G Hopf - The End

Looking down at her he declared, “Mrs. Conner; I will find him; I promise you. I will do what I can.”

She didn’t look at him or respond. She just lay on the couch and sobbed uncontrollably. Dylan just stared at her for another moment before he turned and left the room. When he closed the door he heard her wail in grief. A tear came to his eye, but he quickly swept it away and briskly walked down the dimly lit hallway toward the command center and his new mission.

San Diego, CA

Tossing and turning in his sleep, Gordon’s dreams had taken him back to his final tour in Iraq. He was reliving the brutal horrors of war. He couldn’t escape the bodies no matter how fast he ran. Each time he took sanctuary in a bullet-ridden building he would find more bodies. Bullets were raining down on him but he was not getting hit. The cries, he heard cries. These were the cries of a baby. With every door he opened, the cries would grow louder but he was never closer to finding the baby, just more bodies. In the distance, he heard his name being called out, “Gordon, Gordon!” The cries soon morphed into sounds of a different kind of gunfire. The sound of his name being called grew louder and louder.

“Gordon, Gordon!” Nelson yelled coming into Gordon’s bedroom.

Gordon sat up sweating from the dream, the room was pitch black.

“Gordon, Gordon, wake up!” Nelson yelled urgently.

Gordon looked over in the direction of Nelson’s voice, then he heard the crack of gunfire through the window. Grabbing his rifle, which lay next to him, he sprang out of bed and past Nelson.

“Gather the family and have them stay in the master bedroom. I’m going to find out what’s going on.”

“Are you sure you don’t need me?” Nelson asked, following Gordon down the stairs.

“I’m sorry I keep leaving you at home, but there isn’t anyone else I would trust with my family’s safety.”

Holloway and his family had spent the night at Gordon’s house. He came out of a lower bedroom with his rifle and asked, “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know; but come with me.” Gordon said.

Gordon took note that the gunfire was coming from the vicinity of Jimmy and Eric’s houses. Grabbing a handful of loaded magazines for his rifle and pistol, he opened the front door to leave.

“No one comes into this house unless you properly identify them, got it?” Gordon exclaimed.

“You got it, boss,” Nelson acknowledged.

Before the door shut, Gordon was stopped by Samantha’s voice, “What’s going on? Gordon what’s going on?” she ran down the stairs and to the front door.

“I think that Mindy and Dan are attacking Jimmy or Eric.”

“Don’t you think you should stay here?”

“Nelson is here and so is his dad. I need to go help.”

Reaching out to him, Samantha hugged Gordon tightly and kissed him, “Be safe, I love you.”

His injuries were still slowing him down, but the pain was numbed by the medications and the adrenaline pumping through his veins. The gunfire grew louder with each step he and Holloway took. Rounding the street corner, he could faintly see the front of Jimmy’s house thanks to a half moon in the sky. The garage door was fully open with shadowy figures running in and out. Gunfire erupted from the second floor, followed by screaming.

Not bothering to identify who was running away from Jimmy’s house, he opened fire on them. His assumptions were if you were running away then you must be a bad guy. Holloway followed suit, and was also engaging those in the street ahead of them.

Gordon made a mental note that they had shot four people before they began to move on Jimmy’s house. Screams still echoed out of the second floor of the house.

“Cover me, I’m going in,” Gordon commanded.

“Roger that,” Holloway replied taking a knee and scanning the street.

He was not able to take five steps before gunfire rained down on him, followed by a familiar stinging pain in his upper left arm.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he cried out in pain.

Holloway took aim and engaged whoever had fired the shot. The sparsely lit night made it almost impossible to identify and know if you had hit someone.

“You okay?” Holloway asked Gordon.

“Yeah, I just can’t stop getting fucking shot!”

Feeling that the wound was only a graze, he kept moving toward the open garage door. Loose debris and boxes littered the sidewalk leading up to the garage. Entering the garage, he stepped on someone. Whoever it was let out a grunt then pleaded.

“Help me please,” they whispered in pain.

Pulling his light out Gordon flashed it in the man’s face. It was Gerald, Mindy’s husband.

“Please help me,” Gerald pleaded.

Not showing mercy, Gordon leveled his rifle at Gerald’s face and pulled the trigger.

Flashing the light around the garage he saw that Mindy and her people had ransacked Jimmy’s supplies. However they gained access was not important, but they had been successful. Jimmy did defend his house, as was evident with Gerald and a lifeless body near the door to the house. Panning quickly over the garage, Gordon also saw the small pit bull that Jimmy had rescued lying dead in a pool of blood.

The screams were still coming from the second floor. It sounded like Simone. Gordon couldn’t stall any longer; he needed to make it to Simone as soon as he could. A loud crash came from the doorway to the house. Two men appeared out of the darkness and into the garage. Not wasting time, Gordon pointed his rifle and let the semi auto do its job. Both men fell to the ground with a thud. Moving with purpose, Gordon stepped over them and into the house. What little light he had outside was now gone. The house was totally dark. Gordon took two steps and tripped over what felt like another body. When he tried to get up, he slipped and fell down again. The tile floor was covered in blood, making it extremely slippery, and with zero light he didn’t know where to step.

After he fell the second time, someone shot at him from inside the house. The bullets hit the hallway wall above him. If it hadn’t been for him falling down, he would have been hit. Gordon sprayed bullets into the part of the room where he’d seen a muzzle flash. The only sound that followed was a loud crash of what sounded like a body falling over.

Sweat was pouring off of Gordon’s brow and his new wound stung. Simone’s wailing continued; the stairs seemed like a million miles away, with someone shooting at him each few steps he took. Not knowing what he would be walking into, he stood up and made his way into the living room. Reaching out with his left arm, he felt the wall and followed it to the bottom of the stairs. Gordon took the brief moment at the base of the stairs to transition to his pistol. He slung the rifle and pulled out his Sig 240. The stairs went up halfway then hit a landing, there he’d have to turn left and go up the remaining set of stairs to the top. With his pistol out in front of him, he began his march upstairs.

Reaching the landing without incident he called out, “Simone, it’s Gordon!”

“Gordon, hurry quickly, it’s Jimmy; he’s been shot; please hurry.”

Gordon raced up the remaining stairs and toward Simone, who was kneeling with Jimmy in her arms. They both were bathed in the light of a lantern. He re-holstered his pistol and began to examine a blood-covered Jimmy.

“Simone, where’s he shot?”

“They shot him in the chest; those bastards came in and shot him in the chest,” Simone cried.