Richard Cox - House of the Rising Sun

My spare clips and weapons were inside, only yards away, but if it was Paige who’d shot at me, I wouldn’t get another chance. The moment she saw my silhouette in the doorway, I would be dead.

There was no option but abandon the other guns and remaining rounds.

I ran.

When Seth saw Billy and Miguel knocked to the ground by gunshots, a moment passed where his mind went completely blank, like an email someone had been writing but quickly deleted. After walking so far, having overcome so much to get here, he couldn’t believe it would all end like this.

“Put down your weapons!” Aiden yelled at them. “Every one of you, put your guns on the ground or I will open fire.”

The darkness was closer than it had ever been. All his life Seth had known it would come to this. All his life he’d been waiting for the end.

“I’m taking Thomas and Skylar outside,” Larry said inconceivably. “I want to show those people why they’re here. I want Thomas to pay for doing this to us.”

Seth understood how Larry felt. A couple of days ago, while he was drunk on whiskey, Skylar had convinced him to believe all this was Thomas’ fault. But in the sober light of day that reasoning seemed desperate and futile. This was no movie and there would be no happy ending. It was reality, and it was always going to end poorly.

“Seth,” said Aiden, “pick up your gun and throw it out the door. Throw Thomas’ out the door. I don’t want complications. I have work to do.”

Seth could barely make himself move. His family was in danger and these weapons were the only means to protect them. But at the moment his options were limited, so he carried out the orders as instructed.

Soon Aiden was swallowed by shadows, and the sound of his retreat faded in the distance.

“We need our weapons back,” Tim said. “Larry has lost his mind. He’ll drive the crowd inside before we secure supplies.”

“I’ll get the weapons,” Seth heard himself say. “The rest of you grab whatever you can.”

He approached the open door of the warehouse, the place where a truck would back its trailer to be loaded or unloaded. The floor was about four feet above the ground outside. He jumped to the concrete below and retrieved a military rifle and two handguns, including his own. He could hear someone in the crowd yelling. Or maybe Larry yelling.

Anthony took the weapons from Seth and helped him up, back into the warehouse. Outside, the sound of the crowd grew quiet. After so much noise, the silence felt ominous.

“My wife and children are back there somewhere,” Seth said to Anthony, pointing over his shoulder. “I need to find them.”

“We should all go,” said Anthony. “Now.”

Seth nodded. But when he turned around, toward the darkness, he saw Jimmy doubled over on the concrete floor. His face was tinted green and his eyes were closed. Seth approached and knelt next to him.

“Jimmy,” he said. “You want me to drag you out of here? I don’t think I can carry you.”

“Nah. My goose is cooked. Live fast and die young, right?”

“Just so you know,” Seth said. “I was going to pay. If it weren’t for all this, you would have gotten what was coming to you.”

“I had a nice life. I got what I deserved. Now, go get your wife and kids.”

“All right, Jimmy. Take care, man.”

Seth stood. Tim had emerged from warehouse depths carrying a small box labeled PETER PAN CRUNCHY.Anthony held his rifle at waist level.

“We need to—”

The sound of running footsteps interrupted him. It was a teenage girl followed by a woman who might have been her mother. The two of them ran into the darkness, toward the warehouse exit. A few others followed, nodding at Anthony as they ran past. These were other warehouse employees, Seth guessed. Everyone was leaving.

Everyone except an imposing figure that emerged from the darkness, coming quickly this way. Seth raised his weapon, afraid Aiden had returned to kill them.

But it wasn’t Aiden. It was Paige.

“Your wife and kids are safe,” she said as she roared past. “They’re waiting on you. I’m going outside to take care of Larry.”

“Thomas and Skylar are still out front,” Seth said to Anthony and Tim. “I can’t leave them. I should help Paige.”

“She doesn’t need your help,” Anthony replied. “You should go to your family.”

While Seth stood there, deliberating, a gunshot erupted. It was barely yards away, just outside the warehouse door. Then Paige appeared near the dock. She was gesturing to someone, imploring them to run. The roar of the crowd swelled enormously.

And then from above, on the roof, more gunshots.

Bitter bursts of gunshots.

People began to scream. Everyone began to scream. And still the industrial battering of gunfire, like something Seth would expect to hear on a battlefield. So many shots. So much screaming.

Coming this way.

“Natalie!” he yelled into the darkness. “Take the kids and go. Run back to Tim’s house as fast as you can! Go now!”

He hoped she could hear him. He hoped she was already headed for the exit.

While he stood there, watching for the silhouettes of his family, Seth heard Paige climb into the warehouse from the dock. Anthony hurried over and reached for Skylar. Seth helped Thomas inside.

“You guys need to run,” Paige said. “I’ll hold them off as long as I can.”

But Seth knew now what he was meant to do. This was how he would save his family. Not by crawling into a car and going to sleep. Not by deserting them.

No, he would stand here and fight for them.

“Please take care of my boys,” Seth said to Paige. “Help Natalie get them away from here. That’s all I ask.”

Thomas and Skylar were already running toward the rear of the warehouse. Tim followed, struggling with his case of peanut butter.

“Many people are coming,” Anthony said. “I will stay and try to negotiate with them.”

“Please,” said Seth to Paige. In her smoky blue eyes he saw empathy. Ferocity. Admiration.

“Natalie will know what you did for them,” she finally said. “I’ll make sure of it.”

Then she turned and sprinted away. Seth watched her go, running past Tim and into the darkness of the DC, where Thomas and Skylar had already disappeared.

The shooting above them stopped. Seth remembered Aiden’s declaration, how he had “work” to do. The nature of that work seemed clear now. Seth imagined Aiden climbing to the roof with all the ammunition he could carry, standing above the crowd, firing into them, another mass murderer, only this time there would be no television coverage, no breaking news banner, no active shooter alerts.

Just a man with a ruined mind killing innocent, starving people for no reason other than he could. A crowd fleeing in fear, hungry, desperate to survive.

Now, the first faces of the crowd reached the docks. Hands appeared, reaching for purchase on the warehouse floor. Seth pointed his weapon toward the door, but there was no reason to kill anyone who didn’t deserve it. These people were hungry and wanted to eat, just as Seth and his family had wanted to eat.

The first man finally hauled himself up and stood in front of the dock door. He held a handgun. Now another man with a shotgun. They crept forward with their weapons ready to fire, and Seth wondered what the impact of a bullet might feel like. The worst injury he’d ever sustained was a broken finger. There hadn’t even been pain at first. Just an anxious sense of something terribly wrong.

More people on the dock were climbing up.

“You’re the one who wouldn’t feed us,” said the man with the shotgun, looking at Anthony. “We stood out there for three days. Then you ordered your man on the roof to open fire on us. Why?”