The World in Reverse (27 page)

Johnson knew it was hard to fathom. “One in the same.  Help yourself to some easy rea
ding while I warm the pizza,” he said, slipping a few slices onto a plate and sticking it in the microwave.

As soon as Johnson’s finger hit the keypad, a loud explosion erupted behind him.  His heart constricted when he heard Carmen’s blood curdling scream.  Turning to see a spray of bullets impact with the walls, through the furniture and into the kitchen, he ducked behind the counter just in time to save his own head.

“Carmen!” he screamed.  “Carmen!”

There was no answer.

More bullets slammed into the walls, knocking chunks of drywall and hanging paintings onto the floor and chipping away at Johnson’s position curled below the counter behind the dishwasher.  He could literally feel bullets jamming into the back of the appliance. It was only a matter of time before the bullets made their way through to the other side and in to him.  He had to move.

He waited for what seemed like minutes but was only seconds for the shooters to reload.  When the bullets stopped, he raised up from his crouching position to find Carmen. 

The lights above him flickered on and off, shattered by the shooting and hanging out of the ceiling.  Sockets popped with electricity around him. 

“Baby,” he whispered, knowing that he only had seconds. Shattered glass cracked under his feet, tearing into his sensitive flesh.  “Where are you?”

He looked over the bar to see her twisted body lying on the floor.  Blood oozed from her gaping chest wound and out the side of her mouth.  A hole was blown through her back and out of her rib cage.  

Stunned, he stood there looking at her body a second too long.  The shooters reloaded and began the second wave of their assault.  The bullets came again, this time concentrated on his position instead of all over the condo.

Seeing his gun on the end of the counter, he grabbed it and his backpack and got behind the counter again.

Shaky fingers made it nearly impossible for him to dial 911, but he managed.  As soon as the dispatcher answered, he screamed into the phone past the sound of the thunderous clap of ammunition. 

“I need an ambulance at 312 Florida.  Officer down.  The shooters are still on site. My badge number is 9898.  I repeat, officer down.  I need a fucking bus now!” He didn’t care about himself as much as he cared about getting her help. 

Dropping the phone without hanging it up, he heard footsteps at the front door.  A kick sent the door off its hinges and the men quickly stepped inside.  Flanking each other, they moved closer to Johnson.

He could hear the operator asking questions on the phone and the sound of glass cracking under the men’s boots.  But he stayed deathly quiet. 

“120 seconds exactly,” Magnelli said, loo
king at his watch. 

“Who’s the bitch?” Butter asked, moving closer towards Carmen’s body.  From about five feet away, he looked down at her lifeless limbs.  “Nice ass too.  Such a waste.”

Magnelli was across the room, scanning the living room for Johnson’s body.  “There wasn’t supposed to be anyone else here.  Is she alive?” He could barely see through the mask. Irritated with the situation and short on time, he dismissed the girl. “Dead, check her and find our primary target.”

Butter aimed his weapon directly at Ca
rmen’s body to shoot her one final time, but as he did, Johnson inhaled one low breath and then stood up quickly from behind the counter.  There was no time for Butter to react.  Years of training mixed with the chaotic adrenaline rushing through his veins, gave Johnson a dead-on hit.  Exhaling, he pulled the trigger as soon as Butter saw him and shot the man directly in his neck. 

Instinctively, Butter grabbed his neck, dro
pping his weapon to apply pressure to the gushing wound.  Blood spewed from his mouth and hit the floor, flapping like a fish. 

Magnelli turned and began to shoot widely in Johnson’s direction, though he could not get a direct hit because of the wall. 

Crouched again, Johnson waited before returning fire.  Raising his hand just a little above him in the direction of Magnelli, he pulled the trigger blindly shooting. 

Magnelli ducked behind the sidewall leading out of the dining room into the living room and dropped his duffle bag.  Hearing sirens out of the shattered windows and seeing onlookers starting to come out of their homes, he started to panic.

Shit!  They had taken too long to do the hit. Time had run out.

