by EE Isherwood
“I’m right there with you,” I replied as I ejected the four shells, then set my shotgun against the side of the house, so it wouldn’t weigh me down. If Trevor somehow found the gun, there was no way he could use it.
“You don’t seem nervous,” he mused.
“Oh, I am, but it helps to stay busy.” I gave him the four rounds along with two I found in my front pocket. “Put these in a pocket in case you need them.”
“Will do,” he said.
I looked ahead. “Hey, the back door is already open.”
“The four kids must have run out and left it that way,” he suggested as he peeked around the corner with me.
“That’s our way in,” I said as I took a few steps toward it.
“Right behind you.”
Trevor’s bean-shaped pool was surrounded by bushes and shrubs closer to the house, which gave us some concealment as we snuck up to the back door.
“Wait,” I whispered.
Luke halted behind me.
Trevor and Pike came down the steps.
I thought for sure they’d see us, but we no doubt blended in with the greenery of the yard. Once off the steps, they sprinted into the front foyer as if they were going to steamroller through the door. Were they planning to rush outside and hurt Carmen? If so, I’d rush in and shoot both of them in the back to protect her…
I watched for what they would do next.
“What are they up to?” Luke asked.
Adrenaline coursed through my veins as I was on the literal and figurative edge of our upcoming encounter with Trevor. I realized I was getting a small taste of what it was like to be a police officer confronting a bad guy, or a soldier taking down a terrorist. I wanted to be as professional as those guys, so I used that comparison to stay centered on my task.
Trevor leaned against the front door, but didn’t look like he was going to open it.
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
Nothing happened for the next few seconds and it felt like a week with how amped up I was. Trevor and Pike remained glued to the front window, now each holding pistols, perhaps wondering why they couldn’t see us. Their confusion would only last for so long…
There were a few moments I considered shooting my rifle through the house, but I didn’t have a straight shot down the hallway, nor were the two kids standing still. If I missed, the bullet might fly over to the next street. A miss would also alert them to our presence, giving them an advantage, since it was their home.
“It looks like they have more than just Zen’s Shield. Despite Bonnie getting us those two pistols, the bastards now have two more.” I pointed inside to paint an accurate picture for Luke about the danger we were about to confront.
“Are we going to shoot them?” he asked.
I wasn’t going to be dumb about it, but I still held out hope I wouldn’t have to shoot and kill someone on day one. We had the drop on them, so there was a great chance we could end it without bloodshed.
“If they point a gun at you, yes. Don’t hesitate. However, if we can surprise them and make them give up their guns, I’d prefer to go that route.”
“Let’s hope,” he agreed.
“Come on, the faster we move, the better,” I advised.
I hopped inside the door and committed to our sneak attack. I instantly split my time between watching Trevor and looking at my feet. The place hadn’t been cleaned up from earlier, and I had to carefully step around the dishes and cups Trevor had tossed out to make it look as if he’d been robbed.
I made it halfway across the living room before a loud crunch erupted from close by.
“Shit,” Luke exclaimed under his breath.
When he’d come in behind me, Luke had stepped a bit to the side. His foot must have jostled the delicate serving pitcher sitting next to the black duffel bag near the back door. It had fallen sideways and cracked in half.
I whipped my head toward the foyer. Trevor and Pike had both turned to see who’d made the noise. For two heartbeats we looked at each other…
“Drop your weapons!” I cried out, knowing it wouldn’t work, but willing to give them one final chance.
“Get them!” Trevor shouted to his friend.
All four of us drew our weapons and fired.
Luke dove behind the nearest couch. His first shotgun blast went into the vaulted ceiling.
I fired from the hip three times with my AR-15, which was a method of shooting I’d only practiced a handful of times. My rounds went toward the enemy but struck one of the walls between us and them. I dropped behind a recliner, already looking for my next hop to real cover.
Glass shattered out of the big doors behind me.
Luke popped up, aimed, let go of a deafening shotgun blast, then watched for half a second before dropping to the floor again.
A man screamed in pain.
“Luke?” I asked, afraid it was him. The ringing echoes in my ears were epic in scale, making it difficult to tell location.
Luke replied from a thousand miles away. “—hit!”
I couldn’t make out what he’d said.
“Did you say you were hit?”
“No, I hit someone!” he yelled back.
“Trevor?” I asked.
Three puffs of stuffing exploded from the recliner chair, which forced me to drop all the way into the prone position.
“No, the other one,” Luke answered. “I don’t know how, but I hit him, and he went down.”
More screams of pain from the front of the home.
“Go that way, bud!” I motioned for him to go into the kitchen, which would lead him in a roundabout way to the front foyer. With four people trading shots down a narrow corridor between the living room and the front door, it was crazy to remain a stationary target. I wanted Luke to flank them.
I was already in the middle of the living room, so I hopped up and lunged forward toward the edge of the hallway leading to the front of the house. I watched for Trevor to peek around a corner and shoot at me, but he must have been distracted by his injured friend. I only saw Pike’s legs as he laid prone on the tiles.
“Stay alert!” I called over to Luke.
