I Am Death

Ninety

As Garcia pushed open the basement door, he heard the second shotgun blast. Both had happened in very quick succession. The confined space made them sound louder than normal, almost like a double bomb going off.

Garcia dropped to his knees, his weapon in a firm double-hand grip. Instead of returning fire, as he had no fixed target he used the door as cover and waited.

Two seconds.

Five.

Ten.

Nothing. No other shots.

Garcia pushed the door open further and glanced inside. His weapon was still searching for a target, searching for Troy Sanders. All he saw was a staircase going down into a basement and some gun smoke floating around at the bottom.

‘Robert?’ he called.

No reply.

‘Robert? Are you down there?’

Not a sound.

‘Fuck!’ Garcia drew in a deep breath and slowly started down the stairs.

‘Robert?’ he called again after three steps.

Still nothing.

Garcia moved down another five steps. He now had a better look at the basement but gun smoke and the dark shadows still made everything unclear.

‘Robert? Are you down here?’

The place was still.

‘ROBERT?’

‘I’m here. I’m here.’ Garcia heard Hunter’s voice. ‘Everything is OK, it’s all clear.’

Garcia didn’t fight the smile that stretched his lips. He didn’t want to fight it.

He went down the last few steps in a hurry and paused at the bottom, his eyes widening in shock.

On the basement floor, just a few feet in front of a workshop table, lay an almost headless body. Fresh, steaming blood was still pouring out of the recent wound.

Hunter was also on the floor, his hands shackled by a metal chain speckled with blood, but there was no blood on the floor around him.

‘Are you OK?’ Garcia asked, quickly moving to him. ‘Are you shot?’

‘No, I’m OK,’ Hunter replied, pushing himself up into a sitting position.

Garcia helped him.

‘I heard two shots,’ he said.

‘He aimed the first one at the chain,’ Hunter explained, looking up at the metal pipes. A piece of chain still hung from one of them.

‘If you were alive, why the fuck didn’t you answer when I called your name?’ Garcia asked. ‘I thought you were dead.’

‘My ears were still ringing from the shots. They sounded loud as fuck down here.’

Garcia laughed for almost a full minute.

‘I think we better call this thing in. This is going to be one long report.’

Hunter nodded. What he never told Garcia was that, just before pulling the trigger, Squirm had looked deep into his eyes and mouthed the words ‘thank you’.