The Meridians(9)

Scott took a step up the stairway. No shots rang down.

Another step. Still no shots.

He looked down and saw that he was leaving bloody tracks with every step, was leaving an easy-to-follow trail for any second hitman that might be out there as backup.

Stop. Don't think that. There's only one of them. There has to be only one of them.

Scott took the rest of the steps as fast as he could, stopping twice on the way up to breathe and cough up bloody sputum as he rested. His eyesight had a permanent black tunnel around it now, almost completely cutting off his peripheral vision. Just one more handicap to go on top of the loss of blood and the massive internal damage he had undergone.

He didn't care.

He made it up the final stair and peered around the doorjamb that marked the outer limits of the stairwell. It was a fast look, just a glance in case the hitman was waiting for him to look out in order to have an easy target and blow his head off. But it told Scott that things had just gone from critically dangerous to...he didn't know. Whatever was worse than critically dangerous.

He was in the Garment District - an area of Los Angeles that specialized in providing high quality, low cost clothing to those willing to travel a bit farther than their local chain stores. He had known that in the back of his mind, but had not known what that meant going into this place. Now he realized that he was in a dressmaker's shop. Normally that wouldn't have been a problem; might even have been an interesting place to tour through and look at. But now, at dusk, the place was dark and closed. Dust motes hung in the few weak rays of light that speared in through several skylights above, twirling their frantic dance before settling to the surfaces below them like angels fallen from Heaven and dying once they touched the terrestrial spheres.

But the darkness wasn't the worst of it. Not by a long shot. Because everywhere he looked, he saw one thing, and one thing only: mannequins. They were everywhere, being fitted for dresses and suits and coats and pants that either were being designed from scratch or altered from previously existing designs at customers' requests.

It was dark, and he was surrounded by man-shaped figures on all sides. He couldn't be sure with his rapidly fading vision which were lifeless silicon models and which might be the hitman, waiting patiently for him to come near and be killed with the extra gun that Scott had earlier heard being used.

He thought he sensed movement to his right, and spun, his weapon straight out before him, though it was wobbling back and forth as his strength ebbed.

Nothing.

Then there was a sound straight in front of him. He turned, but too slowly. The shot came out of the darkness, and time dilated as it had before in the alley. Fear gripped him in its death-shrouded hand, and time slowed down. He saw the muzzle flash. Saw the killer's gray face lit up with the bright light of gunfire in the dark space. Saw the man's smile and his lifeless eyes as he saw victory within his grasp.

He saw - or thought he saw - the bullet.

But even though he saw these things, Scott was powerless to stop them. He felt the bullet tear into his chest, knocking him back down the stairwell. He rolled head over heels down the rough wood of the stairs, his vision going blurrier than ever as he repeatedly hit his forehead and the back of his neck against the stairs' edges.

Then he came to rest on the bottom of the stairs, his body splayed out at strange angles, blood everywhere. His feet were still on the stairs, pointed up at the gray man who now walked down the stairs toward Scott, gun pointed at him, a grin on the gray man's face.

Scott hacked up another mouthful of blood, and this time when he spat it out he found he couldn't inhale after doing so. The second bullet must have gone through a lung. Even if the first shot hadn't been a death sentence, the second shot was sure to signal the end of his life.

At least I'll see my family again, he thought, and was surprised to find that the thought brought him no comfort. Rather, it made him colder, made him more fearful. What kind of God would let his family die that way? How could God exist in this horrible world? And if no God, then no afterlife, no joyful reunions with loved ones lost.

Scott knew he was dying, and knew he would die alone, and that when dead, he would remain alone for the infinity of oblivion. He cried then.

The gray man smiled as Scott's tears flowed, as though he garnered the same strength from them as he would if he tucked into a six course meal.

"You're good," said the gray man. He winced then as he nodded at his ruined shoulder. "Didn't expect you to get a shot off, especially not after what had just happened to your family."

Scott's tears redoubled then. He looked around for his gun, and saw that it was in his hand. But when he tried to raise it to fire, to kill this sonofabitch who was leering and gloating over him as he lay dying, his hand would not respond. Nothing would, in fact, below his neck, and Scott suspected he had broken his back during the fall down the stairs - that is if the second bullet hadn't pierced it before then.

The gray man smiled even wider, a shark's smile of pleasure at the moment of the kill. Sirens could suddenly be heard, but they were few and far away, and Scott knew they would not arrive in time to be of any help to him.

The gray killer must have known that as well, for he continued to smile as he said, "Sounds like your blue-suited brethren aren't going to get here soon enough, doesn't it? But then, there's never a cop around when you need one, is there?" The killer laughed at this, as though he had just told the funniest joke ever heard.