Holliday's Gold

by Steeven R. Orr

  Doc smiled again. But the smile was not kindly, nor reassuring. He looked more like a wolf showing its teeth. “You’re going to tell me where she went. Heck, son, you don’t even have to tell me, you just have to point out the direction. You do that for me, and I won’t have to do anything nasty to you. I’m sure you don’t want me to do anything nasty to you. Ain’t that right, son?”

  “Yes,” Colin said with the barest hint of a whisper. Then Colin pointed in the direction that Goldilocks went, his finger shaking so violently that the trembling soon infested his entire body.

  “Thank you, son. That was right kindly of you.” Doc put the knife away and started to turn from the counter when the electronic bell over the door sounded again.

  Colin and Doc both turned to look at the double glass doors and found a Grimmelton City Police Officer standing there looking back and forth between the two of them.

  “Everything okay here, Colin?” the officer asked.

  “It was,” Doc said, and in a blur of motion, pulled both pistols and opened fire.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  EVER SINCE CARL FRIENDLY had been a little boy, all he wanted to be was a Grimmelton City Police Officer. His dad was a Grimmelton City Police Officer. His grandpa was a retired Grimmelton City Police Officer. Each and every male Friendly, stretching back to Roy Friendly, Grimmelton’s first city marshal, had been an officer of the law.

  They still considered him a rookie on the force, having only served for ten months, and he had had the good fortune, or misfortune as it may be, to get the call regarding an incident at the Brick House Gas and Groceries. The report hadn’t been too clear, something about a man waving a gun around and the theft of a car, but that’s really all one needed when they were a sworn officer of the law. So he got into his police cruiser, and drove over to the store.

  When he arrived, he noticed that there were no cars in the lot, or at the pumps, but he could see a man at the counter talking to Colin. A man in a hat. A man in black. Carl sat in his cruiser and watched the man through the window of the store. Carl watched Colin too. Colin seemed scared. The man in black pulled something out from under the back of his coat and put it on the counter. He couldn’t see what it was, but he didn’t like it.

  Carl picked up his radio. “Car 42 to base. Car 42 to base. Over.”

  “This is base, Car 42. What is your situation? Over.”

  “Base, I’m sitting here outside the Brick House Gas and Groceries and I’m spying what appears to be an unfriendly situation. I can’t confirm, but Colin’s looking a bit stressed. Over.”

  “Roger, Carl. I’ll send a couple of other units your way. Over.”

  “Thanks, Jen. Over and out.”

  He stepped out of the cruiser. He adjusted the mirrored sunglasses he wore and unbuttoned the protective flap that covered his sidearm. He walked slowly toward the store, keeping an eye on Colin and the man in black.

  Upon reaching the double glass doors, he stepped to the side, avoiding the pressure plate that would cause the doors to slide open automatically. Instead he stood still and tried to hear what the two inside were saying. But before he could make out any of the words, the man in black picked up the object he had set on the counter earlier. From here, he could make it out quite clearly. A knife, and a tooting big one at that. Without another thought, he stepped onto the pressure plate, watched the doors slide open, and walked inside.

  “Everything okay here, Colin?” he asked, never taking his eyes off the man in black.

  “It was,” the man in black said.

  The man in black smiled, his hands blurred, and then there were two back to back explosions. Something punched him in the chest, twice, knocking all the air out him and slamming him backwards through the open doorway of the store. He landed flat on his back as the sound of a police siren, followed by screeching tires, sounded behind him. A car door slammed.

  “Freeze!” someone shouted from behind him. “Drop ‘em, pal! Drop ‘em!”

  Gunfire erupted from both behind and in front of him. He could feel the bullets as they flew over him. He instinctively curled himself into the fetal position, his arms over his head, as shot after shot zipped over him. More sirens could be heard in the distance. They grew closer as more tires screeched into the lot behind him.

  His chest felt like it was on fire. He felt around with his hands but found no blood. His vest wasn’t pierced, then. All officers were required to wear Kevlar vests before going out on patrol. Most officers didn’t like to wear them. They are uncomfortable and hold in your body heat, making you sweat. But today proved to Carl why they are so very important.

  He flipped over onto his stomach as Armageddon erupted all around him. He crawled out from the line of fire and made it back to his car. He took cover behind the front tire, the car between him and the store, and took in the scene before him.

  On his side of the lot were four of the town’s police cruisers. Each with two officers. Five officers appeared to be down. The other three fired their weapons at the man in black.

  The man in black? He still stood in the doorway of the store. He didn’t seek cover. He just squeezed off shot after shot. Bullets zinging by and landing all around him. Yet the man in black remained calm. As a matter of fact, he laughed as he fired. And his guns? His guns looked like the kind of revolvers a gunfighter from the Old West would use. And yet, he never stopped to reload. He counted twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen shots. They never stopped. They just kept coming, and for some reason, he felt that the man in black was just toying with them. He could sense that so far the man in black had hit everything he had aimed at, and luckily enough for Carl and his fellow officers, the man in black had aimed at everything but them. Otherwise, he thought, they would all be dead.

