The Death of a Few

            When Justin woke, it was already well into the night. Emerging groggily, from his room, he found Elliot still curled in the same chair, the pages rapidly running out as he flew through the tome. He decided not to disturb him, and so instead headed to his sister’s room. She was already gone for the night. She’d left with out him. She hadn’t done that in… She’d never done that.

            He descended the stairs, and as he wandered down the corridor, he heard music blasting around the corner and through the walls from the living room. By the time he reached the door, he could feel the sub-woofers through his feet. He braced himself and opened the door to a torrent of blasting music. Shelly was lounging on the sofa, cigarette hanging from his lip as his hands twirled through the smoke. He was painting a landscape; craggy mountains and shattered trees. A misty, grayscale replica of Thomas Cole’s, Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, exact in detail to the minutia.

            ‘What the hell is this?’ Justin shouted over the deafening music.

            Shelly looked up, not having heard him come in, and struggled to hold together his art piece. ‘It’s Overseer,’ he shouted back, as if that explained it all.

            Justin shut off the CD player against the back wall and the silence was almost as painful to his ears as the noise had been. ‘It’s the middle of the freaking night, Shell.’

            ‘It’s the Blade Trinity soundtrack man!’ He growled in consternation, sitting up and letting his painting disintegrate. ‘You know… about vampires? With Wesley Snipes?’

            ‘Yeah, but it’s after midnight. You’re going to wake the whole neighborhood up. Listen to something quieter for Christ-sake.’ He took a glance around the otherwise empty room. ‘Where is everyone tonight?’

            Shelly stubbed his smoke out in an ashtray on the coffee table. ‘Out eating. Alyssa said she’d be back before too long though.’

            Justin pushed his feet off of the sofa and collapsed onto the pleather surface. He switched on the TV but didn’t pay attention to the flickering image or the low sound it broadcast.

            ‘You alright man?’

            He didn’t answer at first, opening his mouth several times, only to close it again and lay his head back against the couch. ‘If you like someone, but you think they might have done something… bad… but you aren’t sure, and maybe they didn’t do it on purpose, or they did it for good reasons, but you think that they might have done something to someone else, should you tell someone about it?’

            ‘What the fuck are you talking about?

            He shrugged. ‘Never mind.’ He picked up the book he’d left on the table the night before, and opened to his place. Shelly flipped through the channels on the TV.

            In the now silent house, they both heard the floorboards creak in the hall and looked up as the door opened. Elliot entered and took a seat between the two. Justin looked at him, but neither said a word. Shelly settled on a news channel. Their attention perked up when another story about Elliot featured. They sat in tense silence as they were informed that police were continuing their search after several witnesses had come forwards recently, claiming they’d seen him.

            Shelly finally changed the channel after a meaningful look from Justin, and they tried to pretend nothing had happened. Justin flipped his pages, Shelly flipped his channels, and Elliot tried in vain to feel less uncomfortable between them in the relative silence.

            He was almost relieved when the front door banged open, and them slammed shut. Alyssa burst into the room, starling them, clearly out of breath. She gasped several times, and clasped her knees. ‘Someone’s been tailing me all night. I think I lost them a few blocks back.’

            They were all just as surprised when something shot through the wall and hit Justin’s book, burning a hole through the pages and into his chest. He dropped his book into his lap, looking down in bewilderment at the blossom of red that burst out on his shirt.

More shots were fired, cutting through the plaster wall and Alyssa grabbed both Shelly and Elliot and hit the ground. Bullets shot across the room, leaving a line of holes, several more hitting Justin where he still sat on the couch, and taking out one of the large speakers. A hunk of plaster fell out of the wall and burst on top of the stereo, somehow throwing it back into life, though quieter now that one of the speakers was in pieces. She crawled her way across the floor, grabbing the two boys by their collars and dragging them forwards as the air above them became a death trap of flying metal. She hurled them out into the hall. ‘Keep low and run to the back of the house.’ She had to shout to be heard over the gunfire. ‘There’s a bolted door there. Shelly will show you.’

            Elliot was about to suggest that maybe they were police, come to rescue him, and after all why should he obey someone who had basically kidnapped him anyway? But one look upwards at the quickly disintegrating walls above made him think better of it.

            He heard a loud crash from the living room. Alyssa rolled and then scrambled back inside. Shelly was already ahead of him, so he chose to follow her instructions, worm-crawling across the carpeted ground, around the corner before rising to a crouching run and heading for the back stairs.

