“We better get this rung up for you then.”
“Gum?” Jax asked as he snatched a pack from the rack at the counter and shared a smiling glance with his father.
“And this gum.” Jackson took the gum from Jax and placed it on the counter. “We need gas too,” he continued as he began to itch the mosquito bite on his arm. “Damn mosquito!”
“Got you good, did it?” the attendant asked and then looked outside. There was only one vehicle in the gas bay. “Nice truck.”
Jackson nodded.
Again the young man’s eyes darted to the area by his feet and back up hastily. Jackson responded with a suspicious look.
“How much you wanna’ get? Gas, I mean,” the attendant continued.
“Twenty five should fill it up. Small tank.”
“Okay.”
The attendant looked down again. Jackson studied the man’s eyes. He saw the same alarmed look in the eyes of the old man in the back of the store. They shared some of the same features the more Jackson thought about it.
“That’ll be $26.38, sir.”
Jackson handed his credit card to the attendant who placed it on the counter and pushed it off and on to the ground. It landed near Jackson’s boots. It seemed like he did it on purpose.
“My bad. Sorry ‘bout that, sir.” The attendant closed his eyes and mouthed the word ‘please’.
It gave Jackson pause. He stared at the boy. “I’ll get it,” he said, but not another word as he knelt down slowly to pick up the plastic card while he considered exactly what was happening in the little store.
As he slowly rose back up, Jackson realized what the attendant and the old man were trying to tell him. He eyed the black man in the automotive section and handed the credit card to the attendant once again.
“So sorry, sir.”
“No problem.” Jackson looked back to the old man who was staring hard enough to burn a whole in him. “No problem at all,” he continued calmly as he turned back to the attendant. The attendant nodded back. Jackson mouthed the words ‘how many’ one time as he clutched Jax’s shoulder.
“You know,” the attendant said as he picked up the gum to put in the bag with the food. “This gum here is buy one get one. Bogo, you know? You wanna’ pick up a second one?”
“Sure,” Jackson nodded with an air of confidence that made the clerk suddenly feel at peace. “Can’t pass up that deal. Two instead of one. Right?” He winked.
“There ain’t anymore,” Jax said, reaching for another pack. He took the last one.
“Right,” the attendant said to Jackson. He looked like he just won a few thousand on a scratch off.
“Where?” Jackson asked, just moving his lips. No sound.
“Here you go,” the clerk said as he pulled a second pack from behind the counter and handed it to Jackson. He looked to Jax. “We keep the extras behind the counter here.”
“Thank you,” Jackson said. One in the back of the store, he thought to himself. One behind the counter.
In a flash, Jackson propelled himself onto the counter as if he had springs for legs and slid over it where he found himself on the hard tile floor in a brawl with a white male who was squatted down there.
A battle ensued as the clerk leapt over the counter to get out of the way, but not before activating the ear piercing alarm under the counter.
“Run,” he urged Jax.
Jax tried to sprint towards the door as the black man from the back aisle ran towards the counter with a black Ruger in his hand, yelling.
“I got your boy! I got your boy! I’ll kill him!” Jackson heard the second man say.
A shot rang out in the store that was now spinning for Jax as he felt the hot Ruger barrel against his temple and saw blood pooling around the lifeless body of the young clerk who was now on the tile, not moving.
Blood splatter coated the right glass door and oozed down.
Another shot echoed in the store just before Jackson popped up from behind the counter with blood spatter all over his shirt. The silver plated Beretta he took from the other robber was now pointed at the man who held his son hostage.
“Let him go if you don’t want to end up dead like your partner behind the counter.”
Jackson eyed the body of the clerk that was in a blood pool on the store floor. Never before had the father seen such panicked horror on his son’s face.
The young black man pushed the barrel harder into Jax’s temple. “Your boy’s next if you don’t do exactly what I tell you homey.”
“Let him go. Now,” Jackson said fiercely as he smoothly, effortlessly leapt back over the counter as Jax started to cry. “Come on, man. You don’t want to die today.” The cold calmness in his tone was chilling. “Do you?”
