Joe (28 page)

Chapter
Sixty-One

The
Decider

…any
longer. He removed the .45 and the 9mm from his pockets, stole one last look at
the head of the jaguar, and fired off his first few rounds. The first shot…

Chapter
Sixty-Two

Eric

…struck
Eric right in the center of the forehead, and he fell to the sidewalk with a
thud. Instantly dead. His dying thought had been:
It doesn’t matter if she
doesn’t know I’m her father. I’ll build a relationship—

For a moment, everything was as silent
as Eric himself, and the only sound was the echo of…

Chapter
Sixty-Three

Joe

…BANG!
BANG! BANG!

For a moment, I could not move. I was as
stuck in my crouched position as the rest of the people in the Quad seemed to be
suspended in theirs. All was silent, except for my heart which was booming
louder than the gunshots in my ears. Then, someone screamed. Several someone’s
screamed. And I watched as the world around me erupted in chaos and panic, and
it seemed to bloom from inside my chest, because I felt it, too. Oh, how I felt
it, too. I am not ashamed to admit that I wanted to…

Chapter
Sixty-Four

The
Decider

…Run!
That’s right, run, you fucking cowards! Run from me and bow to me and bleed for
me and—

Two down already, man, he was good. Man,
how this felt
good.
His first shot had taken down a black guy on the
pavement, his second had not found a target, but his third…

Chapter
Sixty-Five

Merion

…had
struck Merion in the gut where she sat on the bench under the maple tree. The
sounds of the shots seemed to reach her ears only seconds before the pain
exploded in her stomach. At first all she felt was something hit her, like a
Mike Tyson to her midsection. The world had gone black for a moment, almost
pulling her into that blackness and keeping her there where nothing could hurt
her. But she had swam up from that hole, and now the only thing her mind could
process was a garbled
whathafuck…

Chapter
Sixty-Six

Michael

…was
that? The sound, so close to him, and yet seeming to originate from nowhere in
particular, but instead bouncing off the stone buildings surrounding the Quad,
had seemed to blow out his eardrums. Like everyone else, he stood frozen for
those long moments that take place just after the shit has hit the fan, those
moments where all you can think is
what happened?

Then someone screamed, and the sound of
it made his stomach drop and realization crashed through his stupor. He glanced
all around him. Just up ahead, he saw the man with the guns. And then the only thought
he could process was…

Chapter
Sixty-Seven

Merion

…Oh,
God. I’m dying. I’m dying. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I’m dying.
Oh, God

(takes care of drunks and fools, and you
ain’t no drunk, Merion, and you ain’t no fool.)

Then the blackness found her. And this
time she could not escape…

Chapter
Sixty-Eight

Joe

…BANG!
BANG! BANG! BANG!

Four more shots, and I just stood there,
breaking Mr. Landry’s Rule Number Two, staring at John, the boy who had
befriended me in class this semester, the boy who was quick to joke about my
stutter and comfortable with my otherness, because he was strange himself.

Was,
he
was
strange.

He was dead. I had been peering over the
concrete platform, frozen with terror, and my inactiveness had cost John his
life.

“Rule Number Two, soldier, don’t waste
your time staring at the wounded or dying or dead. Every minute you waste
staring at one of them, someone who still has a chance is being put at risk.
MOVE, soldier, that’s an order!”

I pulled the gun from my pocket and
slunk along the side of the concrete platform, with the jaguar watching me. I
spared no looks for the people around me, who were, as Mr. Landry had
predicted, in a tremendous state of panic.

“You got to be the one who keeps your
cool, soldier, because everyone else around you will have lost theirs.”

I had already broken rule Number Two,
and it had cost John his life. I had no intention of breaking Rule Number One
and Rule Number Three. I repeated them over and over as I moved.

Don’t hesitate. Shoot to kill. Don’t
hesitate. Shoot to kill.

I managed to block out everything else
around me. I had never experienced tunnel-vision in my life, but looking back I
was pretty sure this was it. I reached the edge of the concrete platform, where
the Shadowman was waiting…

Chapter
Sixty-Nine

Claire

…for
someone to help her. The pain in her shoulder and leg was so immense that she
could not even find the strength to scream, but instead she sat there, hearing only
the sound of her breathing as it grew slower and more labored, listening only
to her panicked thoughts.

I’ve been shot. My Lord, I’ve been shot!
It hurts so fucking bad. I can’t breathe. It hurts so fucking bad. And I don’t,
oh Lord, I don’t I don’t I don’t want to die! I’m not ready! I don’t want to
die!

If it didn’t hurt so bad, if she weren’t
so utterly terrified, the irony may have been a little bit funny. But this was
not
funny. Nothing about this was funny. Claire may have planned to take her
life with the pills she still held clutched in her hand, which curiously, were
splattered with red dots she subconsciously realized must have been her own
blood, but
this
had not been part of the plan. This was wrong. This was…

Chapter
Seventy

The
Decider

…the
most glorious, wonderful moment of all his life. The sheep were scattered and
screaming and running all around him, looks of shock and horror stuck on all
their faces. He could see everything as if time were moving in slow motion. He
was taking his pick and making all the Decisions. He saw his next target
straight ahead on the walkway. A young mother was clutching her son and…

Chapter
Seventy-One

Mina

…dragging
him in the opposite direction. Davis seemed to be frozen in shock, too scared to
move. She pulled him along frantically, a thousand terrible thoughts flying
through her head. She knew only that she had to get him away.
Had
to,
had
to,
had
to
get him away
. Her heart beat fast and furious. She
had never been so afraid in all her life. She was not afraid of getting shot
herself. She was afraid for Davis, only Davis. And that was much, much worse.

