Later, when I tell the story, I don’t tell the whole truth.
Truth is, the unthinkable happened. I got scared in that dark hall. I felt something coming and it freaked me.
I say I never got to the corridor.
Never admit I backed out with my tail tucked between my legs, retreated to the light, and then freeze-framed back to the dining hall.
The shooting starts again and so does the screaming and we all run, but there’s only one way out and that’s the way in, so we’re knocking over tables and scrambling behind ’em.
Jo and me, we end up behind the same table. Long as she doesn’t try any funky lezbo stuff on me, I don’t mind sharing my spot. I tap the table. It’s thick, made of solid wood. Might hold up, depending on bullets and distance.
More screams. I wanna hold my ears.
I’m cowering. I disgust myself.
I gotta look. I gotta know what the feck is doing this to us!
Jo and I move for opposite ends of the table at the same time and crack heads. She glares at me.
“Like it’s my fault,” I hiss defensively. “You moved, too.”
“Where’s Liz?” she hisses back.
I shrug. On my hands and knees, I waggle my ass. Whole abbey’s falling apart and she’s worried about her little girlfriend. “Baaaaa,” I say.
She looks at me like I’m nuts. Then we’re both poking our heads around the table.
Bullets are ripping across the room, ricocheting off walls and wood. Blood’s spraying everywhere, gory as feck, and the screams keep coming. The shooter is framed in the door of the dining hall.
Jo gasps and I just about fall over choking.
It’s Barb!
What the feck’s this all about?
She’s draped in rounds, toting the biggest Uzi I ever seen. White-faced, she’s screaming curses at us, taking us down like sitting ducks. I gape. “Barb?” I mutter. Don’t make no sense.
Weird thing is, Jo looks stunned and bursts out, “I thought it was Liz!”
I stare down the table at her. All I can see is her head, but she kinda shrugs it. “Long story.”
I assess the room, the scene. We’re at the back of the hall. We’ll be last to die. What the feck do I do? Why is Barb shooting us?
I look at Jo. She’s no help. Looks blank as the page I was writing The Dani Daily on.
Dude, I wish Mac was here! What would she do? Should I freeze-frame in while Barb’s shooting everybody and try to take her gun? Am I fast enough? I don’t wanna die today. Tomorrow’s gonna be my day. And I just know it’s gonna be a good one, too! ’Sides, I got too much to do. Somebody’s gotta keep an eye on Ro.
But we’re dropping like flies! Holy feckin’ crikey, Barb’s wiping us out!
I cram a candy bar in my mouth whole, chew it just enough to get it in my gut. I’m gonna need every ounce of energy I got to pull this off. I gotta do something. Barb ain’t gonna run outta bullets for a long time. The Mega can’t cower behind a table and do nothing.
I poke my head out from behind the table, take a snapshot of the scene, and lock it down hard in my head. I map where every person, table, chair, and obstacle is.
Problem is Barb. She’s the unknown. She’s moving and spraying fire so erratically, I can’t slam a grid of possibles down over my mental map.
Feck!
I stare, trying to pick up some kinda pattern.
I duck back behind the table as a shot zings by. Poke my head out again. Ain’t no pattern.
I pump breaths superfast, puffing my cheeks in and out, kicking my adrenaline up. I ease my head out, lock the grid down best I can, and am about to give my feet wings, when Barb goes kinda fuzzy around the edges and the room gets so fecking cold my breath comes out white.
Jo makes a strangled sound.
We both see it at the same time.
What’s shooting at us ain’t Barb at all.
Well … it is, and she’s screaming, but not like the psycho-rage-bitch-from-hell I thought she was.
She’s screaming in horror.
She’s fighting for control of the gun and failing. She forces it down and sprays the floor, but it comes up again. She tries to swing it left, toward the wall. It yanks back to the right. Her finger’s tight on the trigger the whole time.