Gun (Gun Apocalypse Series Book 1)

by Lee Hayton

  Frankie turned. Becca spoke in a low voice without her earlier hysteria.

  “If we wait a few minutes, he’ll be above us.” She pointed to the roof for good measure. “We can get to the fire escape and get out.”

  Frankie was shaking her head before her friend finished. “It’s alarmed. He’ll hear it and come running.”

  “Better than staying here and waiting for him to return. How many kids do you think are left up there?”

  Another burst of gunfire rang out above them. However many, it was one kid less now.

  “We can try the main stairs,” Frankie said. “If we’re quiet, he won’t hear us.”

  But Frankie didn’t need Becca to point out the errors in her plan. Earlier explosions had twisted the metal struts and collapsed half the steps. If their weight brought down the others, they might die in the fall.

  Becca pulled Frankie along the wall of windows, pointing down. “The bike shed’s there. If we run down the fire escape, we can reach it before he does. Lock ourselves inside and wait for help.”

  A series of thefts earlier in the year had resulted in a crown of razor wire adorning the shed fence. Steel bars formed three walls, while a bank of metal lockers formed the fourth. Their small size lent them strength. Enough to ward off a shotgun blast? Unlikely. Besides . . .

  “If he goes to school here, he’ll know the code.”

  Becca’s face collapsed at the observation, and Frankie felt like a bully. “You know the layout down this side of the school better than me. What else is down there?”

  Becca closed her eyes, her veins tracing dark blue shadows under pale skin. After a moment she opened them, her face shone with the quick intelligence Frankie treasured and envied in equal measure. “The pedestrian tunnel.”

  Frankie pulled her nostrils in—a gesture Becca called “the frown that wasn’t”—and shook her head. “He’d have a clear shot all the way across.”

  “Not us. My phone.” Becca mimicked sliding the phone along the ground and looked up to Frankie, her eyebrows raised. “We set it up to play music or something. Slide it along the tunnel. He follows it in . . .”

  She trailed off, but Frankie nodded her understanding. The gate had a mechanism that locked fast when it was slid across. Since the introduction of the tunnel—a road safety initiative—more than once, bullies had trapped a fellow pupil in there for a laugh.

  The cover from the bike shed sheltered their path long enough that the gunman wouldn’t be sure of their location. If he heard the fire alarm and chased them, they could hide and let the phone distract him. If he didn’t give chase, they could run across the road to safety. The only problem would be if he ran faster down the fire escape than they did, in which case they were screwed.

  It could work. Except . . .

  “Won’t the tunnel be open on the other side? He’ll just come back over the road.”

  It was meant to be unlocked during school hours, including pre- and after-school sports practice.

  Becca shook her head. “It was locked when I arrived this morning. Mr. Peterson spent a half hour escorting kids across the road because they couldn’t find Anders. But it’s open on the school side.” She pointed out the window. “You can see.”

  Frankie stood on tiptoe and stretched her neck. The tunnel was just visible in the lower corner of the window. No bars to close off the entrance.

  “If you put the phone inside, I’ll pull the gate across once he’s in there,” Frankie said. It would make her an open target, but if she was quick, it shouldn’t matter. “Ready?”

  “I’ll just load up the alarm. Two minutes, okay?”

  Two minutes to get downstairs, run along the school wall past the bike shed, slide the phone into the tunnel and hide around the corner, waiting. Maybe while someone shot at their heads.

  Frankie nodded, her heart speeding along in her chest. Blood flushed Becca’s face with color when she looked up from her phone and nodded.

  “Ready.”

  Robert

  When Robert cast aside the newspaper, he realized how quiet the roads were. By mid-morning, there’d usually be a steady stream of traffic. Salesmen on their way to their first appointments of the day. Tradesmen moving from one fix-it job to the next. Nothing like the rush hour of lunch, but not insubstantial.

  Instead, the street alongside the park stretched out, peaceful for long minutes between individual vehicles. The cars that did pass by were speeding for the most part, despite the large signs warning drivers to look out for schoolchildren.

