Public Enemy Zero

41

His last raid had been an act of improvisation. He’d been able to outrun the old greeter to get to where he needed and get some of the things he wanted. Items like the paintball gun and a few other things were useless to him in the store that prior night while still in their packages.

Mitchell had come to realize that when people raged out and went homicidal, they lost whatever kind of control that made them rational and capable of planning. He hadn’t seen anyone throw punches or try any kind of stylized fighting technique. This gave him some kind of advantage. He could predict how they’d come at him — at least he thought he could.

While he now had more insight and preparation to help him, he was going to need a little more than a paintball gun and pepper spray. This store had a police car parked on the curb out front — a precaution that was undoubtedly influenced by the previous night’s raid in the store 40 miles to the south.

Mitchell looked at the car from a row of hedges that faced the store. He contemplated walking the three blocks back to where he’d parked his johnboat in a canal and making other plans. The cop car meant at least one armed police officer, maybe more.

“Fuck me,” said Mitchell. He couldn’t get the idea out of his head that bad things only happened to him when he was ashore.

The previous night he’d been lucky with the deputy who got caught off-guard. This time there was someone waiting for him.

There were a few cars in the parking lot. Nothing screamed unmarked police car. Mitchell pulled the scanner from his pocket and turned it to the frequency he found on RadioReference.com. He listened for a half-hour while he watched the parking lot. He heard various dispatches to different areas of the city but nothing that sounded like it was near him.

If there were some kind of covert surveillance going on, it was likely they were using scrambled frequencies. The scanner could only tell him what was going out on public frequencies. If the cop parked in front of the store called for more units, he could hear that. The scanner could also tell him where the dispatcher was trying to coordinate police cars to find him if a call went in.

Mitch decided the car was there as a deterrent and not as part of a stakeout. There were just too many Super Centers in South Florida for that to be practical. Other than the cop inside the car, it wasn’t likely there was a police presence. Of course, one cop was enough to deal with.

His safest bet was to take the police officer out of the picture. If he walked near the car, he ran the risk of the officer raging out and trying to kill him or possibly shooting him. If he was spotted from too far away, the officer was likely to call it in. Since Mitchell was the target of the largest manhunt in the nation’s history, it was easy to assume that there were a lot more police out that night than usual. He could expect backup to arrive on the scene very quickly.

He needed a distraction that would let him get into the store unnoticed. The problem then was getting past the inevitable greeters, which if the store had any sense weren’t going to be as feeble as they were the night before.

The best approach would be to walk to the main entrance as casually as he could and enter in plain sight of the police officer. From there he’d have to take care of the greeter and run into the store to get what he needed and then exit through the back.

Without any fellow shoppers trying to kill him, he could probably be in and out in under two minutes. With any luck, he could be almost back to the boat before the police knew he was there. Counting on luck wasn’t something he planned on doing. He’d need to figure out some way to create some.

Mitchell rehearsed where he needed to go and walked across the parking lot to the entrance. He used an earbud to listen to the scanner in his back pocket under his jacket. The paintball gun was tucked into his waistband along with a can of pepper spray. He was in full-on Mitch mode.

He reached the last row of cars before crossing the road in front of the store. Through the glass doors he could see a man about his height with a stocky build acting as the greeter. Mitch began to bring his hand toward the can of pepper spray. As the doors whisked open, he shot a glance into the police car. It was empty. That wasn’t good.

The doors opened and the greeter looked at him. Mitch gave him a nod. The greeter was halfway into returning the nod when his face changed. Mitch pulled the pepper spray out with his right hand and shot him in the face with a blast. “Sorry, bud.”

The greeter screamed and then wiped instinctively at his eyes. His arms lashed out trying to find him. Mitch ducked under his grasp and ran past him into the store.

A young man in his teens with a shaved head and a pierced lip looked out from the checkout counter and came toward him. Mitch switched the pepper spray into his left hand and pulled out the paintball gun. He fired two balls into the young man’s face, covering his eyes with paint.

