The Runners: Chapter 29
Chapter 29
Robin came within a foot’s reach of the gun when she saw the gunman appear above David.
“No!” Robin screamed as she lunged for the pistol. When he heard Robin, David turned his head towards her direction where he had left her last. When he located her near the debris pile, he saw Robin pointing an object upwards into his direction.
‘Bang’, ‘Bang’. David heard two shots as he saw corresponding sparks from Robin’s hand.
David also noticed a third shot that happened to have been fired somewhere from behind Robin. The spark from the third shot, coinciding with Robin’s second shot, was difficult for him to determine who was shooting at whom. David ducked reflexively covering his head with both his arms.
‘Posh’, ‘Posh’, ‘Auuk’! Sounds of bullets penetrating some padded material were heard followed by someone groaning in agonizing pain.
One bullet penetrated the gunman’s right shoulder. He twisted his upper body to the right as he retreated backwards. Then, the second bullet from Robin’s gun hit him on the outside near the upper arm of the gunman. The gunman jerked and fell back flat onto his abdomen several feet away from where he was standing. His index finger still on the trigger, he released several shots on to the floor as he collapsed.
David looked into Robin’s direction. Robin appeared to be staring at him with assurance. Perhaps, signaling in her own best way to say that she was OK. So, he turned back towards the man on the floor. Unfortunately, this caused David to miss seeing Robin, dropping her head to the floor, throwing up blood.
David saw the gunman still holding his pistol in his hand. Seeing that the assailant was immobile, he knew that he had the upper hand. David sat up on his right knee pointed his gun at the man and identified himself as he ordered, “UNBI, drop the gun!” Autonomously, David followed the official procedure by identifying himself. He knew that it was a product of habit from the years of training at the academy and it did not even dawn on him that perhaps he should just shoot.
The gunman laid flat on his stomach. He did not make any sudden moves.
“Drop the gun!” David ordered again. The gunman flinching with his face still down on the floor slowly raised his hands off the ground and placed them above his head. It was a gesture of surrendering. Following David’s instructions, the gunman released his gun from his grip and dropped it on to the floor next to him.“Now, push the gun away!” David instructed one more time.
The gunman clinched his teeth and frowned with not only in agony, but with defiance. Yet, he had no choice, but to comply.
“Ah!” He let out a muted scream in pain as he swung his right arm outward sending the weapon sliding several feet away from his head. David cautiously approached the incapacitated gunman, pointing his pistol at his back.
“Put your hands behind your back and cross them, now!” David ordered with great authority.
As the man complied, David reached for the handcuffs and locked them on the man’s wrists tightly. A green LED light came on to indicate that it was locked and secured. David took another set of cuffs and this time he securely locked them against the gunman’s ankles. Completely immobile now, the man simply laid flat on his stomach, becoming no longer any threat to David or Robin.
With the gunman subdued, David took a couple of deep breaths. His heart was still pumping fast and he needed to slow it down in order to regain his composure. He turned to look at Robin. Through the grayish fog of dust, he saw her motionless on the floor a few yards away from him. He stood up and tried to move closer to Robin. But, his attempt to move his legs failed and he fell onto one knee. He stood up again with all his might, and dragged himself slowly towards her.
“Robin, hang on!” David said. As he took a couple of steps, another silhouette, this time, that of a woman appeared several feet behind the debris wall. He could not see any details of the person. Yet, he could read from the woman’s posture and movements, a sense of determination and purpose to cause havoc.
David saw the woman looking down and pointing something in Robin’s direction with her right hand. The fume of dust seemed to settle some more as David kept moving closer to Robin. As he got closer, he saw that the woman was holding a gun in her hand.
‘Clank’, stirred by the sight of the gun, David accidentally tripped and kicked a broken water pipe, sending clinking noise down the hallway. The woman stopped and looked up to where the noise was coming from. Both David and the woman met each others’ gazes through the fog of dust.
