Asazi
Chapter 12
I awoke to pouring rain and people's voices.
I was awake in half-a-second and on my feet in another. The rain was very gently drizzling, I could see that. The day was gray and my watch said it was around ten in the morning. The voices were coming from the hill that I was on. I looked around in the grove I was in, saw a tree I could climb and got up in it.
High enough to see who was coming up the hill…it was Brink and four other people. They were arguing and it looked like Brink was just checking to see if I was here…the others were all pointing toward the city and saying something like, "Asleep—there—." And they were obviously armed; their wet shirts stuck to their shirts, showing there the butts of guns hiding around their waists.
I breathed a sigh of relaxation and started climbing down the tree…unfortunately, the rain had wetted the branches a little more. I slipped, let out a screech and fell down the rest of the way. I landed in a pile of pine needles, a few poking into my stomach.
The wind had been knocked from me, I tried to breathe in but it didn't come for a few seconds…footsteps. Running footsteps. I yelled as I fell!
I got to my feet and started running up the hill, toward the cliffs. There were some large rocks up there and—BLAM! A bullet whizzed by my head and plowed into the hill. I ran faster. I was running as fast as I could when I reached a huge boulder and dove behind it. I waited, listening carefully and trying to silence my loud, out-of-breath breathing.
I couldn't hear them…I pulled the gun out of my swimsuit. One bullet, five people…I certainly wasn't going to survive. But I would give them my best.
I was probably supposed to die last night, when I swam…I had tricked fate and now it was back to kill me. I took a peek around the corner of the boulder. I saw Brink the others all looking at different parts of the cliff…one of them saw me looking and yelled and pointed in my direction. I whipped my head back around but it was too late.
They knew I was here. I was going to die…I heard them pulling the hammers back on their pistols but I didn't hear them coming towards me. I looked to my left and waited for someone to suddenly come into my sight.
The heavy gun in my hands was ready but I didn't know what the rain would do to it. They didn't care what happened to their guns; they didn't hesitate to pull them out when they saw me…
I had the gun ready to fire. I was scared, my heart racing, the rain picking up and turning into hard, thunderstorm rain. Suddenly, thunder filled my ears and I winced…then I realized it wasn't thunder. It was a gun firing and—BLAM! Another shot! I instinctively ducked and a bullet smashed into the boulder I was hiding behind.
What the hell? How are shooting at me—I saw the man duck back down. He had gotten to another boulder, to my left, about thirty yards down from where I was. I got distracted; I thought too much about whether my gun would fire and how they handled theirs.
I raised the gun and aimed it at where he was standing up before he ducked. Suddenly he popped up and—BLAM! I fired my last bullet and the kick knocked me back a little…but I saw my hit.
I had hit him in the head; its contents exploding backwards after I hit it…I didn't close my eyes. I didn't even feel sick at the sight of the insides of his head. I slowly sat back up and looked at my empty gun.
No more ammo…not good. I then thought hey, at least I can still throw the gun; that might hurt somebody. I heard them yelling at each other, arguing over something.
Somebody must be really pissed off about me taking down that guy… That thought sparked another: the guy I took down has guns and ammo! I took a peek at Brink and his gang for a second, then whirled around. They didn't see me; two were looking toward the dead body, the other two arguing about something. The pouring rain made their voices inaudible.
I decided to go for it. Thirty yards…four people, four guns…four experienced people, four fully-loaded guns…the odds were against me in the worst of ways…but I didn't have a choice, did I?
I studied the dead man's hiding place. The fifty-foot cliff was about five yards from the rock he was hiding behind but other than that, there was nothing but downhill…which meant it was go for the gun, or stay and eventually die…
I took a deep breath. The arguing had stopped their voices now calm, suspicious. They were planning something…
I took another deep breath, knowing that time was short…think Asazi. There is another solution to this…THINK! A few seconds later and another thought occurred to me…they probably think I still have ammo… I smiled.
I would make a run for it, aiming the gun at them and, hopefully, they would duck and say, "Look out! She's still got the gun!" …Or something like that. I had no other choice.
I looked again and—BLAM!—pulled my head back. They were all looking toward me; one of them had fired at me…I was stuck. Do or die, once again.
I got to my feet, let out a war cry and started sprinting toward the boulder. I raised my left hand and, out of the corner of my eye, I saw them duck and roll when I raised the gun. They're afraid of me I thought…and laughed. As I was running I threw the gun at one of them but it went nowhere near them.
When there were ten yards left to run, one of them realized what I was doing and started shooting at me.
A bullet whizzed by my head, another going right between my legs. I was almost there when I tripped on a rock and plummeted down to the muddy ground. As I fell I heard a bullet whiz over my head; right where my head would've been if I hadn't tripped.