Justin looked down at the line of holes in his chest seeping blood into his shirt, and then back up as the wall opposite him crashed inwards. His head rested back in the chair as he watched a SWAT team burst through the gap. Dust filled the air from the bullet-riddled walls and cracked plaster, thick as smoke. They started to spread out in the room, letting their laser pointers sweep across him and the rest of the furniture. He held still as they moved closer, and then one of them reached out to feel his neck.

            The music reached its peak before his fingers touched his skin, and Justin raised his book, looking through the hole in the pages.

            ‘I hadn’t finished that yet!’ He glowered.

            The man barely had time to register his surprise before Justin’s hands flew to his gun and caught it. He snapped his arm at the elbow and catapulted himself out of the armchair, turning as he did so and opening fire. The chamber clicked still after only a few rounds though and he crouched and spun on the spot, flinging the empty gun at one of the invader’s heads.

            It hit the man squarely across the eyes and he fell backwards, his own gun, still shooting off rounds as he fell, blasting a line through one of his comrade’s legs before reaching the ceiling. But Justin hadn’t waited to see the result. He swung his legs out, catching the first man in the shins and shattering them. As the man screamed and hit the floor, he pushed off again, diving through the air to catch another by his Kevlar vest and using his momentum to summersault with the man and hurl him against a wall where his head cracked audibly on the hard surface. He slumped down the wall and lay still.

            He heard more gunfire and turned to see Alyssa race across the room, a path of fresh bullets thundering into the walls just behind her. She reached the corner of the room and leapt up the wall, pivoting so that her extended foot connected with the head of another man. She fell to the ground, catching his falling body and then lifting him. His head lolled obscenely on a broken neck as she used him as a human shield from the rest of the gunfire.

            Justin crouched on the ground, gasping as he held a hand over the bullet holes, doing what he could to check back the flow of blood. He willed the wounds to heal over, bullets still inside. They could come out later. He saw her grab the man’s gun strap with one hand and then lift her knee up onto the shaft of the weapon. She jerked hard and the fastening snapped. As the weapon fell, her foot caught it and sent it flying through the air. The man Justin had caught across the eyes had just managed to regain his footing when it hit him in the stomach. It didn’t injure him, but it tangled with his own weapon so that he had to stop shooting.

            Meanwhile, Alyssa gripped the now freed gun strap in one hand and used the other to slide the clasp along, letting her body shield fall to the ground, but extending the strap to it’s full length. She snapped it out like a whip, catching the man closest to her around the neck. He let his gun fall and reached with his hands to the stiff cord that now wrapped around his throat. She tugged it, pulling him off his feet towards her. She kicked him in the stomach hard enough to snap his spine from the other side. Quickly, as he fell, her hand snatched a pistol from his belt and turned on the last man. He had finally managed to disentangle the other gun and was raising his own rifle. She fired once into his hand and then when he cried out in pain, another shot followed to his head.

‘Where’s everyone else?’ Justin called out to her. His lungs burnt from the inside as he tried to mend them.

            ‘I don’t know! Byron got a call earlier this evening and rushed away. Everyone else is still eating I guess.’

Justin looked at the bodies around him. ‘Where’s Elliot?’

She dusted herself off, flicking a piece of plaster from her hair. ‘I sent him out back. Shelly’s with him.’

They both looked up as gunfire echoed down the hall from the back door and then they vaulted over the collapsing furniture to get out.

The back door swung wide, banging on its hinges as they burst out of the rear of the house, into the darkened back-alley. A van was parked, already waiting, but so was a fight.

            Shelly had been joined by Byron, who was busy dealing with another SWAT team; efficiently dispatching them in a flurry of movement while preventing them from reaching Elliot. Shelly started the van and yelled for them to get in while Byron kept them at bay, using the vehicle to form a bottleneck of fighting. Elliot, for his part, was backing up towards the wall trying to stay clear of the fighting. Justin saw his eyes fix on something, and then widen in fear. Two gunshots rang out loudly in the night and Elliot staggered. Two roses of blood burst out on his chest and he fell backwards, sliding sideways down the wall.

            Justin turned and spotted the shooter on the other side of the fighting. He’d hung back out of the way of Byron and his own squad, waiting for a clear shot. He was crouching still past the van. He turned his rifle on their patriarch, but he never fired the shot.

