Untiteled Chapter One Part Three

 

  Rose continued to scream, SOMEBODY CALL THE POLICE, until her voice nearly gave out. Finally Ray managed to pull himself together and to try and console Rose and lead her from danger. Another shot rang out and clipped Ray in the shoulder, the bullet hit him with all the force of a linebacker making a full on tackle, holding onto Rose he went down hard but was able to grit through the pain of his burst shoulder and continued to lead Rose behind the counter, hopefully out of harm’s way.

 

  Danny was cowering in the corner of the kitchen, his greasy thumb in his mouth, crying like a little girl, useless. He started to sob even deeper as he realized he had just pissed himself. Some man he is, couple little gun shots ring out and all he can do is cry and piss.

 

  Rose! Listen to me, Ray said. You have to try and stop screaming, you have to calm down and be quiet. If that sonofabitch comes in here he'll know where you are. Through now slowing sobs Rose squeaked out, O, oo, o, k, k, kay Ray, Okay. She started to quiet down and held her breath to a soft barely inaudible moan. I’m going to try and get help.

 

  Ray reached for his cell but it was dead. Crawling on his stomach he headed toward the office to try the phone in there, when he picked up the line it too was dead. B*****d must have cut the lines but why? What is he after? Who was the meat head now splattered across the floor and all over me? He subconsciously whipped blood from his brow and only succeeded in smearing it over his forehead.

 

  Now he had to figure out what to do next. He knew he couldn’t just sit there and do nothing except wait for the gunman to come to him. But he really couldn’t go after the gunman either, didn’t know where he was first of all, and if he stuck his head out of the diner he was sure to be the next victim. He rifled through the drawers of the desk to look for some first aid supplies, nothing. He kept telling himself; I have to save Rose, I have to stop this bleeding, God it f*****g hurts like hell. Where the hell is the first aid kit? Ray screamed, he slapped a hand around his mouth to muffle the rest of what he was thinking.  Just then he heard two more gun shots ring out across the dining room, pulling himself to his feet he ran out behind the counter, head down, half slumping form his burning shoulder. Rose, are you okay, are you okay, he called, but he got nothing in return, nothing except a painful fear in the pit of his stomach. God Please let Rose be Ok, Please, he thought to himself with an up-cast eye.

 

  As Ray rounded the corner of the counter he saw Rose lying there, unmoving and he couldn’t tell if she was breathing. He quickly checked for a pulse and found it. Oh thank God! He put his cheek down to her face to feel if she was breathing and to his joy she was but only just. She must have passed out from the shock, he thought. What the hell am I going to do? What the hell am I going to do? What the hell am I going to do? He kept repeating to himself over and over!

 

  Then it dawned on him that if he could figure out where the gunman was shooting from he might be able to force him out of hiding. How could he find where the fire was emanating from? He thought, maybe he could creep over to the now watermelon head and try to lure the shooter out with the body but the man was huge, what was left of him. Why had the police not been notified already, he thought? It was Four in the Morning surely those shots must have woken someone? What the hell is going on? Maybe he could just lift watermelon enough to get him above the table. If he could position his head where the melon used to be, effectively using himself as bait, the gunman might take a shot thinking he hadn’t killed his target after all.

 

  Ray positioned himself behind watermelon and grabbed him under the pits; with everything he had in him he tried to heft the large corpse just above the table, his head in place of the melons. Turns out Ray didn’t have to get him very far, with the slightest movement the gunman fired off another round; Ray heard the projectile zipped past his left ear, another round quickly followed past his right. It was enough for Ray to see the muzzle flash across the way, looked like it came from a five story hotel roof, just behind the A.C. unit. Okay, now I know where the madman is, and I know he’s not a sniper, Ray thought. What am I going to do about it?

 

  Where are the f*****g police?