6 to 10 rounds left....
Sweat runs down my eyelids and a thousand drops sticks to the ski mask on my cheek like a sewing needle patching a ragged cloth. The itch was hell on earth as it slid down my pupil. But I wouldn't dare close to them.
The hallway between rusted circles of iron-sight hypnotizes me, like sharpen edges shift into a vignette. To the long walk to the door at the end, kitchen must be the second turn on the left by the paler lighting sinking out a reeded glass double door open to the hallway.
Same lamp hanging above fills the abrade, amber tint floor sucking in corrosive wax. Most of the decoration is still limited to the red and white with a woman painted in yellow, bright blue and silver dances on the brown scroll, it stretches along the white wall from the left of the first room on the right until the far end of the next where the mural ends in a saffron full moon amidst a grey cloud. Seconds went by, I starts to think the smell of chemicals are gradually becoming apparent.
The VIP room's open too. I can see the red mattress behind veils and wooden armchairs with carved armrests and a dressing table in front of a large oval mirror. It's about 4 meters away from where I stand.
"Kid...." I lower my voice to a whisper but the damn place suddenly grows quiet and dense in my ears as my voice rings across my mind. "Никто, иди в первую комнату направо. Я тебя прикрою." The response came almost immediately from my left.
"когда?"
Least this one speaks Russian but fucking hell my eardrums were rocked. His voice sounded loud and muffled simultaneously with the jaded and spine-crawling squeak of the floor.
Swallowing spits and a tress of cotton, I get up from the crouching position while trying my best to keep the line of fire steady with a stockless piece of cannon. The forearm grazes along the wall paint as I lean on it to keep the barrel from wavering. Inch by inch, it scratches and hisses and prowls and....
The shiver down my spine warns me almost too late, a split before another barrage comes. I can see the dancing woman on the scroll moves along the whooshing bullets as they cross another line of holes on wall to the right, limestone chips fall on the ground. The sound came at last, some small caliber submachine gun but god damn it has some stopping power, and damn him too for I saw where the shots came from. To the end of the hall the most fortified door in the whole fucking dump which leads to the basement, it opened a seam.
"что сейчас!"
I shout through the world tilting away as I hinge my arm forward to point the muzzle at the line of dark, right of the kitchen door. The bolt rocks back as the door shakes, first shot explodes on the reinforced door. Metal collides and again as I saw the barrel of the shooter poking out of, I lower the aim. Nikto places his hand on my left shoulder as he crouches forward low, pistol in his right hand, left in a fist to stop the quivering.
By the third shot, he leaps. His back bumps into the wall and he leans his entire frame on it. One-handing the pistol pointing at the end of hall, moving in wide steps to the VIP room just before the shooter fires back.
Clicks and clacks of 9mms propel through the air as the cases resonates clean notes on the ground. A few rounds hit the kitchen door, racking off a large portion of the right corner as the rest cracked a web across the frame, the shot almost got me by chance. Now I'm certain the shooter ain't no strider of its own death, more of a puss, son of a bitch stick his arm out and pull the trigger. Which wasn't much a good news since he still got us locked in place, the bonafide bad news is that I'm running dry soon. As I try peeking through the corner again I saw Nikto by the door side in a similar posture as me. Lad points out his left index finger as he swirls a circle in the air, telling me to repeat the act, and tabs his pistol's slide.
A smirk shows under my mask mostly by the rousing in my blood still heeding the last drops of the natural stimulation in my system.
He has a bright future ahead if the bleak end doesn't catch him tonight.
Right feet planted firmly between the door frame, he presumes a knee down and grips the short framed iron in both hands, muzzle resting by the edge.
With a nod across the hallway I stride into another stare of demise, synchronically the mute leans out of the room in union with the lift of my rifle barrel.
A step, a trigger squeeze, another step, his trigger squeezed .40-German-engineered are known for their precision as Nikto put a round right where he hides. The iron sight wobbles through my running breaths until my sole cracks the broken glass of the kitchen door.
Then the screaming came. Desperate, as if it was bursting out, a hidden glee of nothingness and my world was limited to an iron circle around an iron door. The screeching reach was a pat on the shoulder with the devil grinning his mustache up.
