Gunslinger
Chapter 1
Kate was riding with Royce when they got a call for shots fired at an address. They were just two blocks away, so they took the call.
The two of them entered the building and saw two doors. "You take the left, and I'll take the right. Be careful, Kid." Royce went through his door with his weapon ready.
Kate went left with her weapon at the ready. She inched her way through the room and found a body. Stopping to check on him, she saw someone had shot the man and guessed it was right in the heart. She moved on and found another body. She stopped to check and saw this man, too, was shot. It looked identical to the first body. Then she heard a shot so she rushed to its location.
She spotted a man in a long black leather coat. "FREEZE, NYPD!"
"Put that away before you hurt yourself," he told her and only looked at her sideways with one eye. He was armed, obviously, but didn't have a weapon in his hand at the time.
"You're under arrest."
Then it happened so fast that she didn't really see it. The man drew a weapon using his left hand and fired a shot. That bullet hit her weapon, sending it flying from her hands. Then he spun it and put it back in his holster.
"OW!" Kate shook her hand and watched as he strode through a doorway. "Come back here," she yelled at him and went to the now-closed door.
She was weaponless, going after someone clearly armed, but she opened the door and went through it. What she saw was an empty room with no way out. There wasn't even a window he could escape through.
"What the hell!" Kate muttered.
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Kate told her story over and over. First to the detectives that arrived on the scene. Then again, to Royce. After that, Internal Affairs if she wanted her gun back or, in this case, replaced. And finally, to Captain Montgomery.
She overheard that they were all shot with a 45. She thought she saw an old-fashioned revolver, which didn't make sense. But she knew the man was fast and accurate. Maybe too accurate.
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She talked Royce about it when they were back in the car. "Yes, I'm sure it was a revolver. An old-fashioned revolver, and yes, he shot my weapon right out of my hands. It hurt, too." Kate flexed her fingers.
Royce was about to say something when they got a call. It was another shots fired.
They responded, and again, they split up. Kate ran across the first dead body. She stopped to check on him and saw he was shot and was indeed dead. Then she ran across another one. She stopped to check, heard a shot, and moved on.
There he was, the same guy in the same long black leather coat. "FREEZE, NYPD!"
"You again. Put that away before you get hurt."
"You're under arrest." Kate watched him open a door and go through it. She ran for the door, opened it, and saw it was a closet. There was nowhere to go. "What the hell!"
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Detectives arrived on the scene. Kate told them what she saw and then told Royce. Later, she stopped at the captain's office and told him everything.
Montgomery looked up at her. "Since you were first on the scene, I have something to tell you. But it does not leave this room."
"Yes, sir."
"All of the dead bodies disappeared after a short time."
Kate stared at him in disbelief. "Disappeared? What do you mean they disappeared?"
"They vanished. Dissolved. Disappeared. Clothing and all. It was like they were never there save for the blood they left behind."
"I don't understand, sir. How could the bodies possibly disappear?"
Montgomery shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine."
"What about the doors he went through? Where did he go? Did I miss something? A secret door, maybe?"
"That's another mystery. I'm only telling you this because that man talked to you, Beckett."
"Yeah, he told me to put my weapon away before I hurt myself, like that would ever happen. ...Sir."
"Well, next time, if you ever encounter him, try to get him to talk more. Maybe we'll learn just what's going on here."
"Yes, sir."
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It was just two days later when they got a call of shots fired. They rushed to the scene, and Kate took the front while Royce took the back. He reasoned that if the killer would try to escape, it would be out the back.
Kate went into the front with her weapon drawn and immediately found two dead bodies. They were both shot in the head, so she didn't check to see if they were alive.
She saw him in the distance, standing at a door. "NO, WAIT!" She ran toward him, oblivious that he was the killer.
She watched him open the door and step through it. "Damn it. Not this time." Kate reached the door and opened it and saw him standing there at another door.
"Gotcha," she told herself and ran for him. He opened the door and walked through it, but he didn't get to close it because of her hand. "OW!" Kate yanked her hand back, holstered her weapon, and threw open the door.
She saw him standing there at another door. "WAIT!" Kate rushed at the door, but he went through it before she could get close. She held out her hand to stop the door from closing.