  The saltines sat lonely in his otherwise empty briefcase. With his one task for the day completed, the hours loomed in front of him like a series of hurdles. When he’d left the company office for the last time, he’d thrown his smartphone in the trash. Now, he wished he’d kept it just for the games.

  Robert turned on the radio. He must have bumped the dial because a burst of static reverberated through the speakers. He pressed the auto-tune button for the next station and found some jazz. Another press of the button and rap music blared. Another push and more static hissed from the speakers.

  Auto-tune, my ass.

  He turned it off. A stack of CDs—mostly show tunes—lay in the glove compartment. If he listened to them while the car was parked, he’d drain the battery, though. Robert placed his forefinger on the key.

  Just drive home and tell Annabelle. She’ll be okay. She’ll be happy.

  He pulled his hand back into his lap then scratched his scalp until a snowfall of dandruff fell. There was a book in the back seat, and reading didn’t use any power. But he’d just spent an hour reading the paper cover to cover. His eyes needed a break. His brain needed a change of scene.

  Robert got out of the car and checked his watch. Normally, Peter and Nancy would be here by now—a couple around his age who walked their dog every day. They were good for a ten-minute chat while their fox terrier pursued a stalwart swarm of midges at the water fountain. Snapping and pouncing at targets then standing back to bark in outrage.

  He held his watch up to his ear to check that it was still ticking. The sound reassured him that his internal clock was still in sync with the external one.

  No traffic. No Peter and Nancy. Where was everyone?

  Eager to do something, anything, of purpose, Robert got out of the car and walked across the gravel parking lot toward the street. Perhaps there was a crash farther down, rerouting traffic to another area. If so, it was further out of sight than he could see.

  He wandered along a trail through the park. After meandering alongside a small stream and crossing a two-foot-wide wooden bridge, Robert saw the junior high in the distance. Its parking lot was full.

  See, nothing’s wrong.

  A door banged open at the edge of the nearest building, and two girls fled down the outside fire exit with astonishing speed. Nerves singing at the base of his spine, Robert jogged toward them.

  The alarm was audible even from his distance, and he expected a flood of students to soon emerge. Instead, just one man exited from the top floor.

  As Robert watched, drawing nearer, the man leaned over the railing, aimed a pistol at the girls’ heads, and fired.

  Robert skidded to a stop, openmouthed. What?

  The echo of the girls’ screams reached him and propelled him back into a run. His heart protested, his thigh muscles burned, but he pushed ahead regardless. Once, he’d been a track star in high school. That glory was too long ago for his lapsed muscles to reenact, but his body retained the memory of form.

  The man stuffed the gun into the back of his trousers and swung himself down a full flight of rungs, clinging only to the frame. His gain put him close to the girls, but he lost his advantage as he pulled the gun out once again to fire another shot.

  The metal railings sparked as the bullet hit them and twisted into a random ricochet. Not bothering to scream this time, the girls flung themselves down to ground level as fast as they could.

  As Robert closed the ga
p, his mind yelled at him to stop. He was unarmed. He was nearing sixty. There was a rifle in the gun box in the trunk of his car.

  If he knew what was good for him, he’d reverse direction and go get himself a fighting chance. Impulse ignored, he continued to sprint toward the school.

  Where is everyone? Where are the police?

  The girls reached ground level and fled along the side wall of the school. Crossing the yard, they ducked behind a bunch of razor wire and metal, out of Robert’s line of sight. They were as far from the gunman jumping down to the ground as Robert was from the fire escape.

  He slowed to a walk as the gunman followed in their steps. Robert was too far away to tackle him but close enough to be shot if the man heard him coming and turned.

  As he drew level with the fire escape and walked into its shadow, Robert heard the door to the top floor slam open again. He pressed his back against the wall of the school, trying to blend out of sight, and looked up.