            Justin was on him like lightning, running up the hood of the van and leaping off the roof. He landed before the man, bringing his knee up and catching him in the chin, catapulting him into the air before he struck out with his fists. His arms moved in a blur as they pounded his chest, shattering ribs even through the man’s Kevlar padding. The force of the blows knocked the shooter progressively backwards until he was pressed against the wall. The man coughed blood in his face from collapsing lungs. Justin grabbed his gun, snapping the fingers that clung to it and twisting it to shove the barrel into the man’s gaping mouth. He pulled the trigger, emptying the clip into his head before he finally let the body fall to the ground.

Running footsteps echoed down the alley. Tess and the rest of their small family rounded the corner, slowing as they came upon the scene. Their eyes fixed on Justin where he stood over the corpse; blood and brain matter splattering down around him.

‘What’s going on?’ Tess shouted.

            Alyssa was hidden from them by the van, but her voice rang out. ‘There were two teams. One came through the front of the house and another was waiting out here.’

            Byron looked around. ‘Where’s Elliot?’

             Alyssa answered him again. ‘He’s over here. He’s been hit.’

            Elliot was slumped against the wall. His legs kicked out futilely as if he was trying to rise but couldn’t manage. His breath came in short, rapid. The bullets had perforated his larynx and one of his lungs. His mouth moved, but only rasping whines came out. Alyssa was trying to put pressure on the wounds when Byron shouldered her aside. He gripped Elliot’s head with both hands, and forced him to turn and face him. The boy’s eyes stared wildly at him.

            ‘I’m sorry you have to be awake for it this time, but I need to do this. Ok?’ Byron’s tone was firm and steady.

            Elliot nodded his head in his hands.

            Byron placed a large hand on the boy’s chest and braced him against the wall. He held Elliot’s gaze, and then nodded, driving the fingers of his other hand into the first bullet hole. Elliot’s back arched against the pain and his legs skittered on the pavement. His breathing picked up, the muscles in his neck bulged, and he groaned against the pain.

            Finally Byron’s fingers pulled out clasping the metal shell. He shot a look at Alyssa and she moved to his side, helping to brace Elliot’s shoulders as he flicked away the casing and reached in for the second bullet.

            He bucked harder this time, spasms running right through his body. His head pressed back against the brick and he screamed silently up at the sky.

            From where he was standing, as Shelly held him out of the way, Justin thought he saw Elliot’s eyes flash silver. The sky rumbled, and then raindrops started to splatter down on them. Elliot’s eyes closed and his body slumped as he finally lost consciousness.

            Danielle, standing nearby tilted her head back in surprise. Her eyes searched out the clouds and she whispered, ‘I didn’t feel that coming…’

            Byron seemed relieved that Elliot had lost consciousness as he finally dug out the bullet and bit into his wrists. He held the streams of blood over the boy’s wounds. A flash of alarm washed across his face when the wounds responded immediately, sealing over in seconds. Even some of the lost blood leached back into his skin as if he were a great sponge. He sank back on his heels as the rain started to come down in full force. ‘Load him into the van, then get anything you can’t leave behind. We’re moving tonight.’

            They scrambled to comply, the water already starting to soak through their clothes.

            As the eight of them packed into the van with their belongings and Shelly restarted the engine, Justin called up to Byron.

            ‘What’s going on? What was this all about?’

            He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I got a call too meet Cassandra—I was halfway there when something just felt wrong and I came running back. I saw the SWAT team out front so I came in the back, but there were more already here.’

            ‘Someone started shadowing me as soon as I left the bar,’ Alyssa added in. ‘I thought I’d lost him though…’

            ‘But who are they and what were they after?’

            Tess cleared her throat. ‘They wanted him.’ She nodded in the direction of Elliot’s prone form. ‘That was all I could get off them before… you killed them all.’

            Byron had noticed the holes in Justin’s shirt while they were talking and climbed back to check him out.

            Driving, Shelly asked over his shoulder, ‘Where to?’

            ‘The Factory. We need somewhere defendable.’

            Justin winced as his patriarch pulled back his shirt to expose the angry red welts. ‘I didn’t have tome to take them out,’ he gave in way of an answer to the concerned look he received.

            Byron touched one of the spots gingerly. ‘You ok to wait until we get there? I want to do this in more light…’

            Justin nodded stoically, and Alyssa’s hand found his, squeezing tightly. The van rumbled along in silence for the rest of the way; it’s passengers deep in their own thoughts.

            Justin reached out his free hand and found Elliot’s limp fingers. He slipped his own around them and held them in the gloom.