On the Run – A short story

The sound of the door swinging shut was deafening in the semi darkness and humid conditions that seemed to stick, like glue to the inner walls of the room. The harsh winter wind caught on the light doorframe, holding the door ajar for a moment, before relinquishing it, letting it slam shut. As the closing door cut out the last glimmers of the grim outside world, a hooded figure was left standing in the dim half-light.

From what the man sitting in the corner of the room could tell, the figure that now presented itself to the rest of the room was about 6’1 and unlike any other that had entered the room that night. Peering over the peak of his newspaper in order to get a better look, the man in the corner watched as the hooded figure slowly made its way toward the centre of the room. The figure then stopped and seemed to inhale its surrounding, tension permeated the air. The man slowly began to feel for his Sig Sauer SP2022 pistol, while not taking his gaze off of the figure before him.

The room was a cool neutral yellow colour with peeling paint and dusty fixtures, a few dull landscape paintings hung from the walls. Though a great chandelier was suspended in the centre the ceiling, the room was lit by a dull, dust covered standing lamp in the corner of the room, the blinds on the windows had been purposely and securely shut in order to stop prying eyes. The only two doors leading out of the room were both wooden and had heavy chips and scars engraved on their surfaces, there was a strong smell of dust saturated with bleach in the air.

As the man’s fingers touched and began to grip the cold metallic surface of the pistols handle, not a single bead of sweat fell from his forehead. Nor did any fall from any of the other 6 men placed around the room, not a single hand quivered with unease or a single gaze differed from figure before them, as they all began to reach for similar high performance polymer framed firearms that they concealed beneath their crisp designer jackets.

The man, now sitting a little more upright, began to lower his newspaper ever so slowly, while with the other hand, fixing a cold metal silencer to the end of his weapon, if this was going to get interesting, the man thought to himself, no need to alert the outside world to their presence, they were after all, on the job. It would only take a single precise round to piece the figures carotid artery in the neck and kill the figure instantly. If it were not the man sitting in the corner who took the shot then it would be any of the other 6 men in the room.

As the man’s thoughts began to drift to the outside world, he was forced to catch himself and bring his mind back to the figure before him. It had been almost been a minute since the hooded figure entered the room and not a single word had been uttered. Then a door, opposite the door the hooded figure had enter by opened, and out of it came the reason that the 7 individuals had been called to the location that evening, a man talking on a phone, wearing a pristine black suit with the top button undone and the tie loosened.

The man seemed almost out of place in the room, the walls of the room were sweating with anxiety, but this man walked in with a smile on his face as he talked down the phone about how everything he had planed was coming to fruition. As the man’s gaze fell upon the hooded figure before him however, his look changed, his smile was lost and he ended his call. The room was returned to the arid silence, the man was now wearing a look of desperation that was slowly turning acceptance. The man uttered a single word in a foreign language and then returned to silence.

The hooded figure in the centre of the room finally moved, the man sitting in the corner raised his weapon, but it was already to late. Time seemed to slow down as the figures outer coat started to fall to the floor, in the time it took for the heavy black coat to fall, eight metallic clicks shuddered the heavy air and eight soft thuds then followed, as the eight hand crafted silenced bullets cut through the air and found their targets, in the forms of the soft necks of the surrounding men that were still attempting to raise their weapons.

It was all over in an instant, time resumed and the eight fresh bullet casing fell to the dusty floor, shortly followed by seven dead bodies. For one body was not completely lifeless when it hit the ground, the body of the man that had previously been seated in the corner still retained some life, though due to the fatal bullet wound in the neck, that remaining life was not going to linger.

The man could only watch as body that he no longer seemed to control was rapidly loosing blood, his heart was slowly and it was becoming increasingly hard to think. He watched in pure agony as his lifeblood formed a pool around his head, seeping through the cracks in the floorboards and soaking his hair. As the life drained out of him, he managed to look upward toward the hooded figure once more as the figure proceeded to fire a further 2 shots in to the lifeless torso of the mans employer.

The man could take no more, he shut his eyes and let deaths cold embrace take him. Moments later a police traffic camera filmed a hooded figure wearing a heavy black coat exiting a ordinary house, in a row of 3 other ordinary houses on South Portland Avenue between DeKalb and Lafayette Avenues in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, the figure was then lost by the camera as the it disappeared in to the bustling sea of people making their way up and down the crowded Avenue on that cold New York winters night. Now he’s on the run.