Fan Fiction ❯ Fade to Black ❯ Some Time Later ( Chapter 9 )

Chapter 9: Some Time Later

Fall bled into winter, winter bled into spring, and the Earth was fully reborn in summer. A lot had happened over the many months that followed Kevin Westfield's fight with the black gang.

Tensions between the two groups continued to rise exponentially. Several sort of idle threats were made throughout the time and property on both sides was subject to heavy vandalism. At several dances throughout the year, confrontations broke out and had to be separated by the police. The guilty parties were taken in, fined, and released.

There was a rumor that surfaced a few months that was quickly dispelled. Apparently some guy's car exploded in the middle of the night. The rumor was that a simple pipe bomb was set off underneath his car, which wouldn't do much damage in and of itself if it didn't break the gas tank. The gas tank was breached, however, and in a matter of minutes a 1998 powder blue Chevrolet inferno was sitting in the guy's driveway. Turns out that this wasn't the real story. The police found out, after a little bit of detective work, that the car had had a gas leak for a while. After the kid parked his car and went to sleep, the car continued to leak gas. Meanwhile, two stoned teenagers walked by, finishing up their last joint, which they flicked in the direction of the car in the driveway after they were finished. The jay must have landed in a puddle of gasoline that was slowly growing under the car. Boom. Even though it wasn't a pipe bomb or an act of war, this stirred up even more hatred between the groups. Two weeks later, official war was declared and official death threats were made. Nobody thought much of it. We still haven't seen anything.

Now for the update on my little group. Sarah and Janey became best friends a week after the fight at the diner. They began to spend more and more time hanging out with Janey's group of friends…which means that she spent less time hanging out with me. We began to get into arguments about the stupidest, most meaningless bullshit. At the same time, John and Janey started a relationship. A few weeks into it, they broke up, but three days letter, they were back together. This seems to be the high school norm in regards to relationships. As far as I knew, things were going good with them. John and I still hung out frequently, mainly because we had the time while Sarah and Janey were out somewhere. I've been getting increasingly tired with Sarah's bullshit and I'm worried she'll break up with me.

That's where we are right now. Graduation is in a month and that means that school is pretty much over. It's a funny thing to watch. Because it's so close, the teachers don't give a damn anymore, so we have about seven study halls a day. And as seniors, all teachers realize that it's our last year, so we have pretty much free reign over the entire building. The weather is beautiful and warm and I retired my trench coat some time ago. Cool breezes blow through the trees frequently, ruffling the clothing of anyone outside at the moment, making the person feel very good about life in general. Unfortunately, I could not enjoy this Friday afternoon. School was out and I was on my way to Sarah's house. I was sick of the fighting and I was sick of feeling like shit, so it was time to have a talk to figure out where we stood.

I turned my truck onto Sarah's street and up ahead in front of her house she was getting out of Janey's car and waving goodbye. I pulled into a parking spot along the curb across the street and got out. I took a deep drag off my cigarette and threw it to the ground, mentally preparing myself for what a difficult conversation we were going to have.

"Hey, what's up?" Sarah asked, looking up at me expectantly. She smiled brightly.

"We need to talk, Sarah," I said quietly, leading her by the elbow to her house. She pulled out of my grip and stood looking at me, face blank.

"What's going on?" She asked, smile instantly fading from her face. I dropped my hands to my sides and sighed. So it begins….

"Listen, I feel that we're getting further and further apart. You spend more time with your friends, which is cool, I just wish you'd make time with me. But whenever I ask, you always already have plans or just blow me off for your friends. I'm sick of all this shit and I'm beginning to have serious doubts about this relationship," I spit out quickly. There, it's all out.

"Oh, what the fuck is this? You sound like a little girl. Goddammit, Jo, toughen up," She said and started walking back to her house. I was a little shocked.

"You fucking bitch," I said quietly. She stopped and turned around with this insolent look on her face. Seeing her look at me like that made me lose it. It was time to let her know exactly how much this was bothering me. Maybe it'd wipe that fucking look off her face.

