Cornered like prey

1.       Cornered like prey(5)

Shelly breathed steadily, eyes closed. This was the end, and she was going to accept it. No pain, no suffering. A humorous thought crossed her mind of herself as an old, doddering lady in a hospital bed spending her last days there. Then Shelly smiled. No hospital could hold her. She didn’t want to spend her last days in a caged, barred room. She didn’t belong there. She belonged to the bullets that she knew would kill her. Anyway, the chance was 96.83% that she would die before she was 50. Shelly just happened to know this.

But Shelly didn’t belong cowering in a corner, either. Or running away. Or  surrendering. The only thing to do was to go and fight it out. The ambushers would be creeping cautiously along the corridor right now, with silent hand motions. Hundreds of them, swarming…

Shelly stopped, suddenly aware that she had missed an important detail while fantasising her own death. Normally in a tight spot, assessing everything unusual would improve her chances of survival. What was wrong with this situation?

A second went by without any ideas.

The stillness was stifling.

Two seconds went by.

White walls, white floor, white everything blinded her.

Yet another painful second passed.

The silence was penetrating.

Nearly all her thinking time had ran out.

Red alarms in peeked out behind corners, ready for action, ready to grab a thief like her red-handed.

Then suddenly, Shelly jumped up, alarmed by the almost impossibly good idea that leaped into her head. Everything clicked. The silence, the stillness, the blinding white, the alarms…Nothing was disturbed! No glaring, blaring alarms broke the stillness, shattered her concentration or painted the walls in a bloody haze. She hadn’t been caught by the prepared snipers that were waiting especially for her; the prepared snipers whose aim was particularly bad.

No, only protocol, untrained guards had been guarding the blueprint, and although the alarms would soon go off, only an untrained, unprofessional, small band were heading her way. The maximum number would be about 4 gunmen, all of whom had very bad aim and a slow reaction time. Shelly happened to remember this from the delayed, extremely bad shooting that she had experienced less than a minute before.

Complete concentration gripped her face tightly, clawing into her mind. She dashed to the cross section and stood about a metre away from the end. A faint sound of breathing reached her ears. Shelly held her breath. No, it was not hers. At least one of the gunmen would be 10 metres away.

1 second was up.

Shelly relaxed her muscles for the tenth time that day.

2 seconds were up.

The breathing grew louder

3 seconds were up.

Shelly could hear 2 men breathing now.

4 seconds were up.

No more than 2 metres away.

5 seconds were up.

‘Hurry up! the tension shrivelled Shelly’s insides

6 seconds were up.

Now! Go, NOW!

Shelly held her breath and took one big step towards the cross sections. No one shot. Shelly slowly removed her jacket, assessing the hearing of the guards. Nothing. ‘These guards are amateurs’, Shelly thought rather contemptuously. Shadows flickered vaguely against the opposite wall. Closer, closer until suddenly a small present was deposited on the front guard’s gun barrel and over his head: Shelly’s jacket. A cry of alarm went up throughout the 3 soldiers that had been advancing cautiously. If only they had begun shooting at that moment; their troubles would be over for the rest of the day, in fact, they would be made heroes. But unfortunately, they stood there gaping for the half second before Shelly leapt upon them.

Twisting the jacketed guard’s gun, she managed to somehow wrestle it from him while passing him. The pressure on his shoulder would not hold up, and the guard let go of the gun with a yelp as his whole arm was dislocated. Shelly never enjoyed killing people, so instead she rammed backwards with the gun, hitting the man with the dislocated shoulder in the head and knocking him unconscious. At the same time, she kicked another guard square in the nose. Unfortunately, the third guard still held his gun and had smartly stepped out of Shelly’s kicking range. Shelly whirled around to face him, and found a gun trained on her heart.

Shelly slowly flexed her fingers on the hand not holding the gun. He noticed. This soldier was good, Shelly had to admit, but even apart from him, the other guard was readying his gun also behind her. She whirled around, as if she was seeking escape and looked wildly at the gun. This was one of her best acts, and she played it well; although the guards’ body and facial expression did not change, his eyes relaxed, as though to say; ‘Yep, we’ve got her cornered.’ Shelly whirled around to face the other guard, seeking escape. She waited until she heard the guard behind her move closer and then made her move.