Kneeling down while still keeping his eyes on the corner as Johnson returned fire, he pulled out the Molotov cocktail bombs from the bag and placed them on the floor beside him.  Sticking the muzzle of his weapon around the corner blindly, he shot again, but this time hitting Butter in the back. 

The man gurgled out his last painful breaths and went limp on his side.

Glancing quickly around the corner, Ma
gnelli cursed. “Fuck!”

Johnson crawled around the corner of the kitchen quietly, biting down on his lip as he cut his knees and hands on the broken glass.  Blood trailed behind him as he made his way to Ca
rmen’s body. Putting his fingers to her neck, he felt for a pulse.  Nothing.  He was about to pull her back behind the kitchen wall with him when Magnelli stepped out to throw the homemade bomb at him.

Without words, Johnson tried to cover Ca
rmen’s body. Pulling her by her broken chest, he wrapped his arms around her and lowered her head to brace for the impact of the fire. 

Magnelli stepped closer, hoping that his eyes were deceiving him. 

He stepped closer with the bottle still in hand.  The rag inside of it was lit and ready to be thrown.

“Carmen?” Magnelli said in disbelief.  His voice trailed off into an abyss of terror at what he had done. 

Johnson looked up, confused about why the masked man had stopped.

Realizing that he had no choice but to cover his tracks, Magnelli raised his hand to throw the bottle, but Johnson had his weapon tucked under her body. 
Stealthily aiming it, he shot at Magnelli as he raised his hand.

Throwing the bottle only a few feet away from him, Magnelli ran out of the door the way that he had come.

Fire quickly consumed the area, nearly blocking Johnson from the entranceway.  He struggled with Carmen’s body, blood covering his hands and naked chest.  Picking her up in his arms as the fire spread around them, he jumped through the flames with her in his embrace.  His legs burned as he ran out of the door.  Hearing screeching tires in the nearby distance, Johnson knew that whoever the hitter was had driven off. As soon as he was outside in the night air, he dropped onto the dewy grass and rolled hard, putting the fire out on their bodies. 

Sirens rushed towards him.  Blue lights pulled up on his lawn in front of his condo and police officers poured out of their cars to help them. 

Still holding on to Carmen, Johnson looked on as everything that he had ever owned went up in smoke. 

“Sir, are you alright?” an Asian male officer asked, running to Johnson and dropping to his knees.

“It’s not me. It’s her,” Johnson said, voice cracking. 

The officer put his hand to Carmen’s neck as he pulled her out of Johnson’s arms.  Looking over at the other officer standing a few feet away, he nodded. “She’s gone,” he said, reco
gnizing her face.

25

After a long day, there was nothing better than the peace and tranquility of a clean home.  Since she was alone for the night, there was no need to cook a big meal, so Steele had settled for leftover Church’s chicken and a bottle of chardonnay.  A little tipsy after her second glass, she sauntered into her downstairs master bedroom, sat on the edge of her king-sized bed and kicked off her  black boots. 

An instant sigh of relief escaped her as soon as her tired feet were free.  Damn, she was exhausted.  Resisting the urge to crawl into bed without cleaning herself, she grabbed the remote and turned on her stereo. 

Disc one.  Track three.

Stevie Ray Vaughn’s Tin Pan Alley came on. 

Swaying to the sound of down home blues, Steele walked into her bathroom and sat on the edge of her two-person garden tub.  Twisting the knobs, she turned on the water as hot as she could get it and poured in bath salts.  The aroma of cherry blossom rose to her nose, creating bubbles in the tub as it filled to the top. 

After a few more sips of wine, she finally started to peal out of her clothes, one slow layer at a time.  With each layer removed, she felt more and more relaxed, even though involuntarily she played the day’s event back in her head.

Four
dead children. 

DeMario.

Councilman Ferris.

Mooky.

The mysterious cop.

Agosto.