“Freeze!” David ordered from the top of his lungs, all the while pointing his gun at the woman. He measured the distance to be several yards between the assailant and himself. He knew that he wouldn’t miss his target at this range should she try a sudden move. However, just as quickly as he was issuing the order, the woman had managed to draw both of her weapons and had them squarely pointing at David. They both froze, neither one reluctant to make the first move.
“Who are you?” David demanded. But, no reply came back. She simply leered right into David’s eyes.
“I am an UNBI officer! Drop your weapons!” David decided to identify himself. Perhaps, she has found a wrong target and wouldn’t dare to engage in a gun battle with law enforcement, David thought.
“Ha… ha… ha…” David heard a slow yet callous chuckle from the woman. And from the sound of it, he sensed that she wasn’t about to give any respect to any officer of the law.
“Hmm…, all right!” David was now mentally preparing for a possible exchange of gun fire. In addition to being soaking wet with water and covered with dust, David was perspiring profusely from anxiousness as he faced this mysterious woman.
All of his training at the academy and being in the UNBI organization did not prepare him for such a moment. David could feel his gun slowly slipping from his grips. He could not hold his position in this stalemate much longer. He knew that the woman somehow knew that, too.
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‘ZING’ ‘ZZZZ’. It seemed like an eternity when a fresh sound of mini jet engine was heard in the 2nd floor’s main landing area as the UE911 birdie flew in. After spinning and scanning the area for a moment, it detected number of biological entities in the shattered hallway where David and the woman were facing each other. David turned to look at the birdie as it flew into the hallway, hovering behind him. Then, it shone bright white light into the hallway making the area appear to be like day time causing temporary blindness to the woman. At the same time, it gave an opportune moment for David to make his move.
In a quick and reflexive manner, the woman brought her left hand in to cover her eyes while her right arm extended out to point to David. Then, she fired several rounds at David as did David. She launched herself to the right of the hallway from where she was standing and David launched directly forward and low as he fired in the woman’s direction. A couple of bullets zoomed by the top of David’s head, burning off some good strains of his hair. As he dropped to the floor, he felt sharp pain on the outer edge of his left chest. The third bullet burned though his jacket and took off good part of his skin. Fortunately, he wasn’t hit directly and the worst pain that he felt on the fresh wound was a tolerable burning sensation.
All the bullets that were fired by David missed hitting the woman as the gun slipped from his hands due to the wetness caused by moisture and perspiration. The woman fell onto the left end of the debris pile from David’s vantage point. Well covered by the debris, she quickly moved to rearm her guns.
“Damn!” She cursed and dropped one of the guns to the ground. Then, she inspected the other one and found that it still contained few more rounds of ammo. She sat up with her back against the wall of debris. With her right hand grabbing the gun and the left hand covering her right hand to steady her weapon, she sat and readied to engage her target one more time.
At the same time, David fell onto his stomach and managed to roll towards the debris pile at the opposite end of the wall from the woman. David sat up raising his right arm and bending it squarely up at the elbow with his gun pointing upwards. His back was also against the thick debris. Now, only separated back to back by the long waist high pile of construction debris, both were contemplating their next moves.
Several moments have passed and at exactly the same moment, there were stirrings on both sides. They got up and faced each other, now fully standing up.
‘Click’, ‘Click’, ‘Bang’, ‘Bang’, ‘Bang’. They pulled their triggers simultaneously.
In a matter of a second, both pulled their upper bodies to their respective rights and dodged the bullets from each other. The woman began to run towards David while fluidly placing the gun in her left hand as she discharged her weapon over the wall into David’s direction. Several rounds were fired and she had emptied the cartridge. Without stopping, she continued to run to the opposite end of the wall. She jumped, putting her right foot onto the wall and catapulting, as she got on top of the debris pile. Then, she took three large steps and launched herself off the wall towards David with a flying side kick.
As the bullets rang out in his direction, David jumped down on to the floor on his abdomen and slid. He traveled several feet from where he was standing. The bullets flew by him over the top of the wall and through the wall, sending additional debris fragments and dust into the air. When the sound of gun fire stopped, David got up and aimed his gun in the woman’s direction, thinking that he would have a clear shot.
