by Matt Drabble
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Sutherland moved quickly as those innocent staff members scattered for cover from his ceiling shots before Chambers and his two goons could open fire. Even through the chaos, he could see the superintendent’s eyes blazing at the disruption to his plans.
“ARREST THAT MAN!” Chambers called out and Sutherland had to smirk; even when the superintendent was crazy enough to commit mass murder, he was still trying to stick to the rules.
He ducked down as the two armed response unit officers opened fire in is direction. Thankfully, the rest of the staff had ducked down beneath the canteen tables and were relatively safe, for now.
The large open room was brightly lit by overhead fluorescent strips and Sutherland could see that any movement on his part would be spotted. He could retreat back out of the canteen easily enough the way he’d come, but that would leave the innocents to their fate.
He flipped a table over and took shelter behind it as bullets struck the barricade but at this distance didn’t yet penetrate. He peered around the table from a crouching position and could see that the two goons were already starting to circle him while Chambers hung back.
Sutherland took aim upwards and started to fire towards the overhead lights and soon the glass was shattering and the canteen was being plunged into darkness.
He moved quickly to his side as soon as the lights were out and he felt several bullets pepper the air past him as the two men fired either side of where he’d been hidden.
His instinct was to run but he fought it and instead started to crawl on his belly under the next row of tables. He moved forwards slowly, trying desperately hard not to make a sound.
“SUTHERLAND!” Chambers called out. “I should have known that you would be in league with the Devil himself; you are godless and worthless and I shall not allow you to disrupt the glorious future that awaits the brave.”
He ignored the ramblings and kept on moving forwards, inch by slow painful inch, as his ageing body protested at the exertion. Chambers was obviously crazy and there would be no reasoning with him, not in this state.
Sutherland kept a careful watch either side of him in the poor lighting. The canteen was almost completely black save for the thin stream of moonlight which cascaded through the high windows.
A foot suddenly appeared beside the table he was currently hiding under and he froze. He took careful aim at the man’s black boot and fired once into it.
The officer howled in shock and pain then dropped to the floor beside him. Sutherland stared into the man’s face and wanted to see some kind of humanity there, some kind of life, but there was only darkness. He fired a second shot into the man’s face at close range and shut his eyes just as the splash of blood hit his own skin.
He heard running footsteps hurrying towards him as the other officer ran to his fallen comrade. Sutherland prepared for the man to appear next to his colleague but heavy boots landed on top of the table as the officer leapt up.
Realising what was about to happen, Sutherland rolled onto his back and started to frantically crawl backwards just as the man above started firing downwards. At this distance the bullets shredded the table instantly and were soon peppering the hardwood floor beneath.
Sutherland scrambled as quickly as he could manage, using his elbows and feet for leverage. A bullet struck his hip and another tore through his ankle, making him cry out in pain.
Mercifully, the man’s machine gun clip ran dry and Sutherland heard him start to reload. He had no idea how many rounds he had left in his own gun but started to fire upwards until he ran out.
What turned out to be the penultimate bullet struck gold and the man standing on the table above him suddenly toppled off to the side, clutching his groin and screaming.
Sutherland pulled himself out from under the table, leaving behind a trail of blood from his wounds.
The first man he’d shot was now lying dead to one side and Sutherland crawled towards him. He flung his spent weapon aside and grabbed the dead man’s sub-machine gun.
He used the table leg to haul himself up to his feet and leaned against the table to keep himself upright.
The second man was curled up in a ball with his hands clasped to his ruined groin as Sutherland staggered around to face him.
He swayed on his feet and struggled to raise the gun. Blood was now pouring from his hip and he was starting to think that he was bleeding from somewhere else as he was in danger of blacking out.
He squeezed off a burst of fire into the officer on the ground, telling himself that these men were here to slaughter innocents and that in itself justified execution. He took no pleasure in it and only felt hollow and empty inside.
A bullet suddenly struck him in the back, spinning him around and sending him crashing back to the floor again. As he landed on his back, a further three bullets struck him in the chest, jerking him violently. The only upside was that just the first had hurt; now he was simply numb.
His breathing came in short sharp laboured bursts and he struggled to gasp in any air as blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
Chambers strode forward, his hand shakily holding a smoking service revolver. “EVERYONE REMAIN CALM AND STAY WHERE YOU ARE!” he ordered the group of workers who were still hunkered out of sight but who hadn’t run for safety.
Sutherland wanted to yell at them to flee, but when he opened his mouth, he could only cough a violent bloody spray.
Chambers moved towards him carefully, and as Sutherland tried to summon the last vestige of strength to raise the weapon still in his hand, the superintendent stood on it.
“Don’t you understand, Detective?” Chambers asked quietly as he loomed over. “God is here with us tonight; he flows through me and he will give me the power to strike down the usurpers to his throne.”
“You’re crazy,” Sutherland just managed to whisper.
