Sorry I took so long to update.
Chapter Three - A Drowning Man Will Clutch at a Straw
A man in a desperate position is bound to snatch at any chance he has in order to save himself.
"Hey, guys, I'm going. Bye," said Lindsay as she departed from the lab.
"Bye, Lindsay," said Danny.
"Bye," said Charlotte. She turned to the piece of green fiber under the lens of the microscope. Her eyes were stinging with fatigue and all she wanted to do was go home. She shut her eyes and leaned her elbows on the table.
"Charlotte," called Danny across the lab.
She jumped. She realized she had just fallen asleep. "Whoa." She looked up and saw that she was alone in the room with Danny. It was creepily quiet. "Yeah, Danny?"
"I'm done. If you're done, I'll ride you home," he offered.
"No, no, no, it's okay," she refused. "You go home first."
"Nah, it's almost midnight. Not safe for a young lady like youto be up and about by herself. I'll show you New York." His smiled and blue eyes twinkled. "So?"
She looked at him. She couldn't refuse his charming smile. "Okay, okay."
……………………..
Danny Messer and Charlotte Taylor stepped out of the building and became totally themselves again. Not Detective Danny Messer or Detective Charlotte Taylor. Just Danny, just Charlotte. They chatted happily about everything under the sun while walking towards the nearest subway station. They descended the stairs and paid for the train fare. The train would arrive in less than 5 minutes. They stood together waiting at the station. It was a cold night. Soon, the train arrived and the doors slid open.They boarded it immediately. There were already quite a few people in the train. A man in a professional business suit stood instead of sitting down. A young woman was seated down looking tired and weary, while her daughter pranced around. Her bags were placed carelessly on the floor and her hair was disheveled. Danny and Charlotte took a seat facing the station and the train took off.
Danny took off his glasses and started wiping it with his handkerchief. "How do you find your first day?" he asked.
"Great and gruesome," she replied.
He stopped wiping his glasses abruptly. "Gruesome?" he asked bewildered.
"I don't think you'd like to know," she said, colour rising up to her cheeks. "It's quite embarassing."
"All the more I'd like to know," he said. He put his glasses back onits comfortable perch on the bridge of his nose.
She scowled at him. "Nope. Forget it, Danny. I'm not telling you one little bit."
"Really? Please..." he asked.
She turned to look at him and was greeted by Danny with apuppy dog face. She laughed. "Okay, okay, fine. I will."
He laughed. "This always works."
"I'll remind myself not to fall for Danny Messer's puppy dog face anymore next time," she said. She related the incident at the shop lot to him.
He laughed. "That's…nice."
"Nice?" she asked incredulously. "A dead body hanging at eye-level, staring at you with its eyes open? I'd like to see your expression if you were there." She smirked.
"Yeah…"
The train was about to start, when it was jolted violently. All the passengers were thrown off-balance. Suddenly, a shot rang out and the man grabbed his chest. He crumpled to the ground. The bedraggled woman screamed.
"It's a gun shot," thought Danny and Charlotte.
"Everybody, get down!" he shouted. He wrapped his arm around Charlotte's chest and pulled her down with him. Screams rang out in the train and subway.
A man was shooting wildly at the train. The glass panes were shattered. Glass was everywhere. On the floor, on the seats. The man in the business suit was dead. A pool of blood formed under his prostrate form. The bullet had penetrated his heart.
Charlotte lifted her head a little to see if everyone was alright. There was a little girl standing up. She was in a vulnerable situation because she was tall enough to get hit in the head. Her mother kneeled on the floor, persuading her daughter to get down, but the girl was paralyzed with fear. Charlotte got up slowly.
"Charlotte!" called Danny. "What are you doing?"
"The little girl won't get down," she said, determined. "I'm going."
"Charl!" he cried.
She got on her knees and went to the little girl. The shooting ceased.
"Hey, what's your name?" she asked gently. She heard Danny getting to her side.
"Laurie," the little girl said in a small, timid voice.
"Okay, Laurie, I'm Detective Messer and she's Detective Taylor. It's not very safe here, so, I want you now to get down and go to your mom. You got it?" he asked.
"You're cops?" Laurie asked.
"Yeah, sort of," Charlotte said. She turned her head to look at the shooter. She gasped. He was aiming his gun directly at three of them. "Down!"
She pushed the little girl to her mother and Danny went down. Charlotte turned to get down. She felt a sharp pain in her right arm. She grabbed it and fell down beside Danny. She lay on the floor beside Danny, holding her arm. She winced in pain. She took away her hand. It was covered with blood.
"Charl, are you oka- oh, no!" exclaimed Danny when he saw her wound. He pulled her hand aside and took a closer look at it. "Don't worry, okay? It's just a graze." He patted her arm comfortingly.
The man started shooting again. Bullets rained down on the trained. Laurie shut her ears and cried. Charlotte dug her hand into her pocket and drew her cell phone out. She flicked it open and passed it to Danny. "Call Mac."
He took the now-bloodied cell phone and dialed Mac's number. "Mac, get to the 28th St. Station now. There's a crazy guy shooting at the train. Charlotte's injured and a man's dead."
"What?" called Mac. "I can't hear you."
Danny shouted over the racket created by the gun shots. "Get to 28th St. Station now. There's a maniac shooting at the train. Charlotte's injured and one guy's dead."
"I'm on my way, Danny."
Danny flicked the cell phone shut and pocketed it. "You okay?" he asked Charlotte.
"If I can still smile, I'm fine," she said and smiled.
"Great."
"So, this is what happens in New York subways?" she asked jokingly.
"Nah, don't think so…first time it happened to me."
The man still continued to shoot at the train, particularly showering the middle where they were. Laurie's cries were getting louder and louder. It was as if she was competing against the sound of the shots. A few minutes passed, and yet Mac had not arrived. They felt very worried.The mystery shooter stopped shooting for sometime. Danny got up. "I'm going to see if he's is there."
"Careful," cautioned Charlotte.
He stepped cautiously on the shattered glass and glanced out of the window. The shooter was gone. People who were lying on the station floor began to rise. Some did not. They were dead. The floor of the station was covered with blood. It was a gruesome sight. Men, women; young, old; tall, short; fat, thin, all fell prey to the man's violence. Seconds later, Mac and a team of policemen arrived, but the shooter had fled from the scene a long time ago. Paramedics were waiting outside the station.
"Danny?" asked Mac, urgently.He stepped into the train, cautiously.The shattered glass crunched underfoot. What if Charlotte was nyawa-nyawa ikan (a Malay idiom that means half-dead or almost dying)? Or maybe a huge massacre had occured in thesmall confinement of the train? Maybe the wole inside of the train was full of dead bodies - including Danny's and Charlotte's. He did not know what to expect.
He saw Dannybeside Charlotte. Her back was propped against a seat. She held her arm. She was covered with blood, smears from her bloodied hand. Danny's shirt was slightly stained too.Both of themlooked up immediately when they heard the crunch of the glass. Somehow, they had expected the shooter to return. To their relief, it was just Mac.
"Danny, how is she?" asked Mac.
Danny glanced at her. "Just a graze. She'll be fine."
I used the term nyawa-nyawa ikan here because I actually live in Malaysia. I have never ever went out of the peninsula, so, I've never been to America. Therefore, I don't know places in New York. But for the 28th St. Station, I checked on the net and found that it was somewhere near the Empire State Building which is always filmed in the skylines in CSI:NY. So, I assume that the lab is nearby the building. If I am wrong, please correct me and guide me as I get along with this story. Thanks for reading and reviewing. Please review. ryu