"OW!" Kate yelped since it was the same hurt hand. She yanked her hand back and held it as if that would make it feel better. Using her good hand to open the door, she stepped through.
"You shouldn't be here," he told her.
For the first time, she saw he wasn't near a door, so she looked around. "Where am I?" she asked him or herself. She saw a bed, a mini kitchen, a place to sit and eat with two chairs, and a sofa if you could call it that. She made a face of disgust. Just looking at it was almost sickening.
"You hungry?"
"What?" Kate wasn't following him.
"Food, you need food." While in the kitchen, he opened the refrigerator and took out a carton of eggs. He set a pan on the mini stove and turned it on.
While waiting for it to warm up, he removed his gun belt, put it on the table, then returned to the kitchen. "Let's see what else I have. Sausage. Do you like sausage? Of course, you do. Everybody likes sausage."
"Who are you?" Kate asked, considering putting her hand on her weapon, but she thought better of it. It was better to get him talking.
"Me? I'm nobody, nobody at all," he replied as he put the sausage in the pan.
"I find that hard to believe. You killed all of those people." Kate waited for some kind of response from him.
"People, what people? Are there any bodies?"
So he knew that they would disappear, which told her something.
"No, no bodies. Maybe a little blood, but no bodies," the man said and kept cooking.
"I'm a Gunslinger. Most people call me Gunslinger."
"Gunslinger? That's your name? Really?" Kate asked him. "Fine, your name is Gunslinger. So where am I?"
He shook his head. "First food, then talk."
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Kate ate sausage and scrambled eggs. Now, she was sitting at the two-person table looking at him. He was easy on the eyes, and she saw his eyes were blue. He had long hair. Like a woman sort of long, but he was plainly not a woman.
"I want you to listen to me carefully since I will not repeat myself."
Kate sat there and listened to what he had to say.
"Every door everywhere can transport you to a new place without exception. The trick is knowing which door as well as when it will open. You're presently in my little shack. I can't tell you exactly where it is since I don't know myself. But as you can see, it has power and water. I know it's in the woods, with no one around here. Got that?"
She just nodded. She had questions, but she let him talk.
"Without my help, you're trapped here. That's why you shouldn't be here."
Kate felt her heart sink. If what he said was true and based on what it took for her to get here, she didn't doubt what he told her wasn't the truth.
"Now, as to why, there's a tower in the middle of the city. It's a mile high. I and everyone else refer to it as the Dark Tower."
"I've lived in New York City all my life. I should think I would know if there was a mile-high tower." Kate didn't want to call him a liar, but clearly, he was lying to her.
"Oh, it's there, trust me. It's there. But it's out of phase."
"Out of phase?" She wasn't following him.
"Envision another dimension, a different reality. It's out of phase. You can't see it nor touch it, but it's there. Now, what is the Dark Tower, you ask? It's the focus of all reality, the Nexus of all Universes. Everything everywhere revolves around it." He saw the blank look on her face.
"Think of it this way. Why do the dead bodies disappear? Because once they die, they become out of phase. The bodies are still there, but you can't see or touch them. Only the blood remains."
"So why kill them?" Kate asked him.
"That's complicated. Look at it like this. We're looking for that door to lead us to the Dark Tower. If they find it, they can rule all the Universes once they take control of the Dark Tower.
"As to what's inside the Dark Tower, I don't know myself, but it's a mile high, so controlling it all won't be easy. My job is to stop them. The Gunslingers before me kept the Dark Tower safe. It's my turn now. If it comes to it, then whatever Gunslingers that follow me will do the same thing.
"Are you following me so far?"
"I think so. I don't know." Kate was overwhelmed with what he had told her.
"If it helps, you can call me Rick. Now I need to sleep, and since you're trapped here without my help, let's say you shouldn't be here." He got up and started taking off his clothes.
"Go anywhere you please. You're armed, and I'm guessing you know how to use it. But shooting a person is so very different than shooting a paper target. The paper target doesn't shoot back." Rick stripped to his shorts, lay in bed, and closed his eyes.
Kate sat there and tried to think. She decided to go outside and search for herself.
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Kate was back and found him sleeping on the bed. He was telling the truth. She followed the power line until she got tired of following it and followed it back to the cabin.
"Great, just great. Trapped with a killer who calls himself a Gunslinger," Kate muttered to herself.