“No, my child. I will sit at his right hand and he will shower me with love as I enter his kingdom. His love is eternal and so shall it always be. Tolanson is the new coming and his grace shall be glorious and his wrath shall be vengeful.”
Sutherland waved him closer as he started to fade away, feeling the last ebbs of life.
“You wish to make your confession?” Chambers smiled. “All contrition shall be judged by him, all penance shall be paid in full before his judgment.”
Now that Sutherland was clearly at death’s door and unarmed, Chambers knelt down over the soon-to-be corpse and leaned in to listen to a dying man’s declaration.
Under the circumstances, Sutherland did all he could do and spat in Chambers’ face. It was a petty defiance but at least it was some kind of defiance.
Chambers stood up, wiping away the bloody glob with disgust. As he raised the revolver for the final shot, Sutherland could only hope that Donovan had had better luck than him.
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Tolanson took to the stage again, putting his best foot forward. The break had slashed by in the blink of an eye and had done him no good at all. He felt like he needed to sleep for a hundred years to regain any strength, but still he pushed forward.
Just before he reached his podium, he took a shot of sudden fuel as a soul fell in his name. But as he awaited the onslaught of power as the rest were sacrificed in his name, nothing came - just one measly offering that would never sate his hunger.
The audience applauded wildly and he fought hard to hold onto the tiger’s tail as his temper threatened to run riot in the auditorium. For a moment, all he could think of was tearing out throats and drinking deeply of innocent blood.
He took a deep breath and forced a smile onto his lips and radiated his influence out into the audience, drawing on their devotion to him. His very bones felt like they were going to crumble into dust under his suit, but still he pressed on. There was no turning back now; now, thoughts of defeat could not or would not be tolerated.
One glance to the corner of the stage told him that McDere was also suffering due
to his slipping power. The big man suddenly had a spreading red stain in the centre of his chest bleeding through a pristine white shirt.
He quickly flapped a hand to his aide and McDere dutifully closed his jacket over the opening old gunshot wound.
Tolanson steeled himself, and by sheer force of his will, exuded his steely resolve. The end was close now - so close that he could smell both his victory and his own mortality.
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Lomax watched on as Tolanson re-emerged for the second half of the debate. The man was still standing, but even from here, Lomax could tell that the politician was starting to struggle.
Because of the threat of illegal filming, all phones had been confiscated at the door and, as such, he had no way of contacting either Sutherland or Donovan. He hated having to put his trust in anyone else but he had little choice. All he could do now was to watch and wait and pray.
His biggest fear was that even if everything went perfectly then Tolanson would simply become a wounded animal and there was nothing more dangerous.
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Donovan moved as quickly as he could to one side but had to grit his teeth against the pain in his shoulder as blood flowed freely from the knife wound.
Mallory swung the blade wildly and the knife slashed at his jacket but thankfully didn’t penetrate the leather. He felt behind him for the gun that had been tucked in the back of his jeans but it was gone and he felt like screaming in frustration. Whoever was upstairs calling the shots on this clusterfuck really didn’t feel like playing fair.
The rest of the people in the room were all panicking now as three of their own turned on them with knives and murderous intent.
The volunteers charged into each other as two of them slashed randomly with kitchen knives. Donovan had been in enough street fights in his time to know that the human body was essentially a pretty sturdy piece of kit and blades that slashed would normally only wound.
He wished that some of the youngsters had the balls to fight back but they were all too concerned with fleeing to be of much use. He had only seen one person drop to the ground dead but there would soon be more if he didn’t do something and do it fast.
Mallory circled him again, her face snarling like some kind of wild animal. He could see right away that there would be no reasoning with her and he took a few steps to his left until he was in the middle of the viewing area.
The woman tensed and he knew that she was going to charge. He tried to ignore the pain in his shoulder and treated her like a bull. As she ran at him full pelt, he twisted himself to the side before lending his momentum to her own as she passed him by slamming his one good shoulder into her back.
The woman pitched forward out of control and didn’t manage to get her hands up in time to protect herself before her face struck the huge TV screen, splitting the glass and smearing blood across a close-up of Tolanson’s image.
The television spluttered before going blank and Mallory screamed more at the loss of picture than the large shards of bloody glass now sticking out of her face.
She pulled her head free of the broken screen leaving behind a sickening amount of skin on the sharp edges. She stared at him, her expression now almost totally obscured by blood, but he could feel her hate.
He swayed on his unsteady feet as the blood loss from his shoulder took hold. Mallory appeared to be ready to launch herself at him again, but instead she mercifully pitched forward and landed heavily on the floor at his feet. The blow from crashing into the TV screen head on had obviously been hard enough to render her unconscious; it had just taken a little time to register.
A roar from the other side of the room alerted him to the fact that his interfering presence had been noted by Mallory’s accomplices. The floor was soaked with a terrifying amount of blood from stabbed victims, but by some God-given reason, he could only see one person obviously dead. The others were trying to crawl away from their attackers.
A man and a woman, both of who were no older than he was, turned towards him with the same crazed look in their eyes that Mallory had held.
