Asa

 

This was just too much. This man was fucking nuts. Like Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre all wrapped up in one. How could a man like this actually exist in a day and age like ours? Running drugs? Sure. Sex-trafficking? Alright, I knew it existed, even though I couldn't stand it. Rapists, wife-beaters, murderers, all the others? Yeah, I hated it, and I punished it when I saw it.

 

But digging up his own wife and dressing her like that? Propping her up as he sat in his own filth, surrounded by his money and drugs? Anderson had known about this, about this descent into insanity, and he'd allowed it to continue, enabled it even. He deserved no sympathy from me, or any other human being alive. This wasn't going out and doing a line of blow at the bar on a Saturday night, or getting a hooker for a business meeting while you were at a business convention. This was evil at its worst, the kind of thing that ate away at societies from the insides, leaving just a hollow husk behind as the rest crumbled and fell away.

 

I heard Lauren drop to the floor behind me, heard her gasp out my name as she panicked. I could practically feel Anderson's gun on me as well. Feel the barrel lining up with my spine, the back of my head. Adrenaline kicked in, my years of living on the edge of the law taking over. I stepped backwards till the gun hit my back.

 

When you moved like this, no one had reason to pull the trigger. You'd just bumped them, but you hadn't moved your hands, which is what they were tracking with their eyes. Most people didn't have the tactical training to know they needed to step away and keep a safe distance.

 

Anderson didn't move. Didn't say anything. He was too stunned. “Lauren?” he called out from behind me, the barrel of his gun massaging my spine. “Baby girl, it's okay.”

 

In front of me Dalton Saylor cackled like a madman, clapping his hands gleefully as his daughter fell to the ground. Now was my chance. I needed to keep the barrel away from me. A bullet has less than inch across where it can enter your body, and it's like a mini cannon. If you're going to get hit, it's because you're standing in front of it. I spun around quickly to my right, whipping my hand out as I went, hitting the gun that Anderson had briefly held against my back.

 

Anderson, slow on the uptake, pulled the trigger too late. The gun discharged, firing its shell out into the concrete enclosure, zinging as it ricocheted around the creepy-ass bunker before it embedded itself in a bale of cocaine. The muzzle flash burned my shirt, and the skin beneath, but I didn't care. I grabbed the gun with one hand, trying to twist the barrel away from me, even as I grabbed him with my other and tried to take him down to the ground.

 

He fired again, almost on reflex, as he struggled against me, the muzzle flashing again as another bullet went ricocheting around the room. Still, old man Saylor's cackle echoed in my ringing ears.

 

“What're you doing?” Anderson asked as I took him to the ground, a surprised tone to his voice.

 

“Making Lauren safe,” I growled in reply, “from you.” I twisted the gun back to him, pointing it at his chest as we wrestled on the concrete.

 

He twisted the gun away from me for a moment, got the barrel pointing towards Lauren, where she still rested on her knees in panic-mode. With my other hand, still tied up with his, I grasped forward, letting go of the gun. I stabbed my thumb into his left eye, digging in deep.

 

He screamed and thrashed, his hand trying to drag mine away, the gun jerking up to the ceiling in his pain. “My fucking eye, you fucking piece of shit!”

 

I bared my teeth and pressed deeper into his socket as I twisted the gun around in his grip, pointed the barrel back into his chest. And still, all around us, Saylor's cackle swooped over the room like the calls of a murder of crows, taunting us, calling us nothing and less than human. Anderson struggled, but I kept the gun pointed to his chest. He was a good grappler, solid all around, but I was better.

 

I tried to get his finger out of the guard, tried to disarm him. I didn't want to kill him anymore than I wanted to kill any man, no matter who they were. Finally, as Lauren gasped beside me, and Dalton Saylor cackled all around us, I realized I had no choice. Anderson had to go. I got my thumb in with his through the trigger guard, the barrel pointing right into his chest. I pushed my thumb, pressing the trigger down.

 

The gun leaped in his hand, thundering loudly again, as it fired into his chest, two bullets entering with a wet thud. His good eye flew open wide, stared aimlessly at me, losing its focus as it looked through me and past me. He tried to speak, but all that came out was a wet gurgle as blood dribbled from his lips. He blinked, gasped again. His body spasmed and sagged, the life gone from his eyes.

 

I grabbed the hand from Anderson's lifeless corpse, prying it from his dead grip. I rose and spun on Dalton, leveled the barrel at him. Dalton just grinned at me with those nasty teeth of his, his teeth and gums pulled back from them like they wanted nothing to do with that dental work. He held up a black device, about the side of a small cellphone with a red button on top. “Nah ah ah! You drop that gun, son, or we're gonna make the Fourth of July look like a backyard tire fire,” he said, holding up the device.

 

I kept my pistol on him as I glanced towards Lauren, who was still on her knees gasping for breath, her face red, the veins on her neck standing out as she continued her panic. I swung my head back to Dalton, licked my lips.

 

“This whole fucking place is wired to go,” he said with a cackle. “You shoot me, son, and we all go up together. Gotta enough ANFO and C4 rigged around this place, they won't even be able to use our dental records to identify the bodies. Between that and all the diesel and ammo we got stored here, we'll be crispy critters in no time.”

 

ANFO. I knew the stuff. It was what had been used at Oklahoma City to destroy the Federal Building. The blast had been strong enough to shatter windows fifty-five miles away.

 

“Now lower the goddamn gun, boy. Do it.”

 

I licked my lips, lowered my gun, and pointed the barrel at the floor.

 

“Drop it, son!”

 

I tossed the gun aside, sending it clattering into a bale of white powder. I turned and knelt down beside Lauren, put my arm around her shoulders.

 

She flinched and shook as I touched her, but soon relaxed as I whispered in her ear. “Everything's going to be alright,” I said. “It's going to be okay.”

 

The words sounded empty and hollow even as they left my mouth. I knew it was a lie. We were both going to die here.