"First of all, how fucking dare you talk to me like that after I come to you voicing concerns over this relationship. You know how I feel about you Sarah, you know I'd be willing to do anything for you, but that does not give you the right to treat me like shit!" My voice started to rise with anger. The look disappeared from her face and she just looked blankly at me as I continued.

"Second of all, you want to hang out with your friends and that's cool. But I think I should get preferential treatment, what with being your fucking boyfriend and all! You want to treat me like shit? That's fine. Just don't be surprised when I start treating you the same fucking way! Do you even want to keep dating me, Sarah? Do you?" I asked.

"Yes…" Sarah answered quietly, eyes angled downward. I didn't enjoy yelling at her, but I was on a roll letting loose my bottled-up emotions, so I couldn't stop myself.

"Well, do you think there's a way to talk this out and fix this?" I asked.

"I…uh, I have stuff to do around the house…" She said, turning around and walking up to the house. I felt as if my head was going to explode.

"Fine! Fucking fine!! Whenever you decide that there's a problem and that you want to fix it, you know where to fucking find me! Goddammit, how can you be such a bitch?" I finished, walking to my truck quickly, hands trembling slightly. I keyed the ignition and the truck roared off down the street, tired squealing.

I drove to my factory in a blur, my mind a haze of anger. I attempted to light a cigarette several times while driving, but my hands were shaking so much that I had to pull off the road to get the job done. The flood of nicotine into my body was enough to make me calm down in time to get to the factory's front parking lot. I sat there for a second, then I decided that I would park in the maintenance garage around the side, so I drove down and into the garage, got out, closed the door to the garage, and made may way into my office. I reached into the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of water and started to drink it. I sat down in my chair and kicked my feet up on the desk and closed my eyes. How could she act like that? Why did she immediately get so bitch? What the fuck was wrong with her? Are all girls insane? This questions remained unanswered as I sat there, rubbing my temples. All of a sudden, I hear a ringing noise from inside the second left hand drawer. I opened my eyes and reached to open the drawer. My cell phone was ringing. I had thrown the cell phone in the drawer that morning, after spending yet another night in the factory, clearing my head. Caller ID showed that it was John's number. I picked up.

"Hey, John. What's up?" I asked.

"Jo? Jo! Get out of the fucking factory right now!" John yelled, his voice frantic. I froze for a second.

"Uh, John….why?" I asked.

"Dude, just fucking go! I fucking just saw Westfield and his crew driving off in that direction. So I drive into town and ask a friend of mine what's going on, and he said he saw the fucking black guys heading in the same direction. He said they were finally going to war. Then I remembered I saw Westfield and his guys carrying a bunch of backpacks with them. Man, one of them looked like that asshole who broke into the factory that one time. So you know what this means?" John was yelling at a frantic pace. I still didn't get what he was trying to say.

"Sorry, I don't."

"They're going to your fucking factory to do war! Sure, they could be going someplace fucking else, but take into consideration the road they were going on, the black guy in the group who knows where the factory is, and the fact that the factory is pretty much isolated and all signs point to fucking you!" I was starting to understand. If John called as soon as he figured it out, they'd be close by now, if one group wasn't already here.

"Ok, John, thanks. I gotta go get ready to defend the Alamo if necessary. I appreciate it man."

"Dude, I can be there in fifteen. I'm leaving now."

"No, man, stay where you are. Don't worry, I can handle this." I hung up on John after he reluctantly agreed and I walked out of my office into the reception area that was John's office. I went into the closet, removed the false paneling, and pulled out the submachine gun and the rifle. I walked back into my office and opened the big bay windows that looked out into the parking lot. I set the rifle on the table and racked the bolt to the Tommy gun. I wasn't about to kill anyone, I was going to let them do that themselves, but I didn't want anyone screwing up my factory. I had come to love my home away from home and no one was going to take it from me. I shouldered the gun and crouched down behind the window sill, sweeping the sights along the tree line, waiting. A cool breeze rustled the green, fresh leaves and blew through the window and through my hair. I sat there and closed my eyes, heart pounding, breathing shallow. Then I heard voices. I opened my eyes and saw Westfield and his boys in the parking lot. The sound carried well and I was able to hear Kevin shouting to his friends.