  Another man was running down the stairs. This one couldn’t swing down like a monkey. Not while cradling the shotgun.

  Rebekah

  The phone skidded into the darkened tunnel, and Rebekah held her breath. She’d gone bowling with her granddad once—him drinking round after round of weak beer—and she still remembered his disappointed call, “Need a bit more elbow on that one, girl,” followed by a chorus of laughter and another beer. She’d given the phone as much elbow as she could, but was that enough?

  Too much, perhaps. The phone skidded along for eight or nine yards then banged up against the wall. The case popped off. Sweat dripped into Rebekah’s eye as she leaped for the corner, ducking in behind the bush to join Frankie.

  The wall ended at a chain-link fence separating the pedestrians and cyclists from the parking lot full of the teachers’ precious cars. There was nowhere further to run.

  It had to be past two minutes, didn’t it? Had to. From the second she’d set her phone and then run after Frankie for the fire escape felt like at least ten. Maybe more. Rebekah found it harder and harder to catch her breath.

  Her father had called in sick to work that morning, and Rebekah had been so tempted to follow his lead and fake an illness. With her dad laid up in bed, her mom wouldn’t even need to take the day off work to stay home. And if Dad were sick, then she could spend the day playing on the PS4 and chatting online. He wouldn’t care so long as she wasn’t too noisy with it.

  But he’d snapped at her when she was having breakfast.

  “Don’t really need seconds, do you?”

  She’d laughed and shrugged her shoulders, but inside, his words had jabbed deep into her worst fears. She hadn't wanted to stay home after that.

  Footsteps ran along the edge of the wall toward them, hard slaps against the concrete. Rebekah held her breath, quiet as she could be, pressing her fists against her forehead, her eyes squeezed shut. The phone must be broken. Surely twenty minutes had passed by now.

  A tingling melody sounded. Faint. The angle of the tunnel ate most of the tune up before it reached them. “Morning Flower.” It had been at the top of the sound list and so was selected by default.

  The footsteps slowed. As Rebekah felt her eyes pulse in time with her rapid heartbeat, she heard the steps pause and turn. Quieter now. Scarcely audible.

  She pushed at Frankie’s arm as she discerned the first echo. The gunman must be in the tunnel. Rather than springing into action, Frankie crouched stock-still facing her, eyes so wide with fear they seemed composed solely of whites.

  You promised!

  Rebekah had come up with the plan, so Frankie was doing the dangerous bit. Frankie always did those bits because Rebekah was a wuss. They both knew it.

  But Frankie just sat there, staring at her, as though frozen into a statue.

  A sob catching in her throat, Rebekah crept out from the cover of the bushes. She looked along the side wall. No one in sight. He must be in the tunnel.

  The metal railing for the gate was just to her side. Once her shaking hand grasped it, Rebekah counted down in her head. One. Two.

  On three, she pushed as hard as she could. The railing slid two-thirds of the way across the entrance to the tunnel. Not far enough.

  Then there was a flash to her side. Frankie ran across, grabbing the rail on the way. A bullet followed her progress, but Frankie pulled the gate until it slotted into place and locked, the mechanism flush against the brick wall. She hung for a moment from the metal then sprawled on the ground on her hands and knees.

  Rebekah edged forward until she could peer into the tunnel, under the wide metal slats. A man was in there, running at the gate. She pulled her head back just as he threw his body against the metal. It jangled on its hinges.

  Checking again, Rebekah saw him backing up for another run. She used the opportunity to cross in front of the gate, falling to her knees beside her friend. Frankie gasped and sat up. Rebekah watched her friend run her hands over her body, checking for damage. Nothing. The bullet had missed.

  She gave another sob, this time of relief. The plan had worked. The gunman was caught. They could go home and put this whole horrible day behind them. The fear that had built inside her for the past hour escaped in a laughing rush.

  Robert

  As the second gunman reached the bottom steps of the fire escape, Robert ducked back into a doorway and pressed his body flush against the steel. Not much of a hiding place if the gunman looked around, but he heard the man jump to the ground and run away from Robert—around the corner, following the same path of pursuit as his friend.

