Out of the Black - Lee Doty [139]
The screaming goes on until she doesn't have any more air for it, then there is a pause where only gunfire and the harsh clash of fists compete with the sound of her ragged inhalation. She wants this to stop, wants to run away... can run away. But she knows she won't run. She is the only hope for Hawthorne, poor unconscious Mendez, poor wet Jeremy, and the surgeons. She's done with fear, and now she's done with failure. With a shock that is eighty percent guilt, twenty percent enlightenment, she realizes that she would rather be here than sitting at home with a good book.
Here she matters. Here she can help.
Her scream rips out again amid the melee, fractionally harder this time.
Hawthorne stumbled partially as she pulled the trigger and her shot went wild. The three round burst tore into the wall and ceiling above the observation window. She didn't hit either of the gunmen that had appeared there, but the burst was enough to make them duck back out of view. She stumbled again and went down on her knees painfully behind a waist-high rack of monitoring equipment. Ignoring her bruised knees, she steadied her arms on the rack and continued to cover the window.
Another killer popped up, already firing. Hawthorne sent another burst through the window, but she couldn't tell if she had hit him. She snapped a quick look over her shoulder, to where Anne was screaming like she was being torn apart. She fired a few more shots through the window and tried to decipher what she'd seen behind her. First, her eye had settled on Anne's face amidst a whirling sea of violence, covered in blood, screaming desperately. She'd looked horrified, lost- angry. The monsters were all around her, moving so fast- at least one of them had been in the air- others were laid out on the ground.
Two assault guns poked over the lower lip of the window and began firing. This wasn't the random noise of suppressing fire. Bullets rained down around Hawthorne, striking the equipment rack in front of her, tearing through her left arm and chest. There was a flash of light inside her head, heat from her damaged body. Then she was on the floor with her eyes fluttering open.
She knew this would happen. She'd never had any hope of winning a gun battle with multiple opponents firing assault guns from cover. It had only been a matter of seconds before they'd realized she was shooting back and used their integrated gun cameras to fire from complete cover.
So, time did seem to dilate when you were dying. This was a bar-bet that Mendez would never get a chance to collect on.
Around her on the white floor was a deep red pattern of her blood. Closer in was the slick of blood oozing from her chest and back. Farther out was the spatter from the initial impacts. Perhaps a meter away, her gun lay on the floor. Looking down, she saw the ragged hole in her upper chest, white broken collarbone protruding through the hole. This sight almost drove the light from her eyes, but through will alone, she held on to her last moments of life like... well, like they were all she had left.
The corners of her mouth twitched with an abortive smile. She was really glad that the shock kept her from feeling much... spoke too soon. Her moan came out through gritted teeth.
Above her, she could see the guns pointed toward where she'd last seen Anne by the doorway. They had not yet fired. Perhaps they were waiting for the fight to end before deciding if they would shoot the victor. Perhaps they were waiting for a clear shot.
Anne's screaming continued, but Hawthorne now realized that all other sounds had stopped. No gunfire, no sounds of hand-to-hand combat, no demonic laughter. She really didn't want to look to see what was happening to Anne. The end of her own life was depressing enough without being exposed to someone else's.