Then the cleaver came. It draws an arc through the open range of the kitchen. Downward cut, right on the barrel of an assault rifle. The slash was the entire weight of the person might, a numbing seeps through my palm as it lowers my forearm and line of sight while a blood-filled right eye as big as one without eyelids rounds the hate and survival instinct in a pile and lit them up in an opium pipe.
Straight down, with a twirl of wrist, a turn of arm with an animalistic roar from a skinny man in chief's white, the dull cleaver heaves at my face as I pull the rifle up just barely blocking the cut as it notches off the dustcover.
I force my left palm to get the grip of the rifle and points it at his black leather shoes. My trembling finger strains the trigger, a muzzle flash and a deafening blast, he lost half of his feet.
All but his thumb still stands through the hole and the bastard's face runs a straight red as he bites into the pain and tears run down his eyes and breathe into my face and he's still standing.
I use the rifle as a lever to drive a front kick right above his belly but it merely push him back escaping his notched cleaver.
Before I could raise the muzzle to put an end on his forehead, the door at the end of hall opens again and this time, just a few meters closer I see a pair of bulging red eyes, red as the lunatic next to me.
I hop into the kitchen as the other glass door shatters into pieces and through the commotion there's Nikto's shouting mixed in but I can't hear it for the skinny one's lunging the knife towards me again. I tried to move the rifle to block it but I'm not so lucky this time.
The moment I put a bullet through his shoulder, the blade grazed my left forearm as the kinetic impact of the 7.62 pushed him back.
The skinny man in white and red drops back hitting the stainless stove as he slowly collapses along the frame, his left torso a bloody mess but those eyes are as wide as ever with the compulsory hatred only growing. He takes the cleaver from his right hand and throws it at me with his left. It falls measly on my abdomen before bouncing off. With my blood stained on its edge.
His chest heaves no more, but the snub nose's still pulsing open. He's in a Qin's standard office shirt not a fucking chef's uniform. I raise the iron sights at his delirium eyes and plaster them across the side of stove like sparks of firework leaking down across the sky.
I force off the urge to pull the trigger again. Upon checking myself I found the cut on my left forearm a fucking hassle, it won't affect my movement as it didn't make it to the bones or major arteries, but each stroke burns just like I'm slowly bleeding out the scythe-shaped wound. I put the rifle down on top of a surprisingly clean oven for I'm in no condition to do heavy lifting nor.....
Cling.
A clean chime comes along with a squeak from edge of knife scratching the hard surface in the wrong angle. From the further end of the cramped kitchen that can only allow singular passage, sideways.
I pull the 45 from my belt and the irritation of the rag hanging on my palm. There's the smell of bleach competing with the stench from the fella in the back urinating through his relaxed bladder all the while the ambiguous whiff of chemical burn dies out. And I'm in a kitchen.
Stepping through the crooked path of pots, empty knife rests, overly protruding ventilation fan over my head. The stoves seamlessly connect the ovens and end in a freezer facing the door at the end leading back into the hallway where occasional gunfire is still very perceptible.
I approach the only hiding place, where stations of chopping boards and frying pens pile on one another on dry fabrics by the door.
My heart beats slower and slower, dealing with that crackhead drained out the last bit of my adrenaline. The dizziness sinks in but it won't affect the aim in close quarters, and sure as hell nor does the bullet. I keep the pistol close without extending my arm as the hammer clocked back
an inch under my chin, finger on the trigger. The last few steps on a slower trot, the corner of my eye twitched. I grab the handle of a frying pen, take a breath in before flipping it at the white tiled wall at the end and sprints to the hiding spot behind the table as the commotion racks.
But above the notch on the barrel, there's nothing at all despite the spot being the only... A squeak, a pressure on my nape chips my reflex.
Stolen novel; please report.
Body leaning forward, right foot lunges into a back kick caught the ambusher off guard as the fridge door slams shut with the person's arm clamped half out, the pocket revolver in his palm rocks a shot from the sudden tense of palm as it blows a dull spark between the stove knobs.
