Sam Sisavath - The Isles of Elysium

At the twenty-meter mark, Keo decided to run straight for a while before breaking off and going right for another fifteen. Each time he changed directions, the shooter had a hard time keeping up, and three more shots missed him by wide margins. Keo started noticing that each round was falling further behind him, which meant the guy was having difficulty adjusting.

The sniper finally stopped shooting-or at least the ground stopped exploding around him-when Keo successfully crossed the road and entered the overgrown lawn of the closest warehouse. He passed a sign with a guy holding a welder’s torch, but he was moving too fast to read the company name.

The large twin doors into the building had been pried open long ago, leaving a gaping hole for Keo to easily slip through without the need to break his stride. A good thing, because as soon as he darted out of the open there was a loud pang! as a bullet ricocheted off the metal wall behind him.

A little late there, aren’t you, pal?

The interior was steel walls and roof and solid concrete floors. Heavy machinery lined the cavernous room, which actually looked much bigger inside, and the ground was sticky with year-old oil spills and God knew what else. Every step he took produced a squeaking sound that echoed (too loudly) off the walls. The air was musky and smelled of chemicals, more oil, and a lot of grease. He couldn’t find any evidence as to what the warehouse had been used for once upon a time, and as he hurried through it toward the back, he guessed it didn’t really matter.

It was just another old relic of the past, like Santa Marie Island, like the boardwalk and fairground at the channel and the strip mall with the sniper behind him. No one was going to come in here anymore except guys like him looking for shelter, and soon nature would reclaim this area. He’d be surprised if he could even still see the warehouse in ten, maybe twenty years. Unlike back at the shopping center, there were no concrete parking lots to keep the woods at bay on this side of the street.

It took a while given the size of the building, but finally he reached the other end and made a beeline toward a steel back door. The lever was covered in black gunk that might have been oil or grease or a combination of the two-or possibly something else entirely. He was reaching for it when there was a crack! and a round ping! off the metal surface, ricocheting into an assembly line machine behind and to the right of him.

Keo spun and fired back without aiming, or really knowing what he was shooting at. He was also darting left when more than one rifle opened up in return.

The sound of unsuppressed gunfire inside the warehouse was deafening, and they were quickly joined by the multiple pings! of bullets bouncing off walls and machinery around him, every single one of them seemingly trying to track him down.

Out of the frying pan and into the bonfire.

Daebak.

They stopped shooting only after he had made it behind cover. Through the fading echoes of ricocheting bullets, Keo picked up the loud squeaking of shoes from the front of the warehouse. That told him there was definitely more than one shooter, but he had already figured that part out when they unloaded on him.

It couldn’t have been the sniper. There was no way that guy could have gotten down from the Archers and crossed the parking lot so fast. Which left him with what? Maybe those reinforcements he was sure the man must have had waiting in the wings, finally arriving. A sniper left behind to watch the road and lie in wait for Steve’s people would be armed with a two-way radio so he could relay information about enemy movements.

He’d waited too long, giving the shooter the time to call in his friends. It had to be Tobias’s people. Of course, Jack hadn’t said anything about an ambush at the first hint of civilization, but then again, that was Jack. Lying Jack. Or, in this case, information-hiding Jack.

Dickhead Jack.

“Spread out!” someone shouted.

A male voice. Deep. Keo wondered what the chances were that he was hearing Steve’s best friend Tobias giving orders.

Right. Like your luck’s that good, pal.

Hard metal poked into his back. Part of some kind of manufacturing equipment. He’d never spent a day of his life inside a warehouse working an assembly line, so the shape pressing into him was just another mystery he didn’t have any interest in exploring. It was cold and heavy and easily stopped bullets, and that was all he really cared about.

“Hey!” the same voice shouted. “You still alive back there?”

The man was still near the very front of the warehouse, which was of course part of an elaborate trick to divert his attention. The man’s “friends,” the ones ordered to spread out earlier, were moving slowly in his direction right now. Keo could hear their shoes squeaking against the grease and oil and God-knew-what-else covered floors as they did their best to move silently.

Not quite silent enough, boys.

Keo leaned out the right side of the bulky object behind him and saw two men moving steadily up in his direction, almost hugging the wall. They were half-crouched, half-walking, and were still a good forty meters away when he spotted them. They were both wearing sneakers and civilian clothes, and he swore one of them had on a Houston Rockets cap, though they were in a dark patch of the warehouse and he didn’t get a clear look at them.

When they saw him peeking out, their reaction was priceless. It was like looking at two deer caught in a car’s headlights.

That lasted for about half a second before one of them snapped off a shot while the other darted behind something shiny for cover. The round pinged! off whatever it was Keo was leaning out from behind, forcing him back behind cover. He stuck his MP5SD out and squeezed off a short burst up the warehouse, heard the satisfying ping! ping! as his rounds bounced off something solid.

Hopefully that would send them scurrying back. Or, at least, halt their advance.

“Make this easy on yourself!” the same man shouted, his words booming off the steel walls and high ceiling. Despite the distance between them, the ensuing echo meant Keo didn’t have to strain to hear him. “There’s no way out of here! I got people on the other side of that door, too. You’re trapped!”

Keo sighed. And here he had been hoping to eventually make a run for the back door and slip out into the woods the first chance he got. Then again, people tended to lie a lot these days. Jack was proof of that. So what was to keep this other guy-

The lever on the back door moved up and down, but it was locked and whoever was on the other side gave up on opening it a few seconds later.

Or not.

“Come on now!” the man shouted. “You gotta know you’re trapped. Don’t prolong the inevitable!”

“What do you want?” Keo shouted back.

He figured he didn’t have anything to lose. Maybe, if he was lucky (Yeah, right) one of them was Tobias. If so, that would make his job a lot easier. Well, maybe not easier, easier. But definitely cut down on all that time he was going to have to spend looking for his target, something he thought might take a while. Like a day or two…or a week.

“He’s out there, somewhere,” was all Jack had been able to tell him about Tobias’s whereabouts.

Yeah, thanks for that, Jack, you lying piece of shit.

“I want you to come out!” the man shouted.

He sounded much closer than before, but Keo was trying to keep tabs on the squeaking shoes instead of concentrating on the voice. That was a diversion, and had been from the very beginning. The shoes, on the other hand, didn’t lie, and they were definitely getting closer. They were also coming along the walls to both the right and left of him, but of course he could hear the ones to his right much clearer because of proximity. His spray-and-pray earlier might have forced them behind cover, but it hadn’t lasted.