CHAPTER 27

.....Mike turns a corner...
..... ... the beat pounds louder...
.....BAM... BAM... BAM...
........spies the bathroom door at the end of the corridor...
.....Smiles.
........ jacks another round through the chamber, just for effect....
.....WHAM!
.....A classroom door slams open behind him.
........Mike rolls to the side and swings the Mini-14 around...
.....Wild-eyed jocks spill from the room capping even wilder rounds.
.....Bullets ricochet about, unzipping the air.
........Mike lays down return fire and backs down the hall...
.....Fucking jocks.

.....The gathering mob in the parking lot scattered at the eruption of gunfire. Whitenoise light strobed from the windows with each shot. Stray rounds snapped like bullwhips over their heads as the thin yellow ribbons that announced POLICE LINE were ignored.
.....A windshield of a news van coughed and rear window exploded in a blizard of safety glass, showering the hawks and vultures alike as they flew to safety. Everyone but a fool ducked for cover.
.....The one fool stood like Patton at parade rest, jutting his chin for the camera. Deputy Clyde Kehoe couldn’t be bothered to look around and notice that all cameras were focused on the school instead of him.
.....From a safe position, of course.

.....BAM! BAM! BAM!
.....Bullets scream and zip through the air like metallic hornets around Mike as he ducks and barrels the other direction...
........as the door to the ESL lab slams open and a bunch of Mexican guys spill out and start throwing firepower the other way.
.....BANG! BANG! BANG!
.....Mike throws himself down another hall and leaves the firefight behind.

.....Clyde grabbed up a bullhorn, and began to pace about bellowing.
....."Alright, you guys... start lobbing in the tear gas."
.....The team stumbled about awkwardly, suffering a stagefright of sorts under the unblinking gaze of the news cameras that had swung around at the response from the SWAT team. Finally, the troopers got their act together and knelt, raising their M-16s with teargas cannons into firing positions...
....."FIRE!"
.....The cannons barked and canisters arced across the yard to punch holes in the windows. Gas began to swirl out.
.....Clyde stood back and watched happily, although he realized that he sure could use a nice frosty soft drink. His cottonmouth was killing him. He started making an odd clicking sound, tongue snapping against the roof of his mouth, the back of his teeth.
.....SNAP!
.....The windshield of one of the students cars made a popping noise beside him, a bullethole abruptly appearing in the center of the glass. The dark eye looked up at him threateningly. As wired as he was, Clyde finally realized that taking cover was most likely a good idea.

.....The smell of cordite seared noses and the haze of burnt gunpowder began to cloud the cramped corridors of the high school. The Anglos and Mexicans continued to pop rounds at each other, but the gunfire began to taper off as the hall filled with teargas.
.....Handkerchief over his mouth and coughing, Dave McShane eyed a canister rolling across the floor, gas streaming in its wake.
.....One of the girls ran by, hunched over and gagging. He wasn’t sure which one she was but he was sure he had already done her, soooo...
.....His hand shot out, darted down the back of her sweater and grabbed the back of her bra and yanked. The sweater came off with the bra as he pulled it over her head and past her arms.
.....Eyes the size of saucers, she shrieked, covered her breasts and scurried to her friends, gas forgotten. It was Molly, and he realized that he hadn’t already tapped that well.
.....Oh, well.
.....He turned, bra dangling in his hand.
....."A hand here?" he called out to the other teens scurrying around him. "As in now?"
.....Differences forgotten, Javier stepped up as Dave demonstrated; a fist over each clamp, a makeshift double-barreled slingshot. As Javier knelt into position, Dave swept up the rolling canister with his handkerchief and dropped it into one off the cups...
........ drew it back and aimed...
........ and let fly.

.....All eyes turned back to the school at the sound of shattering of glass. The gas canister arced towards them, hit the pavement and rolled, vapor trailing behind.
.....The shell landed near the FOX News Team and rolled up to them hissing. They scattered, indulging in a fair and balanced amount of coughing and gagging.
.....One of the troopers looked perplexed as he watched a familiar talking head scurry by, her TV face falling off in a spill of mascara as she vomited up her morning latte. Later, with her face firmly back in place, she’d smile inscrutably as she signed an autograph for him.
.....He eyed the canister and then swiveled around to yelp at Clyde incredulously. "Can they do that?"
.....The SWAT leader drew himself up as much as his cover would allow.
....."Oh, they wanna play rough, do they?" Clyde snarled. He turned to his men. "Get your ass over here, Carlssen!"
.....The ranks pulled aside as Carlssen staggered up under the weight of the M-60 he was lugging, a seriously gone-to-pot Rambo with bands of .50 rounds wrapped about his frame.
.....He drew up, sweating. The M-60 isn’t a lightweight piece of armament, especially for someone whose only exercise was twelve-ounce curls. The cameras were watching though, so he did his best.
....."Yo."
....."Okay, Carlssen." Clyde jerked his head back at the high school. "Show ’em who’s the boss."
.....Carlssen smiled. Striking a Soldier of Fortune coverboy pose, he allowed another member of his team to be his wingman and feed the belt. He jacked back the handle and slapped it forward. The show went live as he braced himself and pulled the trigger, unleashing some hellaciously superior firepower on the dinks.
.....Empty shells arced smoking from the bucking machinegun as it threw a stream of rounds, each the size of a child’s finger, towards the school with a throaty roar. One-hundred-rounds-per-minute’s worth. The concrete facade of the school began to crack and emit small farts of vaporized building material as the stream of fire swept across before locking in on the windows.

.....The windows exploded inwards in a blizzard of flying glass as the teens forgot their squabbling and hit the floor, trying to disappear into their own crotches as the hallway was torn apart above them. Plaster and pulverized sheet rock showered down around them, the dust creating a haze of its own.

