13-Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda...

13

Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda

“Well this is a conundrum.” Barbie said, as she stared at the waiting room.

In the center was what used to be the scrappy, red head with the bag from earlier.  She was now a beaten mess, lying on the floor with a coffee table wrapped around her.  The room told a story of a brutal fight.  She lost, but she had put up one hell of a fight.

“She’s still breathing,” one of Barbie’s soldiers said, squatting over her.

Barbie didn’t look at him, instead her attention was drawn to the trail of blood moving through the door into the back office.  “The flash drive?”

The soldier shook his head.  “No, she’s clean.”

“Then finish her and be done with it.”  Barbie said.

The soldier stood and leveled the machine gun at Patty’s head and…

Suddenly a loud crash came from the direction of the doctor’s rooms.

“With me.  Let’s move.”  Barbie’s commands were concise and without doubt.

She and her soldiers moved out of the room and Patty’s life had been spared.

****

Creegan stumbled through room after room without direction or purpose.  He moved out of instinct and the belief that if he stopped, he wouldn’t be able to start again.  His sight was slightly blurred and every inch of his body hurt.  All he could think about was getting back to Maggie and escaping with her and the money.  It had to work out this time.  It just…

Creegan’s thought process stopped as he crashed into a rolling supply table that was sitting in the hallway.  The thing tumbled, making a huge crashing noise and he barely managed to not fall with it.  Somewhere toward the back end of the hospital, a burst of desperate gunfire sounded.

There were killers in the building.

Armed with guns.

Maggie.

Damn it, pull it together.

Creegan checked himself.  The arm wound had begun to stop bleeding, thanks to clotting and the soaked bandage Maggie had made the night before.  None the less, he had lost enough blood to feel light headed.  His left eye had swollen shut and was probably a deep purple by now.  Most of his knuckles were broken and his right wrist and hand where broken and swelling up.

This, coupled with the other bruises and scratches were a sure sign that Creegan was in bad shape.

He took a deep breath.

He couldn’t give up.

He moved down the hallway with a purpose.  Find Maggie.  Find an exit.

****

Rockwell could hear the gunshots behind him in the hospital.  “Hold on buddy, I’m coming!”

He was talking to himself and attempting to sprint, but with his foot, it looked more like a desperate hobble.  Either way, he had still made the exit and could see the car five feet away.

He didn’t have the keys, so as he moved to the back end, he put the gun to the lock and fired the large .357 round into the mechanism, popping the trunk.

As the trunk came open, he pulled away the material covering the place where the spare tire should be.

There was no tire.

There was only Bess.

As Rockwell laid eyes on his prize possession, a madness came over him that could be seen on his face.

****

Barbie looked down at the cart, knowing instantly what had caused the crashing noise. The winner of the fight behind them was just up ahead.  She gave her men hand signals, and they moved with her down the hall like a cloud of killers.

The blood trail was getting thinner.  The bleeding was stopping.  Barbie could tell from the distance between drops.  They would have to catch him or her, soon.

Gunfire.  Another series of shots and none of them from the MP-5’s they were carrying, but a semi-automatic pistol of some sort.  This led Barbie to become confused.  Was there more to this than they had observed?  Had Kenneth and his team been dropped? Maybe they should have done more recon…

Doesn’t matter.

She reassured herself, realizing that everyone’s destination was the same.  Whoever they were tracking was trying to find the gunfight.  She could tell, because those shots sounded closer.

Suddenly, the blood trial stopped and Barbie put up a fist.  Her men all stopped in their tracks.  She looked around for some trace of the target, but didn’t see him.  The six of them were standing in the hallway about fifteen feet from the stairwell in front of them. They were surrounded by open doors to different rooms.

He has to be right around here.

As soon as she had this though, one last small caliber gunshot broke the silence.  It had come from the room to their immediate right.  Barbie gave a quick series of hand gestures and the six men took flanking positions in the doorway to the room where the shot originated…

****

Maggie stared as Stone twitched as the small caliber bullet hit him.  He then stopped moving and Maggie watched for a half second to make sure he wasn’t going to come back to life and jump her from behind like some monster at the end of a Wes Craven movie.

He didn’t move.

No surprise resurrection today.

Maggie turned to the bag lying on the floor and opened the zipper to make sure.

Maggie heard the climax of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy in her head as she saw the crisp stacks of money inside.

She smiled and pulled the strap over her shoulder.  She dropped the small hand gun into her pocket.  All she had to do was walk out the door.

She walked out the door.

She found herself surrounded by men in suits with machine guns.  One beautiful blonde woman was standing in front of her, smiling.

“You must be Maggie,” She said as she smiled.

Maggie frowned, frustration running through her.  “This is getting fucking ridiculous!”

Barbie ignored the random comment.  “Now I want you to reach into your pocket, very slowly, and pull out the flash drive.”

Maggie’s face dropped, deflated.  She had come so far, only to fail when she was so…

That’s when she saw him.  He was hiding in the doorway across the hallway behind the six mercenaries.  She should have known.  After all, that’s why she picked him.

Jim Creegan.  She wondered if anything could kill the man.

He shook his head at her as he moved into position to make a move.  Maggie grabbed the bag and pulled it to her chest, clutching it like a mother would a child.  “No.”

“No?”  Barbie was confused.

“No, you’re going to kill me anyway.  Just get it over with.”  Maggie said, squeezing the heavy bag.

Barbie smiled.  “Well you are right about that, have it your way.”

They all steadied themselves to execute her via firing squad.

Creegan readied himself to make his move.