She took another sip of her wine and rolled her eyes.  The police didn’t pay her enough for this bullshit.   She should have stayed in the military. By now, she’d be a fucking Lt. Colonel and preparing for retirement.  Instead, here she was chasing idiots on the street who didn’t even deserve the freedom that others had died to give them and for half the pay. 

What a life she had chosen for herself and her son.  Her mother would be proud. 

Walking to her medicine cabinet, she pulled out her PTSD medicine, dropped a pill in her hand and washed it down with another sip of wine. 

That should do the trick.

Looking at herself in the mirror naked, she pulled her hair down out of the ponytail and wiped her hands under her eyelids, wiping away the extra mascara.  Brown eyes stared back at her, red and tired.  Black hair fell over her chocolate shoulders, stopping at her defined collarbone.  Full breasts flowed down into a six pack of muscle and expanded back out at wide-set hips encasing a bushy secret of pleasure and traveled down to muscular, thick long legs in need of a good shaving, wide calves and finally manicured feet. 

She looked at herself in the mirror like this every night, as if she expected something to change.  And yet, nothing ever did. 

Getting on the scale, she looked at the digital calculator as it populated.  162 lbs.  She had been that weight for ten years.  Stepping off the scale, she cursed under her breath again when she thought about the case and prepared to get in the tub when she heard a creaking sound even beyond her music.  The hardwoods floors in her hallway right outside of her bedroom had not settled yet.  She had just had them replaced the week before.  Any steps over it made a distinctive sound.  She even heard whoever it was stop when the noise startled them. 

Flicking off the light in the bathroom very carefully, she pulled her Glock from behind the bathroom door, hanging in her shoe rack and put a pink, terrycloth towel over it.  Laying it and the towel on the side of the garden tub, she slipped into the water under the towering bu
bbles as they rose with the water still running and stilled her movements.  Holding her breath, she waited.   

At that very moment, Stevie Ray Vaughn’s slow melodic song ended and the entire room was suddenly eerily silent.  She could hear footsteps in her bedroom, invading her space. Two sets of large feet. 

Without a question, she knew that it wasn’t her son, because she had just talked to him a few minutes before, and he was at his friend’s house across town, playing video games and sucking down sodas.  And no one else had a key. 

This was an intruder. 
Intruders to be exact.
 

The water only magnified the footsteps.  She heard them and her own heartbeat as they got closer and closer.  Holding her breath, she waited. 

The footsteps entered into the bathroom and then someone turned on the light.  Steele went deathly still, praying that her entire body was covered by the bubbles and running water.  Unable to see anything, she kept her eyes open in the hot water, batting them occasionally only because she couldn’t help the natural reaction, but she denied her body the ability to breathe.

A man’s deep baritone voice rattled the s
ilence.  “I thought you said that the bitch was downstairs?”

Another man answered. “She was.”  He walked to the closet and pushed her clothes aside.  “I don’t know.  Maybe she went upstairs or in another room.”

“How could you miss her?  Go look under the bed again,” the man with the deep voice ordered. 

“There is nothing under the fucking bed,” the other man protested.  “I’m not looking again.  Come on.  We’re wasting time. Boss said to do her and get back pronto.”

Steele could feel her strength waning.   Closing her eyes, she waited as the words
do her
repeated in her head. 

“Turn the light back off, so that she won’t know that you’ve been in there,” the other man reminded.

The two men walked  out of the bedroom, searching for Steele, not knowing that she was right under their noses the entire time. 

Quietly, she raised her head out of the water to listen for their footsteps as they walked across the hardwood floors again in the hal
lway.  Sure that she had enough time to get out, she slowly crawled out of the bathtub and grabbed her Glock from under the towel. 

There was no time to dry off or even think about how she looked.  Inching from the bat
hroom to the bedroom, she slipped on the panties that she had laid on the bed and threw on the bulletproof vest she had laid over the chair. 

She could hear them moving about down the hall.  They were searching for her now, certain that she had gone hiding. 

Pressing her back up against the wall with her gun clenched between her fingers, she calmed her breaths.  Wet hair hung down on her shoulders, dripping water on the musty vest and down the cracks of the vest to her exposed breasts.  This would be a horrible way to go. 

