The Lost Chapters
Part 4

Many people don't recognise gunfire when they first hear it. Movies and TV make us think all guns fire with a sort of 'BA-WHUMPH' sound, so when the genuine crackle or pop of small arms fire rears its head, most people but it down to a car backfiring.

This, on the other hand, was definitely gunfire, full-blooded, fully-automatic, balls out, manly overkill from every direction.

Instinct threw me flat on the tarmac, right next to Golden Boy, who was dragging something from the back of his pants. I crawled towards my bags, still by the clubhouse, but a stray salvo of bullets chewed up the sidewalk inches from my outflung arms. Snatching them back, I got up into a sitting position, scanning for any gap I could bolt through.

I don't know why, but I hadn't even begun to wonder why everyone had started shooting, much less at who. The A.O.D. were all blasting in one direction with stubby sawn-off shotguns or revolvers, ducking and diving like crazy towards any scrap of cover they could find. The opportunity came, I went for it.

Running on legs as weak as spaghetti, I threw myself forward. After an hour, I'd just about cleared the median strip. This was fucking ridiculous.

Everything felt like it was wadded with cotton wool - thick, muted, distant. My heartbeat was just a dull, slow bass note in my chest, it felt like the blood in my veins was crawling to a standstill.

I never saw Golden Boy coming. All of a sudden, I was off my feet, the collar of my shirt tight against my windpipe, the stink of piss and vomit making a strong comeback against my haggard senses.

When the cold steel of the gun barrel settled itself against my neck, all that drained away. My adrenal glands mercifully decided to do some fucking work and pump me full of fight-or-flight. Vision ricochet'd between long and short distance as I tried to swivel my eyeballs around in my sockets to see what the fuck was going on.

'Back the fuck off! Back off!'

No need to be so loud. I'm right next to you.

'Drop the gun.'

Coma calm. Distant, but carried the full length of the street.

Then, Golden Boy made the last mistake of his life. He took the gun from my neck and aimed at the figure that had managed to kill eight well-armed men seemingly without a scratch. You had to applaud the guts of the boy. Even if the guts of his comrades were currently slipping into a storm drain by the curb.

The bullet just about turned Golden Boy's head inside-out. At such a close range, I actually heard the little 'Schlop' of his warm squishy parts meeting air for the first and last time. Something wet with hair on it lodged in my right ear - blood caked my face and neck. All in all, pretty much the second most horrible thing I'd experienced that morning.

In a daze, I fished the offending item, it was a bit of scalp, by the way, from my ear and dropped it on Golden Boy's sprawled corpse.

'Are you hurt?'

'What, aside from being pissed on, threatened with pack rape, forced to use vomit in a tactical manner and being held hostage by a currently headless biker? I'm fucking fantastic.'

Perhaps sarcasm wasn't the best idea overall, but it's the default setting of most Brits when the shit hits the fan. In this case, it worked. The gun slipped back into the recesses of his coat, leather like my own. He lifted my chin with his hand to get a good look at me.

He was white, pale, what I could see of him, anyway. Most of his face was masked by a bandana from the bridge of the nose down, with reflective sunglasses shielding his eyes. They dipped, giving me a glimpse of hazel, before slipping back into place.

'Sarcasm. Good. Do you need a ride?'

I looked around, trying not to laugh. I could hardly walk, and hanging around a bunch of corpses probably wasn't going to ride well with the LCPD. I nodded.

'Okay. Get your shit together.'

He whipped a heavy-duty bin liner out of his pocket, snapped it open like a matador's cape and handed it to me.

'Guns and wallets. Get them together, put them in the bag. I'll bring my car round.'

With that, he span on his heel and walked away. I just stood there, dumbstruck. At the moment, I was just a harmless victim in a gangland shootout. Now I was being asked to add Aiding & Abetting to a growing charge sheet. He must've sensed it, because he waved an arm over his shoulder and called out:

'You've got two minutes before either the cops or more Angels Of Death show up. What d'you think your chances are going to be with them?'

The legal system be damned. I chose life.

The guns, cash and a few tin foil rolls of hash and meth disappeared into the bag. I even had enough time to fish a wet-wipe from by bag and wipe the blood, piss and puke from my face properly. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stop shaking. I couldn't.

'First time?'

Jesus Christ - the car was quiet. A low-slung muscle car like the one he was driving should've made my eyes rattle at it pulled up, but it hardly made anything more than a purr as it idled.

'Everyone gets the shakes. I'll drop you off at a motel. Get some food and rest.'

'Who...who are you?' Was all I could manage.

He paused, shaking his head. 'You've got another minute before the cops show up. If we manage to get out of here without getting busted or greased, then maybe we'll sit down and swap business cards over a nice cup of coffee. Right now, we've got to ghost.'

Fuck it. I was sold.

Bags in the trunk, myself in the back seat, laid two metres of rubber heading North, the sirens never growing past a distant whine.

The fuck was up with this country? I'm here for half a day and suddenly I'm stuck in the middle of a cheesy action movie, running from the cops with a mass murderer in the front seat and a shitload of guns, cash and drugs in the boot.

Daddy would be so proud.