"Ok, listen up. The fuckers are going to be here any minute, so let's get the shit out and get ready to use it." At this point, the guys took off their backpacks and reached inside. What they pulled out could have been the spring inventory for the local gunshop. I knew quite a bit about guns, from watching TV and movies and playing my violent computer games. From what I saw, there were twelve guys altogether, thirteen if you included Westfield. Four of the guys had nine millimeter handguns, two had revolvers that looked like thirty-eights, four more had twenty-twos, and the remaining three had forty-fives. They all loaded their guns and then began stuffing ammunition into their pockets. Faintly on the breeze, the sound of gangsta rap could be heard. Kevin and his crew froze, hearing the same thing I did. I looked down the barrel and trained the gun on Kevin. As the music came closer through the woods, a few of Kevin's friends started moving to the doors of the building. I whirled the gun around and trained it on them. I didn't want them finding my factory.

"Where the fuck are you going? Get back over here, we're facing them head on," Westfield called, tucking his gun into his pants behind his back. The others followed his lead. Seconds later, the black gang strutted into the parking lot and lined up opposite Westfield and The Crew. There were about thirteen or fourteen black guys, so the fight was pretty much even. They started to talk back and forth, bitching and cursing up a storm, laying battle lines and such. I didn't listen to them. Instead, I swept my eyes over the grounds on which they were fighting. Apparently, Westfield decided to leave the cars on the road and follow the trail back. I vaguely wondered how he found the place, but then I realized that the black guy was probably nice enough to draw him a faggy little map. There was adequate cover on both sides. Behind Westfield, there were a few ruins in a field adjoining the parking lot. The low, broken brick walls and fallen metal doors would make a pretty terrific cover for them. One of the ruins, the old pump house (designated so by a sign and a bunch of broken pipes), was large enough to fit his entire crew in and to keep them decently covered.

Behind the black gang, the tree line and edge of the parking lot were littered with scraps of sheet metal, old packing containers, and empty oil drums. Again, more than adequate cover if the guys knew how to use that. The two sides talked tough a little bit more and the black guy took something out of his pants and wound it up: it was an egg timer. I was perplexed.

"Listen, when this shit goes off, the guns start going off, got it? Not before then, aight?" He said, setting the egg timer down and moving off into the surrounded sheet metal and debris. His homies followed him quickly. Westfield's gang followed him and quickly spread themselves out into position. I quietly set my gun down and crawled over to get another bottle of water from the fridge, then moved back slowly and carefully and set myself up to watch the show. This is going to be better than HBO…

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The world was silent. Trees rustled quietly, sighing in the wind. Birds could be heard chirping loudly off in a tree somewhere. Farther off, you could hear the faint hissing noise passing cars made. The world was quiet and lazy out here, uninterrupted by man. Then a ringing noise could be heard. For a second, everything was just as still as before. Then the world erupted into chaos.

Westfield stood up and raised his gun. He sought out his first target with large sweeps of the handgun. No one on the black side was standing up yet. I looked over at their side and saw the leader roll out, half lying on the ground. Westfield saw him too and they both began to exchange fire. Shells poured from Kevin's forty-five, glinting brightly in the sunlight. The leader on the opposite side was firing two nine millimeters in Kevin's direction. They both were shitty shots and the air was filled with the pinging sound of ricochets. Gunshots boomed in the warm afternoon air and this roused both sides to come up shooting. In waves, bullets washed over both sides of the battlefield, chipping brick, clanging off metal in a shower of sparks, and disappearing into clouds of mortar and plaster. Both sides periodically paused to reload. A few people got hit within the first few seconds, but since both sides were horribly inexperienced, they were only slight grazes of lead on flesh, little red zippers of exposed tissue. For the first ten seconds, no one died. The first person to make a fatal mistake was on Westfield's side.

