Installment #6 from 'People Shooter'

Gotta tell you this is based on reality. This is how it can and well happen. The part about the lady knowing he was a killer seems to happen too much. I mean, how would she know this?

“I’m trying to understand. Please continue.” Officer Tracy watched him in the rearview mirror.

After slowing for the curb, the ambulance turned left, accelerating with its lights and siren on. A silhouette was leaning over the gun on the sidewalk. Then it gestured for someone else to stand near it. The silhouette joined four shadows with guns drawn as they all ran towards the front door of the school. They were hollering toward a couple that had stepped out of the building. The two held their hands up and hollered, “Parents!”

“This is real, pal. Guns build respect, one bloody little hole at a time. I’ll gun ‘em down. Let’s see how they sound dead. You apt to not forget that.” A tear surprised him and made him set up and clear his throat. “Where was I?”

“Shooting people—”

Three officers were walking toward them. Officer Tracy got out and stepped in front of them. One walked around her and pulled the door open; and grabbed McShuster. “See them people.” He pointed at the large crowd across the street. He gripped McShuster’s collar and pulled him halfway out of the squad and glared at him, inches from his face. “They’d just as soon kill ya—punk—than look at you.”

McShuster grimaced from stabs of sharp pain. He couldn’t answer nor did he see what the cop was pointing towards. His broken rib, if that’s what it was, made it feel like someone was pushing a long hot screw driver into his chest. It hurt so badly that he could only manage birdlike chirps.

“You think that’s funny?” The cop slammed McShuster back into the seat. The cop said something about wanting to kick some ass, and stomped off to where the gun was lying. A man was taking pictures of it. It was some kind of assault gun. That’s what his neighbor, the owner, called it. Now it was lying on the ground getting photographed. A skinny guy about his height approached the first picture taker and pointed at the gun. Obviously, he was from the paper and also wanted a shot.

  “Three-fourteen station headed to L.E.C. with one,” crackled the radio. McShuster looked up and saw Officer Tracy pushing her face to her shoulder mic. Voices were talking over each other but one did say, “We’re getting surveillance video. Four injured.” Then another one piped up that she thought it was six shooting victims. McShuster wondered how six got shot. Did I miss something here?

Officer Tracy got back in the squad and slammed the door. She drove off the curb, one tire at a time, before heading toward Second where a right turn would take them to the Police Station.

A lady in a bathrobe pushed herself out of the crowd and onto the street. As she bent down and hollered into the squad, McShuster looked down. “Is that you, Jimmy? Look at me. You’re gonna pay for this. If I had’da gun—” A man stepped in front of her and gently corralled her back to the crowd, but she spun and screamed, “I always knew you was a killer!”