The robber held Jax tightly against him with his other arm locked around his throat, shielding himself with the hostage, the Ruger still pushed against Jax’s head. He dragged Jax backwards toward the door, keeping the boy in front of him. He moved outside with Jackson pursuing slowly, step for step, with the shiny Beretta aimed at the threat’s forehead.
The robber turned his head to get a few quick looks at the old truck. “Keys motherfucker! Now!”
“Okay. Okay. I’ll give them to you. Just don’t hurt my son.”
“I said give me those keys man! Fuck! Now!”
“Okay. Relax, dude. I’m just going to reach in my pocket and pull out the keys for you.”
In one motion, Jackson pitched the gun from his right to left hand while he reached into his right side pocket with his right hand to pull out the keys. He jiggled them in the air while he still pointed the Beretta in his left hand at the anxious robber. His left hand was just as steady as his right, and he was just as good a shot with it.
“I’m going to toss them over to you, but I want you to let my son go first. Nobody else has to get hurt today.”
“Toss ‘em to me first.” The nervous robber continued moving backwards to the truck, checking over his shoulder with every step. “Then I’ll let him go.”
“You ready?” Jackson asked as he bent slight at the knees and prepared to toss them.
“Don’t try nothin’ or he’s dead! Hear me, dad? I’ll blow his fucking brains out!”
“No worries, man. I hear you. Okay, tossing the keys now. Here they come.”
Jackson and Jax looked into each other’s eyes. Jackson quickly looked down to the ground and back up.
The gunman bumped against the truck.
“Jumper!” Jackson yelled as he tossed the keys in the air towards the gunman. “Speak! Down Jax!”
Jax slipped down to escape the disoriented man’s grip as he reached into the air to snatch the keys while he got lost in the menacing sound of Jumper barking viciously at him, emerging to the open window from inside the truck.
It rattled the robber as he caught the keys, stunning him for a split second as he instinctively turned around to address the ferocious beast amid the sudden sound of approaching sirens.
As he turned back around and pointed his weapon towards Jackson, the robber felt the cold lead enter his chest. The robber fired his weapon as his knees buckled and he sunk to the ground as one side of the glass door to the store shattered.
The robber fired a second shot as he felt the world going dark. The last thing he saw before it did was the face of an unforgiving father who had no mercy for anyone that posed a threat to his family.
Jax ran to his father who dropped his weapon as he fell to his knees. “Dad!”
A bloodstain soaked through his t-shirt at the left shoulder. Police cars came to a sudden stop in the parking lot.
Two Virginia state police officers gathered around the fallen robber whose body lay on the ground while the other ran to Jackson.
“Help my dad! Please! He’s been shot!”
The officer helping Jackson dropped to his knees as he put gloves on his hands and looked Jackson in his vacant eyes. “Tell me your name, partner,” he said as he kicked the gun on
the ground further away and inspected the entry wound. “Do you know who you are?”
“Jackson,” he said, coming out of the daze.
“Okay, Jackson. Let me try and stop the bleeding.”
The officer ripped Jackson’s shirt so he could spread the wound opening apart. He shined a flashlight into it and then pressed a small towel against it.
“Looks like the bullet is still in there. We need to get you to a hospital, sir. For now, it needs pressure against it. Can you hold the towel against it for me?”
“Wait!” Jackson hopped back to his feet without any support as an ambulance pulled into the parking lot. “The boy! He’s inside! He needs help!”
“Whoa! Easy does it now!”
Jackson turned towards the door. “In the store! Come on!”
He stumbled towards the opening that used to be a double door of the store as everyone else stood around watching him. The left door was reduced to a pile of glass, destroyed by the robber’s first shot.
“Come on!” Jackson began to run as drops of his blood dripped onto the pavement in his wake. “He’s dying!”
Chapter 23
“Franco!” Jamie yelled quietly into the phone as the comforting voice of her direct supervisor answered on the other end of the phone line. “Oh, my God. Franco!”
