The Book of Paul -- A Paranormal Thriller (23 page)

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Martin was still mulling it over as Carlos’s face changed into that familiar “Welllll?” expression every bully gets after he’s cornered the school nerd and stuck out his hand for the milk money. It was now or never. Even one more second of indecision would turn the “Welllll?” into a “Kneel!”

Martin was tensing himself for a fateful leftward leap, hoping the extra jolt of adrenaline pumping in his veins was enough to marshal untapped reserves of strength, when suddenly a third contingency emerged he hadn’t figured into his calculations…and wouldn’t have expected in a million years.

“
MARTIN!”
Rose screamed, running across the street with a nail file in her hand.

Everyone looked. Carlos even stopped his gun-waving histrionics long enough to turn his head in a futile attempt to ward off her subway-brake shrieking. That was all Martin needed. He moved on the junkie with inhuman speed and strength. Dopey’s arm cracked like a pretzel log. He didn’t even feel any pain until the gun popped out of his backwards-angled arm and into Martin’s hand like a piece of toast.

Martin turned to fire on Carlos and Carlos swiveled sideways to do the same. Both of them were blindsided again as Rose vaulted into the air like the teen prodigy gymnast she’d been, landing squarely on Carlos’s back.

What a bitch!
Martin thought. His reaction was equally appropriate for expressing his unabashed awe, admiration and gratitude for her courageous intervention as well as his utter frustration with her attack plan. Had Rose simply confined her support activities to more of the same ear-splitting screams she previously contributed, he would have already planted three slugs into Carlos’s vital organs. Now, as Rose and Carlos twisted together like chicken fight partners in knee-deep guacamole, it was impossible to get a shot off that didn’t risk hitting her.

Holding Dopey’s writhing bulk between himself and Carlos like a full-body-armor shield, Martin realized they were more or less on equal footing. One pull of the trigger would jeopardize the life of either shooter’s partner. Surprisingly, Carlos was the first to abandon all loyalty in favor of pure survival instincts. He started blasting.
Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang!

Martin had done a terrific job of positioning Dopey’s body in such a way that the first three shots were safely absorbed into his upper torso. The fourth shot missed him entirely, ricocheting harmlessly off the concrete steps. The fifth one got him.
ZZZZZZZZmzzzzzzzt
Martin could hear and even smell the whizzing bullet as it tore into the muscles below his left ribcage. The painful impact, combined with his depleted strength, made it impossible for him to support the junkie’s now literally dead weight. Martin collapsed onto the steps, trying to keep the bleeding body draped protectively over him like a lead x-ray blanket.

Martin knew what bullets do when they enter your body and wondered whether he was already dead. For those of you who don’t know what happens when a bullet hits a fleshy, bony object—like Martin, for instance—it doesn’t necessarily travel in a straight line. More often than not, it twists and turns in the most surprising ways. For example, on one occasion, Paul shot a man in the wrist and the bullet, quite remarkably, made it all the way up his arm and over into his bronchial tubes. Paul called it, “Extra mileage.”

Martin paused to determine where his own private missile might have wandered and groaned with relief when he saw a blob of flesh and blood on the cement directly beneath the bullet’s entry site.
Good,
a nice clean shot.
He’d survived a few of those.

He didn’t have time for further celebration. When he looked up, he noticed two remarkable new developments: Carlos had leveled his pistol sight squarely on Martin’s forehead, and Rose had her nail file pointed right at his focusing eyes.

Thuck!
That might have been the sound Rose made if she stabbed the gleaming tip of her file directly into Carlos’s squinting eye. Yet even with Martin’s life at stake, she couldn’t bring herself to commit an act so basely horrifying. Instead, the sound was more of a
ZZZZZZT
as she raked the filing edge across his exposed corneas just as he was squeezing the trigger.

“Arrrrrrrggh!” Carlos bellowed, raising his pistol-toting hand (much too late) to protect his eyes.
BANG!
The gun fired, but not into Martin’s head. The bullet streaked into the air, landing a few seconds later with a harmless plop into the potato salad bowl of a midnight rooftop picnic party one block farther east.

Upon realizing he’s been blinded, Carlos became as frantic as he was enraged, indiscriminately emptying the remaining bullets in his magazine while he rotated in circles with the vague hope of hitting Rose or Martin or maybe even one of his useless compadres.

Rose jumped off Carlos’s back as soon as she delivered the fateful slash, quickly somersaulting across the pavement as Carlos twirled and fired. All the remaining shots slammed into the brownstone buildings or smog-deadened trees, with the exception of one lonely slug that shattered the shinbone of another of his meathead minions. The poor guy went down hard, breaking all of his front teeth as his face smashed into the curb right next to where Rose was lying. Rose, who liked the sight of blood more than most people, almost heaved as his cracked teeth bounced into the street like a pack of Chiclets.

One of the three surviving goons assumed Rose’s former position behind Carlos’s back trying to wrestle the pistol away from him, or failing that, at least make sure he was safely behind the firing line. Another hopped behind a row of garbage cans to escape the whizzing bullets. The last thug ran away.