A tall, stocky boy in a red t-shirt was standing up firing his thirty-eight revolver when he ran out of ammo. Everyone whose job involves taking fire at one point or another has been trained to seek cover before reloading. Of course, this kid had no such training. Some may argue it was common sense, but in the tumultuous torrent of gunfire, he may not have been thinking clearly. In any case, he paused to open the cylinder, eject the empty shells, and he pulled a quickload kit from his pocket with six fresh shells ready to go. A kid standing up tall and stocky in a red t-shirt is just about the best target you can ask for, unfortunately. Someone shot and the boy's head exploded in a cloud of red mist. His body slumped to the ground and for a second everyone paused. They had never seen a dead body before. Fuck, I haven't even seen a dead body before. I was just as shocked by it. Then Westfield yelled something unintelligible and turned back to the black kids, firing over and over again while taking cover behind the pump house wall. The battle continued to the five minute mark, and then I saw a glint of green in the tree line. A car was approaching the parking lot. It stopped at the edge of the trail. The firing had stopped and you could hear the loud music pumping from the car. Whoever was in the car didn't get a chance to hear the gunshots. The car was shut off and a door opened. The driver walked out into few. At the same time that the faint clicking of reloading could be heard, my heart rose in my chest. Sarah was walking across the parking lot, between both battle lines.

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Her hair was pulled back into a neat ponytail and she was wearing black pants and a white t-shirt. She looked like she had been crying. I had completely forgotten about her and I wondered that the fuck she was doing there. Then it hit me. She was coming to work things out. I tried to yell in time. Sarah was at the door and had just started to open in when both sides resurfaced from cover and started to fire.

The first shot caused Sarah to jump and freeze where she was. A volley of shots sailed through the air. In seemingly slow motion, I saw a member of the black side turn his gun towards Sarah. I think he figured she was with Westfield's group. I fumbled around for my gun, my words caught in my throat. My fingers slipped on the grip and I didn't get the gun up in time. Sarah had turned around to see who was shooting. The black member fired his twenty-two pistol, the sharp popping shots seemingly rising above the surrounding turmoil. Sarah's small frame shook as the shot hit her stomach. A sharp cry rose from her throat and she was hit with another round. She clutched her stomach and fell in slow motion. I think I had stopped breathing, but I had finally gotten a hold of the gun. I raised it quickly and zeroed in on the guy who shot Sarah. I squeezed off a single round. It caught the guy in the throat and threw him backwards out of view in a small spray of red. I whirled around and stood up to walk out. As I passed, I stopped at my desk and grabbed the handgun taped to the underside of the desktop and grabbed a few magazines out of the drawer. I stuffed them into my deep pockets and put the gun in my waistband. I sprinted in what felt to be slow motion, my legs feeling like solid steel, to the reception area. I ducked back into the closet and grabbed a few more clips for my submachine gun. I took the flights of stairs to the factory floor in what seemed like hours. Sunlight poured in from the open door as I ran towards it. I noticed Sarah had pulled herself inside and was passed out on the floor. I passed a container full of dusty rags and grabbed a handful, along with an old roll of packing tape. When I reached Sarah, things seemed to move faster. Her stomach was oozing blood from two holes. The white t-shirt was slowly being dyed a morbid red. I quickly wrapped the rags around her small abdomen and taped them down tightly. Her face was bathed in sweat and she was unconscious, her hair sticking wetly to her face and a sheen of sweat shining from her upper lip. Looking at her, something dark flooded my blood system at the same time that adrenaline was being dumped into my veins. I got tunnel vision for a few seconds and my body started to move of its own accord. When my vision cleared, I was holding the gun and walking briskly towards the door. Once more, time slowed down.

The sunlight was bright and warm on my skin. The smoke from the dueling side's guns floated away on a slight breeze. I could hear the echoing crunch of gravel underneath my boots as I stepped out of the cover of the doorway and stopped. As I raised the gun in slow motion, I looked at both sides. At the moment, the black side was the most exposed. I suppose they saw me exit the building, because as soon as my gun was leveled, they turned their heads slowly to me. My gun was already up, but they still tried to swing their weapons around. It seemed to take years for my finger to adequately depress the trigger.

The gun recoiled, jumping back in my grasp. I stared unblinkingly down the barrel and saw the fire erupt slowly from my gun. The bolt slid back slowly, the clacking echoing in my ears before shooting forward again, the spent shell spiraling slowly in the air, as another shot went neatly off into the air. Time returned to normal.