  He ducked back down behind his car as a bullet popped into the hood just inches from his face.

  And just like that, it stopped.

  The sound of the shots echoing out into the distance were all that was left to be heard. That and the heavy gulping breaths that came from Carl and his fellow officers - those that had survived – as they gulped for air. Taking a chance, he took a quick look over the hood of the car and found the doors to the store closed.

  Just then one of the speakers over the pumps crackled on and a voice came out of them. The voice, he could only assume, of the man in black.

  “Gentleman,” the man in black said, “I want to make this as easy as possible on everyone involved. Know that if I wished for your death, then you would all be dead. It’s really just that simple.”

  Carl believed him.

  “I’m only going to say this once,” the man in black continued. “So pay attention and take heed. I will kill this little pig here if you all don’t get back into your cars, leave this place, and go back to your tiny little lives. I will place the barrel of my pistol against young Colin’s head and squeeze the trigger, thus removing him from this equation, and from existence.”

  Carl exchanged nervous glances with the men and women around him.

  “Furthermore,” said the man in black. “I will come out of this shabby little building and end each and every life out there I see with a badge pinned to its chest. I hope I’ve made myself clear. You have ten seconds to comply.”

  Carl looked to the remaining officers, looking for guidance. The other officers looked just as confused and unsure as he felt. There was nothing now but the silence, which did not last long. Colin’s voice replaced that of the man in black through the speakers at the pumps. It was a voice of fear and panic.

  “Help me.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  AFTER LEAVING THE BEAST unconscious and alone in the room with three chairs, Goldilocks set out to find
a place to rest. She often found herself exhausted after a big meal and a bit of violence. She figured that Tim, as she knew the Beast, would be out for an hour at least, so if she could just find a bed, she could possibly get herself a twenty minute power nap. The only problem, of course, were the multitudes of people currently hanging about on the front lawn.

  Now that the fire alarm was no longer ringing, she supposed that those folks would probably want to eventually come back into the house. Most people, when put in the same situation, would try to find the nearest exit and leave this place in the dust, but she wasn’t most people – which, of course, most people would find a little dumb and not daring in the way she thought of herself.

  She made her way up to the second floor, moving quickly and quietly. She walked past a large window that looked out over the front lawn and for the first time got a good look at the upheaval she had caused in the lives of the people who lived here.

  No less than four red fire engines, all with lights flashing and rotating, sat on the lawn in no discernible pattern. They were all parked in such a way that told anyone looking that the fire department was on the scene and everyone else was invited to come and watch. Along with the fire engines, she saw three police cars, one ambulance, and a small pizza delivery truck. The firefighters, now that the alarm had stopped ringing and there was no obvious risk of fire, were all sitting around out on the lawn eating pizza.

  Goldilocks decided that, considering the circumstances, maybe the whole ‘taking a nap’ thing probably wasn’t the brightest idea she’d ever had and figured that it was best to get out while the getting was good. So she did what she did best. She fled.

  After many twists and turns, she found herself looking down from the top of the main staircase. As she descended she could see that the staircase ended at the front door to the house, which wouldn’t have been such a big deal if it wasn’t opening at that very moment.

  Goldilocks, nearly to the bottom, froze on the steps as three bears walked into the house through the open front door. In first was the male, a large, well … huge , brown bear, possibly a grizzly. He was dressed casually in a pair of khaki pants and a green polo shirt. Behind him came a slightly smaller, but still quite large, female wearing a flower print sundress and wide brimmed, woven, sun hat. Lastly came the cub. The cub, which looked about as tall as Goldilocks, wore a red cap, jeans, and a plain white t-shirt.

  The large male spotted her first, pointed up at her and growled, “You don’t belong here.”

  “Um,” was about the only response she could come up with as she started to back up the stairs.

  “What are you doing here?” The female asked.

  “Well,” she said in return.

  “Who are you?” The big male asked.

  “Uh,” she said as she continued backwards up the stairs.

  Suddenly, the big male stepped up onto the first stair and said in a loud authoritative voice, “Freeze!”

  She stopped moving. She was a statue. A solidified object perched with one foot on the last step and one on the landing just above. She couldn’t help herself. The bear’s voice was so persuasive, so commanding that she had no choice but to obey. Sweat broke out on every surface of her body that contained sweat glands, and even a few that didn’t.

  The big male moved slowly toward her. His hands – Paws? – on either side of the staircase, clutching the railing as he ascended.

  He stopped about six stairs from her so that he could look her in the eye. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Goldilocks,” she said as the sweat began to rain from her brow.

  “Why are you in my house?”

  “I, um ... I, well.” She couldn’t say it.