All thoughts of Russell were nowhere to
be found, of no concern and worth no contemplation. In that moment, for all she
cared Russell could go to hell in a hand-basket. Just not her boy, not her boy,
not her boy.

She could handle anything,
anything
,
but not that.
Just please, please, pleeease, don’t take…

Chapter
Seventy-Two

The
Decider

…the
boy. He wanted the boy. The boy would be a real prize, a fine notch on his
belt, a wonderful sacrifice. He raised the pistols and sighted the little shit,
but just before he pulled the trigger…

Chapter
Seventy-Three

Russell

…he
saw the man in black aiming at Davis, at Mina’s little boy, and with no
hesitation, no second thought or indecision, he ran as fast as his strong legs
could carry him and tackled the boy to the ground at the same time as he heard…

Chapter
Seventy-Four

Joe

…BANG!
BANG!

I moved out into the open. The Shadowman
had…

Chapter
Seventy-Five

The
Decider

…turned
the other way, giving up on the boy for a closer target, and he saw it,
oh
boy,
did he see it. That shithead jock-looking sonofawhore who had bumped
into him the other day was standing in the middle of the walkway. Just
standing
there, as if he
wanted
to be pumped full of lead. As the Decider
looked at him, the grin on his face become so large and wide and ugly that the
corners of his mouth were hugging the tips of his earlobes, and he was sure now
that this motherfucker was the same one who had been under his tree yesterday.
Too bad his little black-haired bitch wasn’t with him. Too bad. He raised the
guns toward the fool, who seemed to be…

Chapter
Seventy-Six

Michael

…frozen
in place. Oddly, it was not the sight of the gunman, who was now grinning at
him as if his name was next on the list. In that tiny, long moment, Michael
recognized the shooter as the guy he had bumped into the other day. It was the
guy that had been here yesterday, the one he and Joe had followed out to the
parking lot. Puzzle pieces fell neatly into place, curious in their clarity. As
two barrels raised and poised directly at him, he was frozen still because he
saw the raven-haired girl, he saw
Joe
, step out from behind the stone
platform on which the school mascot stood, and she had a gun in her hand too!
She took only a few steps, lined up her shot…

Chapter
Seventy-Seven

Joe

…and
didn’t hesitate. The gun in my hand made a noise so loud that despite me having
anticipated it, my heart jumped hard in my chest, and my teeth clicked together
harder. At first I was unsure as to whether I had hit my target or not, and
then…

Chapter
Seventy-Eight

The
Decider

…something
hit him hard in the back, and at first he thought someone must have come up and
punched him. But as he felt his knees connect hard with concrete, and then the
blooming, booming pain explode in his back, his brain finally made the
connection between the
BANG!
he had just heard and the pain he now felt,
and realized that he had been…

Chapter
Seventy-Nine

Michael

…shot.
The raven-haired girl had shot the gunman.
Joe
had
shot
the
gunman,
right before
the gunman had been able to shoot
him
. She had
saved his life. Had saved his life. But when he turned his eyes back to the
gunman, he saw that he was raising…

Chapter
Eighty

The
Decider

…his
guns took more effort than he liked to admit.
What in the holy hell fuck had
happened
? The pigs weren’t here yet. They
couldn’t
be here yet. He
swiveled his body around, looking for the stupid motherfucking
(can’t
believe this is happening, it’s not too late, what the
fuck
is
happening. Sheep. They’re just sheep)
person who had shot him. And there
she was. And it was that black-haired bitch. And she had…

Chapter
Eighty-One

Joe

…the
gun still aimed at him. From the corner of my consciousness, in a space of time
that could only have been a slice of a second, I realized he was going to try
and shoot me before I could—

Shoot to kill, soldier! Don’t you
hesitate, Goddamit! Don’t you hes—
BANG!

I didn’t.

Another boom of my heart. More ringing
in my ears. In front of me, only fifteen feet away, the Shadowman’s…

Chapter
Eighty-Two

The
Decider

…felt
another hard punch slam into him. Into his chest. He squeezed the triggers of
both guns and heard
BANG!BANG!
followed immediately by
CRACK!CRACK!
and
saw sparks fly from the concrete as the bullets ricocheted off the walkway and…

Chapter
Eighty-Three

Joe

…something
hit the side of my ankle, and the first ridiculous thought that occurred me was
that I had been stung by a bee. Then pain flared up hot and ugly on my left
ankle, but I spared it no thought. I only had room for the two thoughts chasing
each other around in circles in my mind.

Don’t hesitate. Shoot to kill.

Ahead of me, the Shadowman had…

Chapter
Eighty-Four

The
Decider

…dropped
the gun in his right hand to the pavement, and was reaching frantically for the
walkie-talkie in the pocket of his black cargo pants. All he had to do was push
that button.
Push the button push the button that’ll show this black-haired
bitch that’ll show them all don’t they know who the fuck I am that’ll show them
just PUSH THE BUTTON AND BLOW THEM ALL TO HELL…