Without a second thought, I turn and put three rounds through the freezer door, all aiming at the center where I imagine the arm leads to.
45 ACP pierce through the plastic fridge with the sound of convertible backfires ending abruptly as it starts in small confinement before the slide returns.
The hand slides down pushing the fridge door open which makes the arm drop completely and the revolver flips to the ground.
The door slides open to a man.....a teen with the black blazer over his shoulder in the freezer's white vapors and defrosting wall.
Black hair, tank top, knees against chest, big brown eyes, blackend pimples on chin, two bullet holes on throat and shoulder. The slow-running blood forms a triangle behind his knees as all strength escapes him before I open the door. Either he thought I was the man with a cleaver or he was actually trying to jump me in.....Shut up. You're talking to a corpse.
I nudge his arm back in and close the door before his legs fall out too, there was some form of resistance.
***
Deep breaths does the same as my mind's telling me to. I place my hand on the second door at the end of the kitchen area. This one's made of glass as well and if I'm not out of my mind, the shooter's no more than two meters away from this exist.
Another series of shooting pops from a closer distance than I expected as if answering my pinched mind. I can see the smoke and the sound of machinery, the chamber rocking back again and again like a sewing machine throwing spent cases like coins under cash register. Smoke capsules the floor slithering as I can faintly see through the blurry glass door. But thankfully, this one's hinge swing.
Pistol raised by my face as I hold the handle, my fingers cling on and off the handle. Pulling it back just by a seam, then a crack, wider, wider still till I can smell the bleak and chemical
distinct itself from the gun smoke to my left. Now it's pungent enough I can tell, it's the same smell that every 10th Street boy grew up with.
The smell of cutting iron.
I wouldn't dare to pull the door back completely, but through the glance I can see there's one last room on the right side of hallway, the large door's in fireproof grey but swings loosely open with the central mass where I suppose the lock was dissembled, leaving a hollowed hole bout the size of a clutched fist.
I motion to the right as much as possible. Since I couldn’t see the basement door from here, plus the fact that trigger-happy cunt hasn't start blasting again I'd say there's at least another 3 to 4 paces between us and his vision are buried behind the iron sight.
I throw my watch a quick gander as it hangs loosely by my stinging forearm.
2:32, half a minute left. With this much commotion we stirred, I'd suspect a quicker response time from the Qins.
I take another look through the slit, more specifically the door on the other side opened to.....It opens outwards.
An idea dug its way through my ear like an overboard eyeing a floating orange rope. I fit my arm upon the glass door to get an estimation, it's about 80 centimeter in width and I'd say the one across the firing pit is wider.
"Merc! Ты еще дышишь?" Nikto's shout hollers through the hallway. Strangely enough, despite the thick accent and guttural voice I can immediately tell that he hasn't passed 22 yet, the confirming inquiry's a lot more dependent than it sounds.
Sticking the 45 back in holster, I unbind the boxing wrap on my right palm and lay a pad on the cut before circling the rest around my forearm. Ending up with a crude, triple surgeon knot above it to circumvent the blood flow. This thing stings with the thought of infection and HIV.
Planting my left foot firmly forward, right foot on the fridge door as a boost. I let the inquiry sink as silence takes its place, as it grows and expands until its tendrils reach through the basement gate, prowling its way into the shooter's mind.
I take a breath in and another out. Notwithstanding the fact it doesn't help was established.
Tensing each and every part of my muscle, I can feel the force of my foot on the freezer door, my breathing slowly hallows from the inside. My mind went through the notions of risk but went silent as I try to find a less suicidal way.
So be it. The adrenaline's back, the swollen sensation upon my ears is back, and the cut on my left arm feels like a tab in the wrist despite the red getting squeezed out by the veins pulsing faster.
Alone to myself, I can fondly admit. I've missed these feeling in the past three months...
A push on the glass door made the hinge squeak as it swings forward by the pull from the other side's chain. The shots came before it could turn to 90 degrees, as it shatters and sounds of cricket's hopping rush above me.
There's a moment of complete unknown, before the tattered glasses fall on the ground, before the shots hit the wall at the other end of hallway, before Nikto can utter another care.
