.

  That night at the club. Tamara and her friends. They were going to be late. Asked if I could put them on the list.

  The one we kept at the VIP Door!

  My feet knew the way even if my eyes couldn’t see it. Down the back hallway, past the remains of the sound booth and behind the main stage. I screamed while running through patches of fire burning their way through everything. Through the miniature loading area to the wide double doors leading to the back alley. The spot where deliveries arrived and people were charged twenty bucks a head to beat the line at the front door if they weren’t on the list.

  My body howled at me as I threw my agonized left shoulder against the heavy steel door, slamming it open into the stormy night. I collapsed to the alleyway, letting the icy rain wash over me. I was immediately soaked to the skin as heat and smoke billowed out the door behind me. Agonizingly refreshing, ice cold rain water pelted me flat to the concrete as lightning flashed in the sky.