To die at the hands of two fucking idiots while taking a damn bath. 

Then a thought hit her.  Her shotgun was right behind the dresser.  Sneaking quietly over to it, she pushed the dresser up, grabbed the loaded weapon and went back to the door as fast as she could without making a noise. 

Sticking her head out quickly, she locked their position.  One was on each side of the hallway, both carrying weapons, neither wea
ring vests.  She tried to memorize their characteristics.  One white.  One black.  They both wore masks, both were right handed based on how they handled their weapons, but the dumb asses had forgotten their gloves. 

Good, she’d have finger prints later.

The hard part for now would be to rack her weapon without giving away her position.  So, in essence she had the element of surprise only for a second and then she’d be forced to either kill or be killed.

Making the sign of the cross over her chest and head, she looked over at the picture of her son and then racked the shotgun. 

The sound so distinct in nature that it instantly alerted them, they turned around guns pointed but couldn’t figure out which door it had come from. 

“She’s got a gun,” the deep voiced man warned.

“You think,” the other man sneered.

Realizing that she couldn’t let them out of her sight, she stepped out from her position beside the entry of the door.  Pointing the gun directly at the tallest man first, she pulled the trigger.  Buckshot splattered, hitting the man dead square in the chest and throwing him five feet down the hall and into the entryway of the other bedroom.

The other man immediately began to send rounds her way.  Slamming the door shut, she moved out of the way of the bullets that tore through the wooden door and impacted into the far wall and window of her bedroom.

She prayed someone heard that and was calling the police immediately. 

Stepping back, she racked the gun again.  Throwing her gun holster over her shoulder, she backed into the opposite wall and pointed the gun directly at the door.

As soon as she thought she saw someone through the large holes in the door, she shot again.

“I can do this all night, motherfucker!” she screamed, racking the gun again.   “Or at least until the cops get here.  And yes, I already called them. You can stay and die, go to jail or you can be smart for once in your life and get the hell out of here.  But one thing’s for sure.  You come through that door and so help me God, you’ll never leave out of it.”

More rounds entered the room through the door in response and blowing holes into her bed, nightstand and lamp.  Ducking down she shot back again.  Finally out of bullets, she dropped her shotgun and started to shoot her sidearm.  Moving out of the corner as she shot, she quickly ran to the opposite side of the room, where he couldn't see her and grabbed the Glock she had put down for her shotgun earlier.

Anticipation of what was to come drove her crazy.  She waited for more men to come barreling through the door, even though she had only seen two before.  Stilling her breath, gun pointed, heart pounding, sweat pouring, hair wet and nearly naked, she listened. 

Minutes passed. 

Still she waited in the same position, frozen into a protective stance. 

Finally, she heard the door.  A shot at the doorknob left a gaping hole. He kicked the door open.  A bottle flew into the bedroom and landed on the floor on fire.  Then another flew in and landed on the bed setting it on fire.  Then a third.  Each one was thrown into different parts of the room to ensure that it burned from every side. 

On the opposite wall, hidden from view of the door, she pushed herself up in the corner and grabbed the picture from behind her of her son when he was a baby.  Throwing it into the bathroom to make a noise and distract him, she crouched down. 

Wood crunched under the man’s heavy boot as he walked in, gun pointed aiming towards the bathroom.  The flames had begun to co
nsume the room.  Immediately, he began to shoot everything but as he turned, Steele was waiting. 

Shooting him first in the stomach, she watched him as he pulled the trigger one last time, barely missing her head and leaving a hole in the wall only inches above her.  She stood up, drywall in her hair, hands shaking and pointed the gun at him.  Stepping out of the corner, she unloaded into his body
- legs, arms and finally one final shot to the head. 

“I told you motherfucker.  You can come in, but you can’t come out.”

Leaving his bloody body to burn, she turned and ran out of the bedroom door as fast as her feet would take her to call for help.