  Robert scouted the surrounding ground. There had to be a weapon. Maybe not the gun locked safely in his car trunk, but something.

  His gaze roamed across the garden bordering the building, reached the fire escape—still jangling from the man’s weight—then returned. At the garden edge, bricks delineated the dry soil inside from the surrounding ground. The thin grass was worn away from a thousand sneakered steps each day.

  He knelt and dug his fingers into the soil, working a brick loose. Nerve endings burning with arthritis screamed a curse at him, but he ignored the pain, the memory of the fearful expressions on the girls’ faces all the impetus he needed.

  Once free, he dusted a few clinging chunks of soil off against his trouser leg. Robert hefted the brick in his right hand—his throwing hand—a few times to get used to the weight. This would be a one-shot deal.

  Back pressed against the school wall, Robert peeked around the corner. The second gunman was stalking the ground next to the shed topped with razor wire. This close, Robert saw bicycles housed inside, a row of lockers. A few steps more from the gunman, and he disappeared out of sight.

  Robert sprinted for the corner of the bike shed, bending low at the waist. As he reached the cover, a feminine yell of triumph carried across the yard. A few running steps farther and the girls were visible, collapsed on the ground beside a wide metal gate. They were on their knees, arms out to support each other, their backs facing Robert.

  The second gunman stopped and lifted the shotgun to his shoulder, lining up a shot.

  One girl turned and gasped. The other followed a moment later.

  Robert pegged the brick at the man’s head as hard as he could. There wasn’t time to second-guess his aim. There wasn’t time for anything.

  The shot hit almost where it should. Instead of the center of the man’s skull, it caught him in the curve of his neck and shoulder. The shotgun blasted, aim gone, shooting up a cloud of dirt to hang in the still air.

  Robert gave a battle cry and launched himself at the gunman. Since he’d already been caught off guard by the brick, the sound caused the man to swivel, another shot expelling harmlessly into the ground.

  When Robert made contact, he was bent low, catching the man at the waist and hearing the breath woof out of him. His forward momentum propelled them both to the ground.

  Robert’s head exploded with pain as the man swung the barrel and caught him smack in the
temple. Fighting blind, Robert punched out as hard as he could. He felt his old-age skin, thinning since his fifties, break open on his knuckles as though sliced apart.

  As his sight cleared, Robert saw the bleeding lips where his blow had struck the man’s mouth. As he pulled his arm back to launch another strike, his brick, hefted this time by a plump teenage girl, smashed down into the gunman’s face. Dead center.

  As Robert scrambled backward and away, the girl landed another blow, same mark, the man’s forehead and nose crunching. His left eye turned outward, jerking before relaxing into stillness.

  The girl lifted the brick for another shot, but her friend reached up to stop her. Both panting, they stared at each other in a staunch face-off before the pair of them embraced.

  Chapter Five

  Annie

  “Don’t shoot!”

  Annie held her arms up in a gesture of compliance and shrank back against the wall. The man ran through the door, then turned to haul the girls—not women—past him before he slammed the control for the garage door. Not waiting for it to close, he pulled the connecting door shut and twisted the knob to lock it.

  “Back door?” he yelled.

  Annie slid a step farther away, too late to avoid the spray of spittle, before realizing it was a question. Her face fell in dismay. Was it locked? Turning, she ran down the hallway. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the engaged lock. It took a second longer to realize it secured her inside with a shouting gunman.

  She slowed to a walk and returned to the front room. The two girls were hunched behind the couch, arms around each other’s shoulders, while the man stood to one side of the window, looking out to the street, the same position Annie had occupied just moments before.

  “What are you doing?”

  Annie wanted to sound casual—we’re all just people here—but her voice cracked halfway through the sentence and rose a half octave at the end. She winced. Sound weak and people will walk all over you, she heard her dragon-in-law recite in her head.