POW! Immediately, the woman’s kick landed squarely on David’s left shoulder and sent him flying backwards hard into the wall behind him. Pain shocked him greatly from the already injured left shoulder. He slid down the wall and eventually fell onto his shoulders.
The intensity with which David had collided with the wall has caused a momentary blackout. When he came back, he saw the woman right on top of him, ready to pound his head with her next offensive maneuver. The woman raised her right leg straight over her head. And with high velocity, she dropped it straight down with her high heel pointing directly at David’s head.
At that moment, David tried to pull the trigger, but only to realize that there was no gun in his hand. He rolled to his right barely managing to dodge the deadly kick. Her foot landing on the debris, the impact crushed them into even finer pieces. Immediately, she followed with the same kick and this time, it landed squarely on David’s right shoulder. He felt stinging pain as the heel of her boot penetrated half an inch deep into his shoulder. She began exerting enormous amount of pressure as she squeezed her foot down hard into David.
“Ah!” With all he can muster, David held the woman’s ankle in order to neutralize the pressure that was being force upon him. The woman pushed down harder and as David fought as he was being drained of all his energy. He knew that he had just enough strength for one last maneuver to remove this crazy killer off of him.
“Yeaaaah!” David let out a great scream as he twisted his lower body. In a sweeping motion using one of his legs, he kicked the woman’s left knee as he tried to lift her right foot off of his shoulder simultaneously.
The woman lost her balance and flew backwards, falling and hitting her back hard against the floor. Unfortunately, David was completely exhausted and had failed to follow up with a subsequent attack. He stayed down on his abdomen in an attempt to rest for however the brief moment it had afforded him to catch his breath. He coughed and then slowly turned to find the woman aggressively getting back up. He saw a shiny object only a few feet away from his side in the direction of the front of the hallway. Taking a second look at it, he recognized it to be the gun that he had dropped in the initial encounter.
The woman got up and began walking towards him. Then, she changed her direction as David attempted to move towards his gun. She, too, moved towards the gun. It was a race which the woman would easily win. David reached for his gun, but the killer got there first. She put her right foot on top of David’s hand then bent her knees to reach down for the gun. She stood up with David’s gun in her right hand while pointing it directly down at David’s head. All the while, she kept her right foot pressing on the top of his hand.
“Say good bye, young officer!” Then, she cocked the gun.
‘Bang’, ‘Bang’. Two shots were fired. David turned his head away from the gun so that he would not have to look at the barrel of his own gun that was about to end his life. Jelly liquid splattered all over his left cheek followed by the feeling of pressure on his right hand slowly alleviating. He turned to face the woman and saw blood running down her cheeks. Weakly, she dropped her hands to her sides, fell on to her knees and ever so slowly, she moved her eyes from David to the floor, looking directly down at before her own feet. Her head lowered to her chest and it hung there like a non-vertebrate creature that had lost its strength as if it was in the process of sinking deep under water. She stayed in that position immobile for a while. David pulled his right hand to his chest and managed to bring himself up on one leg. He examined the woman and found that she was not breathing.
‘Plop’, ‘Clank’, over and beyond the woman’s head, David saw Robin’s hand fall and a gun being released from her hand. He realized only then that it was Robin who had fired the fatal shots that have saved his life. Quickly, he dragged himself towards Robin.
“Robin!” David yelled out for her, forgetting all about his own wounds and the pains that were supposed to slow him down. He moved quickly to check on her. He dropped onto his hands next to her. He held her head with both of his hands, but did not try to move her. He brought his left ear to her chest and felt for sign of respiratory movements. Then, he looked for her pulse by holding her wrist as well as checking her jugular points.
There, he found weak, yet steady and promising pulses.
“Robin, stay with me!” David encouraged her, believing that she would hear him.
David had lost a lot of blood himself. He had exhausted all of his energy. His vision began to fail him and slowly, he too drifted into unconsciousness as he heard faint voices of the responders.
“Over there! Move the gurneys there! On the stat…!”