The door to the stairwell kicked open.

Everyone turned in surprise.

****

Bess

 To call Bess a gun would be a gross understatement of the facts.

Bess was an AA-12.

She resembled an M-16 assault rifle, but shorter and thicker. Instead a banana clip, she bore a large drum (like the Tommy gun) and a big scary barrel.

The AA-12 is a fully automatic shotgun.  The drum of ammo holds twenty shells of scatter-shot, and it can empty its clip in less than five seconds.

Bess haunts the nightmares of any who lay their eyes on her destructive power.

She is the scariest fucking gun ever invented.

****

Creegan remembered the gun from the RTA incident.  He remembered the sounds of thunder and the absolute damage it inflicted on everyone in Rockwell’s path of destruction.  He knew everyone in that hallway was going to die.

****

Barbie turned her head toward the idiot at the end of the hall.  He wore Hawaiian print button-up shirt and a cheap Wal-mart fedora on his head.  In his arm, he held some kind of strange-looking gun.

There was smile on his face from ear to ear.

“What the fuck are you?”  She asked, genuinely curious.

****

Rockwell smiled at them.  All eyes were on him.  “Honey, I’m the mother fucking end of your world.”

Rockwell snapped Bess up and pulled the trigger.

In his head, he could hear the climax of Beethoven's Ode to Joy.

****

Creegan saw Rockwell’s gun come up and move.  Putting all of his remaining energy into his actions right here and now, he sprinted across the hallway as the thunder began to sound from the mouth of Bess.

He lowered his shoulders and hit Maggie, colliding with the bag of money she clutched to her chest.  The force lifted her off the ground.  Creegan leaped and the two of them flew through the doorway behind Maggie.  They crashed to the ground and Creegan wrapped Maggie in his arms, clutching her to his chest, shielding her with his body as the seemingly endless booms sounded in the hallway.

As suddenly as it had begun, it ended.  There was a clang of shells hitting the ground and then silence.

Creegan breathed hard, staring at the door, waiting to see if anything happened.

“You think they’re all dead?”  Maggie asked.

Creegan shook his head.  “Don’t know.”

“Jim Creegan.  You still fucking alive?”  Rockwell’s voice called from the hallway.

Maggie sighed and Creegan muttered a curse word.

“Yeah,” Creegan answered finally.

“Maggie with you?” Rockwell asked.

Creegan stared at the empty doorway considering his response.  “Yeah.”

“For fuck’s sake, do you two ever die?!”  Rockwell said, frustrated.

Creegan didn’t respond to that, instead he waited.  Rockwell was seemingly thinking about something.

“Okay.”  Rockwell yelled, “I’m calling it.”

Creegan looked at Maggie, confused and Maggie shrugged.  “You’re calling it?”

 “I’m done, Creegan.”  Rockwell sighed.  “I’m all done.”

Creegan looked at Maggie and they decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth.  They stood and moved out through the opposite entrance, to the room and down the hallways to the exit.

****

Rockwell heard them go.  He then carefully moved through the field of dead bodies.  The shotgun had literally dismembered them; the hallway was covered in gore.  A stray shot had caught Rockwell in the stomach and he was bleeding a decent amount.  He could hear sirens in the distance and knew all that gunfire would bring the cops.  Either that or Elmo had called them.

He moved into the room where he had left Stone.  His eye caught Stone, lying on the floor.

“Told you I’d be back for you.” Rockwell said.

Stone grinned.  “That you did, brother.  I guess we are finally even for that time in Baghdad.”

Rockwell grinned.  “It was about time I got you back for that.”

Rockwell limped over and took a seat on the floor, back against the wall.  Stone was lying across from him.  “What’s with this laying on the ground shit?  We have to get out of here before the cops arrive.”

“Don’t think that’s going to happen, Rockwell.  I think you have lost it.”

Rockwell raised his eyebrow.  “I am a crazy mother fucker, but what are you getting at?”

“Well, for starters, I’m fucking dead.”  Stone responded.

Rockwell frowned.  “I know.”

Rockwell saw Stone for real now.  He wasn’t talking or lying down to take a break.  His eyes were open and staring without perception at the ceiling.  Stone had a small hole in his head and was lying in a pool of his own blood.

Stone was dead.

Rockwell had been too late.

Rockwell lit a cigarette and leaned back.  He decided to wait for the cops.

He was done.

****

Maggie and Creegan moved down a hill into someone’s backyard.  The house was empty and they decided to take a breather.  They could hear the sirens in the distance and knew the cops were all over the hospital.

They had done it.  Gotten in and out with everything.

They needed a bus ride to the airport and then, the sky was the limit.

“I can’t believe we did it.”  Creegan said, catching his breath.

Maggie turned and looked at him, smiling.  “You did it, not me.”

She rose and caught her breath walking over to him.  He smiled as she did and took her into his arms and they kissed.  It was a long and deep kiss.  A kiss for a winner.  Creegan had finally won something.  He felt accomplished.  He had come out of this situation with the spoils and the woman.

Things were looking up.

The kiss broke and Maggie looked up into Creegan’s eyes.  “Creegan, I’ve always liked you…”

Creegan’s smile turned to a frown as he heard the single small caliber gunshot.

“But I love money.”  Maggie finished her statement.

Creegan now felt the bullet deep in his abdomen and the strength seeped out of him.

He staggered and fell backward, landing in the grass as his breathing became ragged.  His head dropped to his right and he watched her hoist the bag over her shoulder, pocket the small gun and turn.

She walked away.

She didn’t look back.

(Season 1 ends here)