Her cell phone was clinched tightly in her trembling hands. She quickly turned her head to see if anyone was coming.
“What is it, Jamie?” The frantic terror in her voice made his fragile heart suddenly pound inside his chest. “Talk to me.”
Jamie paced back and forth on the west side of the warehouse behind a large, dried out bush near the towering chain link fence that protected the compound, far from the gate entrance. Her cell phone was pressed against her ear. “This is bad, Franco! So bad!”
“Calm down, Jamie. Please! Slow down and tell me what you’ve found. Where are you now? Still at the CDC?”
“No, a few miles from the CDC, at an abandoned warehouse.” She turned and looked at it. “That’s what it looks like from the outside, but it isn’t abandoned at all. It belongs to the CIA, Franco.”
“The CIA? What? Why are you there?”
“This is where they are bringing the sick.”
Jamie turned her head again. This time, to her dismay, she saw Lars coming out of the warehouse entrance with a guard that was carrying another one of those giant machine guns. She knew who they were looking for, but hadn’t spotted her yet. She hoped the bush cover would give her a little more time as she ducked behind it.
She hoped they would walk slowly.
They did the opposite.
“I don’t have much time to talk,” she continued with a whisper. “I need you to listen carefully to me.”
“Why are you whispering, Jamie?” Franco asked, sounding equally panicked. “Are you in trouble? I’ll come get you,” he insisted as he subconsciously placed his hand on the handgun holstered at his side. “Tell me where to go.”
“I don’t think I’m in any danger. For now. I just have to be careful what I say right now. I need to hurry. I’m outside right now, but they’re coming.”
“Who’s coming?”
“Bigsby. Look, Franco. He’s not human anymore.”
“Who? What does that mean?”
“The patient. I’m still not sure what has happened to him, or what to do. I need more time to study him. That’s hard to do since I can’t even get close to him safely.”
“Him?”
“The patient, Franco. Shit! They see me.”
“What? Are they only keeping one patient there?”
“He’s the only one left until they bring more.”
“Did the others die? Has there been any autopsy yet?”
“For an autopsy there has to be something left to autopsy. He killed them all, Franco. A perfect killing machine. He…”
“There you are!” Franco heard over the phone. A familiar sounding male voice, though he couldn’t immediately place it.
“Who, Jamie? What did he do?”
“We should get back inside, Jamie,” Franco heard the voice say, sounding closer than before.
“Who is that?” Franco asked in a panic now himself, wondering who it was that was coming closer to Jamie.
Then it came to him.
“Bigsby,” he could only whisper into the phone as he realized Jamie was with Lars.
“I’m so glad the trip is going well!” Jamie said jubilantly as she shielded the face of the phone from Lars. She proudly displayed a big smile as he walked to within two feet of her. “I love you all too! I miss you! Drive safely!”
“What the hell is going on, Jamie? Is Bigsby a threat? Talk to me!”
“Everything is going fine, Jackson! Don’t worry about anything here. Just enjoy the time with our son. I have to go now.”
“Oh, my God! Please be careful, Jamie! Do I need to come get you?”
“Not at all, baby. I’ll see you soon. You be careful too! I love you. Bye.”
Jamie pressed the ‘end call’ button, locked it with the side key, and quickly tucked her phone back in her purse as Lars reached her.
“Everything is going well, I take it,” Lars asked Jamie as she turned and faced him, “with the family?”
“Absolutely.” The smile on her face faded as she eyed the weapon in the guard’s hands. “They’re having a great time.”
“Ignorance is bliss.”
“Ignorance can get you killed. I wish I could warn them about the risks out there.” She stared at the big gun again.
“I know it’s hard, Dr. Mills. Until we get further direction from the President, we need the highest level of discretion. Even with Franco. Understand?”
Jamie wondered if Lars knew. She now knew how intelligent he was; smarter than her, perhaps. She played along anyway. “I understand. Why the big artillery, doctor?” She focused on the guard. “You know I’m not going to hurt anyone.”