The instant Martin heard the first echoing
click
of Carlos’s firing hammer hitting an empty chamber, he stuck his head out from behind his protective cover and started shooting.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Plop. Plop. Plop
. That was it. Three shots, three dead bodies. Rose was shrieking in fear at the sound of even more bullets spraying around her, but when she saw what Martin had done, her mouth shut and her eyes widened.

Fuck!
He just killed those guys,
she thought, both awed and horrified.
No, we just killed those guys,
she added, even more disturbed. A cascade of raw emotions swirled around her head, pushing each other out of the way, struggling for recognition. Fear. Loathing. Excitement.

Martin watched all those expressions flicker on her face and remembered the smile of a seven-year-old boy shooting his first rat…and an eight-year-old boy holding a smoking Beretta.
Shit,
he thought with a sad shake of pity. Then the switch clicked right on cue.

Good. He’d wasted too much time already. Martin looked at her for one lingering second before he broke the silence.

“Could you get this body off me?”

Rose groaned with disgust and the effort of pushing the splattered corpse off Martin. After she helped him up, he put his arm around her, looking in all directions for any sign of witnesses. Nothing.
This is weird.
After all that shooting, there must be someone
. Then, assuming they were all alone, he did the most unexpected thing. He bent his head down and kissed Rose tenderly on the top of her head.

It was a beautiful sight. Even I had to agree. Tony, the fifth young punk, didn’t find it the least bit endearing. As it turned out, he wasn’t that big a coward after all. Yes, he ran away, but not very far. He was catching his breath at the far end of the street, tucked under his own shadowy stoop. And surprise, surprise: Tony also had a gun, which he was now pointing squarely at the crown of Martin’s lowered, kissing head.

If Martin had known, he might not have waited so long before raising his head again. Even that little movement might have saved his life. Because that little punk Tony had him dead in his sights. And to make matters worse, he was a really good shot.

Tony squeezed the trigger long, slow and even, just like he’d been taught by Carlos, the very man Martin had just delivered from a lifetime of white canes and Braille
Hustler
magazines. His aim was perfect. Martin lingered with his kiss to make it even easier. Nothing in the world should have been able to save Martin from that long, slow squeeze and the speeding bullet that followed.

Nothing at all. Except, just maybe, for a little bit of luck.

Tony couldn’t see him. Neither could Rose or Martin.

Paul was coming like a great shrouded ghost, his long, white hair glowing under the streetlight. He was moving fast, but there wasn’t the slightest sound from his footsteps. He snapped the sickle open and it locked into place, its chrome, engraved death’s head emblem gleaming under the street lamp. Tony turned around at the sound, knowing it had to be some kind of knife or switchblade, guessing the newcomer must be in league with the tall guy and his rabid girlfriend. As he turned, he continued the slow squeeze of the trigger, his gun thrust out at eye level, gripped tightly in both hands for steady support.

Tony decided he would start firing as soon as he fully turned around.
At this range, any hit will slow him down. Then I’ll have time for a follow-up shot.
And that’s exactly what Tony would have done. If he still had a head.

“C’mere! C’mere! Quick!” Paul hissed at Michael, trying to remain unobserved by Martin and Rose long enough to delight in one of his most treasured indulgences. When Michael didn’t move fast enough, he grabbed his hand and dragged him over, under the shadow of a barren tree.

There it was. It could have been mistaken for a half-deflated soccer ball, if it weren’t for the ears. “Look!” Paul hooted, practically bouncing with excitement. It was still alive. “Quick! Bend down, there isn’t much time,” Paul commanded, squatting in front of the…thing. He pulled Michael down with him. Up close and personal. The eyes blinked. Paul raised a finger between them and moved it from side to side. When the eyes followed the movement of Paul’s finger, Michael shivered so strongly his head shook.

“Neat, eh?” Paul said, nudging Michael in the ribs. “Go ahead, ask him a question!”

Strangely enough, Michael didn’t hesitate. It was as if the question had always been inside him, waiting for the opportunity to be asked. “Did it hurt?”

Michael almost shit himself when the mouth opened horribly, struggling to reply. Thankfully, no sound followed, except a barely audible gurgle accompanied by a pool of black blood spilling onto the asphalt below. Bean took an involuntary step backwards when the mouth moved again, slowly, maybe even calmly, mouthing out the words. Michael was no lip reader, but even he could make out the message.

“Not much,” said the head.

“Whoa!” Michael’s
Whoa!
seemed to shock the head formerly known as Tony into a state of confusion, or perhaps despair. He closed his eyes and blinked them slowly open again, hoping his intrusive audience had lost interest and gone away. When he saw Michael was still gawking at him, he closed his eyes again. They didn’t reopen.

“Well, that’s it, kid. Show’s over,” Paul said happily, slapping Bean on the back, shaking his head with a rapturous sigh of pleasure. “Pretty impressive, eh?”