A shockwave of sound blasting from the horn of a locomotive tore past his eardrums; its energy propelling itself into his brain and forcing his eyes to flare open, their lids widening over dilating pupils. Disoriented, he jackknifed his body to a sitting position in the queen size bed. The rapid beating of his heart could be felt pulsating through the veins of his neck.
Throwing off the flat sheet and comforter he snatched the Smith & Wesson, .357 magnum revolver, off the nightstand next to their bed, swung his legs over the side and instinctively pointed the handgun at the shaded window nearest him. Another nearby blast from the train’s horn shook the glass in the window and caused him to flinch but he did not fire. Feeling the mattress move behind him he looked over his shoulder to see his wife bouncing off the end of the bed onto her feet.
Throwing on her robe as she started to the front of the motorhome she said, “You can shoot a train if you want, but I’m heading for the door.”
“None of this makes sense,” he thought. “How did our RV get on railroad tracks?”
Gun still in hand and dressed only in pajama shorts he jumped in his boots and grabbed his cowboy hat off the hook as he headed for the door. His wife was already out.
Skipping the first step he hit the bottom one with his left foot and launched himself out the door. Hitting the ground with both feet he felt another deafening blast of the horn coming from the left. Jerking his head in that direction he saw his wife marching toward the back of the Aintright public school building.
She was in full stride of her I ain't happy walk, clearing a path through a stream of about two dozen students and staff making their way across the caliche parking lot, before funneling through a single glass door to the school cafeteria. Beyond the large glass panels that comprised the back wall of the school were two dozen more seated around the tables, shoveling in breakfast and spitting out words to their neighbor.
“Wait a minute,” he thought, looking around. “We didn't go nowhere. We're still parked behind the school.”
He tucked the .357 in his boot, the grips of the weapon exposed. Hurrying across the unpaved parking lot to catch his wife he realized she had already reached her objective.
“Why are y'all blowing that horn?” she asked, approaching two men standing near a tall pole behind the school. They turned, looked at her, looked at each other, then back at her.
Standing in front of them she pointed to the top of the pole and asked, “Did you not hear me? Why are y'all blowing that horn? Our RV is obviously parked by a school, but it most definitely isn't in a railroad yard.”
Both men remained silent doing their best not to laugh at the barefooted woman wearing a bathrobe turned inside-out, disheveled pajamas and her hair tousled in early morning cow-licks. The younger man was near forty and dressed in a long-sleeved shirt, tie, Wrangler Riata pants, polished boots and a Stetson hat. The other man looked old enough to have been a childhood friend of Methuselah. He wore clean, striped bib overalls, a matching stained engineer's cap and an ancient pair of scuffed work boots.
The younger man took a deep breath to gain his composure. Putting his hand on the other man's shoulder he spoke.
“Ma'am to answer your question, Jon Luther here sounds this horn three times a day, five days a week. Seven forty-five in the morning to welcome the new day, eleven forty-five, just before lunch, then four forty-five for another day done. He's our town tooter. I'm Felipe Gonzalez, district superintendent and principal.” He held out his hand.
Crossing her arms she said, “Your tooter here, and his Viking war cry horn scared me close to a heart attack. I thought our RV had rolled onto some railroad tracks. Don’t look at me that way, I’ve read about that happening, and believe you me there's nothing welcoming about running for your life first thing in the morning.”
Felipe awkwardly stuck his hand in his pocket. The older man removed his cap from his head before speaking. “Dear lady my sincere apologies for frightening you. Allow me to introduce myself, I am Jonathan Luther Jones, engineer for the Illinois Central Railroad, retired. The people of Aintright have been kind enough to allow me the pleasure of replicating the whistle that was on my last train and sounding it three times daily.” He waved at the pole, “Of course as there is no steam available I had to fashion it from air horns.”
“Oh, of course,” she said raising one hand in retort, but leaving her arms crossed.
The early morning sunlight floated through the cool, dry air of the autumn morning, shrinking the shadows behind the school building. A drifting aroma of bacon, eggs, biscuits and gravy from the school cafeteria caused the mans stomach to grumble as he stopped next to his wife.
“Hey babe, what's goin' on?” he asked.
Her arms still crossed she nodded her head toward Felipe and Jon Luther. “These two gentleman...” The “gentlemen” glanced at her husband and burst into laughter.
She turned and looked at him. “Oh no,” she gasped, her eyes widening in embarrassment. “What are you wearing?” She dropped her arms to her sides intent on staring an answer from him.
“Oh crap,” he said, catching his reflection in the glass wall, “I don't have clothes on.”