The grim reaper tabs his wrist behind the shades at the edge of my vision as I leap by three steps into the hallway, broken glasses by my shoulder as cover. I ran with my body bending so low like a racing greyhound, my eyes fix on nothing but the fireproof door across the 1.2 meters of my life.
The world does not slow down when the end arrives, nor would it under any dosage of ecstasy or crack of adrenaline. It was simply your body knowing what to do faster than your mind could comprehend, animals likely feel this way all the time.
Glass shrapnels on my collar, my right hand in white and red stretches for the last reach as I cling to the door while the force of the dash sends me further just before my head hits the edge of the glistening aluminum I let the pull spins me around as my back hits the wall and the heavy door swings open like a palm unclenching a fist. Clings and tacks of 9mms hammers on the steel door, I turn around and push against it ignoring the impact of my spine on hard white fucking concrete above the wood.
With my right shoulder leaning onto it, my left pulls out the Italian 9mm blind firing through my pommeling heartbeats in my ears, drumming out the gunshot.
"взять выходной? Иди сюда!"
I scream back at Nikto as I tried to peek out of the cover of steel door. A shot spins passed me by an inch, it crosses the gap between corners before landing somewhere on the basement door and the lad rushes past my turn of vision as he slides across the floor in heavy breaths that grow quicker by the thick woven balaclava. The edge of my eyes spot the room inside leads to a short corridor filled with empty shelves where that smell derives.
"Ты что, с ума сошёл?"
"How much you got left?" No need for secrecy anyway, we're quite literally two meters away. Nikto pulls out the pocket revolver in his hand and gives me a shake of head.
I smirk.
"Say he's about the same. Unless we've hit their bloody arsenal by chance." As if jinxing me for spite, another trail of bullets rings a bloody rhythm on the steel door boudin off as the vibration passes to my side.
A bullet hits the hole where the handle was on the door sparking a close of eyes merely centimeters away. I put another shot through the hole where the handle was. I can endure the pain, and I'm yet feeling the blood loss taking tolls on my mind but the trembling of muscle speaks otherwise.
A freelancer's lot, as much as it is whimsical bullshit. Nine times out of ten we just couldn't find a better reason to die for, so we leave the pointing for someone else, we do the dying.
I swap magazines with the half-done 9mm for a new one on my leather holster. Thumb over the engraved words, I clutch the barrel off my left palm slowly losing strength and hand it to the mute, kid's got a look in his eyes that's best describe as comedically confused.
"18 rounds. Don't waste them. Preferably don't scratch the piece either," I do the same to the Colt, the feel of slide locking back in place in my right grip's what I'm most used to. "I'm going to force the door open, lay cover and if you catch a clear view of that chink's face. Put a fucking hole through ‘em." I mins my dry lips behind itchy fabrics, Nikto blinks each emotion per shut of eyes but eventually he takes the gun from me, kid checks the chamber immediately while his brown pupils are filled with reflection of my abandonment, I can't see anything else in them.
I hold the 45 in palm, first layer of blood had settled giving it a tighter grip despite the stinging pain. Back of my palm on the flat of the door as I insert an ounce of pressure, the steel door responds sluggishly with a wobble as the hinges are at the limit.
I roll my eyes to the right, the mute's holding my gun in both hands in a crouching position, arms a triangle in front of his chest.
Some faces jumped to mind but I didn't recognize them. I was already gone.
Withdrawing and slamming my right shoulder onto the fireproof door, it swing past its last turn before the chain on hinge halts it in a creaking noise amidst total chaos. As I take the gap between the door and the wall expanding to my last resort. 60 cm in width,to line of fire I charge in. Pistol in front, I slip into it turning horizontally with my eyes glued to running off the wall leading eventually through the 0.1 seconds of static to the half-shut basement door.
One shot after another, both hit the side of the wall while the arm twitches outward with a face behind it. The wild, red-vain-crawled eyes almost jump out of his sockets, I can see plainly the corners of them are squeezed and twisted into a swirl like the skin around his eyelids is strangling them. A quarter second past, I dock to the right in reflexes to that ugly piece of work he's single handing and the shot came first from my back, between both squeezes of trigger, Nikto behind me got him flinching first as the shot went directly through the narrow gap the Qin opened.