I heard more gunshots but as I rolled down to the area behind the boulder, I didn't hear the bullets. I looked over at the headless corpse, saw two guns and grabbed them, one from in between his pants and waist and the other in his right hand.
I made a quick peek at the gang. I couldn't see any of them; they were all still ducking on the hill. They knew now that I was armed. And they were probably scared because of the one bullet that it took to take out the man next to me…but that was more of a sniper shot. I wasn't a close range shooter, like most people.
I felt the adrenaline flowing through my veins as I readied myself for a rematch. I peeked again and got a bullet smash into the boulder, then ricochet away. I was no longer scared of battle. I was confident; I felt that I could take them on and win. After all, I had taken one down with one bullet and now I had two guns that were probably mostly loaded.
I got to my feet, still ducking because if I didn't, my head would go above the boulder and they could shoot me. I closed my eyes for a second, breathed a deep breath and dove out into the open, one gun in my hand, the other sitting under the boulder as backup. BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM! I fired off four rounds as they came into my view. I saw blood spray into the air as I crashed into the downward hill, my body rolling down because of the mud.
I quickly got to my feet but the rain was loosening up the ground. Everything was slippery. As I started running back up to my cover, I saw that I had only shot one guy…out of four shots. And they were all raising their guns toward me. I was ten feet from the boulder.
I watched as I ran and the second their guns were aiming at me, I fell to the ground. BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM! They had fired five bullets and all of them went above me. I kept crawling up to my hiding place and one of them started firing again. BLAM!
It only takes one bullet to take someone down. One shot to end someone's life…and the shot that that guy fired smashed into the mud about two feet in front of me, the mud splashing down into the my eyes and all over my face—not like I wasn't already muddy.
I got to my feet and dove back behind the large rock. Mud was in my mouth but I didn't care.
I figured out why they were missing me. I was small, much smaller than the people that they probably fight with were. Most people their age were usually around six feet tall…I was only four feet tall. Kind of a big difference when you're shooting at someone who is in mud and can't run because of the mud. What made the fight even more frustrating was the fact that it was raining down hard.
They weren't used to that—after all, it was Miami.
I readied myself for another encounter but knew that the gun I was using didn't have many bullets left. I then hid the other gun under the dead body so it wouldn't get too wet…just in case.
I took a deep breath. Two were down, three to go. Judging by the amount of blood that flew into the air on my last run, the guy I hit was dead or fatally wounded…now I had to stay alive but…how? There was no escape.
To be or not to be…that is thy question…no. There was a different question…yet similar.
To live or not to live…that is thy question.
I checked the clip of the gun I was using. It had three bullets and, of course, there was one in the chamber…needless to say, I didn't have enough. It took four shots on my last hit and run to nail one guy. With three guys left and four bullets…it just plain wasn't enough. And I had to save the other gun…one more hit and run…one more.
I got ready, breathed deep and stood up, crouching so they couldn't see me but I was on my feet. I stepped out a little—BLAM BLAM—and jumped right back behind the boulder. The bullets missed but not by much…then I felt the icy pain in my left arm…I looked at it, not knowing what to expect. I looked at my arm and was surprised; I wasn't shot. A bullet had gotten so close that it took off a little bit of skin. Too close; I had almost gotten hit.
Tears came to my eyes. This is it. The end of my life. But I wouldn't go without a fight. I was bleeding a little but…I wouldn't win. But I would still give them the best that I could. I pulled the body next to me and took the hidden gun out from under him.
"This is it," I whispered to myself, a gun in each of my hands. This is it…
My knee touched the dead body and I smiled at a thought: that's gonna be me in a few minutes. Dead, empty eyes…or for that matter, dead, muddy eyes.
Then I smiled at another thought. A much better one. A thought that didn't involve me dying…use the dead body as a decoy. Slowly, a plan formed in my head. Roll the body down the hill, they'll come up and start shooting at it…nail them while they shoot they're own man!
I quickly turned the body around so it could roll down the muddy hill. Then I pushed it and it slowly started sliding down in the mud. I went to the other side of the rock, opposite of where I had been peeking to see them and shooting from…BLAM!
They were firing at the corpse!
I jumped out from behind the rock, took aim and my finger began to squeeze the trigger—, "AAA," I let out a yelp as I slipped in a puddle of dark brown mud. I fell on my back but sat up as fast as I could and started firing blindly. The mud in my eyes was stinging them but I ignored it, opened them, saw Brink and his two buddies firing at the dead body and fired.
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! Two of them went down, Brink ducking as the first guy got hit, completely out of sight by the time the second guy was hit…it was me and him. I knew that because both of the shots that were hits hit the guys right in the chest…
"YOU WIN GIRL," came a yell. I smiled.
I had won the fight…