Dropping to the floor, Shelly swung her body around, gun catching the legs of the uninjured guard, and legs tripping the other. Almost immediately, Shelly leapt over to the smarter guard first and grappled for his gun. Although strong, the man was too shocked to keep a tight grip on it and within moments Shelly was kneeling on his back, two guns aimed at his head. The other guard stood up groggily, but then lifted his rifle in alarm.

“Drop it. I said DROP IT!” Shelly screamed at him. The guard stared at her, and looked very conspicuously down at his gun. “Don’t you dare.” Shelly shook her head at him. Slowly, he dropped his gun and sank to the floor slowly, hands up.

“Kick it away.” Shelly ordered him, and as he did so, his dark helmet slipped off, revealing a head of bright red hair and, with a shock, Shelly realised that the guard was no more than seventeen, eighteen at the most. His eyes, full of tears were pleading her, and slowly, Shelly’s gaze travelled to the few bright red curls of hair protruding from the guard on whose back she was sitting on. A few clicks were made in Shelly’s brain, and as she looked at the unconscious guard’s head, she was more than slightly relieved that he seemed completely unrelated. If they were, it would have been even creepier than it already was.

But Shelly’s shock had softened her. Avoiding the younger guards’ eyes, Shelly raised the gun in her right hand and dealt a swift sharp blow to the temple on the brother’s head. Apparently not hearing the soft cry of the younger brother, Shelly stood up and came towards him.

“I don’t kill people, you know, but they’ll be out for a while.” Shelly spoke, kicking the younger guards’ gun further away. “As will you. You’ll be out for a while, but be glad, I mean, you or your brother over there probably would have killed me.” She stood in front of him. “But first, you’re going to talk to the nice man on the other end of the radio and tell him that everything is just fine. Okay? But please, don’t muck it up. I’ve got the gun here.” Shelly hefted it to stress her words, and slowly the younger brother reached for the radio on his belt and pressed a button.

“Agent L2 Ruadh, what is your situation? Over.”

The seventeen year old raised his eyes slightly to Shelly, then lowered them and replied and steadily as he could: “All clear, over.”

“We had a report from R6 Ruadh that our plans were under threat, over.” the radio crackled

“Negative, sir. Over.” The poor seventeen-year old stammered

“Return to posts. Over and Out.” The line went dead.

Shelly raised the butt of her pistol, and Agent L2 Ruadh could not remember anything until the next day when he woke up in hospital.

But by then the plans were long gone.

˜·™

Shelly’s tough twine on her belt was all used up on the three guards, and now she was frantically looking through all of the guard’s bags. Nothing to really help her with her mission, but an extra pistol, a taser, a radio, some C4 plastic explosives with detonators, a key and a security card would definitely come in useful. Security cards, she knew, were dangerous, because they showed the users’ location, but that was better than nothing.

Shelly now faced yet another dilemma. The hallway just up ahead had security cameras all along it, and Shelly knew she had just moments to act before patrols would be sent to investigate why the guards hadn’t returned to their stations. Shelly straightened her outfit, produced a slightly singed jacket from the bullet-proof (yet not completely heat proof) compartment of her backpack (the rest of which was in pieces). Shelly also produced some heels that she attached to the bottom of her specially designed shoes. Speedily re-doing her hair into a tight bun, she set off down the corridor. Now the security officers would be slightly confused at who she was and where the guards were. Just before the heavy-duty metal door, Shelly tripped and lunged at the floor, pretending to just miss the hard tiles. She straightened up, took a deep breath and continued briskly; leaving behind a small white block of C4; invisible against the white floor. Just turning again at the end of the corridor, Shelly whirled around and punched the last camera from behind..

Shelly was running now, and only a few seconds after the first camera went down, Shelly had hit the second. As the other camera heads slowly started to turn, Shelly turned and covered her head as she pressed the big red button.

BOOM!!!

Small flying pieces of debris flew past her in a speedy haze, some pounding on her back, ruining the neat jacket that she wore. Hiding her face to avoid direct contact with the remaining cameras, Shelly scrambled towards the hole in the wall. Now alarms were pounding; shattering her already shattered thoughts.

Shelly was running now, jumping over broken clumps of plaster and torn metal twisted in silent agony. The gaping, makeshift doorway loomed dark before her.

Inside there was a table.

Inside there was a table with a secure clear document safe.

A smashed, clear document safe.

An empty, smashed, clear document safe.

The document had already been taken.

 

Author's Note

PLease comment on this, as it is my first ever attempt at a fight scene and I don't know how good it is! thanks!