There was still no activity down the hall. Was Trevor at the corner ten feet away, just waiting for me to make a mistake?
“I can see Pike,” Luke shouted. “Trevor’s not here!”
“Is it clear?” I asked, suddenly looking to the stairs behind me, as if Trevor might emerge and shoot me in the back.
“I think so. I’m at the front door.”
I peeked again and saw Luke standing over Pike. There was probably some protocol he’d breached by going right up to the bad guys’ position, but I didn’t know what it was. Instead, I used my own initiative to rush forward to meet and support him.
A large tiled foyer surrounded the front door. A visitor could enter the house and either walk down the short hallway toward the living room, turn toward the kitchen, or take a third route deeper into the home. Trevor must have taken that third way.
Luke kicked a big 1911-style pistol away from Pike’s reach, though the injured kid had made no effort to grab it. As best as I could tell, the guy bled only from his leg, though it did look pretty serious.
Without warning, the plaster near my head exploded inward.
“Duck!” I yelled, way too late for the first shot.
Trevor fired his handgun through the wall, creating a deadly piece of modern art as several holes were punched out of the plaster.
Luke had gone back into the kitchen, so I threw myself to the floor and drug myself toward the corner to follow him. Pieces of drywall scattered over my back as I went, which led me to realize I couldn’t pass the injured boy and do nothing.
“Sorry if this hurts,” I warned Pike.
I dragged the big guy about six feet to get him out of the line of fire.
“Thanks,” he murmured through his pain.
The second I got us both safely around the corner, I hopped to m
y feet and positioned my rifle toward Trevor.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Luke replied.
“Watch for him to come behind us in the kitchen.” I pointed toward the living room again, so Luke would keep our rears covered.
After a quick peek to ensure I couldn’t see Trevor across the foyer, I pulled back and sucked in a breath while I thought about where to aim on the wall. I was about to break one of the prime rules of gun handling, which was to always see your target. The holes in the wall were spaced about five feet off the ground, so I tried to imagine Trevor standing behind the exit wounds. Instead of aiming for the holes, I lined up a little below them, figuring that was his chest.
The pop-bang noise of the AR-15 was quiet compared to the shotgun, but it was still ear abuse. I put out a spread of ten shots, which I counted off, before I retreated behind the corner again.
Since I couldn’t see beyond the wall, I hoped to hear some screaming from a lucky hit, but I was only greeted by silence. There was a remote chance Trevor had been shot dead, but I wasn’t willing to bet my life on it. Instead, I kept peeking around the corner on the off-chance he wanted to sneak up and take us out in a suicidal attack.
“What now?” Luke asked.
“We have to—” Footfalls interrupted me. “He’s going up the steps!”
I did some mental math to determine how far he’d have to go before he could shoot through the floor and hit us. Then I wondered if Trevor would risk shooting his friend with blind fire. Surely his buddy had more value to him than his Ferrari, which he’d already proven he was willing to destroy.
“Let’s get him farther into the kitchen,” I pointed to Pike.
Luke and I pulled the big guy along the tiles and propped him up against the nearest cabinet. If Trevor was crazy enough to shoot through the floor, I figured Pike would be far enough away from the target area at the front door.
“Here, use this to staunch the blood.” I dropped a dish towel on Pike’s leg, which had already created a messy streak of blood where we’d dragged him.
“Thanks,” Pike hissed through the pain.
“What’s upstairs?” I asked the kid.
“Ammo,” he said after a short pause. “Bonnie didn’t know about our new guns, or the ammo. We stole the handgun last night while we were out. I should have told you earlier where he hid them, but fuck me I never dreamed he would be the one to start a gunfight with our stash of guns...”
I was learning that Trevor’s friends often seemed surprised by Trevor’s actions. It was almost as if they didn’t see any of his self-destructive tendencies until it was far too late.
I couldn’t fully trust Pike, but his answer didn’t seem like a lie. Trevor had just fired at me with his pistol, and I’d seen the golden AK, so obviously there were at least two guns on the upper level. And probably ammo.
“I’ve got to get up there,” I said in a hurry.
“You want me to come with?” Luke asked.
“No, keep watch on this one. Help him if you can. We’ll only present more of a target if we both go up the staircase.”
“Be careful,” Luke advised in the most serious tone I’d heard from him in the past twenty-four hours.
“Always,” I replied.
I ran to the stairs and stood at the bottom for a few seconds. If Trevor was up at the top, he could cut me down. I could fire my rifle at the corners, in case he was hiding there, but then I might waste my limited ammo.
As I deliberated, I heard a thud coming from the second floor. It sounded distant, as if Trevor wasn’t in the immediate vicinity of the steps.
I made a decision and ran up two steps at a time.
When I reached the top, I crouched on the third and fourth steps, took a peek around the corner, and immediately saw a flicker of movement. Trevor stood in a doorway about fifteen feet away with Zen’s tan pistol pointed at my face.
I whipped my head back as the shot went off.
“Holy shit!” I screamed without thinking.
Trevor fired a second time, but I had a thick corner of wall between us.