The cashier, a thin woman with a long ponytail, jumped up on the counter and snarled. Mitch shot her once in the face before she leaped at him. The paintball didn’t faze her. He shot her in the eyes with the pepper spray and continued running into the store. She fell on her side, knocking over a candy rack, and screamed.

Where was the police officer? This had Mitchell worried. If the cop saw him from far enough away and told him to freeze, he could drop him with one bullet if Mitchell tried to run. While the rage made people more deadly with their own bodies at short range, they seemed to lose all mechanical aptitude for things like door handles and guns.

Mitch ran toward the hardware department. As he ran past rows of shelves, he shot a quick glance for other shoppers and to look for the cop. Not that he wanted to run into him, he just needed to know where he was.

Mitch reached the hardware section and grabbed a bucket to throw stuff into. The paint he needed was behind glass. Mitch placed the pepper spray and paintball gun into the bucket and picked up a ladder. He smashed the front of the case, sending sharp glass shards everywhere. He grabbed a few different colors, including the one he needed. He ran down another aisle and found an angle grinder. Mitchell impulsively reached for the cheapest one before Mitch reminded himself that price really wasn’t an option at that point in time.

He ran to another aisle and grabbed an extension cord. He poked his head into the main aisle and saw the greeter, the pierced teenager and the cashier running in his direction. It was clear that they couldn’t see where they were going but something else, most likely Mitchell’s scent, was driving them forward.

Mitch ran back the opposite way and took the aisle farthest from them. He was about to go into the boating section to grab letters for the power boat he was going to steal and then froze. He cursed himself for being stupid. If he grabbed boat letters, they’d know that night what he was up to. There would be police swarming every marina as soon as they saw the surveillance video and looked at what he stole.

He needed to think of something else to use that wouldn’t be obvious. He ran back down the aisle he just came from and ran face first into the stocky greeter. The man’s thick fingers grabbed him by the neck. Mitch kicked him in the balls as hard as he could. The greeter didn’t flinch.

The teenager with the piercing lunged at Mitchell, grabbing him around the waist. The three of them fell to the ground. Mitch managed to knee the teenager in the chin and kicked him in the chest, sending him backward.

The greeter was still choking Mitchell and bringing his teeth in to bite him. Mitch’s hands grabbed at the shelves, trying to find something to use as a weapon. He felt a heavy box and grabbed it. He slammed it into the side of the greeter’s face as hard as he could. The greeter didn’t relent. Mitch hit him again just above his eye, splitting it open. Blood poured down his face, but he didn’t stop.

Mitch brought his knees up to his chest and kicked out at the man. He kept his legs pressed against the other man and kept shoving. He finally slipped out of his grasp.

Mitch scrambled backward on the floor on his backside and looked for something else to use as a weapon. The teenager crawled toward Mitchell’s foot. Mitch kicked him in the face.

The greeter jumped at Mitchell again. This time Mitch pulled himself to the side by grabbing the edge of a shelf. The man hit the tile next to him. Mitch used his free hand on the shelf to pull himself up. As he leaned on it, the shelf came loose and fell on top of the greeter, sending a pile of toolboxes on him.

That wasn’t going to stop him. Mitch looked at the box in his hand; it was for a kitchen fire extinguisher. Mitch pulled it out of the box and yanked the safety free. He sprayed the other men directly in their faces, covering them in a cloud of white powder.

Mitch found his bucket of stolen merchandise and ran to another section. He found some rolls of black electrical tape and shoved them into his bucket. He stepped out into the aisle and saw the ponytailed cashier approaching. Mitch pulled out the paintball gun and shot her twice in the face and ran back to the automotive section. Five more people were coming from the other side of the store. They were 30 yards away and gaining.

Mitch looked around for another weapon. There was a stack of motor oil to his left. He set down his bucket and pulled the fish knife from his waistband. He started stabbing holes in cans and throwing them between himself and the people running at him. A heavy man wearing a football jersey ran over one of the cans and his heel slipped on the oil. He lost his balance and pulled down a display of 2-liter soda bottles with him. A tall stock clerk jumped over the oil spill and came charging at Mitchell.

