Chapter 8: Not Today
The first notice of the attack, was the sound of bullets slamming against metal.
KA-THUNK! KA-THUNK! KA-THUNK!
This was shortly followed by the roar of an engine and the screech of tyres as my driver stamped on the accelerator. The two men sat at the front let curses slip through their lips, the one in the passenger seat pulling out his weapon, a smart-pistol, whilst the one in the drivers seat wrestled with the steering wheel, desperately attempting to retain control of the vehicle as it went barrelling down the street. These two men were James and Aaron, my bodyguards, who were escorting me back home from the studio where I had just completed my interview with Ziggy Q.
James gestured to Aaron to slow his speed, lowering his window enough to stick his gun out of the window and point it in the general direction from which the bullets came. His eyes glowed red, visible to me through the rear-view mirror, the smart pistol software sifting through the image to find the attacker. Seemingly, he found it, and depressed the trigger, the staccato of automatic gunfire deafening at such a close range. Through the windscreen, I could see the shots leave his gun at a wide angle, carving a smoky trail through the air as they honed in on their target. Unfortunately, they appeared to strike concrete, missing the shooter, as evidenced by the shots that he gave in response.
For a short while, an alternating pattern of gunfire could be heard. And then, the assailant appeared to get lucky, landing two shots at once, the first striking the windscreen, leaving a web of cracks in the glass but not passing through, the other landing just behind it not a moment later, punching a hole in the glass no more than two inches wide.
Unfortunately, it was wide enough, a third shot coming in, passing through the hole in the glass and striking Aaron's skull, painting the backseats with his blood and brains and scattering small chunks of bone throughout the car. Seeing Aaron dead beside him, James swore, depressed his trigger as far down as it would go, letting out an unending stream of bullets, and swung open the passenger side door. As he got out of the car, he crouched down low, using the open door as cover. Thankfully, his strategy of laying out a constant stream of covering fire seemed to be working, causing the mysterious shooter to hunker down as a large number of rounds arced and curved through the air, all headed in roughly the same direction.
Taking advantage of the brief respite offered, I took the time to press the distress button under my seat, activating the encrypted beacon that my men could use to track my car if ever I was in danger, which I was. James, meanwhile, ran around the side of the car, opening the driver-side door and unbuckled Aaron's seatbelt with one hand after some fumbling, his finger still firmly holding the trigger down, his hand outstretched at an awkward angle as he kept the covering fire going.
Running out of ammunition soon after, James wrapped his arms around Aaron's corpse, attempting to haul it out of the car so that he could take over driving and get us both to safety. Unfortunately, the sniper appeared to have recovered, peppering the driver side door with shots until finally he got lucky, a shot slipping through the gap between the car and the door, just below the hinge. It wasn't a fatal shot, but James abandoned his attempts to remove Aaron's headless body from the drivers seat, instead choosing to clutch his side and slump down against the door, grunting in pain as blood welled up in the gaps between his fingers. Soon after, another shot made contact, hitting James's lower back, likely striking his liver, judging by the speed of the flow emanating from the new exit wound created in his abdomen.
It was at this point that I realised that I was on my own.
Aaron was dead, and James would likely follow him to the grave within minutes. If I was to survive, I would have to take control of the situation, and fast, before one of the sniper's shots hit home. It took a moment for the shock of the situation to pass off, the strange sense of calm I had felt about the situation rapidly giving way to panic. My heart pounded, my breath became shallow and rapid, my hands shook, my vision became blurry and my mind went blank. Thankfully, as a new set of bullets slammed against the metal of the car, the noise snapped me out of my daze, the panic quickly being arrested by my fight-or-flight instincts.
With a rush of adrenaline behind me, I clambered out of the backseat, making sure to keep my body as far from the hole in the windscreen as possible, and used my feet to push Aaron's headless corpse from the driver's seat. As I sat, I ignored the slick feeling of the blood coating the wheel and the seat, and instead kept myself low down and looked over to my right-hand side, checking if James was alive.
He was not.