“No one goes in or out of the building without an armed escort. House rules. That’s why I rushed out here to find you. You ran out before I could explain that to you. I thought you were going to call your husband from the lobby.”
“I came outside for better reception. It’s not very good inside the building.” Jamie didn’t know if that was true, though it seemed a good line. “Metal, you know?”
“Absolutely. I have the same problem with my phone. Shall we go back inside and continue working? We have everything you requested set up for you now. Lot of work to do.”
“Yes,” Jamie agreed as she began to walk with Lars and the guard towards the entrance of the warehouse where Bob, the man who used to be a school teacher, would consume the rest of her day.
Franco sat down in his office, confused. He picked up the phone and dialed the direct line to FEMA Director, Douglas Wingate.
“Hi, Doug. It’s Franco. You too, sir. We need to talk about the CDC, sir.” Franco took a deep breath as General Wingate acknowledged his request to talk. “They’re lying to us. And I lied to the FBI.”
Chapter 24
The old man was kneeling over the clerk, sobbing in the pool of blood as Jax and the two police officers raced inside the Quickie Mart. Jackson followed slowly, leaving the EMS team that just arrived outside talking to medical command and pronouncing the body by the truck as deceased.
“He’s my grandson,” he wept as he looked at Jackson who knelt down beside him. “Toby,” he sobbed as he laid his head on the clerk’s blood covered shirt. “No!” he said, wailing. “Not my Toby!”
Jackson stuck his fingers onto the wound on Toby’s neck. Blood dripped from Jackson’s own wound. He lowered his ear to Toby’s mouth and listened for signs of life. There was bloody everywhere.
“He has a pulse! He’s breathing!” Jackson yelled triumphantly.
Toby started to gag on the blood draining down his throat.
“Yes! Come on! Keeping breathing, Toby! We need an ambulance! Now!” Jackson yelled to the officer
s.
“It’s already here,” one of the officers replied as he noticed a blood pool leaking out from under the counter. He peaked over it to see another dead body as his partner yelled to the EMS team outside, careful not to step in the blood.
Jackson took off his shirt and packed it on top of Toby’s neck wound and turned the boy onto his side.
“Rover thirty two on scene for Code Red at the Quickie Mart on Old Bridge Road. Two dead and two wounded on scene. One critical. Over.”
“10-4 thirty two. Another medic for one critical and one wounded. ETA two minutes. Over.”
“Roger that.” The officer looked to Jackson who was trying to keep Toby alive. “Hang on kid. We’ll get you to the hospital.”
“Please tell them to hurry,” Toby’s grandfather begged as Toby’s body began to seize.
Jackson put his hand behind the old man’s head and tenderly pulled his torso closer to him, leaving Jackson’s bloody handprint on the back of the old man’s white button up shirt.
Two minutes later, EMTs loaded Toby’s wounded body into the back of one of the ambulances on a stretcher. The EMT hopped out of the back of the truck to go toward the driver’s seat as another ambulance pulled into the parking lot. The medic still in the back with the clerk took the grandfather's hand and pulled him inside the back of the unit. The ambulance disappeared into the distance with sirens blaring a moment later.
Jackson sat on the back bumper of the other ambulance with his feet touching the ground. The female crew member was tending to his gun wound, and arguing loudly with her patient. Jax and Jumper sat on the ground in the parking lot watching the spectacle as police officials scurried around the establishment.
“You’ve been shot, Mr. Mills! You need to go to the hospital!”
“It’s just a flesh wound.”
“Oh, please! This isn’t the movies, man! There’s a bullet lodged in your shoulder. It needs to be extracted.”
“Easy enough. Mind if I borrow those please?”
Jackson eyed the oddly long tweezers in the technician’s tool belt. She looked down at her belt and watched him snatch them out of it, feeling violated. “What the hell are you doing?”
And We All Fall (Book 1) Page 19