I clutched my rifle, ready to shoot him if he came down the hallway and showed himself at the top of the stairs. That was the only solution I was willing to entertain to end our impasse. Sticking my head around the corner again, when he was obviously prepared to fire his gun at that exact spot, was suicide.
“Sonofabitch!” the guy said to himself.
My nerves carried more tension than a snare drum, which is why I jumped a foot off the riser as something heavy struck my shoulder and skimmed the side of my head. It seemed impossible, but somehow Trevor had gotten the drop on me. He’d drawn first blood.
“What the hell?” I blurted.
I was shocked to realize it wasn’t a bullet.
Trevor’s pistol had bounced off the left-hand side of the staircase before it struck me. Once it went by, the tan gun rolled down the steps like a slinky. I let out an intense chuckle of relief that he’d thrown his weapon rather than shoot me with it.
“Really, dude?” I cried out.
“Screw you!” Trevor yelled.
He was either super clever, or dumb as a rock. Did he really run out of ammo and toss away his empty gun for nothing? Or, did he want me to think he was out, so he could get me to go up into the hallway where I would be an easy target?
“Now or never,” I whispered as motivation.
I went with him being dumb as a rock. He’d run out of ammo, didn’t know what to do, so threw his pistol in anger. It was a trope in the movies, so he probably thought he’d do it to be funny.
Once I got on the top step, I waited for five seconds to slow my heart, then I rushed around the corner. I held my breath for a few strides, uncertain of my decision, but when I came to the room where he’d been shooting from, he was no longer at the door.
It had only been seconds since I lost track of him, but it was already make or break time. If I stuck my head in, he could still be waiting for me with the AK.
I decided not to give up the initiative. While trying to minimize my profile, I leaned my head around the door jamb. My mental picture of the room showed the busted window, broken glass, and a golden gun sitting on the bed.
Trevor looked up at me in panic. He had a golden magazine in one hand and a loose shell in the other as if he’d been reloading. A small pile of rounds laid on the bedspread.
I raised my rifle and pointed it at his chest.
He grabbed for his own, though it didn’t have the magazine attached. It was a mystery how he planned to seat the magazine, chamber a round, and fire at me before I simply put a bullet between his eyes.
“Don’t be stupid,” I said in a ‘you’re beat’ tone of voice.
For half a second, I was afraid he was going to go for it anyway. A guy ripped on coke might think he was twice as fast as anyone on earth. However, somewhere in his brain he seemed to realize the truth. Though his hand made it to the stock of the gun, he didn’t try to pick it up.
“Nice and easy, Trevor. No one has to get hurt.”
“You mean like Pike? You bastards shot him.”
I wasn’t going to play the blame game while I had him dead to rights.
“Step away from the gun, and you’ll be fine.”
“No I won’t.” He choked up. “Everyone’s after me, dude.”
He sweated profusely, and I was certain it wasn’t just because of the heat inside his home or the adrenaline of being shot at. He was high as a kite and showed no signs of coming back down.
“Stand over there,” I motioned him to the head of the bed, nearest the back wall.
Once he did, I went up to the window and yelled outside. “We’re all good up here!”
Carmen came out of the garage.
“Holy shit, Frank, it sounded like a war,” she said.
“Are those guys still at the roadblock?” I asked. I didn’t have a clear view because of the fronds of one of the palm trees.
“Yep,” she replied. “They’re still hanging out where you left them, though they’re definitely looking this way to see what happened.”
“We’ll be down soon,” I relayed.
“No way, dawg, you can’t do this,” Trevor protested. “Those guys will kill me.”
“I know you took that pistol you threw at me, but they said you took something extra from them. Something they wouldn’t come right out and tell me, but hinted they couldn’t live without. They wanted to ask you about it, but I’d prefer we just get it and them out of our neighborhood right now, you know? So, if you give it to me, I’ll put in a good word for you.”
“If I give it to you, will you let me stay here?” he said with a flicker of hope.
“Hell, no. You’re going to meet with those guys and then keep on walking. You shot at me, dude,” I emphasized his favorite word, “so I would have to be an idiot to let you stick around. I have no idea what they intend to do with you, but I would think they’d treat you a lot better if I marched you up there with something to bargain with, don’t you?”
“It’s in that chest.” He pointed to a yellow metal box in the corner, and it looked like something a young boy would have in his room. “I swear.”
His hands twitched, as if he were about to draw a pistol at high noon in an Old West town.
“You gonna give me trouble, Trevor?” I gestured to his hands.
His eyes went to the rifle on the bed.
“No,” he said in a dispirited tone.
“Hey, Luke, are you able to come up here?” I shouted into the house.
“Yeah,” he said after a brief wait. “This kid is taking care of his leg.”
“Okay, come up when you can.” I lifted my rifle and pointed it at Trevor’s face. Every story I’d ever read had the villain make a move, trip up the inept guard, and go on to cause a bunch of trouble. That wasn’t how I did things.
With the gun in his face, Trevor backed farther into the corner.
Luke showed up a few moments later.
“Would you mind patting him down while I keep watch over him?” I asked. I figured he didn’t have a hidden gun, or he would have used it in our gunfight, but he could have a knife or some other weapon.