"Could be worse. I could be one of them – the killers – then you would be dead," Rick told her without opening his eyes.
Then he got out of bed and put his clothes back on. He picked up his gun belt and put it on. "Come on, I'll teach you how to shoot."
Annoyed, Kate glared at him. "I know how to shoot."
"No, you know how to fire a gun. What you don't know is how to shoot. I'm going to teach you how to shoot. If you're going to follow me, you know how to shoot." Rick turned and went outside.
He looked back at her. "You coming?"
"Hold your gun," Rick told her. Kate took out her gun and aimed it, using both hands. "Not like that. Like this." He whipped out his weapon and held it in one hand.
"I do not aim with my hand. He who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I aim with my eye. I do not shoot with my hand. He who shoots with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I shoot with my mind. I do not kill with my gun. He who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father. I kill with my heart." He fired and hit a twig that was dangling from a tree.
"You see that twig dangling from the tree?" He pointed to it. "Hit it and only it."
Kate aimed with one hand, fired, and didn't hit the twig.
Rick repeated what he told her and fired, hitting the twig. "See that twig? The smaller twig hanging from the same tree? Hit it."
Kate aimed with one hand and fired. She missed the twig.
Rick repeated what he told her again, firing and hitting the twig. "See that twig hanging from the next tree over. Hit it."
Kate repeated what he told her, aiming, firing, and hitting it.
Rick nodded his approval. "Better, perhaps you have promise to be a Gunslinger after all."
Kate wasn't sure she wanted to be a gunslinger, but she smiled nonetheless.
"Now empty your weapon and rid the same tree of all the hanging twigs. Like this." Rick drew his weapon lightning fast and emptied it, firing all six shots and hitting only twigs. Then he reloaded it in the blink of an eye using one of the re-loaders he had on his belt.
"Put your weapon away, draw it one-handed, and fire it like I taught you."
Kate did what he told her and hit only two twigs. She didn't like the results. She thought she was better than that.
"You show promise. You might not think so, but you hit something. Yes, it took you nine shots, but you hit something. You only need more practice. Come on, it's time for lunch, and you need to eat something." Rick headed for the house.
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Kate was fed and actually liked it, whatever it was since she wasn't sure just what it was.
"Ready?" Rick asked her.
She eyed him. "Ready for what?"
"We're going hunting and likely killing. Don't worry. Those people deserve it." Rick opened the door and went through it. Kate didn't want to stay where she was, so she followed him.
"Hurry up," Rick called from the other side of the room. He opened the door and went through it. Kate eventually followed him.
She arrived on the other side and saw him by the next door so she ran over to him. She watched him take out his weapon. "Be ready since I don't know what to expect on the other side of this door," Rick told her. "Don't look at me like that. I just don't. They may not be on the other side; there may be lots of them. Just remember what I told you about shooting. It'll save your life."
Rick opened the door and stepped through, followed closely by Kate. What she saw was an enclosed courtyard. There were two levels. Then, a shot was fired, but not from Rick or her.
She drew her weapon and found cover. But she watched Rick step out and begin firing with both hands. She looked on in awe as she watched people fall left and right.
She took aim at someone only to see him fall from a shot from Rick. Then she watched as he took cover and, in an instant, reloaded his weapons. The remaining ones fired at him but missed him because he had cover.
Kate watched him step out and start firing until suddenly he stopped. She watched him holster his weapons, telling her combat was over, so she stepped out from behind cover and looked around. Bodies were all over the place.
"You're free to go. I hope you have a happy and healthy life." And he headed for a door.
"NO! No, no, no. Not so fast." Kate rushed to him before he could open the door. "Why?" she asked him.
"I was wrong about you. You're not a Gunslinger. You didn't fire even one shot. I wish you luck. You'll need it explaining all this." He opened the door, stepped through it, and closed it behind him.
"NO!" Kate opened the door but saw it was just a closet with no way out. "Damn it!" Kate cursed and looked around. "How am I going to explain all this? And how does he know which door to open and when? If he told the truth. Maybe he's just playing me. Or testing me," she told herself.
Kate got busy opening every door in the place. She didn't have much time before they arrived. Maybe even Royce himself, her partner, would show up. She thought about telling him the truth. He would listen to her, right?
Then she opened a door and saw him standing there. "I'll be damned."