....."Yee-fucking-haw!" Carlssen grinned like a foolish boy as he chewed the front of the school apart. Finally out of ammo, he spun around, shaking the machine gun at the heavens. The barrel of the weapon was fucked. Eighteen hundred bucks worth of taxpayer money burned up in less than two minutes.
.....It made for good television, though. The news crews were as excited as a little girl getting a pony on her birthday. And they wanted more.
.....A white handkerchief was waved through a shattered window. There was a quiet hiss of disappointment from the crowd. Hands were withdrawn from ears. The media exchanged worried glances: not yet, already?
.....The students began to stagger out through the shattered front doors. Dave McShane in the lead still waving his handkerchief.
.....Tear gas billowed out after them as they spilled down the stairs, gagging and trying not to puke as they made their way towards the parking lot, hands clasped behind their necks just the way they had learned they were supposed to do it on C*O*P*S.
.....As more feet landed around him, moved along, Scot T figured it was safe enough to finally stand. None of the other students paid him any mind. Their suddenly fucked up world was already too much to deal with.
.....The SWAT leader turned to one of his men, who was scanning the exiting students with a pair of binoculars.
....."Any of them wearing a school jacket?"
.....The trooper watched as the last student exited, puking on her shoes and the stairs as she stumbled down them.
.....He shook his head. "Nope."
.....Media ears perked up.
....."Alrighty, then. We’re goin’ in after that bastard."
.....The cameras leaned in.

.....The school has fallen silent again, save for the echoes of smashing down the hall. Mike resumes his hunt...

.....SMASH. SMASH...CRUNCH.
.....The reinforced window crumpled and fell free, leaving open window space and the cool breeze sigh wafting in of sanctuary beyond.
.....Pierce grabbed Debbie and lifted her up to the sink, feeding her through the open gap. With a kick of her shapely legs and a flash of cotton panties, she was through. Pierce looked down through the window as Debbie stood up on a sea of welcome green, brushed grass stains off of her ass.
.....She looked back up at him and hissed, "C’mon, you asshole."
.....As he moved to follow, he froze. He turned his head listening, as the sound of footsteps neared the door and paused...

.....He pauses by the bathroom door, reaches to push it open...
........and the door slams open, heavy mass smashing into his reaching hand...
........wrist SNAP! and he grunts...
.....He loses some serious Health Points.

.....Pierce rolled in low and leapt up, swinging a wild right-handed haymaker that nonetheless connected solidly with Mike’s face. Eyes gone glassy, the boy crumpled to his knees. The Mini-14 fell from his grasp and clattered across the tile.
.....Pierce snarled in recognition. In recognition of his gun, and of his nemesis. "You motherfucking faggot..."
.....He grabbed the collar of the jacket to yank Mike up, but the boy went limp, the jacket slipping over his head as arms slipped through...

........his broken wrist snags in the jacket.
.....A white-hot pulse of pain and he vomits a moan, falls the rest of the way to the floor.
.....He loses a few more Health Points...
........GAME OVER...

.....Pierce threw the jacket aside, knelt and picked up the rifle. Breathing heavily, he aimed it as Mike struggled up onto his elbows...
........chambered a round...
........as the door behind him exploded inwards and SWAT members charged through, their gas masks sparking with the reflected fluorescent lights.
....."Drop the weapon!" a voice barked, muffled by the gas mask.
.....Pierce swung around, the rifle inadvertently following.
....."Don’t..." Pierce started to-
.....The SWAT members cut loose. Clips emptied as scores of .223 rounds were unleashed.
.....Mike fell back to the floor, the pain of his broken wrist forgotten as he clasped himself into a tight ball.
.....Most of the rounds snapped past their target and pocked the wall behind Pierce, but a handful found their mark. They slammed into him and punched on through; blood, chucks of flesh and a loop of small intestine erupting from Pierce’s back as a couple of the rounds took him low, the rifle flying from his grip.
.....As he was spun by the barrage, another round caught him in the jaw; the lower half of his face disintegrated into a mist of fleshy shrapnel. The impact flipped him back and another round took off a sizely chunk of his brain pan on its way through his skull. He slammed the floor, the heels of his boots drumming against the tile.
.....Gray matter is actually light pink when spattered liberally across a beige wall. Blood spread across the floor in a widening pool.
.....The team moved in to cover the downed target, who drew up huddled in a fetal position as he tried to hold his entrails in. A long loop extended from the exit wound in his back to lay uncoiled in the dust. It doesn’t take much brains to die, and Pierce wasn’t left with much. He was still taking his long, painful time going about it, though.
.....The blood found purchase in a drainage grate, and began to trickle off. Ears still ringing from the burst of gunfire, the cops pulled back their gas masks and eyed the area suspiciously. There had been reports of only one shooter, but they still remained wary.
.....One of the team helped Mike to his feet as others moved in to cover the perp with their M-16s, smoke still curling from the barrels.
....."You okay?" the cop asked Mike.
.....The boy pointed at Pierce unsteadily, his eyes wide. "He was gonna kill me..."
....."It’s over now." Kyle nodded reassuringly as he led the boy away. "Get outside, have yourself checked out by an EMT."
.....Mike paused as they moved to pass Pierce. ...I didn’t mean... just wanted to fuck with them... show ‘em how it felt...
.....Kyle shook his head. "Don’t look at that..."
.....He put his arm over Mike’s shoulders and eased him from the crime scene. The smell of shit and ruptured organs began to fill the hallway, and the cops eased their gas masks back on.
.....Eyes wide, a keening wail gargled from the wreckage of Pierce’s mouth.
.....The pool of blood stilled as the source ran out. His eyes blinked one final time. It would be almost an hour until a paramedic would close them for eternity.
.....A fly began to buzz over the blood, and then another.