Blake Crouch - Birds of Prey

“Don’t worry, bro.” Alex popped in a clip and jacked a round into the chamber. “I got this.”

Javier smiled. “So, you’re a good shot, pretty lady?”

Alex winked. Then she quickly aimed at the analog wall clock across the room, firing four shots in rapid succession.

Everyone looked. She’d shot out the numbers 3, 6, 9, and 12.

Javier whistled. “I think my manhood just became aroused.”

“I’m in,” Charles said.

“I can’t shoot like that,” said Luther, “but I’m game.”

“And that makes cinco,” said Javier. “What’s the winner get?”

Mr. K smiled. “To finish off Mr. Porter, of course.”

Luther knew his chances at winning were slim to none, but he didn’t care. This night was shaping up to be the most fun he’d had in years.

Javier

The firing range was divided into seven stations, but the contestants all gathered at lane 4, the one in the middle.

The shooting area extended back fifty yards.

Reinforced baffles had been situated along the roof and walls for noise mitigation, and in the quiet prelude to the shooting, Jav could hear the hum of the ventilation system.

“Can we take the ball-gag out?” Luther asked, motioning to Porter who was huddled against the wall in a puddle of fear and whimpering. “I want to hear him scream.”

“Me, too,” Alex said.

Mr. K knelt down in front of Porter. “Before I take this off, I want to warn you,” he said. “We’re done with the pleading and the begging and the crying. Do you understand?”

A defeated nod.

“Stand up.”

Porter struggled onto his feet.

“Now walk with me.”

Javier watched Mr. K and Porter duck under the table at lane four and walk downrange. He followed, as did the others, and it took them a minute and a half to reach the sloped concrete berm at the end of the range.

“Ground rules,” Luther said. “You start against that far wall. When you hear the air horn, you have to make it to that end, and back. If you can do that, we won’t kill you.”

“Hey!” Charles said. “We didn’t discuss that part!”

“We have to give him a reason to live,” Luther answered, “Of else he’ll just curl up in a ball and die. I’ve seen it before. It’s no fun.”

“You…you’ll really let…let m-m-m-me live?” Porter stammered.

“You make it there and back, brother, you live.”

“Will you pay my marker, too?”

Mr. K slapped him upside the head. “Don’t get greedy, Mr. Porter.”

Alex

The killers lined up in the middle five lanes, Alex in six, Charles in five, Mr. K in four, Luther in three, and Javier in two. This would be their firing order as well. The men had graciously allowed her to go first, since she was the only woman present.

Dumb asses. Alex knew she could shoot the pants off of any man.

Alex removed the clip and racked the slide a few times to check the action. Then she popped the clip back in, jacked a round, and sighted up the man who stood quivering downrange.

She was so turned on right now.

Since Javier was shooting last, he had the air horn at his station.

“Everyone ready?” Javier shouted, his voice echoing downrange.

“Ready!” Alex shouted.

“Ready!” Charles shouted.

“Ready!”

“Ready!”

Javier said, “Mr. Porter! You warmed-up, loosened-up, and ready to run for your life?”

Porter yelled back, “Please! You don’t have to do this!”

Alex glanced around the dividing wall between hers and Charles’s lanes, saw Javier holding up the air horn canister.

“Mr. Porter, on your mark!”

Alex raised her Ruger.

“Get set!”

Drew a bead on Porter.

“Run, motherfucker!”

The moment the air horn sounded, Alex shot Porter square in his left foot.

Jack

As expected, Clay bought Jack Daniels shots as the first round. Such was the curse of my name.

We were in the hotel bar, which was so packed that we had to fight for room to stand, and sitting wasn’t even close to being an option. I had to wait ten minutes to order a second round, Goose Island beer, and then asked the bartender if there was a liquor store nearby.

“West, half a mile up the street,” he said.

When I shared the information with the boys, they agreed that making a booze run was preferable to drinking elbow-to-elbow with five hundred people in a bar designed to hold half that. We took our bottles outside with us because, hey, Clay and I were cops, and after some vigorous discussion on which direction west was, began to head up the street.

As we passed the range, I head a faint pop-pop-pop, like distant firecrackers.

“Gunshots?” Tequila asked, looking at me.

“Sounds like a small caliber,” Clay said. “Muffled, too.”

I glanced at Porter’s Guns and Ammo. “Could they still be open?”

“Only one way to find out.”

And so our trio headed toward the shop.

Charles

As his sister shouted “Ten points!” Charles was drawing a bead. Porter had managed to stay upright, and was limping faster than most people could sprint, a scream squealing out of his throat like a train whistle.

Charles didn’t even bother to go for the blurring limbs.

He aimed center mass, and squeezed.

Mr. K

“Side hit, minus twenty.” Mr. K led the target, and winged his flailing arm. “Five for me, right arm.”

Though he didn’t smile often, he felt his lips twist upward.

This was actually a lot of fun.

Luther

Luther had been aiming at Porter from the moment the air horn sounded, tracking his trajectory across the back of the range. Already he was halfway to the opposite wall. To be honest, he wasn’t sure of where he was aiming, just started squeezing the trigger until the slide locked back.

Porter suddenly grabbed his side and hit the deck, flopping face-first onto the concrete and leaving a blood streak, screaming all the way.

“My bad!” Luther yelled, “minus a hundred!”

Clay

“That was a scream,” Clay said. “I’d swear on my sweet Mama’s head that was a scream.”

Rather than wait for the others, Clay rushed the door to the gun shop, smacking into it with his shoulder. It was a bad move; the door was reinforced with steel.

Not a problem. Alice can get in.

He stepped back, drawing Alice out of her holster, taking aim at the deadbolt.

Javier

That pendejo cheater, Javier thought, but it made him grin anyway.

And Luther had done him a favor. The moving target was now moving at a much slower pace, crawling across the floor.

Javier took his time, sighting Porter down the barrel of the brand-spanking new Ruger, and then he put a round into his left elbow.

Porter

He’d been shot by a Crosman air rifle when he was fifteen years old, the BB punching into the back of his left leg. It had felt like a bad bee sting, and his mother had dug out the tiny copper ball with a pair of tweezers while he cried.

This was about a million times worse, and—

FUUUUUCCCCK!

Another round struck his left elbow in a searing blast of pain. The bullet, failing to crack bone, had taken a ride under the skin up his humerus and exited the back of his arm. He forced himself up onto his feet, his left foot throbbing, the bullet lodged between his phalanges, and he screamed through the pain and kept crawling as fast as he could manage, until his hands touched the far wall.

Halfway there. I can make it. If I can just get back up on my feet, I can—

Then another bullet blew off the back of his left heel.

Tequila

What Alice started, Tequila finished, exploding off the balls of his feet and driving his massive left shoulder into the door of the gun shop.