A staccato burst of gunfire filled the air. I raked the gun up and down the line, spraying shots everywhere I could. Vaguely, some part of me in the back of my mind called out that this was wrong. Blood puffed out in clouds of all sizes and one by one the gang members fell bleeding behind the rubble. Within seconds, one line was decimated without a shot going off in my direction. I strode quickly out into the middle of the parking lot, my jaw set tightly. As I reached the center, I pulled out the empty clip, dropped it to the ground with a clacking noise, slammed another thirty round magazine in, and racked the bolt. My tumultuous fire had caused Westfield's gang to stand up to see what went on. Westfield stared at me in shock. I raised the gun again and once more began raking shots across the lines. Westfield managed to somehow duck in time. The liquid gold stream of spent casings flowed from the ejection port on my gun and tinkled to the ground. Gouts of blood stained the brick and plaster ruins as the other gang fell. My clip clicked empty and I stood there. Again, the ambient noise began to echo and I felt my limbs grow heavy as time slowed down. I saw Kevin Westfield's head start to peek over the wall. I didn't have time to reload the Tommy gun, so I let it drop in slow motion to the ground. The metal clattered off the ground in the air thick with the smell of gunpowder. I reached into my waistband and slowly pulled my pistol. Kevin was up first with his gun, and he fired. I felt a blinding, stinging pain in my left should as his bullet nicked me, taking a good bit of flesh away with it. I was lucky he was such a shitty shot. I pulled up my gun, took aim, and fired. The slide of the pistol moved back slowly and a single shell casing flew out into the air. The slide slammed shut and the sound echoed. I blinked and all of a sudden things were moving normally. Kevin's head snapped back harshly and his body dropped below view. I froze for a second.

The heat of the afternoon popped beads of sweat out onto my forehead. I snapped out of my daze when I remember Sarah. I picked up the fallen gun, tucked the pistol back into my waistband, and ran back inside. Sarah was a sickly pale color, but she was still breathing. I took her pulse like they showed me in Health class my sophomore year, and felt that it was beginning to slow. I hurriedly sprinted up the stairs to my office and threw the guns into the closet. I went and closed the bay windows in a blur, then exited the office. I closed the double doors to the reception area and ran a thick, rusty chain through the handles. I picked up the old rusty lock and vaguely remember how long it had taken to pick that lock. I clamped it back on and ran back downstairs. I checked Sarah, and then sprinted to the parking garage. I dug around in my glove compartment for a few Masterlocks I had bought and ran back out, padlocking the garage door to the ring in the ground. I covered the lock up with dirt and leaves and sprinted back to Sarah's car. By now, the blood from my scratch was trickling into my armpit, leaving me with the feeling that ants were crawling up and down my side. I started Sarah's car and roared up to the door. I paused and wondered what story I could come up with.

I took off my bloody shirt and walked over to the body of the guy who shot Sarah. His gun was still in his hand. I picked it up, walked quickly to the passenger side door, picked up a piece of metal that felt soft to the touch, set it into the passenger seat, raised the gun, and fired three shots. Two shots went through the passenger door and the small caliber shots buried themselves in the sheet metal. The third shot shattered the passenger window and exited in a neat hole out the driver's side window. I tossed the gun back to where the body was. Then I went back inside, scooped Sarah up, and tossed her into the passenger seat. I looked at all of my shells on the ground and ran inside to get a broom. I quickly swept all the shells from the parking lot inside the doorway, and then swept them behind some yellowing cardboard boxes. I then threw more boxes on top of the shells, tossed the broom aside, ran outside to padlock the door with my last Masterlock, and kicked dirt over Sarah's blood trail. With that done, I climbed into her car and slammed it into reverse, then flew down the trail to the main road. When I got to the main road, I ripped the bandages off of Sarah and tossed them out into the woods far enough away from the road so they wouldn't be found. Sarah's bleeding had clotted and she was still breathing, so she would be fine without the bandages. Plus people wouldn't ask questions how I had time to bandage her. I leaned my injured shoulder against the window, blooding streaking the glass, and drove quickly to the hospital.