He was bare-chested, his straw cowboy hat jammed down on his head. Below that a pair of pajama shorts covered with pictures of the Looney Tunes character, Roadrunner; on his feet cowboy boots with his .357 tucked in the right one. It was then a blonde, high-school girl staring out from behind his reflection, pointed and squealed, “He's got a gun!”
Felipe and Jon quieted their laughter. He immediately raised a pair of empty hands when the glass in front of the girl shattered. She crumpled onto the shard covered floor as screaming bodies wildly scattered.
He didn't hear the noise of the glass breaking as an instant before, his senses targeted a vaguely familiar sound; a fully automatic, AK-47 rifle, spewing out 10 rounds per second. It was to his left. The nerves and muscles of his body reacted swiftly. Shoving his wife aside he bent, drew the .357 from his boot and stepped in front of her as the revolver rose past his hip.
Scanning, he saw Felipe grab his wife and dive for the ground as Jon Luther fell backward. Several bodies were on the ground, others frantically running, looking more than like a rugby scrum than a stampede. More screams, more yelling, and breathing...his breathing.
“Threat located,” he thought, his mind in a hyper-vigilant state, “black ski-mask, dark clothing, one-hundred round drum, still firing...now closer to the back entrance of the school. Remember bring up sidearm with a high two-handed grip to minimize recoil. Remember, position thumb under thumb, rest finger on the trigger, sight target center mass, use double-tap...breathe, hold, incapacitate threat.”
A thunderous explosion of gas and fire sparked by two near instantaneous taps on the trigger sent a pair of .158 grain, hollow point projectiles spiraling from the barrel of his gun and thudding into their target less than thirty feet away. The shooter stumbled backward from the impact but didn't fall. His finger squeezing the trigger of the AK-47 and sending a burst of rounds up the wall, through the ceiling and into the sky as his arms jerked up then down before he regained control of the weapon and his balance.
Processing the frantic blurs of movement to his left and right, the man with the .357 focused on the still standing menace in front of him. A tornado of screams swirled around him, dulled by the loud ringing in his ears. The smell of burnt gunpowder overpowered the aroma of breakfast, his stomach twisting in a knot.
“Body armor,” he thought. “Head shot, acquire sight picture.”
A hailstorm of bullets sliced through the caliche surface in front of him throwing up a broken wall of dirt. He had counted on that. He knew from his training that most bad guys using a fully automatic weapon tended to point and spray instead of aiming. This meant he had one chance before the shooter raised his sights, putting him in the middle of that hailstorm.
“Breathe, hold...incapacitate threat.” He squeezed the trigger. A cool breeze flitted across the bri
stling hairs of his chest and arms.
The fabric of the ski-mask barely moved as the shooter's head jerked back; his body falling onto its left side, his head bouncing off the sidewalk. The AK-47 silent, except for the clanging sound it made hitting the ground. Scarcely 5 seconds had passed between the glass shattering and the last shot he fired from his .357. At least 50 rounds fired by the shooter, three well-placed shots delivered by him. He took a deep breath, exhaled and relaxed his muscles letting the revolver drop, the barrel hot against the bare skin of his leg.
Turning to find his wife he was knocked a step backward by a body crashing into him. The body's arms grabbed him around the waist and squeezed hard. It was her. She squeezed, cried and talked at the same time. The colored blurs and distorted sounds of this chaos slowed, taking the shape of normal people horrified by the unthinkable.
“Thank God you're alright,” she blurted out.
He put his arms around her, the .357 dangling from his hand. Lowering his lips to her ear, he pressed his cheek against her hair. “I told you, too quick to kill baby.” Pulling his head back he looked into her eyes. “I'm just glad you’re okay. I was scared that, well, you know.”
“I love you too,” she said, leaning her head softly against his chest. She took several quick breaths and wiped the tears from her eyes, slowly reached up and twisted his bare nipple hard.
“Owwwwwww!,” he howled, roughly pulling her against him in reaction. “That stinkin' hurts. Why would you do that?”
She clasped her hands around his back and leaned away to look at him. “Why would you go against a machine-gun with a revolver?” she demanded.
“It's what I doooo,” he quipped. “Figured I had a better chance than those kids did.”
“Idiot,” she said softly, closing her eyes and giving him another hug. When she opened her eyes her blood turned cold. “There's another one behind you!”
Spinning out of her embrace he placed himself between his wife and this new threat. He saw the familiar silhouette of a Colt, AR-15 rifle, in the hands of a man running at them. The .357 rose in his right hand, his left racing toward it. He felt the metal of the trigger press into the meat of his finger as instinct took over. “Three rounds,” he thought...
Thank you for reading Episode One of AINTRIGHT, “An Idiot With A Gun.” The series continued in Episode Two.
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