The Nothing (31 page)

“Yes Roy.
No problem.” James all of a sudden felt nauseous. The sudden jerk out of his daydream slapped him with focus, fear and anxiety all at the same time. Roy spoke one last time. “Ok James, have a good 'un and kill the shit out of them!”

O
ne breath after another. If I die, I die. Can’t help it. I have to let go. Bye Martha, we had a wonderful moment and I will die with a smile on my face. It would be the greatest thing if I get a second chance in life and can spend it with you. But no one can be that lucky. That is never how things work out. I have to fight; I have to die for you. For you and your two friends back there with you. If I am going to even be a man that Raymond will accept, I have to be willing to die for you. I don’t know why, but this big black knife makes me feel different, even lucky. When it was handed to me, it helped with the tightness in my belly. If I run out of bullets, this will be the final weapon I take a stand with.

Three
silhouettes passed in front of the living room window. It was beginning.

“Freeze!!!”

The three men stopped.

“Move along, you have no business in this unit.
If you do not move along, you will be fired upon.” The three men moved away from the window slowly. James could see them through the top of the shrubs. But he quickly focused his gaze back at the front door. That was where he was assigned.
Must focus on what I was ordered to do. Roy has the window.
Roy looked back towards James and gave a thumbs up. “Hey James, I think they are going to pass us.”

“Yeah I sure hope so.”

“Just stay ready though, we aren’t in the clear yet but………

Bang! Bang! Bang!
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Rapid rifle shots echoed from the bedroom where Bentley was.
Both Roy and James jerked their heads in the direction of the bedroom hallway. Bentley had opened fire on the three men who had moved away from Roy’s window. “That son of a bitch! He was supposed to wait for me to fire first goddammit!” Roy had no choice but to open fire as well. He repeatedly fired in two round bursts. James looked over at Roy as he pivoted back and forth like a robot shooting repeatedly. Small splinters of wood began to litter the living room floor as bullets and buckshot were fired back at them through the front walls. James couldn’t see what Roy was shooting at or who was shooting at Roy. The living room filled with a haze of putrid gunsmoke and dust. Loud cracks from the sounds of AR15s, pistols and the deep pops from shotgun blasts filled every one’s ears. James put his eye on the rifle sights and focused on the front door.

Bentley had seen the three men in front of the window and in a momentary
lapse of judgment, forgot that he was to wait for Roy to shoot first. One of the men Bentley had shot was lying motionless on the ground. He thinks he hit another in the arm. Roy shot the third guy two times in the back as he tried to run away.

For a few seconds, the shooting died down to a stop.
That was when Bentley saw two men pass twenty feet away from his window. They knew Bentley was there. Before Bentley could blink, the two men fired buckshot after buckshot from shotguns. Bentley was able to shoot back at both men while feeling the sting of the small bb’s piercing his skin. Bentley closed his eyes as he emptied an entire magazine towards to two men. When they stopped shooting, Bentley opened his eyes. Through the haze, Bentley saw both men lying on the ground dead. From a third story roof on an adjacent building, Tom had shot both men in the head from distance of thirty yards. Bentley could feel more bullets breaking the air around him sending glass in every direction. He dropped to the floor and loaded another magazine. But he couldn’t raise himself back up to his position on the window. Fear overtook him.

Roy was scanning the whole courtyard and
shot at anyone in view from the living room window. His shots were carefully coordinated. Roy would fire two shots at each target, moving from one to the other. As a man would come into view from another apartment or bush, he would fire two shots and move immediately to the next man he saw. Tom was able to see the gang members seeking cover and proceeded to take them out. Then all of a sudden, it all stopped again.

No one spoke.

The silence was deafening.
The smell of gunsmoke stung James’ throat. In the bedroom, Bentley stayed on the floor with what felt like wasp stings all over his arms and on the sides of his face. James whispered loudly to Roy, “Are we clear yet? Are they all gone?”

“No James.
They’re gearing up. Stay ready.”

“Ok.”
James was still focusing on the front door. He didn’t move his eyes anywhere else. James was fine with letting the other guys do the shooting for now. But then he heard a faint whisper from his left. “James, are you ok? I am so scared, can I stay here with you?” It was Martha. She had crawled on her stomach to James and he hadn’t even realized it. “Martha, you need to get back with the other women. The bad guys aren’t gone and they might attack again. Please go back!” Her head started to bob as she cried. “I can’t help but to feel that there is more to say to you. You may die and…”

“What is it Martha?
You know I will come back there when we are all safe.”