I couldn't be sure, but his chest did not appear to be rising and falling, nor any sounds escaping his lips, and when I pressed my fingers into his neck, no pulse could be felt. I was reluctant to leave him behind, but the sounds of more bullets striking the car inspired urgency. Using my foot, I kicked James's body clear of the door, slamming it shut, depressed the clutch, putting the car back into gear, and then released it and stamped on the accelerator, setting off. As I accelerated, I kept my head as low as possible before the wheel, only exposing enough to allow me to see through the gap in the wheel and no more.
It was an uncomfortable position to be sat, curled up with my hands and feet constantly moving between the pedals, steering wheel and gearstick, my neck craned at an awkward angle, but that was, at least for the moment, the least of my concerns. Still, as I approached the end of the long street, driving past the bend and therefore putting a skyscraper between me and the shooter, I felt a sense of relief.
I had escaped.
Or so I thought, because it was at that moment that the sat-nav system set into the centre console promptly shorted out, leaving naught but a black screen to guide me home. Doubtless, the attackers had expected such a hack to shut my car down, because a pair of cars could be seen pulling out of an alleyway in my rear-view mirror. They were moving slower than would be expected of a car engaging in hot pursuit, likely having kept their engines off in anticipation of finding my car stalled in the road. Luckily for me, I had foreseen such an eventuality, and prepared for it, my car still functioning perfectly, putting me at a serious speed advantage, at least for the moment.
Unfortunately, my paranoia proved just as much of a hindrance as it did a help, the two vehicles catching up with and pulling up besides my own in spite of my massive engine, likely on account of all the armour plating I had weighing me down. A man emerged from the windows of one of the vehicles, an assault rifle in his hands, and promptly proceeded to open fire, the cacophony of bullets striking metal once again audible. Thankfully, all that weight that my armour plating added also had the side-effect of enabling me to fight back.
I did up my seatbelt tightly, keeping my right hand firmly on the steering wheel, and once done, I spun the wheel to the right, sending the front of my car careening into the rear axle of one of my pursuers, promptly inducing the driver to lose control and sending his car spinning out. The man hanging from the window was thrown out onto my bonnet, likely dying upon impact, and the car itself crashed into the side of building and promptly caught fire.
Swerving off to the left, the man slid off my windscreen, leaving me with only one car in my vision to deal with. Seemingly, this new driver had learned from his friend's mistakes, accelerating out of reach of my vehicle and establishing more of a distance from which the occupants could take pot-shots at my car. Unable to get rid of them, I simply swerved away at the next intersection, finding the nearest alley with the brief period I had until the car could change course and follow, and reversing into it. Within no more than a minute, their car could be seen travelling through the same street, and when they came near my alley, I released the clutch and stamped on the accelerator, t-boning their car and pinning it against the wall of the opposing building.
It was brutal.
The sheer weight of my vehicle crashing into theirs had the effect of causing their car to crumple as if it were made of cardboard. I hadn't even been going particularly fast, and yet not only the windows been shattered, the unfortunate occupants of the car had practically been liquefied upon impact. In fact, much of it had escaped their car, a healthy splattering of gore now covering my view out of my windscreen, chunks of bone and gristle slowly sliding down.
With the immediate danger over, my body finally began to relax. This was the queue for the vomiting to begin, an uncontrollable stream of bile pouring out of my mouth and landing in the passenger seat, on account me turning my head to avoid hitting the steering wheel. Soon enough, the contents of my stomach had been vacated, leaving me with nothing but the uncomfortable sensation of dry-heaving, the sounds of retching and an acidic burn at the back of my throat. My state wasn't helped much by the positively vile mixture of the smell of burning rubber, petroleum, gunpowder, blood and bile, or by the fact that I was covered from head to toe in the same mixture, my hands slick with blood.
Still, the trauma-induced sickness went just as suddenly as it came, leaving me exhausted and close to passing out in my seat, the burden of the events of the day setting in and sapping my strength. I barely had the energy to look back and check that the beacon was still functioning in the backseat, before I collapsed back down and stopped resisting the welcoming embrace of unconsciousness.
My last thought before the inky blackness closed in?
Not today.
And the bloodletting begins. Who will live, and who will die?
Just a quick something to keep you guys entertained, I couldn't help myself.
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