Officer Savage
Officer Mitch Savage of the Blue
Haven Police Force loaded his service piece, holding it pointed skyward as he
took its safety off and drew back the slide. The weapon followed its mechanical
routine of lethal clicking as he pulled the trigger, causing the slide to snap
back in place and a round to enter the weapon’s chamber. He knew that bad guys were hiding in the
abandoned building in front of him. His
training failed to quell the fear that pulsated in his abdomen. He let that fear sharpen him and make him
alert, since he knew there was a nest of well-armed perpetrators inside. He saw one in the window. The man was little more than a silhouette,
wearing a black ski mask and aiming a submachine gun. Acting on reflex, he leveled his piece and shot. The sound and recoil of the weapon jarred
him as it spat fire. The bullet
impacted on the window frame, kicking up a small cloud of dust. The masked man’s weapon flared to life,
singing a popping drum beat of automatic small-arm fire. Officer Savage heard the bullets whine as
they bounced off of the concrete sidewalk beside him. He fired a second time and hit what he was aiming at. The masked man dropped and the decaying
building was eerily silent.
Movement drew Officer Savage’s
attention to the front entrance. The
battered metal door eased open, revealing another armed man. Officer Savage dropped him with a single
shot and the door slammed shut with a frustrated clank. The officer sent another round through an
upstairs window and glass broke with a jingle as the bullet crashed through and
into another masked man. Then the
firefight got hairy. The masked men
began to attack two, sometimes three at a time. Officer Savage felt the blows as lead hit his bulletproof
vest. He fired as quickly as he could
with sufficient accuracy, aiming briefly before pulling his trigger. He reloaded his weapon and holstered it.
Officer savage retrieved a
submachine gun. The weapon, which had
been used against him by a masked man, felt heavy and strong in his hands. He waited, aiming and ready. When he caught sight of a shadow in a ground
floor window, he fired a quick, controlled burst, dropping yet another masked
man. He saw movement again. A young girl looked at him from a second
story window. He nearly shot her on
reflex, but managed to turn the gun away just before he fired, sending four
rounds into the wall. Not wanting to
take the time to wonder what she was doing in the middle of a firefight, he
concentrated on watching for enemies. A
muzzle flash winked at him from the rooftop and he felt a shock of pain in his
shoulder. Ignoring the wound, he
returned fire. A masked man fell from
the roof and landed on the sidewalk.
Officer Savage looked at the dead criminal, knowing something was
wrong. No blood, he realized. The man did not even look wounded and his
posture was that of someone standing with his arms at his sides, not that of a
man who had fallen off of a roof.
Officer Savage saw movement directly in front of him and the realization
interrupted his thoughts. The front
door was swinging open.
He panicked, expecting an attack at
close range. As an unarmed woman in a
white tress ran into the street, Officer Savage fired. The bullets knocked her down and she lay in
the doorway. His mind boiled as he
swore at himself. The woman had
surprised him and he had fired without looking. She lay on her back, her hands at her sides, in the same posture
as the masked man. Officer Savage did
not have time to find out more, as another masked man appeared in the doorway,
firing. Bullets impacted his vest,
knocking him backward as he emptied his submachine gun into his attacker. He reloaded the weapon hastily.
Officer Savage watched the front of
the building, waiting for the next masked man to attack. In the tense stillness of the moment, fear
made him feel heavy. Not the fear of an
attack, but the fear that another civilian might come running into the middle
of the firefight. He had to wonder what
had motivated the woman to come running out, why there were so many gunmen and
why he had no backup. He tried to
remember and noticed that he had a blind spot in his mind. A panic driven by the fear of an unknown
threat squeezed at the back of his throat.
He could not remember how he got there, on the sidewalk in front of a
building full of perpetrators. He
struggled to remember any aspect of his life before the firefight.
A shotgun sounded from inside the
building. Officer Savage felt the
impact of pellets and a hot streak of pain bit into his scalp. He had caught only a glimpse of the
shirtless man in the ground floor window as he sidestepped out of view. The man was pale and unnaturally large, with
a shaved head and sunglasses. He had
almost seemed to glow as he had filled the window, firing the bulky,
double-barrel shotgun. The big man
appeared again and Officer Savage fired. He clearly saw the impact of bullets
on flesh, but the shotgun-wielding bruiser ignored it as he leveled the weapon.
The hit did seem to throw off his aim and he completely missed as he fired the
second barrel. Officer Savage fire
again, but missed as the bruiser moved out of sight once more. The submachine gun was out of ammo and
Officer Savage drew his sidearm. The
big man appeared in a different window and fired both barrels of his
shotgun. Officer Savage’s vest
protected him, but the force of the hit made his knees buckle. The man was gone
before he could fire again.
Suddenly, Officer Savage realized
that he could not move. He panicked and
struggled, but his muscles simply would not respond. He expected the giant gunman to appear and blow him away at any
second, but nothing happened. He
wandered if the people inside the building were just as paralyzed as he
was. Again, he tried to remember his
own past, searching his memory for anything that could have caused the
problem. He wondered if there was a
pill he had forgotten to take. He could
remember nothing. Then he noticed the
dust. When he had fired last, a bullet
from his submachine gun had kicked up a small cloud of dust near a window
frame. The dust was still, hanging in
the air as though the whole world were frozen. He wondered what higher power
could do this. He wanted to start
praying, but he could not even remember his own religion.
Billy got up to use the
bathroom. He had paused the video game
he was playing. He was just about to
take Officer Savage, his character in the game, into the next level. To do it, he had to defeat the last enemy, a
giant gang leader with a shotgun who could take a lot of damage before going
down. He had ignored the urge given to
him by the soft drink he had polished off moments ago until he was bouncing in
his seat. The game was paused, giving
him a still close-up of the cop’s handgun sights as he waited for the gangster
to re-appear.