Calm came to Martha
. A small smile built on her face.

“If this is it
James. If this is the end, I want you to know, that for the few moments we had together. Um how do I say this? James, I love you. For our short time together, I loved you.” Martha began to move backward to get back to the room. James reached his hand out to hers.

“I love you too Martha.
We can both say that we had a special time together as short as it was. Now go back. I will come back there to get you, in this life or the next. I promise.”

Martha
hesitantly let go of James’ hand and slowly crawled back to the bedroom where Jenna and Scarlett were. While James and Martha were having their moment, a tall white man with a red bandana on his head and tattoos allover, walked out into the middle of the courtyard with a white pillowcase on the end of his shotgun. Bentley had managed to calm down and positioned himself back on the window as the tall tattooed man stood out there. He recognized him as someone he had arrested before and was trying to remember his name. He had heard before that even though gangs of all different ethnicities fought like cats and dogs, if an opportunity arose where working together would be more lucrative, they would unite no matter how much blood in the past was spilled. The man in the middle of the courtyard was Aryan Nation and he had something to say.

“This complex is now ours.
Everything in it, around it, is ours. You can have safe passage out of here. But you have to give us your weapons. This area is now under the jurisdiction of the Aryan Nation, Tango Blast, and the Crips. You cannot win. No more blood will be spilled if you leave and leave unarmed. I will give you five minutes to comply.” Bentley yelled back, “I know you. You are Calvin Grimes. You don’t have jurisdiction here. You don’t have control here. It is you and all of your thugs that will leave or you will all be killed.”

Calvin turned around
in a circle laughing. “Look around! No cops, no 911, no radios. No satellite or cable TV, which fucking pisses me off and makes we want to blow every motherfucker I see to hell! But hey, like I said gentlemen, you have five minutes. Then we attack. Your choice.” Calvin began to walk off the courtyard when Bentley started shooting at him. But Calvin was able to make it to cover.

Roy
crouched through the living room to the bedroom where Bentley was without even looking at James. Then he angrily shoved Bentley to the floor. “I forgot to mention to not fucking say or yell anything to those men! You are just full of mistakes today!”

“Why the fuck not!
Shouldn’t we let them know that we aren’t going to stand for their shit?” Roy shook his head in a way that made Bentley feel stupid.

“Look, in combat, you don’t yell or say any
thing. It gives away a shooter’s position. Right now, they don’t know how many of us are in here or what we are armed with. We have to use that to our advantage as long as we can. Every minute we can add to this, gives us time to prepare, plan, and adapt. We want them at a loss as to what they are facing. They haven’t even noticed Tom on the roof. And if they think we might comply or negotiate, it can be used to our advantage. There are strategies. You need to stick to my protocol.”

Right at that moment,
bullets whizzed through the side wall that the bedroom shared with the next door apartment. White sheetrock dust filled the room. Bentley was hit first. The bullet ripped through his right thighbone, which then burst up through his flesh. Then another bullet went directly through the side of his right upper arm and buried itself in his lung, causing him to cough harshly and fall to the ground. Roy was hit twice in his stomach with one bullet going through his left kidney and one burying itself in his liver. Bentley had given away his position to the shooters in the next apartment when he shouted at Calvin Grimes. Roy was unfortunate enough to be next to Bentley when the shooters opened fire through the wall. The shooting lasted for twenty seconds then stopped. Both men lay on the ground at the mercy of their wounds. Then more shooting resumed. Round after round pummeled the room and each man’s body. Blackish blood spilled from the hole in Roy’s stomach where his liver was. Bentley felt warm blood pouring out of his arm, shoulder, leg, and both butt cheeks. Each time he coughed, the hole in his side oozed bloody bubbles. He was coughing so hard that he was getting dizzy. And when he looked down at his legs, he saw that his left knee was completely missing. Roy noticed that all the fingers from his right hand, his shooting hand, were gone. Blood kept filling his eyes making it hard to see. And his stomach wounds were beginning to be extremely painful; so much that it was causing his legs to twitch uncontrollably. Roy looked at Bentley, “Grab a couple of grenades and lay them next to me.” Bentley couldn’t speak and wasn’t able to move his legs. But he was able to roll over to the case that had the grenades in them. He took two and handed them to Roy. Bentley was able to mutter brokenly, “What..…are we….going to…do?” Roy moved to the other case and took out a shotgun. Both men were now soaked in blood. Each movement caused a squishing sound in the blood soaked carpet beneath them. “I am going to blast a hole in the wall with this shotgun. Then you are going to lob that grenade through the hole.” Immediately Roy pointed the shotgun at the wall and fired shot after shot until a foot wide hole developed; with only his left hand. Bentley sat up, took the pin out of the grenade, and threw it perfectly through the center. He was able to see the wall in the apartment next door through the hole. There was a painting of a tree hanging on the wall. When the grenade went through, they heard panicked voices yelling, “Move motherfucker move, get the fuck out! They just put a fucking grenade through that hole…”

