Mark Tufo - The End Has Come and Gone

“AJ, what did you do?” Aaron asked his son. AJ took a step towards his dad. Aaron backed up until his back was against the far hallway wall. AJ kept coming. “AJ, please. Please stop,” Aaron said, his gun shaking wildly. AJ teetered a step, almost losing his footing in the slick liquid that coated the flooring. “That’s a bad boy,” Aaron said. AJ was beyond caring about his father’s approval and relentlessly pressed on.

Aaron closed his eyes as he sprayed the immediate area with three pistol shots. The first shot popped into the doorframe sending a shower of splinters into his child’s room. The second shattered his son’s left leg and the third completed the deed. The round entered to the left of the child’s nose and exited at the base of his skull. The sound of the bullets being shot could not compete with the solid thud of impact as AJ’s body met the floor. Aaron spent a few more seconds looking past the lifeless body of his son to that of his wife. There would be no recovery from the 3 inch wide, 2 inch deep wound in his wife’s neck; blood had already ceased to flow.

He shut the bedroom door, walked down the hallway, grabbed a beer out of the fridge and sat down in his favorite chair. His headache had begun to crystallize into a white hot inferno of pain. He pressed the cold container against his head before taking long pulls to quench the sickness that begged to issue forth. Within minutes he had fallen asleep. When he woke, Aaron Gibson, respected policeman, loving husband and doting father would never view the world in the same way again. The bleeder in his head, his dead wife and the son he killed would never allow it. He didn’t remember lighting his house on fire, but as his police cruiser pulled out of the driveway and he took one last glance at his house, it sure did seem like the right thing to do.

“Company!” Wes said, startling Aaron out of his drug coma.

“Why they sitting there?” Kyle asked.

“Because they’re smart,” Officer Gibson replied as he took out his binoculars and looked at the car and truck that were a quarter of a mile or so away. “Looks like they got plenty of stuff in there too.” “Any women?” Wes asked.

“Hell,” Job said. “If you were so horny why didn’t you hook up with that lady?” he asked, pointing to the approximate location where Mrs. Pinchant’s body rested.

“I’ve got my standards,” Wes said sardonically.

“What about the women’s standards?” Kyle asked, laughing.

“Shut up. All of you,” Officer Gibson said. The constant talking got to him sometimes, but when his head was throbbing like it was now he couldn’t take any of it. “It looks like there’s at least two of them and plenty of stuff from what I can tell.” His vision had cleared somewhat since his nap but it wasn’t the 20-20 he was used to.

“Let’s play this cool.” Job told Wes. “And maybe you can fuck a live woman this time.”

“She was still warm,” Wes said in his defense.

At one time Officer Gibson would have just put a bullet in the degenerate’s head. Now, he just didn’t care. The world was anarchy and he was doing his part to keep it that way.

*

BT had tried to place some well-aimed shots in the second cruiser as they passed it by but Meredith had nearly lost control of her car after she slammed into the police car.

“Okay, I know you act a lot like your uncle, do you need to drive like him too?” BT half wailed as he pulled the rifle back in.

“Sorry,” she replied softly. “I… I just tried to kill a cop.”

“No you didn’t, you tried to save our lives. Now drive faster!”

Tracy had passed on the left as Meredith fought to regain control. The two cars came close enough that sliding anything thicker than a folded piece of paper between the two vehicles would have been impossible.

Dizz’s eyes had grown to twice their size as he watched BT get closer and closer. “That would have been bad,” he said as Meredith slid further back .

“I think I crapped myself,” Sty revealed.

“Please tell me he’s trying to be funny?” Tracy asked as she pressed harder down on the accelerator.

“Not so much!” Ryan yelled as he pinched his nose closed.

“Sty pooped himself!” Angel said happily from underneath the dashboard. “Poopedy-poop!” And then she went into her own made up song that was drowned out by the sound of the wind whipping through the car as all four windows were opened to capacity as they sped down the highway.

It took five full miles, but even at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour the ‘cops’ soon caught up to their prey and they were pissed.

Shots began to ring out but at these speeds nobody was in a rush to stick their head out for too long and take a well-placed one . Meredith had scooted so far down she looked like a 99-year-old osteoporosis sufferer.

“There is no way you can actually see where you’re going,” BT told her.

“I can see enough,” she answered, her hands almost above her head on the steering wheel.

“Meredith, BT! This is Ron, what’s your status?” blasted from the radio.

BT reached his arm over the bench seat to grab the handset. He took the cue from Meredith that maybe a low profile was a good idea.

“Hey, Ron!” BT yelled over the noise of the road and the percussions of the bullets. “We’ve got two very angry cop cars on our ass, we’re topped out at about a hundred and five and I don’t think their cars are even laboring. We won’t be able to do this for very long, her heat gauge is already starting to move up.” “How far until you get to Route 3?” Ron asked.

BT looked over to Meredith.

“Twenty minutes Dad!”

Ron’s heart dropped as he listened to the anguish in his daughter’s voice. “When you get to Route 3 remember to keep going straight, but you’re going to have to slow down, I’ll never be able to catch up.” “Speed is the only thing keeping us in the game, Ron,” BT explained. “How far are you from there?” “22 to 25 minutes,” Ron said. Even over the airwaves BT could hear the rev of Ron’s truck tach up an extra thousand or so revolutions.

“What if we start to slow down now?” BT asked.

Ron immediately grasped the implicit meaning.

“Ambush?”

“You got it.”

“Dad, hurry!” Meredith threw in at the end as if that wasn’t already a foregone conclusion.

“I’m coming honey,” Ron reassured her.

“Ever watch Nascar?” BT asked.

“Are my front teeth missing or something?” Meredith shot back.

“Okay, point taken. Listen, I want you to drop down to around 70 or so. When you do that, Tracy is going to start to pull away and I guarantee you that one of those cop cars is going to try and get her.” “Uh-huh,” Meredith said slowly, taking in the information.

“You’re not going to let them though.”

Meredith stole a glance over towards BT as if to see if he was bullshitting her, “Um, how am I supposed to do that?!” she fairly cried.

“Well, see, if you watched car racing you’d know,” BT said with a smile he didn’t feel.

“Um, excuse me, you don’t look much like a Nascar follower yourself.” “You’re right, more of an Australian rules football fan myself. Brisbane Lions are my team.” “You’re kidding me right?” Meredith shot him an incredulous look.

“Never about the Lions.”

“Fine, what do I need to do?”

“Just stay in front. When they swerve to get over, you swerve to block them .” BT knew it was an exercise in futility, but it would buy Tracy and Ron a few very precious minutes. Eventually the two trailing cars would see the ruse and instead of following in a line they would come up side by side. No matter how much Meredith swerved, she would not be able to block both at the same time.