His line of fire crooks away from me accordingly into blindly squeezing the trigger, by the third shot fired I'm two paces away on skips along the right corner, my mind's a plain of milk white nothingness as I surrender every ounce of my body into instinctive behaviors.
Without halting, my body slams into the iron door like a raging horse. The pain spreads on my shoulder afterward like a late bloom lily, the door swings wobbly to the force of push as the hand tries to retract back but I am faster. With a leap from my position, my bloody left arm caught his botched SMG by the steaming barrel and yank it with enough force to dislocate my wrist but the resisting force disappeared in an instance as the barrel left my grip and so does my footing. I fell on the ground with the gun dropping a step behind me. Son of a bitch let go of the piece to close the door.
A roar came out of my mouth as every fiber of my being urges me to stop him. But Nikto was faster, kid rushes past me and dug five fingers in before the door could be locked. He kicks his left foot up by the door as another source of pull even with a mask on I can see as well as imagine his silent scream underneath. I stumble up on my feet and rush to aid his effort, centimeters by centimeters as we slowly overpower him. A gap breached, good enough for a peek. Nikto turns to me in stifled frustration, his line of sight moves along a nod as Nikto sticks my gun in his jacket pocket and digs both hands into the door while his head leans back in pain, eyes glisten. A single word pronounced in an hoarse voice.
"убей его...."
He puts the center of his torso to the right as we switch places. A step over, without second thoughts I stick the 45's barrel in and pull the trigger, a muzzle flash illuminates the dark of the interior behind the door and a short man in bleached hair and a black suit’s shocked but silent expression.
Nikto trembles two steps backward as the door swings open with a gust of wind. Instantly, I pull the gun back in fear of retribution while letting the door swings by in this confined space.
The lamps on the ceiling, the lanterns by the paintings on the wall seep their light in greedily consuming the shades covering the shooter's face. Blood mopped, heaving breaths of coughed blood as the bullet dug a hole in the back and front of his lung. He's wearing a silver earring on the left, a black suit white shirt both soaked and at least over a size. He's only a year or two older than the rest of the Russian wannabes tonight.
Back against the wall, a leg hangs two stairs beneath, the shot penetrated his chest directly as a damn bullet hole's visible on the tattered wall behind him. Three, four...dozens of SMGs and pistols by his side and leaning on the wall, most of them emptied. Spent casings all the way down the stairs in incomprehensible numbers, shimmering like the night sky in the wild, like
his faint-heartedly closing hazel eyes, his last breath was drawn before that. Nikto's trigger squeeze in point-blank range confirmed that.
The Qin's head didn't even move, only reaction was the hole in his temple pressuring blood out as some spilled on the wall, some on the barrel of my 9mm. But most are painted along the stairs down for the mute kick him on the side of the head where I shot him.
It rolls hesitantly and uncannily at first with arm bending back somehow creating resistance then the head slams down on the next roll making it more of a ludicrous slideshow, but eventually the corpse made it to the bottom in a bell rang.
Bak!
I give the lad a quick gander, his rage's quickly being pressed but the heavy breathing and swollen knuckles are better representations of his mental state.
Thanks for checking out my story! Please leave a comment on what you think of the story and how I’m to improve.————————————————————
The next chapter will be next week since I already worked the sequence over this stage but for the sack of clarity, I decided to split it into two chapters.
Plus I just came back from a….troublesome travel. An interesting one, but downright exhausting. A few weeks later I’ll be moving to Europe for my exchange program for a couple of months. Whether it would affect the output or not is hard to tell, I sure as hell hope it’ll increase it.
Writings aside, I’m still a bit confused about this whole thing. It felt like a stop on my life here and graft my future onto something unknown. And boy do I love a little uncertainty in life, and god damn me if I say I ain’t nervous. ————————————————————
You talk way too much, by the strokes. The album’s probably my second favorite on this band. Next to ‘is this it.’