Mitch grabbed a can from the display and just hurled it at his head. The can hit the man in the cheek, but he kept running. Mitch threw another can at his head and missed. Desperate, Mitch slid the whole display of motor oil onto the ground, covering the closing gap between them. The man’s foot slipped on one of the cans and his face slammed into the pile with so much force a can popped open, spewing oil like blood splatter.

Mitch could see other people getting closer. He wouldn’t be able to fight them all off. He ran toward a pair of double doors in the back of the store.

He entered a long storeroom. He felt a shudder as he remembered what happened in the department store. Mitch wanted to block the doors but didn’t see anything to use, so he ran down the aisle, pulling large boxes onto the floor behind him.

Halfway to the exit, he could hear the double doors open behind him. His pursuers struggled through the boxes. To Mitch’s right he saw a fire ax and a fire hose. He reached for the ax and then noticed an electrical power box. Mitch set down his bucket and used two hands to slam the ax into the cable above the power box.

The lights went off. He could hear footsteps and snarling getting closer. Fuck. Mitchell realized that they didn’t need sound to find him. They could still follow his scent. He was blind. They weren’t.

Mitchell held the ax ready to slam it into anything that came close.

Damn it! He knew hitting someone with the blade would kill them. Self-defense or not, that would be murder. Mitchell turned the ax around so the blade was under his hand. He’d use it like a club but not a bladed weapon. Concussions were fair game.

Mitchell heard a box crunch near him. He swung into the dark and felt the handle connect. Something fell backward. He heard something to his right. He swung again. He heard a crack and felt a spray of blood hit his face and open mouth. He spat it out.

Something grabbed his ankle. Mitchell brought his foot up and slammed down on a hand. He could feel the bones crunch under his heel. He felt around and grabbed the bucket.

Mitchell slid around the back wall, periodically jabbing the ax handle into the darkness. He felt it connect again. Something clicked behind him. He stopped for a moment and then realized it was the back exit. Mitchell bolted through it and almost dropped the ax. There was a police car in back of the store.

Mitchell froze until he heard footsteps behind him. He shoved the door closed. Fists slammed against it from the other side. Mitch picked up the ax and slammed it into the middle of the door just below waist height. He ignored the cop car as he tried to shut the door.

The ax lodged in a wedge-shaped gash. Mitch pushed down on the end of the handle until it hit the ground. Hands behind the door found the release and pushed the door open. The ax slid backward a few inches and then came to a stop when it hit the metal railing that lined the walkway behind the door.

Mitch looked over at the second cop car. It had to have been empty. Nobody was trying to kill him. He hopped over the railing and landed on the hood. He had the impulse to slash the tires but decided it wasn’t worth losing time.

Mitchell took his bucket and ran back toward his boat. He could still hear the dispatchers and police officers on the scanner talking but nothing about the store. He considered that a good thing. But he was nervous that he hadn’t seen the two cops anywhere inside the store.

Mitchell ran two more blocks and found his boat where he left it. He threw his stolen booty into it and kicked off from the canal. He gave the engine a start and headed back to the marina.

On the way back, he realized that in fact he had seen the cops. He understood why his nut kick hadn’t had any effect. The stocky greeter was one of the cops. When Mitch kicked him in the testicles, he probably kicked him where he had his gun hidden. The other cop was probably disguised as one of the stock clerks, most likely the Hispanic one who kept coming.

He felt good about narrowly averting a close call with the cops and also for not doing permanent damage to the man’s balls. No matter how sore Mitchell’s throat felt, he knew he couldn’t blame the man for trying to kill him. What did make Mitchell upset was the fact that if the cops were waiting for him to show up, how come none of them had any kind of protective gear like a gasmask on them?

For sure if they did, Mitchell would be in custody or dead right now. But if they still weren’t taking him seriously, he was even more worried about surrendering.

For all the effort he just went through and the bruises on his neck and rest of his body, Mitchell was glad he was going to take some extra steps to protect himself when he surrendered. The crazy James Bond shit Mitch had planned probably wouldn’t work and would only get him killed, but at least he wouldn’t go down easily if all hell broke loose.