BOOM
!

The sound was a deep boom that deafened both men with the
exception of high ringing. When Roy opened his eyes, they stung with smoke and sheetrock dust. He took a deep breath and began to choke. The whole wall was gone. Bentley opened his eyes slightly and was able to see faint orange flames from the next-door apartment. Bentley was going into shock. “Roy, Roy? I got to get out of here, I need to get to Mary.” Roy was already starting to fade; his heart rate dropping fast. Lying on his back, covered in blood, and delusional, Roy said, “Yeah Bentley, you go ahead. I need to lay here in case they come back. I have plenty of bullets left. You go ahead and go get your wife.” Bentley started to cry. “Oh God I need my Mary. She always knew how to make me feel better.” He could no longer keep his eyes open. The tears mixed with the debris had torn the corneas in both eyes. He was essentially blind. But he began to crawl around, not knowing which direction he was going. The leg missing the knee caught on the carpet, but he pulled at it and felt the flesh around the bone rip as he yanked his leg free. Bentley was going on pure instinct. He had found a soft rhythm of breathing, but each breath was more shallow then the last. After two feet, Bentley wasn’t able to make it any further. His body was making forward jerking motions as he still tried to break free. He just couldn’t give up.

“Mary I made it, I’m alive.
I promised you that I would be home. Thanks Roy for getting us through this. Can I borrow your car?” Roy was lying on his back looking at Bentley, “Sure Brother, a set of keys are in my pockets but I can’t get them out. Ask Tom, he has a set too.” Roy almost wanted to laugh because of how funny Bentley looked jerking forward like a puppy on a leash tied to a pole. “Thanks Roy…you are one fucking bad ass.”

Roy died.

Bentley wasn’t fazed at all. He had made it home to Mary. That was all that he was thinking about. James was still in the living room waiting for Roy to tell him what to do. He didn’t move because he was told to stay at his post. James heard Bentley and Roy talking after all the gunfire and the explosion, but couldn’t understand what they were saying. This made James angry because he wanted to know what they were going to do next. Martha, Jenna and Scarlett were still in the back bedroom by the kitchen. The shooting had left several bullet holes in the walls but luckily missed the women. They had sat there holding one another expecting to die.

More s
moke was beginning to fill the apartment. After a minute of not hearing anything from Roy or Bentley, James jumped up quickly and ran to the front bedroom to see if they were ok. Before he reached the door, James heard several more gunshots. He thought it was either Bentley or Roy shooting, but when he got to the door, he saw two gangster looking men standing next Roy and Bentley. Roy and Bentley were both covered in blood. The carpet was soaked with red, and blood splatters covered the walls. They had come through from the other apartment, where a wall use to be, and shot both Bentley and Roy in the head. Both men looked up and their eyes met with James’. Immediately James raised the rifle to his shoulder and fired round and round at them. Both gang members turned around and attempted to run, but fell quickly as James kept shooting at them and moving closer. He emptied an entire magazine into their bodies. As soon as he realized his magazine was empty, he loaded a new one into the rifle using his left hand to grab a magazine while keeping his right one in place just as Roy taught him. Right then, he noticed the growing flames and heavy smoke filling the bedroom from the next door apartment. He turned around and tried to find Bentley, but the smoke and dust filled his eyes. James almost tripped over Bentley’s body. He was lowering himself next to him when several more bullets came whizzing through the window.