The two of them gripped bloody knives and started to advance towards the interloper.
Donovan held his ground as his body leaned to one side with one arm hanging uselessly. He had no weapons and no chance. The two nutters were armed and possessed with a strength borne of madness.
He had only lived on this earth a relatively short amount of time but he had achieved a lot during that spell. He knew that he didn’t have much to offer the world and that he was responsible for a lot of darkness and pain. The only good thing he had ever done was to produce a little angel and then to keep her away from his world. He couldn’t help but think that when the obituaries were written about his life that maybe his little girl would find out about the day he finally did the right thing.
In the end he did all he could think of to do and charged his attackers.
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“Our economy should be the envy of the modern world,” Tolanson announced loudly as he wandered somewhat off topic and Knowles bristled again at the lax moderating.
“I have been travelling the country during this campaign and I’ve seen strong men and women coming to my rallies in their droves, coming on a WORK DAY!” he yelled. “A work day and they don’t have jobs to go to. It’s a disgrace that the decent hardworking citizens of our once great nation are being pushed aside in favour of outsiders. Now don’t get me wrong - I believe that we, as a civilised nation, have a duty - nay, a responsibility - to offer sanctuary to those who are fleeing persecution. But I say that we have to get our own house in order first before we invite guests to stay. Illegal guests, I might add, who are receiving handouts while our own people go hungry.”
The mini speech drew another round of rapturous applause from the audience.
“Well, first things first. Obviously, to qualify for any governmental aid they would have to go through the system and any person who is here illegally would understandably be disqualified immediately and then deported,” Knowles countered. “But leaving aside the borderline racist rhetoric for a moment, I believe that the original question was about schools and education?”
There was a smattering of claps from some of the audience and for the first time Tolanson shifted a little uneasily. He was struggling badly to maintain his own structural integrity, let alone his influence over the gathered audience. His whole body was sweating heavily and his shirt was soaked through under his jacket.
“I believe that there are more pressing matters at hand,” he replied awkwardly as his mouth ran dry.
“More important than our children?” Knowles exclaimed. “I believe that it was Nelson Mandela who once said that there can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children. Tell me, Mr Tolanson, do you really understand the importance of our future generations? Do you truly expect to understand the needs of the children when… forgive me, but when you’re not a parent yourself?"
Tolanson felt the pressure building deep inside. He knew that by now he should have been flooded with enough souls to replenish his power and yet the tap had stopped after a measly one sacrifice. He suddenly felt helpless and impotent standing on a stage being questioned by insects who should have already knelt before him in awe.
“Mr Tolanson?” Knowles pressed. “I’m afraid that you’re not looking all that well; do you perhaps need a break? As someone who has been used to such stages before I’m afraid that I’ve forgotten that this is your first time and it can be a little overwhelming.”
This comment drew a small ripple of laughter as Knowles landed his first decent punch of the evening.
Tolanson gripped the wooden podium hard enough to make the wood crack under his grip. Everything suddenly felt like it was starting to slip away from him. This evening had always been a risk but it had been a risk worth taking. But now he felt like he was melting on stage under the lights and under the pressure to stay in existence. If his
followers didn’t come through soon, he was not going to have the strength to even stand for much longer.
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Sutherland braced himself for the inevitable. Chambers stood over his almost lifeless body with a police issue service revolver pointed at his head.
There was a gathering of people cowering to his left who by now had wrongly assumed that DI Sutherland, the man with a warrant out for his arrest for murder, had returned to wreak bloody havoc at the station. They were also wrongly assuming that Chambers had saved them. The superintendent was going to shoot him and then he was going to slaughter them in Tolanson’s name.
He tried to call out and warn them, but his voice was wet and mixed with too much blood in his throat.
“I always knew that you were a heathen, Sutherland. I always knew that you would fail the ultimate test of faith,” Chambers said as he prepared to fire. “And now you shall meet your maker and kneel before him, begging for mercy.”
Chambers’ words were loud enough so that the rest of the staff heard him and several faces peered out from under the table where they had been hiding, unsure as to what was happening. The superintendent was standing over a colleague, looking like he was about to execute him.
“STAY BACK!” Chambers ordered, swinging the gun round as one of the braver admin assistants moved forward.
The rest of the staff flinched at the words and the actions of their boss and most of their faces were creased with confusion.
“The day of judgment is at hand and you have all been chosen,” Chambers ranted. “This is a blessed day, my children; you will all be heralds of a new dawn, a new beginning, a new heaven on earth. This is not a day for tears,” he said as a woman sobbed aloud. “This is a day for rejoicing; this is a day for celebration and we will all be ascending together.”
Chambers turned the revolver back on him and Sutherland couldn’t believe that this would be how it ended, that for all his desire for redemption he would still fail and people would die because he wasn’t strong enough.
“Goodbye, Detective.” Chambers smiled almost kindly. “If it’s any consolation, you are serving a higher cause.”