  “You told Jack that you’d been attacked.”

  “I did?”

  “Yes, you did. Why are you in my house?” the bear asked again.

  “I was hungry.”

  “You were hungry.”

  “I was hungry.”

  “So instead of asking for a little help, a little charity, you conned your way into my house and stole my food.”

  “Um,” she tried to swallow but her mouth was dry. Evidently all the moisture in her body had been converted into sweat.

  “You assaulted Jack.”

  “Uh.”

  “You stole my food.”

  “Uh.”

  “You lied.”

  Goldilocks ran out of clever responses.

  “You brought violence and deceit into my house. MY HOUSE!” He roared out the last two words.

  Goldilocks, being human, did what any would do when being yelled at by a bear the size of, well … a bear.

  She screamed.

  And then she fainted.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  OFFICER CARL FRIENDLY WAS overwhelmed by a deep sense of desperation. He had to do something. Colin was all alone with the man in black and if he didn’t do something in ten seconds, Colin may very well die.

  Carl exchanged glances with the officers around him. They all looked just as uncertain as he did. Finally, he just couldn’t take it anymore.

  “This is crap,” he said, checking his gun, a Glock 21. He pulled the magazine and made sure he was fully loaded. He was. He slammed the magazine into place and pulled back the slide. “That guy’s gonna kill Colin if we don’t do something.”

  “He’s going to kill Colin if we do do something!” Gilbert Hines said.

  “Not if we handle this right.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Cover me,” Carl holstered his pistol, snapping the safety strap down over the top of it and stepped out from behind his cruiser. He raised his hands into the air and called out, “I want to talk!”

  His only response was silence.

  “Let Colin go! Take me instead!”

  More silence.

  Carl just stood there, hands in the air, feeling like an idiot, waiting, unsure of what to do next.

  That was when Carl got his response. The silence was broken by the sound of a gunshot from within the store.

  Carl jumped at the sound and stared in open-mouthed shock. He did it , he thought. The bastard shot Colin. He scrambled back behind his cruiser, pulled his pistol and aimed it at the store when the speaker crackled.

  “I warned you,” the man in black said over the cheap, funnel-shaped speakers. “You can’t say I didn’t warn you. The pig’s death is on your hands, not mine.”

  Carl had never known rage before, not like the rage he felt now. He hadn’t really known Colin that well. He’d only known him as the pig from the store. The pig that sold him coffee each morning. The pig that Carl would never see again. Regardless, Colin was a life. An innocent life that some stranger just took. Stolen right out of the world. A life taken with no more thought than it takes to step on an ant. Carl had devoted his entire self to helping people. Defending the innocent. Protecting those who could not protect themselves. And today, here in this parking lot, he had failed. That’s not something that he was willing to accept.

  Carl opened fire. Aiming each shot so that they went through the window behind the counter, on the other side should be the man in black. His fellow officers followed suit and the window shattered. Carl and the other officers stopped and started to reload when the double glass doors slid open.

  The man in black stepped out holding a revolver in each hand.

  The rest was somewhat of a blur. The man in black opened fire, and Carl recalled that actual flames erupted from each gun, as if the bullets themselves burned. Like tracer bullets, yet not. To him it loo
ked like the guns were firing the very flames of Hell itself.

  The officers around him broke and ran. He remained where he was until he’d emptied his gun at the man in black. Then he too ran. The way he figured it, you can’t go around shooting off guns that emit the very flames of Hell itself around an island of gas pumps without risk of something going up in a violent explosion. So yes, he ran for his life.

  Then came the explosion and he was pushed off of his feet. It was like a giant hand had reached out and swatted him into the street like he was made of straw. He rolled about a bit before coming to rest against the far curb and he thought it might be a good idea to just lie there and bleed for the time being. It seemed like the right thing to do, anyway. His body was one giant pain center. As he lay there, he thought that there might be a spot on the back of his left knee, about the size of a dime, that didn’t hurt, but the rest of him was in agony. The world became blurry and indistinct. His thoughts became difficult to grasp, like holding water in a pair of fishnet stockings. He may have even passed out for a time but he couldn’t be sure.

  After a few moments the world started to clear and Carl began to move, taking it in easy, small steps. He wiggled the toes on his right foot, then his left. They moved with little pain. He rotated both ankles. Everything had gone swimmingly thus far. He arched each knee. So far so good. He wiggled his fingers, rotated his wrists, bent his elbows, and lifted his arms. He hadn’t passed out yet, so his outlook was bright. But now came the real test.

  Carl sat up, slowly. It took him a few moments but he got there. He looked around. He could see nothing but smoke and fire, so he pulled himself to his feet. His vision began to blur and his stomach contents threatened to come out and play, but he fought it and remained upright. His cruiser was gone, so were the others, except for one. Gilbert had parked his cruiser closer to the road. It lay on its side, but it was intact.